Cognitive cartography: how geographic categories and firm location-typicality shape competitor identification

Abstract To position their ventures, entrepreneurs often need to map their competitive landscape. We develop a theory of cognitive cartography to explain how geography structures entrepreneurs’ competitive perceptions through the fit between a venture and a location’s industrial identity, and through a competitor’s typicality within its location. Using a behavioral simulation, we find that while typical firms tend to attract attention at lower levels of congruence, this preference reverses in high-congruence locations. Within these locations, a “pop-out” effect emerges: locally atypical firms capture significantly more attention than their typical counterparts. This pattern suggests that entrepreneurial search balances the need for legitimacy with the detection of differentiated competitors, with implications for how ventures develop. Our findings reveal that geography functions as a distinct categorization system alongside industry classifications, with its own attentional dynamics that extend organizational theories of categories to geographic contexts and offer a geographically informed view of pre-entry competitor identification.