Figures And Images For Codification Intangibles: New Look At Business Knowledge Mapping

The goal of the current paper is to comparee three forms of business knowledge codification techniques: traditional text-based, tables, and diagrams and explore aspects influencing perception of their efficiency. The stress is put on figures and images as visual forms of business knowledge codification. The primary cognitive benefit of visualization is the simplicity of extracting and synthesizing information. Our study proofs that any form of graphical mapping is more effective thanks to the message's high capacity and ability to be understood by users. The authors conducted a study involving a self-reported survey of experienced top-managers of Russian companies and examined their perceptions of different forms of knowledge codification. The results demonstrate that visual models are more effective than text-based or tables business knowledge representations in five out of six criteria. They are easiness to use, speed of perception, clarity and understandability, aesthetic pleasure, opportunity to use of operational activities. The survey found no significant difference between models on capacity to provide new insights criterion. Moreover, the current paper also explores certain aspects that influence the perception of efficiency of graphical methods such as gender, age, professional tenure, educational background, experience of working with mind mapping before and cognitive style.