Attributional statements in annual report narratives: the justification of organizational performance

Marcelo Pagliarussi, Izabella Frinhani Tessarolo and Antonio Thadeu Mattos da Luz
Additional contact information
Antonio Thadeu Mattos da Luz: FUCAPE Business School

No 4, Fucape Working Papers from Fucape Business School

Abstract: n this paper the nature of organizational discourse is theoretically underpinned by the concept of self-serving attributions, a type of causal reasoning that allows the writer to take credit for good news and avoid blame for bad news. Based on motivational and informational explanations, we incorporate signaling theory in order to develop hypotheses for the expected levels of self-serving attributions in the justification of organizational performance. A sample with 49 companies was selected, both from a bad year and a good year regarding the capital market context. Each company?s Letter to Shareholders was content analyzed in order to test our propositions about the roles of different combinations of performance and contextual factors as triggers of self-serving attributions. The results corroborate the theoretical hypotheses advanced, but the sample size is an issue regarding robustness.

Keywords: Organizational; performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28
Date: 2008-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Fucape Working Papers Novembro 2008

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.fucape.br/_public/workingpapers/04-2008.pdf Primeira Versão, 2008
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.fucape.br/_public/workingpapers/04-2008.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.fucape.br/_public/workingpapers/04-2008.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://fucape.br/_public/workingpapers/04-2008.pdf)

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:bbz:fcpwps:04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Fucape Working Papers from Fucape Business School Fucape Business School Brazilian Business Review Av. Fernando Ferrari, 1358, Boa Vista CEP 29075-505 Vitória-ES. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Adriana Gasparino ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).