'Say what you see': preliminary observations on the role of spatial cognitive mapping in retail locational planning

摘要

It has become apparent in recent years that the planning and management of locationhas become increasingly important to outlet-based retail and service organisations.Clearly, the subjective, 'lived' experiences of locational decision-makers impingegreatly on the locational decision and cannot be wholly supplanted by a computer.This paper seeks to explore how locational decision-makers visualise potential retaillocations through a preliminary discussion of the role of spatial cognition andcognitive mapping. Spatial cognition, an established sub-field of both environmentalpsychology and behavioural geography, refers to how individuals internally reflectand (re)construct space and shape such information in the form of the cognitive map.The researcher can subsequently glean the nature of the cognitive map through themedium of the self-drawn sketch map. In a spatially-dependent field such aslocational decision-making, it can be assumed that differences in locational planners'spatial cognitive abilities may have a significant impact on the subsequent choice ofwhere to locate. Here, literature pertaining to spatial cognition and cognitivemapping is discussed, prior to discussion of appropriate methods for capturing theinternal representations of locational actors in this particular research context.