Quality, value, satisfaction, trust, a

entrepreneurs fail to recognize this need and continue making bold moves, focus on maintaining
growth (forecasting impossible sales volumes), and ignoring major problems.
Causal Mapping
Causal mapping is mostly used as a form of content analysis that isolates the key
assertions within a document that deal with causality, existence, and/or categorization. The links
among decisions, activities/events, and the interactions among persons can be summarized
through time within causal maps.
Causal mapping can be applied to descriptive data (i.e., thick descriptions reported in
case studies) on the streams of decisions and behavior occurring through the stages of
formulation and implementation of new enterprises. Coding schemes developed by Axelrod
(1976) with modifications by Huff, Narapareddy, and Fletcher (1990) may be used to indicate
causal and definitional relationships among the linkages in the causal maps; we used some of the
coding categories developed by these researchers for the relationships proposed and found in
entrepreneur strategy-making. The seven coding categories used here are summarized in Table 1.
The symbol, "c," for choice criterion in making a decision is the one additional category not
found in the codes used by Barr et al. (1993).
Table 1 here.
A "map" or series of related maps is then constructed by connecting specific events,
decisions, and interactions of people with a symbol for the type of relationship observed. For
example, consider the sentence, "entrepreneurs search for specific opportunities, and the
selection/formulation of new venture concept, to invest their energies into transforming into
realities before searching for financial resources." The linkages among activities decisions
237