Academy of Management Perspectives
ATTRIBUTION THEORY IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL
SCIENCES: THE ROAD TRAVELED AND THE PATH AHEAD
Journal:
Manuscript ID:
Document Type:
Keywords:
Academy of Management Perspectives
AMP-2012-0175-A.R3
Article
Attribution < Managerial and Organizational Cognition < Topic Areas,
Managerial and Organizational Cognition < Topic Areas, Meta-analysis <
Analysis < Research Methods
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ATTRIBUTION THEORY IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL SCIENCES:
THE ROAD TRAVELED AND THE PATH AHEAD
The Academy of Management Perspectives
Paul Harvey
Whittemore School of Business and Economics
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH 03824
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (603) 862-3301
Kristen Madison
College of Business Administration
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (865) 851-5959
Mark Martinko
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia 4072
Email [email protected]
Phone: +617 33468079
T. Russell Crook*
College of Business Administration
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (865) 974-8764
Tamara A. Crook
College of Business Administration
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (865) 974-1759
*Corresponding Author
Acknowledgements: We thank the entire editorial team for their help and guidance throughout
the process. We also thank the reviewers for the developmental nature of their reviews, and the
help they offered.
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ATTRIBUTION THEORY IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL SCIENCES:
THE ROAD TRAVELED AND THE PATH AHEAD
ABSTRACT
Individuals make attributions when they infer causes about particular outcomes. Several narrative
reviews of attributional research have concluded that attributions matter in the workplace, but note
that attribution theory has been underutilized in organizational research. To examine the predictive
power of attributions in organizational contexts, we present a meta-analysis of existing attribution
theory research. Our findings suggest that attributions have consistently demonstrated effect sizes
that are comparable to more commonly utilized predictor variables of workplace outcomes.
Expanding on these findings, we argue that attributions are an integral part of individuals’ cognitive
processes that are associated with critical organizational outcomes. We conclude with suggestions to
help expand and optimize the contribution of attributional research to understanding and managing
organizational outcomes.
Keywords: Attribution, Workplace Outcomes, Synthesis
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In his seminal work on attribution theory, Heider (1958) characterized people as naïve
psychologists with an innate interest in understanding the causes of successes and failures.
Causal explanations, as Heider asserted, enable individuals to make sense of their world and
control their environments. Understanding how people think about causation is important in
discovering how and why people engage in both productive and counterproductive
organizational behaviors (Luthans & Church, 2002). Attributional processes can help us
understand what causes an employee’s aggression (e.g., Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Spector,
2011), an applicant’s interview success (e.g., Ashkanasy, 1989; Silvester, Anderson-Gough,
Anderson, & Mohamed, 2002), a leader’s behavior (e.g., Campbell & Swift, 2006; Green &
Liden, 1980), and many other organizational phenomena (see Martinko, Douglas, & Harvey,
2006 for a review).
The topic of attributions emerged with Heider’s (1958) work and evolved to become a
dominant theory in social psychology in subsequent decades, particularly after the works of
Kelley (1967, 1971, 1973) and Weiner (1985, 1986, 1995, 2004). The breadth of phenomena to
which attribution theory can be applied, including learned helplessness, depression,
reward/punishment decisions and motivation, has driven its widespread adoption by social
psychologists (Reisenzein & Rudolph, 2008). On the other hand, it has been asserted that
attribution theory has been underutilized and underappreciated in the organizational sciences
(Martinko, Harvey & Dasborough, 2011).
In support of this argument, Martinko et al. (2011) compared the two fields and found
nearly six times as many attributional articles published in psychology journals as were found in
management journals. Additionally, as of this writing, a search of Google Scholar shows over
7,000 citations of Kelley’s and Weiner’s works, but only 9% of those are found in business-
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related disciplines. Even accounting for the difference in the number of journals between the two
fields, the magnitude of this disconnect is surprising, especially considering the similarity in
interpersonal phenomena studied in both fields.
The recognition of a disconnect between the use of attribution theory in the
organizational sciences versus the social psychology literature is not new. As far back as 1995,
Martinko (p.11) commented that in an examination of organizational behavior texts that
“attribution theory as a theoretical body of work was frequently ignored.” Nevertheless, after
viewing the body of research that had been conducted in the organizational sciences, Weiner
(1995, p. 5) was optimistic with regard to the potential of attribution theory and commented that
“putting attribution theory in the context of organizational behavior should be of great benefit.”
To make the potential contributions of attribution theory to the organizational sciences
more salient, two comprehensive conceptual reviews were conducted. A review by Martinko et
al. (2006) provided an overview of research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. The review
concluded that the research “unequivocally documents that attributions play a significant role in
behaviors associated with the topics that are central to [industrial/organizational psychology]
such as individual differences, counterproductive behavior, leader/member interactions,
impression management, conflict resolution, training, selection interviewing, and performance
appraisal” (p. 174). A second review by Martinko, Harvey, and Douglas (2007) arrived at a
similar conclusion based on an examination of attributional studies in the realm of leadership
research. Given this conclusion, the authors noted that they were puzzled as to why attribution
theory had not emerged as a major theory of workplace outcomes.
Both reviews attributed this gap in theory at least in part to earlier criticisms of attribution
theory by Mitchell (1982) and Lord (1995). Mitchell argued that attributions accounted for only
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a small proportion of the variance in causal explanations. In short, he asserted that attributions
might matter, but probably not very much. Lord (1995) asserted that the rational informationprocessing model suggested by attribution theory was unrealistic and that people generally rely
on more efficient cognitive schema and implicit assumptions when forming causal perceptions.
Martinko et al. (2006) countered these criticisms, asserting that they had been overgeneralized
and misinterpreted by subsequent researchers. Indeed, it has long been recognized that routine or
unimportant outcomes are less likely to invoke detailed causal search processes than events that
are unexpected and personally relevant (e.g., Lord, 1995; Weiner, 1986). More recent process
models, such as that proposed by Douglas, Kiewitz, Martinko, Harvey, Kim, and Chun (2008),
suggest that the degree of cognitive elaboration devoted to attributional analyses of outcomes
varies depending on the nature of the trigger event as well as individual difference factors (e.g.,
need for cognition). Thus, empirical studies of attributions, including those analyzed here,
typically consider attributions in response to trigger events that are of sufficient personal
relevance to invoke attributional searches.
Although it is somewhat speculative to suggest that the underutilization of attribution
theory in the organizational sciences as compared to social psychology has been driven primarily
by these critiques and their subsequent interpretations by other scholars, it is notable that the use
of attributional perspectives in organizational research appeared to taper off after their
publication.
Given the debate about whether attributions matter, and whether attribution theory has
been underutilized in the organizational sciences, there are lingering questions about the efficacy
of attribution theory. Our objective in this study is to shed light on this debate by exploring
whether and to what extent attributions are related to important workplace outcomes through a
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meta-analysis. As Hunter and Schmidt (2004) explained, meta-analyses aggregate findings about
relationships of interest and allow us to compare the sizes of these relationships with other
important relationships. Thus, a meta-analytic assessment of key attribution-workplace outcome
relationships appears to be an appropriate and timely way to inform the debate regarding the
utility and contribution of attribution theory to understanding the causes and consequences of
organizational behaviors. If we find that attribution processes do not matter, we can conclude
that researchers have rightly ignored the role of attributions in the workplace. However, if we
find that attributions do matter, and matter substantially (i.e., have strong effects), we can
describe new contexts and research areas – such as macro-level inquiry – that present new terrain
for the theory.
Attributional Dimensions and Workplace Outcomes
As Weiner (1986) explained, attributions generally vary along several underlying
dimensions. Although a number of dimensions have been identified, our search of the extant
literature suggested that within the organizational sciences the most commonly studied are the
locus of causality, stability, and controllability dimensions identified by Weiner (1985). We
therefore focus on studies of these dimensions in the present meta-analysis.
Locus of causality. The most commonly studied attributional dimension by far is locus
of causality, which refers to whether the perceived cause of an outcome is internal or external. In
the case of attributions made for one’s own outcomes (i.e., self-attributions), an internal
attribution occurs when the cause is perceived to reflect some characteristic of the person such as
effort or ability. For example, an employee who misses a deadline and believes that this outcome
is due to his or her own lack of effort or ability is making an internal attribution. An external
attribution for the same outcome might take the form of blaming coworkers or a supervisor for
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the missed deadline. Similarly, when observing others’ outcomes (i.e., social attributions),
internal attributions refer to dispositional or behavioral characteristics (e.g., effort or ability) of
the person being observed whereas external attributions refer to situational factors that are often
beyond the observed individual’s control.
Weiner (1985) observed that the locus dimension was particularly relevant to the
emotional responses individuals form in response to trigger events. His widely cited achievement
motivation model (Weiner, 1985) suggests that individuals form attributions in response to
trigger events, which, as noted above, typically take the form of outcomes that are negative,
surprising, or unexpected (e.g., an unexpectedly poor evaluation). When personally relevant
negative outcomes are attributed to internal factors (e.g., insufficient effort), Weiner’s
framework indicates that self-focused emotions such as guilt and shame are likely. Conversely,
when these outcomes are attributed to external causes (e.g., a biased supervisor), emotions such
as anger and frustration typically follow. Weiner’s model also accommodates positive outcomes
and suggests that internal attributions for these events promote feelings of pride whereas external
attributions are associated with gratitude and other externally-focused positive emotions.
Understanding the relationship between attributions and emotions is important because it
is the affective response to attributions that is thought to shape behavioral reactions to trigger
events (Weiner, 1985). For example, research has shown that the locus of an attribution for
negative workplace outcomes can influence the choice between passive or aggressive behavioral
responses (e.g., Douglas & Martinko, 2001).
The locus dimension is also relevant to leader-member relationships and interactions.
Conceptual and empirical studies indicate that when supervisors and employees conflict in their
attributions for negative outcomes, interpersonal conflict and diminished evaluations of
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relationship quality occur (e.g., Ashkanasy, 1989, 1995; Green & Mitchell, 1979; Martinko,
Moss, Douglas, & Borkowski, 2007). This effect is particularly likely when the attributional
conflict leads both parties to blame the other for negative outcomes or when each claim personal
credit for desirable outcomes.
The locus of an attribution can also influence reward and punishment decisions. As one
might expect, there is evidence that employees are more likely to be rewarded for high levels of
performance when the supervisor attributes the performance to internal characteristics, such as
the employees’ ability, than to external factors (Johnson, Erez, Kiker, & Motowidlo, 2002).
Similarly, punishments are more likely when undesirable outcomes are attributed to internal
employee characteristics or behaviors, such as insufficient effort (Wood & Mitchell, 1981).
Stability. The stability dimension of attributions refers to the perceived variability or
permanence of a causal factor. To illustrate, a person’s intelligence is typically viewed as a
relatively stable factor whereas effort level is more variable (Weiner et al., 1971). Unlike locus
of causality, the stability dimension is rarely studied separately from other dimensions. More
commonly, researchers examine the locus and stability dimensions in tandem. This design is
logical in that the stability of a cause can attenuate or exacerbate the emotional and behavioral
responses driven by the locus of the attribution. More specifically, perceptions of causal stability
help shape a person’s expectations for future outcomes and these expectations can soften or
amplify the emotional response to a trigger event (Weiner, 1985). For example, if an employee
attributes a poor evaluation to a lack of ability (an internal and relatively stable cause) the
individual is likely to experience shame, given that a lack of ability is likely to cause similar
problems in the future. This shame, in turn, can promote withdrawal behaviors (Hall, Hladkyi,
Perry, & Ruthig, 2004). If the evaluation is attributed to insufficient effort (an internal and
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unstable cause), the employee is more likely to experience guilt and a motivation to exert more
effort in the future.
The perceived stability of a cause is also likely to help shape leader-member relationship
quality and reward/punishment decisions. As prefaced above, the negative impact of attributions
that target blame for undesirable outcomes on one’s supervisor or subordinate is often weaker if
the attribution is unstable rather than stable in nature. This is because unstable attributions reduce
the expectation that similar outcomes will occur in the future. This attenuating effect has been
shown to reduce the frequency and severity of punishments for undesirable workplace outcomes
(Wood & Mitchell, 1981).
Controllability. Of the three attributional dimensions included in this analysis,
controllability has received the smallest amount of research attention. Controllability refers to the
extent to which an observer perceives the cause of an outcome to be under someone’s volition
(Weiner, 1985). Factors such as luck and task difficulty are generally perceived to be
uncontrollable whereas effort and, to a much lesser extent, ability, are viewed as controllable
factors.
As these examples suggest, there is some overlap between the controllability dimension
and the locus and stability dimensions. For instance, effort, which is usually viewed as internal
and unstable, is most often seen as controllable whereas task difficulty, which is seen as external
and stable, is most often viewed as uncontrollable. As such, controllability has been linked to a
number of the same affective and leadership outcomes that the other dimensions predict, albeit in
a smaller number of studies. This overlap might explain why controllability has received less
attention than the other two dimensions. Nonetheless, there was a sufficient amount of research
on controllability as a stand-alone dimension to warrant inclusion in our analysis.
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A Meta-Analytic Review of Attributional Research in the Organizational Sciences
The reviews and observations discussed at the outset of this study argue that attribution
theory has been underutilized by scholars in the organizational sciences. Although conceptual
reviews and articles have attempted to address these issues, we believe that a meta-analytic
assessment summarizing the predictive power of attributions in organizational research is
beneficial in showcasing the utility of attribution theory. In particular, our assessment is intended
to help ease concerns stemming from various interpretations of Mitchell’s (1982)
aforementioned criticism regarding effect sizes that may have caused some scholars to ignore the
predictive potential of attribution theory. Additionally, a meta-analytic study allows us to present
an overview of the nomological network of attribution theory which can help scholars identify
gaps in the existing empirical literature.
To this end, we meta-analyze relationships between the attributional dimensions of locus,
stability, and controllability and four categories of workplace outcome variables. These include
affective outcomes (e.g., discrete emotions such as anger and sympathy, attitudes such as job
satisfaction, emotional evaluations such as self-esteem), performance outcomes (e.g., task
performance, effort levels), leader-member relationship quality outcomes (e.g., leader-member
exchange (LMX) ratings, perceived managerial trustworthiness, conflict between employees and
supervisors), and reward/punishment decisions (e.g., award allocation decisions, intent to punish
subordinates). As discussed in the previous section, attributions have been linked to each of these
outcomes in organizational research. Further, these categories allowed for a logical
categorization of the majority of studies identified for inclusion in the analysis. Within each of
these outcome categories we examine the predictive power of attributions. Although attributional
variables have also been conceptualized as outcome variables (e.g., attributions of responsibility;
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Weiner, 1995) this body of research has not yet matured to the point where enough studies are
available for a meta-analytic assessment.
Meta-analysis allows researchers to estimate the size of relationships found in a body of
research (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). If relationships exist, meta-analysis furnishes an estimate of
the magnitudes (i.e., effect sizes) while ensuring that the estimates account for important study
artifacts such as sampling and measurement error (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). Several researchers
have used meta-analysis to shed light on important theoretical relationships. For example,
Combs, Liu, Hall, and Ketchen (2006) used meta-analysis to offer evidence that high
performance work practices (e.g., employee training) can enhance organizational performance
and Hoffman, Blair, Meriac, and Woehr (2007) used meta-analysis to demonstrate the
relationship between organizational citizenship behaviors and task performance. Thus, a goal of
our meta-analytic assessment of key attributional relationships is to estimate not only whether
attributions matter, but also the extent to which they matter. Appendix A reports the papers
included in our analyses and Appendix B describes our methodological approach in more detail.
RESULTS
In this section we present our meta-analytic results organized by workplace outcomes
within each of the three described attributional dimensions. These results are summarized in
Table 1.
[ Insert Table 1 about here ]
Locus of Causality
Affect. Across our sample of studies, the locus of attributions significantly influenced
emotional reactions to undesirable ( rc = -.16) and desirable outcomes ( rc = .13). These
observations suggest that external attributions for personally relevant unfavorable outcomes
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(e.g., attributing a missed deadline to a negligent coworker) were associated with less negative
emotional and attitudinal reactions than were internal attributions (e.g., attributing a missed
deadline to one’s own lack of effort) for these outcomes. Similarly, internal attributions for
favorable outcomes (e.g., attributing a bonus to one’s ability) were associated with stronger
positive affective reactions than external attributions (e.g., attributing a bonus to a supervisor’s
generosity). The findings concerning both negative and positive trigger events are consistent
with research on self-serving attributional biases, which suggests that people often feel better
when they attribute blame for problematic outcomes to external factors and take credit for
favorable outcomes (Huff & Schwenk, 1990; Zuckerman, 1979).
Performance. The locus of attributions for unfavorable outcomes significantly impacted
performance ( rc = .11), as did the locus of attributions for favorable outcomes ( rc = .21). This
suggests that external attributions for personally relevant unfavorable events were associated
with increases in negative self- and leader-reported performance ratings, whereas internal
attributions for positive outcomes were positively related to performance ratings. The latter
finding is consistent with research indicating that internal attributions for desirable outcomes,
such as attributing a job offer to one’s own abilities and experience, promote self-confidence and
efficacy (Silver, Mitchell, & Gist, 1995) which, in turn, can lead to improved performance levels
(Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Consistent with this perspective, the .21 corrected r also suggests
that external attributions for desirable outcomes, such as attributing a job offer to luck, were
detrimental (or, more accurately, less beneficial) to performance. More peculiar is the finding
that the apparent reciprocal of this tendency, externalizing rather than internalizing blame for
negative outcomes, was also detrimental to performance.
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A possible reconciliation of these findings might be found in Harvey and Martinko’s
(2009) argument that erroneously attributing undesirable outcomes to external factors could
prevent employees from accurately evaluating and remedying their performance weaknesses.
The observation that individuals tend to be more objective when forming attributions for positive
outcomes is also relevant (Huff & Schwenk, 1990). Thus, it may be that the internal attributions
for desirable outcomes are more accurate than the external attributions for undesirable events. In
this case we would expect the self-efficacy gains from internalizing positive events to provide a
legitimate source of confidence that can fuel performance increases whereas the self-efficacy
protection provided by external attributions for negative events might attenuate motivation for
performance improvements.
Leader-member relationship evaluations. External attributions for unfavorable events
(e.g., employees attributing a poor raise to a biased supervisor or to economic factors) were
associated with a significant improvement in leader-member relationship quality rating ( rc = .12, indicating a decrease in negative evaluations of relationship quality) across our sample of
studies. This is a somewhat surprising finding, given that the supervisor is often thought to be a
common target of employees’ external attributions (Harvey & Martinko, 2009). On the other
hand, if employees attribute negative outcomes to external factors other than their supervisors
(e.g., economic factors), the finding appears more intuitive. This relationship suggests that these
non-supervisor targeted external attributions by subjects may be more common than we had
expected.
Employees’ internal attributions for favorable events were more strongly associated with
improvements in leader-member relationship quality ( rc = .07) than were external attributions.
Although we might have expected external attributions for these outcomes to improve
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relationship quality more strongly than internal attributions if the leader was the target of the
external attributions, the aforementioned findings concerning negative outcomes again suggest
that employees consider a number of other external factors when forming these attributions.
Reward/punishment decisions. Attributional studies on reward and punishment
decisions generally look at leaders’ attributions for subordinate performance. These attributions
differ from the self-focused attributions studied in the context of affective responses,
performance, and leader-member relationships in that they are social attributions that consider
observers’ (usually leaders) attributions for other peoples’ (usually subordinates) outcomes. In
these studies, internal attributions refer to causal factors that are internal to the employee being
observed (e.g., ability, effort) whereas external attributions refer to factors outside the
employee’s control (e.g., task difficulty, bad luck). Correlations from these studies were coded
such that higher scores denote external attributions. Predictably, results suggested that external
attributions for employees’ negative outcomes (generally operationalized as poor performance)
were associated with lower punishment intentions ( rc = -.15). A significant relationship between
locus attributions for favorable outcomes and reward decisions was not observed.
Stability
Affect. As noted above, the locus dimension, rather than the stability dimension, is
generally thought to impact affective outcomes. Not surprisingly then, the results did not indicate
that stable attributions for unfavorable events were significantly associated with increases or
decreases in affective outcomes. A significant relationship between stable attributions for
positive events and affective responses was observed, indicating that stable attributions were
associated with lower levels of unfavorable affective reactions than unstable attributions ( rc = .13).
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Performance. Across the sample of studies, we observed a significant positive
association between stable attributions for favorable outcomes and performance ( rc = -.35, note
that the sign is negative because a high score indicates poor performance). Only one study in our
sample investigated the relationship between stable attributions for undesirable outcomes and
poor performance so this category was not included in the analysis.
Leader-member relationship evaluations. Our findings concerning leader-member
relationship outcomes and stability indicated that stable attributions for unfavorable events were
associated with an increase in reports of poor relationship quality ( rc = .10). This is logical
because if a cause is deemed to be stable, it follows that the employee views the leader as
incapable or unwilling to remedy the situation. The stability of attributions for favorable
outcomes was unrelated to leader-member relationship quality.
Reward/Punishment. An insufficient number of published studies on the relationship
between stability attributions and reward/punishment decisions were identified to perform a
meta-analysis on this relationship.
Controllability
Affect. The attribution of negative outcomes to personally controllable causes was
associated with reduced levels of negative emotions and attitudes ( rc = -.35). This is consistent
with the notion that controllable causes can frequently be avoided in the future and are therefore
less likely to provoke negative affective reactions (Aquino, Douglas & Martinko, 2004).
Although our sample of observations for this relationship was small, no significant association
between the controllability dimension and affective outcomes was observed in the context of
positive trigger events.
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Performance. Very few studies have investigated the relationship between controllability
attributions and performance. Only two studies in our sample investigated this relationship, both
in the context of negative trigger events, and did not suggest any significant associations.
Leader-member relationship evaluations. Perceived controllability was associated with
a slight decrease in reports of unfavorable leader-member relationship quality ( rc = -.09). Not
surprisingly, this suggests that leader-member relationships did not suffer when employees
perceived that they personally controlled the causes of an undesirable outcome. Conversely, the
correlation suggests that a slight worsening of leader-member relationship quality occurred when
the cause was seen as beyond the employees’ control. Only one study examined this relationship
in the context of desirable outcomes so meta-analysis was not possible.
Reward/Punishment. An insufficient number of published studies on the relationship
between controllability attributions and reward/punishment decisions were identified to perform
a meta-analysis on this relationship.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to provide an empirical investigation into the
importance and impact of attributions on organizational outcomes. We begin this section with a
brief comparison of our findings against those of other predictor variables that are frequently
used in organizational research. We then discuss implications of our analysis for the future of
attributional research.
Locus of Causality
Across our sample of studies we found that the most commonly studied attributional
dimension, locus of causality, consistently showed a significant influence on each of the outcome
variables included in the analysis. The average magnitude of the effects was .14. Aguinis et al.,
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(2011) asserted that perhaps the best way to interpret the magnitude of effect sizes is to put them
into the context of other relationships assessed via meta-analysis. Our review suggests that this
predictive power is on par with that shown by other predictors of similar outcome variables.
As an illustration, we use the job performance outcome studied here (locus rc = .16).
Cohen-Charesh and Spector’s (2001) meta-analysis of justice perceptions indicated average
weighted correlation coefficients of .13, .45, and .16 between distributive, procedural, and
interactional justice perceptions, respectively, and work performance in field studies. In
laboratory studies, their analysis indicated a mean weighted correlation of .05 (non-significant)
between distributive justice perceptions and performance and .11 between procedural justice
perceptions and performance. Similarly, Barrick and Mount (1991) observed corrected
correlations of .10. -.04, -.05, .17, and .00 when examining the impact of Big Five personality
dimensions of extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness
to experience, respectively, on performance measures. In their analysis of the impact of core selfevaluation components on performance, Judge and Bono (2001) observed corrected correlations
of .26, .29, .22, and .19 for self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability,
respectively and performance. A meta-analysis by Gernster and Day (1997) showed a corrected
correlation coefficient of .11 between LMX and objective performance ratings.
Based on this comparison, the effect sizes of the locus of causality dimension fall within
what appears to be a range that is acceptable to most scholars, as evidenced by the frequency
with which justice perceptions, core self-evaluation, the Big Five personality traits and LMX are
studied as predictor variables in the organizational sciences. A comparison against predictors of
the other outcome variables studied here indicated a similar pattern: some predictors show larger
effects and some show smaller effects, but in most cases attributional predictors demonstrated
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effect sizes comparable to those of variables that are utilized far more frequently than
attributional variables by organizational researchers.
Stability
Although the number and scope of studies examining the impact of the stability
dimension were limited as compared to the locus of causality studies, we observed significant
associations between this dimension and affect, performance and leader-member relationship
evaluations. The average corrected correlation coefficient of these relationships was .18. Using
the comparisons reported in the previous section, this effect size again appears to compare
favorably with more frequently studied predictor variables. It is also worth reiterating that the
locus and stability dimensions are often studied together, a combination that could explain still
more variance than the two dimensions explain individually.
Controllability
The relatively small number of studies using the controllability dimension limited the
scope of our analysis but indicated that it was a relevant predictor of affective outcomes and
leader-member evaluations. Again, the magnitude of the observed effects ( rc = -.35 and = -.07,
respectively) appears comparable to other predictors that are far more commonly used by
organizational scholars.
THE PATH AHEAD
The underlying theme of our findings, consistent with the conclusions of earlier
conceptual reviews, is that attribution theory has significant predictive power that is similar or
equal to other theories that attempt to predict and explain workplace phenomena. Thus
attribution theory adds an important piece of predictive power to the arsenal of frameworks and
constructs available to organizational researchers. Nevertheless it appears that attribution theory
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has been underutilized compared to other theories, suggesting that there is ample opportunity for
scholars to add to our understanding of workplace behavior by using an attributional perspective.
The four categories of outcome variables included in our analysis have been reasonably
well examined through an attributional lens but there are numerous other avenues for new
outcomes to be explored. In fact, as social psychologists have observed, causal perceptions
arguably influence almost every aspect of a person’s behavior. Thus, there are probably very few
workplace behaviors and outcomes that cannot be investigated from an attributional perspective.
Although space considerations limit our ability to discuss all of the potential areas where
attribution theory can be extended, we will highlight those that appear particularly promising.
These potential areas include examining additional attributional dimensions, expanding
attribution theory across new topical areas, investigating temporal effects, and introducing
attribution theory in the macro domain.
Additional Attributional Dimensions
In the areas of organizational science where attribution theory has been utilized, we
observed a narrow focus on the locus of causality and, to a lesser extent, the stability and
controllability dimensions. While our analysis suggests that this focus is not unwarranted, we
also note that there are other dimensions such as intentionality and globality that likely have
additional explanatory power. While these dimensions have received some empirical attention,
the number of studies was too small to include in our analysis.
Intentionality. In an attributional context, intent describes the extent to which an
outcome is attributed to a deliberate as opposed to unintentional action. As the name suggests,
attributions of intentionality occur when a perceiver believes that an outcome was caused by the
deliberate and informed actions of another. While behaviors that are internal and controllable are
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often assumed to be intentional, studies that make this assumption overlook causes such as
misinformed decisions that are well-intentioned but have unanticipated consequences.
Betancourt and Blair (1992) noted that this distinction is particularly important in studies of
violence and aggression but our analysis found that most studies on these subjects relied only on
the locus of causality, stability and controllability factors.
Globality. The perceived globality of a cause (i.e., the extent to which a causal factor is
something that can impact outcomes across situations such as personality versus something
specific such as task-specific ability) can also have important emotional and behavioral
implications beyond its closest corollary, the stability dimension. In an attributional sense, many
stable causes, such as intelligence level, are also relatively global in that they can impact
outcomes across a wide range of situations (e.g., grades in school, performance at work, success
in business transactions). However, intelligence can also be perceived as stable and specific, as
in the case of a lack of ability with regard to a specific task such as a computer application. On
the other hand, unstable factors, such as temporary illness or injury, can also have a global causal
affect during a finite span of time. We therefore suggest that globality attributions be assessed in
addition to stability attributions in studies of cross-situational outcomes, such as work-family
conflict and self-esteem (e.g., Seligman, 1998).
Consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness. Kelley’s (1967) attributional dimensions
of consistency, consensus and distinctiveness might also warrant more attention in organizational
research. Commonly used in the psychology literature, these dimensions describe how
observations help shape attributions. The consensus dimension of causal information measures
the extent to which an observed behavior is common among multiple individuals in a given
situation. High consensus behaviors (e.g., every employee arriving late to work on a given day)
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suggest external/situational casual factors (e.g., a traffic delay) whereas low consensus behaviors
promote the formation of internal/dispositional attributions (Martinko & Thomson, 1998). The
consistency dimension looks at variations in within-person behaviors in the context of a single
situation (e.g., work). High consistency behaviors are those that an observed individual engages
in frequently (e.g., always arriving to work late) whereas low consistency behaviors occur
infrequently (e.g., only rarely arriving to work late). The former suggest stable causes for the
behavior whereas the latter suggest unstable causes. Kelley’s (1967) distinctiveness dimension is
also based on within-person behaviors but concerns variations between situations. Highly distinct
behaviors are those that an individual exhibits only in a particular situation (e.g., late for work
but punctual for most other events) whereas non-distinct behaviors are those which are observed
to be common for an individual across situations (e.g., late for most engagements). Thomson and
Martinko (1998) explained that observers typically attribute non-distinct behaviors to global
causes and distinct behaviors to specific causes. Thus, Kelley’s dimensions address the issue of
how people turn observed variations in behaviors into attributions while Weiner’s dimensions
focus on the affective and behavioral outcomes of those attributions.
Kelley’s (1967) perspective on the interpretation of causal information is particularly
relevant to the development of attributions in the workplace given the role that observation of
others’ behaviors plays in performance evaluations and other management activities. While
organizational research has focused on understanding the consequences of workplace
attributions, the process by which individuals form these attributions has received much less
attention. Although the role of consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness observations in the
development of attributions may seem fairly clear in theory, in practice the interpretation of
causal information is subject to the same biases and distortions that affect all perceptions.
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Managers often have limited capacity to observe employees (e.g., Zalesny & Graen, 1987), for
example. They may, therefore, have incomplete information about employees’ behaviors relative
to their peers (consensus information), over time (consistency information) and in different
contexts (distinctiveness information). This incomplete information can, in turn, promote
inaccurate attributions and counterproductive behaviors toward employees. For example, a
manager with many subordinates might observe a single instance of employee lateness and
erroneously assume it is a common occurrence. The manager might then inaccurately attribute
the lateness to internal, stable, and global factors (e.g., this employee is an irresponsible person),
form a negative emotional reaction and punish the employee accordingly. Research on factors
and tactics that can improve accuracy in the observational phase of attribution development
might therefore be instrumental in helping managers avoid counterproductive decisions and
behaviors regarding their employees.
The area of abusive supervision in particular might benefit from a consideration of the
types of information subordinates use to form perceptions (i.e., attributions) of abuse. Currently
the majority of the research on abusive supervision examines the consequences of perceptions of
abuse and supervisory characteristics that are associated with subordinates’ perceptions of abuse,
while generally ignoring how and why subordinates form these impressions (Martinko, Harvey,
Brees, & Mackey, 2013). We expect that consensus information that compares a particular
supervisor’s behavior with that of other supervisors, consistency information that determines if a
behavior is displayed consistently or sporadically, and distinctiveness information that takes into
consideration both typical and unusual circumstances, might all play a role in determining
whether or not subordinates see a particular supervisor’s behavior as abusive.
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Reconsidering controllability. While we see value in devoting more attention to the
aforementioned dimensions, our analysis and review also call into question the use of the
controllability dimension. There is a fair amount of overlap between this dimension and the locus
of causality dimension, which may help explain the similarity in outcomes linked to both types
of attributions (e.g., the affective and leadership outcomes discussed above). It also suggests that
much of the variance explained by controllability can be captured by measures of locus of
causality. More specifically, external causal factors are generally beyond a person’s control
whereas internal causes are often controllable. The latter is not always true, however, in that
some causal factors are internal but relatively uncontrollable, such as illness or general
intelligence level. We therefore suggest that scholars consider the controllability dimension when
designing studies where such factors are relevant. In studies of performance levels, for example,
internal and uncontrollable factors such as innate intelligence and internally controllable factors
such as effort are likely to be relevant. In these cases assessing both locus of causality and
controllability would be necessary to optimize prediction.
Perceptions of Justice and Mistreatment
Because attributions are perceptual constructs, they are relevant to the formation of other
perceptions such as justice. More specifically, Martinko et al. (2003) argued that the attributions
employees make about the distribution of workplace rewards such as promotions shape
employees’ perceptions of justice and their beliefs as to whether or not people who have been
promoted have “paid their dues.” Although their article explicitly links specific attributions to
three different forms of justice, we are not aware of any empirical test of the model they
presented. Thus the link between attributions and perceptions of justice is likely to be a fruitful
avenue for exploring how justice perceptions are formed and the development of interventions
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designed to encourage justice perceptions.
We also suggest that attributional studies could also provide insight into an employee’s
decision to engage in behaviors that others might deem unjust or unethical. Several studies have
shown that employees’ willingness to engage in deviant workplace behaviors increases when the
behavior can be justified as a response to perceived mistreatment (Greenberg, 1990; Mars, 1973,
1974). For example, Greenberg (1990) found that employees admitted to higher theft levels
during a period when their pay rate was cut by 15%, presumably to adjust their compensation in
response to the pay cut. Weiner (1995) noted that perceptions of responsibility for this type of
undesirable outcome are associated with external and controllable attributions. Putting these
pieces of information together, we suggest that factors impacting attributions for negative
workplace outcomes can also impact the likelihood of a deviant response. While this line of
reasoning might be difficult to test in a field setting, controlled laboratory experiments in which
deviant behaviors can be discretely monitored (see Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, &
Bushman, 2004 (Study 5) for an example) could provide an alternative means for examining the
link between attributions and deviant or unethical behavior.
Related research has suggested that perceptions of abusive supervision and entitlement
are also influenced by attributional biases. Martinko, Harvey, Sikora and Douglas (2011) found
that employees biased toward external and stable attributions for negative outcomes rated their
supervisors as more abusive than other employees. More broadly, Harvey and Martinko (2009)
observed that self-serving attributional biases were associated with psychological entitlement, a
construct that involves inflated self-perceptions and unfulfilled reward expectations that can
promote perceptions of unjust treatment. Taken together, this research suggests that a number of
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workplace perceptions can be more fully understood by considering them through an
attributional lens.
Ethics
The relative lack of attributional research concerning unethical behavior is surprising.
The study of ethics has long recognized the subjective nature of ethical perceptions (e.g., Barnett
& Karson, 1987), suggesting that a person’s belief regarding the cause of an undesirable outcome
is a key factor in shaping ethical judgments. Although ethics researchers recognize that cognitive
processes are related to ethical judgments (e.g., Bommer, 1997; Trevino & Youngblood, 1990)
there is almost no research on the role of attributions in the formation of ethicality perceptions.
Thus it appears that scholars studying workplace ethics could benefit by incorporating
attributional processes into their decision models.
Group and Relational Attributions
While there has been some research in the area of collective attributions - the
phenomenon in which members of groups form similar or identical attributions regarding
outcomes that are relevant to the group (e.g., Islam & Hewstone, 1993) - the great majority of
studies we identified examined attributions at the individual or dyadic levels of analysis. Given
the consistency with which attributions appear to impact outcome variables at these levels of
analysis, it seems worthwhile to explore the impact of group attributions on group-level
outcomes such as performance and cohesion.
This approach seems particularly relevant for organizations that employ group- and teambased structures in which collective attributions may occur frequently. Research by Islam and
Hewstone (1993) showed that group members often exhibit self-serving attributional biases that
favor the ethnic groups to which they belong. It seems logical that similar tendencies might bias
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the attributions of employees who identify strongly with their department or other sub-groups,
potentially creating inter-group conflict within organizations. More ominously, it also suggests
that hiring decisions may be unfairly, if unknowingly, shaped by biased out-group attributions
formed when evaluating candidates (e.g., individuals currently employed at rival companies,
graduated from rival schools). To our knowledge, this is a facet of group/team research that has
not been investigated.
Similarly, it is possible that attributional disagreements could arise within groups.
Although scholars have investigated attributional conflict at the individual level (e.g., Baron,
1985), it could be informative to investigate group dynamics that can promote or impede intragroup attributional conflict and the extent to which such conflict is desirable (e.g., in the
avoidance of group-think).
Identifying and learning how to manage group-level attributional tendencies could
therefore have significant value for practitioners as well as scholars but research in this area has
failed to gain traction. We suspect this is due, in part, to the logistical difficulty of measuring and
aggregating the attributions of large numbers of people in response to a specific outcome, as was
done in Islam and Hewstone’s (1993) study. We are sympathetic to this concern, but argue that
valuable knowledge could also be gleaned by studying smaller groups, such as the workplace
teams and departments mentioned above. We also argue that attribution theory, in its present
state, is well-suited to the study of group attributions. Our meta-analysis has shown consistent
effects involving the locus of causality and stability dimensions on individual-level outcomes
that either aggregate or are strongly related to group-level outcomes (e.g., individual LMX and
group-level LMX, individual performance and group performance). Much of the conceptual
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logic and empirical measures used to study these relationships could likely be applied to the
study of social attributions.
Recent research on relational attributions also suggests that there may be new ways to
conceptualize well-established attributional dimensions in interpersonal contexts. Eberly, Holley,
Johnson, and Mitchell (2011) suggested that in organizational contexts the locus of causality
dimension should be thought of in terms of relational attributions as well as internal and external
attributions. As the name implies, relational attributions cite the nature of the relationship
between two or more people as the cause of an outcome. As an example, Eberly et al. noted that
employees might attribute negative workplace outcomes to the fact that they do not communicate
well with their supervisors. Such an attribution focuses on the interpersonal dynamic between
individuals and may provide a more realistic perspective than assuming employees will attribute
outcomes primarily to themselves (internal) or others (external). This perspective could be
particularly useful in examining the group and team dynamics common in workplace settings.
Interactive Effects of Leader-Member Attribution Styles
Another area that warrants attention is the interaction of leaders’ and members’
attribution styles. Attribution styles are stable tendencies to form attributions that reflect specific
combinations of the attributional dimensions included in this meta-analysis. For example, a
pessimistic attribution style denotes a tendency to form internal and stable attributions for
negative outcomes whereas a hostile attribution style favors external, stable and controllable
attributions for such outcomes. Because these are consistent perceptual patterns they can impact
a person’s attributions across a range of outcomes and situations (e.g., over time, at multiple
places of employment).
Building on the seminal article by Green and Mitchell (1979), a later article by Martinko
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and Gardner (1986) proposed that the interactions between leaders’ and members’ attribution
styles could predispose them to conflict in their attributions for failure, potentially compromising
their relationship quality. As far as we know only one study (Martinko et al., 2007) has explored
that proposition and found that the worst leader-member relations existed in conditions where
leaders had pessimistic styles and subordinates had optimistic styles.
Conceptually, however, Martinko (2002) noted that 16 different combinations of social
attribution styles involving the locus and stability dimensions could exist between a manager and
a subordinate. A number of these combinations could potentially promote attributional conflict
between the two parties. For example, a manager who is biased towards attributing subordinate
success and failure to internal and stable causes (e.g., low employee ability) is likely to conflict
with subordinates who have external attribution styles and tend to attribute both success and
failures to environmental causes. Leaders with this type of style may be more likely to fire
poorly performing subordinates as opposed to offering training and development and are likely
to blame subordinates for problems that are beyond their control.
Kelley’s (1967) aforementioned dimensions also appear to be particularly relevant in this
regard. As discussed, these dimensions are germane to workplace settings that require managers
to observe the consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness of employees’ behaviors relative to
other employees. These observations help shape the locus, stability, and controllability of
attributions (Martinko & Thomson, 1998), and it seems logical that individuals might show
stable tendencies and biases in forming these attributional observations that influence their
responses to employee behaviors and outcomes. Thus, a manager might demonstrate a tendency
to assume that undesirable employee behaviors are high in consistency and low in consensus and
distinctiveness. At the individual level, this could take the form of observing one instance of
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employee tardiness and assuming the behavior is “typical” of this one employee. At the group
level, a manager might observe similar behavior in one member of another department and
assume it is the norm in that department. Such a tendency could contribute to the welldocumented actor-observer bias (Jones & Nisbett, 1972) that causes observers (e.g., managers) to
discount situational causes when forming attributions for the performance of others (e.g.,
employees) at both levels of analysis.
Many other forms of interpersonal attribution style conflict and bias might exist but up to
this point there has been only limited empirical investigation of how differences in leaders' and
subordinates' attribution styles interact and affect leader-member relations and subordinate
productivity. This is an area that is ripe for investigation.
Temporal Effects
The vast majority of the studies in our sample examined attributions at a single point in
time. Given that the impact of attributions on emotional and behavioral reactions to trigger
events is generally thought to occur quickly, if not instantaneously (Douglas et al., 2008), these
cross-sectional studies undoubtedly provide useful information. Nevertheless we must also
recognize that attributions are frequently the result of multiple interactions and observations over
time. For example, if a supervisor attributes an employee’s poor performance on a task to lack of
ability but later learns that the employee had been dealing with emotional issues at the time, the
attribution might change. Conversely, the initial attribution might solidify over time if the
supervisor selectively ignores information that contradicts the initial conclusion.
To our knowledge there has been little recognition of this reality with the exception of
Douglas et al.’s (2008) description of cognitive knots, which are iterative self-reinforcing
perceptual cycles that are the result of repeated interactions over time. This notion suggests that,
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as a consequence of repeated interactions, attributions become more solidified, affect becomes
more intense, and attitudes become more pronounced over time. Importantly, these cycles begin
with pre-existing attitudes, which can be either negative or positive, and the study of how these
processes begin, interact, and evolve over time may help explain incidents of organizational
aggression, attitude formation, and emotional responses. It may also help explain how and why
polarizing figures such as Steve Jobs (Isaacson, 2011) and Lyndon Johnson (Caro, 1981) have
generated both unwavering loyalty as well as perceptions of abuse among their subordinates.
Thus, just as a special issue of Academy of Management Review (Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence,
& Tushman, 2001) advocated for temporal research in the organizational sciences, we suggest
that a consideration of the factors that influence attributions over time could provide new insight
into how workplace relationships and behaviors evolve.
Potential Links to Macro-Level Inquiry
A recent special issue of Academy of Management Perspectives (Devinney, 2013)
suggested that researchers might benefit from considering micro-level foundations of macrolevel theories and phenomena. Given that the micro-level construct of attributions influences an
array of important outcomes, we believe there is potential to leverage insights from attribution
theory to topics in macro-level sub-fields of management. In particular, we see a need for
attribution theory to be incorporated into research on human capital, strategic human resources,
top management teams, entrepreneurship, and family business, just to name a few.
Researchers interested in strategic human resource management (SHRM) study how high
performance work practices (e.g., the use of incentive compensation) and systems (e.g.,
coordinated sets of practices) shape performance (Combs et al., 2006). Recent research suggests
that practices and systems shape performance through their effects on human capital and
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employee motivation (Jiang, Lepak, Hu, & Baer, 2012). We expect that the skills people acquire
are related to the attributions they make. For example, employees who make internal and stable
attributions for failures during training can develop learned helplessness, which reduces their
effort in learning the new skill (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). In addition, employee
motivation is, in part, determined by the attributions made about superiors and organizational
intentions (e.g., Campbell & Martinko, 1998). To the extent that this is true, a key implication for
future SHRM research is that attribution theory should be leveraged to shed additional light into
human capital, motivation, and how positive and/or negative attributions shape performance.
In addition, organizations have long been viewed as a reflection of their top management
teams (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). The vast majority of attribution theory research that we
included in our meta-analysis has involved middle level managers, supervisors, and/or front line
employees (see Agle, Nagarajan, Sonnenfeld, & Srinivasan, 2006; Meindl & Ehrlich, 1987;
Waldman, Javidan, & Varella, 2004; and Waldman, Ramirez, House, & Puranam, 2001, for
notable exceptions). However, it seems likely that employees at these levels might make
different attributions than top managers and might make different attributions based upon where
others reside in an organization. For example, feeling that something is within one’s control or
internally versus externally determined could largely be a function of one’s position and level
within an organization. Meindl and Ehrlich (1987) provided evidence that attributions are shaped
by the level at which the attributions are being ascribed to, such that leaders appear to have
stronger ‘halo’ effects when compared to peers. Thus, we see strong potential to leverage
insights from attribution theory across numerous levels of organizations. Although this might be
a daunting challenge, we suspect that multilevel research would help shed additional light on
either the explanatory power or boundary conditions of attribution theory.
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Relatedly, there have been a few studies relating top management team attributions for
organizational performance, albeit not enough to include in our meta-analysis. Bowman (1976,
1978, 1984), Salancik and Meindl (1984), and Bettman and Weitz (1983) all analyzed the
attributions CEO’s made in corporate annual reports. However, a review of these studies
indicates that, for the most part, they primarily consider the locus of causality, stability and
controllability dimensions. As a group they do not cite or consider Kelley’s dimensions of
information and make only cursory references to the implications of attributions which Weiner
(1986) articulated. More fully integrating the major theoretical dimensions and dynamics of
attribution theory from the Kelley and Weiner perspectives has the potential to considerably
expand both the utility and predictive capacities of research on top management team attribution
processes.
Attribution theory also has seemingly important theoretical implications for the field of
entrepreneurship. A dominant theme of entrepreneurship research is determining predictors of
new venture success. Much of this literature focuses on the role of cognition (Baron, 1998;
Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud, 2000) but attribution theory has been relatively neglected in this line
of research. The entrepreneurial research that does consider attribution theory suggests that
entrepreneurs are more susceptible to self-serving biases than non-entrepreneurs (Baron, 1998;
Gartner, Shaver, & Liao, 2008). This suggests that entrepreneurs have a greater tendency to
display attribution styles that attribute successful ventures to their own abilities and efforts and
failed ventures to external sources. Understanding these attributions can empower entrepreneurs
(Rogoff, Lee, & Suh, 2004). For instance, if entrepreneurs can move away from their tendency to
externalize failure, they may be able to learn from that experience and change their behavior in
future ventures.
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Attribution theory also may show promise in the context of family firms. In the US alone,
there are 5.5 million family firms, accounting for 63% of employment, 57% of the GDP, and
75% of new job creation (Kinkade, 2011). Attribution theory has been suggested as a relevant
theoretical lens to investigate succession planning processes and incumbent readiness
perceptions in family firms (e.g., Sharma, Chua, & Chrisman, 2000; Sharma & Rao, 2000). The
theory also appears useful as a vehicle for explaining individual behavior within family
businesses. Family firm research often neglects to consider nonfamily employees of the family
business or to investigate the differences between family and nonfamily employees (Madison &
Kellermanns, 2013). It may be that these employee types make different attributions regarding
workplace outcomes, thus resulting in different behavioral outcomes. Accordingly, we encourage
research that considers the role of attribution theory within the realm of family business.
Concluding Thoughts
This meta-analysis reinforces existing arguments for the use of attribution theory in
organizational research and hopefully addresses the concerns of those who have been skeptical.
The social psychology literature has shown that the explanatory potential of attributions applies
to almost every domain of human behavior and it appears that workplace behavior is no
exception to this conclusion (Weiner, 2004). The theory’s underutilization in organizational
research presents scholars with numerous avenues for productive research as we “catch up” with
our colleagues in the field of psychology. We hope that organizational scholars will benefit from
the perspective we offer, and, in the future, include attributional processes in their studies so that
we can arrive at more complete understandings of the dynamics of organizational behavior.
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Table 1: Attribution and Workplace Outcome Results
Attributional Relationship
N
K
Corrected Effect ( rc )
Locus of Causality-Undesirable Affect
Locus of Causality-Desirable Affect
Locus of Causality-Unfavorable Performance
Locus of Causality-Favorable Performance
Locus of Causality-Unfavorable LMX
Locus of Causality-Favorable LMX
Locus of Causality-Punishment Intentions
Locus of Causality-Reward Intentions
1672
2077
2800
2042
1385
923
1413
1342
13
13
14
14
5
7
5
7
-.16
.13
.10
.21
-.12
.07 (ns)
-.15
-.01 (ns)
Stability-Undesirable Affect
Stability-Desirable Affect
Stability-Favorable Performance
Stability-Unfavorable LMX
Stability-Favorable LMX
192
776
276
2090
267
4
7
4
7
4
.13 (ns)
-.13
-.35
.10
-.17 (ns)
Controllability-Undesirable Affect
Controllability-Desirable Affect
Controllability-Unfavorable Performance
Controllability-Unfavorable LMX
1569
98
406
1143
5
2
2
4
-.35
.16 (ns)
.03 (ns)
-.09
Table Notes: We ran a meta-analysis for each attributional relationship. High scores for locus of
causality and for controllability suggest more external and less controllable. High scores for
stability suggest more stability (and thus, less ability to change situation). N depicts aggregate
number of primary study observations while K is the number of primary studies that effects were
drawn from. The Corrected Effects ( rc ) were computed by taking the sample-size weighted
effects across the primary studies and then correcting those effects for measurement error.
Significance tests take into account N, K, and variance (Arthur, Bennett, & Huffcutt, 2001).
When the confidence interval does not contain a zero, there is evidence suggesting a significant
positive or negative relationship (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004). All relationships are significant at p
< .05 unless noted (ns).
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Appendix A - List of Primary Studies
Author(s), Year
Source
Author(s), Year
Source
Aquino, Tripp, & Bies, 2001
Arnold, 1985
Barker & Patterson, 1996
Barker & Barr, 2002
Campbell & Martinko, 1998
Chao, Cheung, & Wu, 2011
Curren, Folkes, & Steckel, 1992
De Faria & Yoder, 1997
Dixon, Spiro, & Jamil, 2001
Dobbins & Russell, 1986
Dorfman & Stephan, 1984
Ellis, Ilgen, & Hollenbeck, 2006
Ferris, Yates, Gilmore, & Rowland, 1985
Fragale, Rosen, Xu, & Merideth, 2009
Friedman, Liu, Chen, & Chi, 2007
Garland & Price, 1977
Goncalves, Da Silva, Lima, & Melia, 2008
Green & Liden, 1980
Groth, Goldman, Gilliland, & Bies, 2002
Hess, Ganesan, & Klein, 2007
Hogan, 1987
Homsma et al., 2007
Huning & Thomson, 2011
Jackson & LePine, 2003
Korsgaard, Brodt, & Whitener, 2002
JAP
AMJ
GOM
JBR
JOM
IJHRM
JOMK
JASP
JOMK
JOM
JOM
SGR
PP
OBHDP
JAP
JAP
SS
JAP
JAP
JOR
AMJ
JBP
JOCCC
JAP
JAP
Lee & Tiedens, 2001
Leslie, Manchester, Partk, & Mehng, 2012
Levy, Cawly, & Foti, 1998
Martinko, Harvey, Sikora, & Douglas, 2011
Michalisin, Karau, & Tangpong, 2004
Mitchell & Kalb, 1981
Norris & Niebuhr, 1984
Parsons & Herold, 1985
Ployhart & Ryan, 1997
Poposki, 2011
Porac, Ferris, & Fedor, 1983
Porac, Nottenburg, & Eggert, 1981
Prussia, Kinicki, & Bracker, 1993
Quinones, 1995
Silver, Mitchell, & Gist, 1995
Stevens & DeNisi, 1980
Sue-Chan, Chen, & Lam, 2011
Tagger & Neubert, 2004
Tay, Ang, & Van Dyne, 2006
Thomas & Ravlin, 1995
Thomas & Mathieu, 1994
Weibel, Rost, & Osterloh, 2009
OBHDP
AMJ
JBP
LQ
JBR
JAP
AMJ
JAP
OBHDP
GOM
AMJ
JAP
JAP
JAP
OBHDP
AMJ
GOM
PP
JAP
JAP
JAP
JPART
a
Sources are abbreviated as follows: (AMJ) Academy of Management Journal; (GOM) Group & Organization Management;
(IJHRM) International Journal of Human Resource Management; (JAP) Journal of Applied Psychology; (JASP) Journal of
Applied Social Psychology; (JBP) Journal of Business and Psychology; (JBR) Journal of Business Research; (JOCCC) Journal of
Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict; (JOM) Journal of Management; (JOMK) Journal of Marketing; (JOR)
Journal of Retailing; (JPART) Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory; (LQ) Leadership Quarterly; (OBHDP)
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes; (PP) Personnel Psychology; (SGR) Small Group Research; (SS) Safety
Science.
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Appendix B – Description of Studies and Method
To identify attributional studies published in journals in the organizational sciences, we
used the technique described by Martinko et al. (2011), which involved a keyword search of the
ScienceDirect database with search results limited to the “Business, management, and
accounting” category of the database.
The studies were classified first by the antecedents described earlier (i.e., dimensions of
locus, stability, or controllability) and then by outcome variable. Within each attributional
dimension category, outcome variables were placed into one of four groups. The first, labeled
Affect, consisted of outcomes related to emotional or attitudinal outcomes (e.g., discrete
emotions, satisfaction). The second category, Performance, consists of studies that investigated
performance outcomes of attributions. The third category, Leader-Member Evaluations, includes
measure of subordinates’ perceptions of their relationship with a supervisor (e.g., LMX,
conflict). The final category was labeled Reward/Punishment Decisions, and includes studies
that measured supervisors’ decisions or intentions to reward or punish subordinates.
The studies were also separated into two broad groups depending on the positive or
negative nature of the attributional trigger event. As Martinko and Gardner (1987) noted,
individuals typically form more frequent and more detailed attributions in response to negative
triggers. For this reason we examined the effects of both types of trigger events separately. This
was also done for practical reasons, given that the causal relationships between attributions and
outcomes often run in opposing directions depending on whether the attribution is in response to
a positive or negative trigger. Separating the two types of studies therefore prevents opposing
effects from cancelling each other out in the analysis.
Meta-analysis was then used to aggregate the evidence. This technique synthesizes the
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available evidence to obtain the best possible estimate of the direction and strength of
relationships (Crook et al., 2013). We followed the analytical procedures of the Hunter and
Schmidt (2004). For the first step in our approach, we obtained effects and sample sizes from
each primary study outlined in Appendix A. Effects included bivariate correlations between the
constructs of interest, such as attributions (e.g., locus of causality) and outcomes (e.g.,
performance), and the sample sizes included the number of individuals included in each primary
study. Second, we computed the mean sample size weighted correlation (i.e., r ), and then we
corrected for measurement error (i.e., unreliability) using a correction factor of .80 to obtain rc ;
this correction is recommended for meta-analyses that rely on primary studies that do not report
all reliability coefficients (Aguinis, Gottfredson, & Wright, 2011).
All studies were coded such that a high attributional score indicated external (as opposed
to internal), stable (as opposed to unstable), and controllable (as opposed to uncontrollable)
attributions. For the outcome categories, each study was coded such that a high score denoted a
negative or undesirable level of the variable (e.g., high aggression). This coding scheme was
used as it was consistent with the pre-existing schemes used in the majority of the studies.
An exception to this coding scheme was applied to the locus dimension for studies in the
reward/punishment category that generally investigate social attributions as opposed to selfattributions. To investigate reward and punishment decisions, these studies typically assess
supervisors’ attributions for the performance of another person (i.e., the subordinate) as opposed
to attributions for one’s own performance. For these studies, correlations were coded so that
lower scores still denote internal attributions but in these cases they are internal to the employee,
not to the observer.
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Author Biographies
Paul Harvey has a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Florida State University and is an
associate professor of management at the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul college of
Business and Economics.
Kristen “Kincy” Madison is completing her Ph.D. in Organizations and Strategy at The
University of Tennessee, Knoxville and has accepted a position as an Assistant Professor of
Management at Mississippi State University.
Mark J. Martinko earned his Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska. He is a Professor of
Management at the UQ Business School, University of Queensland and a Professor Emeritus at
Florida State University. His work focuses on the development and application of attribution
theory in the organizational sciences.
T. Russell Crook earned his Ph.D. at Florida State University. He is an Associate Professor of
Management at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His work focuses on evidence-based
management, non-market strategy, and strategic supply chain management.
Tamara A. Crook holds a PhD in accounting from Florida State University. She is a Lecturer of
Accounting at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is also the grand niece of Harold
Kelly, one of the pioneers in Attribution Theory.