EQUIVOCAL INFORMATION AND ATTRIBUTION: AN INVESTIGATION OF PATTERNS OF MANAGERIAL SENSEMAKING

J. A. Wagner and R. Z. Gooding

Strategic Management Journal, 1997, vol. 18, issue 4, 275-286

Abstract: Organizational research has revealed ample evidence of self‐serving attributional patterns in managerial sensemaking, but has not yet resolved whether actor–observer attributional effects also influence managers’ sensemaking tendencies. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether such actor–observer effects can be detected in managers’ interpretation of equivocal information. Results indicate that managers receiving equivocal information about the performance of an organization described as their own credited positive outcomes to organizational strengths and blamed negative outcomes on environmental threats. In contrast, managers receiving equivocal information about an organization described as managed by others associated positive outcomes with environmental opportunities and linked negative outcomes to organizational weaknesses. Both self‐serving and actor–observer attributional patterns were thus detected. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199704)18:43.0.CO;2-V

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:stratm:v:18:y:1997:i:4:p:275-286

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0143-2095

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Strategic Management Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().