IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/stratm/v18y1997i4p275-286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equivocal Information And Attribution: An Investigation Of Patterns Of Managerial Sensemaking

Author

Listed:
  • J. A. WAGNER III
  • R. Z. GOODING

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

Suggested Citation

  • J. A. Wagner Iii & R. Z. Gooding, 1997. "Equivocal Information And Attribution: An Investigation Of Patterns Of Managerial Sensemaking," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 275-286, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:18:y:1997:i:4:p:275-286
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199704)18:43.0.CO;2-V
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199704)18:43.0.CO;2-V
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199704)18:43.0.CO;2-V?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dean A. Shepherd & Holger Patzelt & Trenton A. Williams & Dennis Warnecke, 2014. "How Does Project Termination Impact Project Team Members? Rapid Termination, ‘Creeping Death’, and Learning from Failure," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 513-546, June.
    2. René Fahr & Anica Rose, 2017. "Causal Reasoning in Corporate Annual Reports: The Truth and Nothing But the Truth?," Working Papers Dissertations 25, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    3. Patzelt, Holger & Gartzia, Leire & Wolfe, Marcus T. & Shepherd, Dean A., 2021. "Managing negative emotions from entrepreneurial project failure: When and how does supportive leadership help employees?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(5).
    4. Shepherd, Dean A., 2009. "Grief recovery from the loss of a family business: A multi- and meso-level theory," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 81-97, January.
    5. Hui, Kent N. & Hult, G. Tomas M. & Ketchen, David J., 2020. "Causal attribution for peer performance and international joint venture divestment," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(2).
    6. William H. Starbuck, 2009. "Perspective ---Cognitive Reactions to Rare Events: Perceptions, Uncertainty, and Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 925-937, October.
    7. Stratos Ramoglou & William B. Gartner, 2023. "A Historical Intervention in the “Opportunity Wars†: Forgotten Scholarship, the Discovery/Creation Disruption, and Moving Forward by Looking Backward," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1521-1538, July.
    8. Aerts, Walter, 2005. "Picking up the pieces: impression management in the retrospective attributional framing of accounting outcomes," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 493-517, August.
    9. AERTS, Walter & TARCA, Ann, 2008. "The effect of institutional setting on attributional content in management commentary reports," Working Papers 2008010, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    10. Mandy M Cheng & Habib Mahama, 2011. "The impact of capital proposal guidelines and perceived preparer biases on reviewers’ investment evaluation decisions," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 36(3), pages 349-370, December.
    11. Yasuhiro Yamakawa & Mike W. Peng & David L. Deeds, 2015. "Rising from the Ashes: Cognitive Determinants of Venture Growth after Entrepreneurial Failure," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(2), pages 209-236, March.
    12. W. Aerts, 2001. "Inertia in the attributional content of annual accounting narratives," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 3-32.
    13. Cardon, Melissa S. & Stevens, Christopher E. & Potter, D. Ryland, 2011. "Misfortunes or mistakes?: Cultural sensemaking of entrepreneurial failure," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 79-92, January.
    14. Pal, John & Medway, Dominic & Byrom, John, 2011. "Deconstructing the notion of blame in corporate failure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(10), pages 1043-1051, October.
    15. Hong, Paul & Doll, William J. & Revilla, Elena & Nahm, Abraham Y., 2011. "Knowledge sharing and strategic fit in integrated product development proejcts: An empirical study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 186-196, August.
    16. Ulrich Lichtenthaler & Holger Ernst & Martin Hoegl, 2010. "Not-Sold-Here: How Attitudes Influence External Knowledge Exploitation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(5), pages 1054-1071, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:18:y:1997:i:4:p:275-286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/0143-2095 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.