Abstract
Content analysis of text data and experimental methods are used in two studies that investigate the use of embodied concepts in sense making by marketing managers, and the influence that environmental and dispositional factors have on such usage. Embodied concepts are simple mental outlines that capture aspects of our bodily relationships to the environment and that are metaphorically transferable to nonembodied experiences. The study focuses primarily on the use of embodied concepts to grasp and solve ill‐defined problems. The investigation includes three parts. Part 1 of the first study involved content analysis of public statements by 32 marketing managers who were presented with the ill‐defined problem of describing how the next several years were likely to affect their business. Part 2 involved content analysis of statements by 80 marketing managers who evaluated the public statements of the first set of managers. Study 2 was a field experiment conducted with 68 experienced marketing managers playing a brand‐management simulation game during which concurrent verbal protocols were collected. Results show that embodied‐concept use is common among marketing managers, and that it is influenced by dispositional factors (cognitive‐processing preferences) and environmental factors (managerially controlled cues). © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.