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The purpose of this paper is to develop a positive and functional attributional model of leadership, using both leadership perceptions and leadership effectiveness as criteria. Drawing from cognitive complexity theory, and attributional complexity theory, this article identifies attributional accuracy of managers as the fundamental component of the functional model developed here. The model of leadership developed here focuses on such key leadership constructs as leader information processing using complex schemata, leader attributions and their accuracy, leader behaviors that follow their attributions, mediating variables such as subordinate self‐efficacy, satisfaction, and motivation, and outcome variables such as leadership perceptions and subordinate performance. These variables are linked in a process model.

The article depends on a critical review of the literature to build a theoretical model consistent with theory building guidelines.

Accurate attributions and the avoidance of attributional biases are identified as key factors determining effectiveness and leadership perceptions. Leader interactive behaviors, feedback latency, and the development of strategies for improving performance are identified as key consequences of attributional accuracy.

This article has implications for the ways in which managers are selected and trained to provide leadership in organizations.

The theory developed here breaks new ground in the investigation of the positive and functional attributional processes of leaders leading to organizational or unit effectiveness. This research contributes to knowledge by pointing to the functional role of accurate attributions and the delineation of the processes through which such attributions can lead to enhancing subordinate motivation and hence leadership effectiveness.

The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual model predicting the influence of biased causal explanations for subordinate behaviors and outcomes on a leader's functionality and the quality of leader‐member relationships.

Attribution theory is used to analyze the effect of leader perceptions and emotions on the functionality of leader‐member relationships. It is predicted that the negative emotions and expectancies stemming from biased leader attributions will promote dysfunctional leader behaviors. These dysfunctional behaviors, in turn, are believed to reduce the quality of leader‐member relationships.

Although much of the proposed model is based on empirical evidence, it is acknowledged that some key relationships have not been tested directly in past research. It is suggested that future research can seek to validate these aspects of the model. It is also suggested that future research explore the role of subordinate, as well as leader, attributions in dysfunctional relationships.

Several implications of the model for promoting functional leadership in organizations are described. The importance of leaders being aware of their attributional biases is indicated and information provided on how to assess one's attribution style. Also discussed are implications for reducing situational ambiguity and increasing causal feedback in the workplace.

This paper builds on past attribution theory research to address a shortage of research on the cognitive, interpersonal aspects of functional and dysfunctional leadership.

The study emphasizes the importance of human perception in engaging stakeholders and sheds light on the way the often “disregarded” actors (i.e. local communities) make sense of an organization's behavior at the corporate, project and individual level.

Departing from the normative stance of stakeholder theory, this conceptual paper aims to unfold the benefits of a more holistic and inclusive organizational approach to stakeholders. The conceptual framework is elucidated through the lens of attribution theory, which points to communication as the source of stakeholders' attributional processes and thus their perception of fairness.

Focusing the authors’ attention on construction and infrastructure projects, this research suggests that early transparent and informative communication with local community stakeholders motivates them to perceive fairness, from both the process of decision-making (distributive) and the outcome of decisions (procedural), as well as the way in which they are treated (interactional). Such communications lead to less biased attributions as they reduce the influence of personal beliefs in achieving a conscious and non-biased attribution mode.

In this paper, the authors adopt attribution theory as their lens with which to interpret the process whereby individuals attempt to make sense of an organization's behavior. Focusing on secondary stakeholder engagement such as local community, the authors’ conceptualization shapes both a framework highlighting communication as the mediator for shaping human perceptions, and a process model to guide project organizations and practitioners to embrace an inclusive approach toward the often-disregarded stakeholders, which is aimed at enhancing their perception of fairness at the corporate, project and individual levels. The authors highlight the need for organization to provide clear and transparent communication to a broader range of stakeholders, such as those that have had little to say in the decision-making process (the often-disregarded voices). By seeking collaboration rather than manipulation, a project organization might promote stakeholders' non-biased perception of fairness, in terms of both the process and outcome of the project.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how the internet interacts with businesses and markets. The authors aims to focus on the internet press releases of annual results to illustrate how corporate communication is used and managed strategically online.

The authors describe the increasing importance of the internet for communicating firms' performance to investors, financial media and the stock market, then identify and discuss a number of techniques that might be used to potentially manipulate the online presentation of financial results. Thus the authors conducted a content analysis of the internet press releases in two consecutive years (2008 and 2009) by a wide range of companies listed in the IBEX 35 share index.

This paper provides in‐depth insights into content analysis techniques by providing examples of how potentially misleading disclosure practices are included in press releases. Moreover the paper investigates the use of seven potentially misleading disclosure practices appearing in press releases that optimise the way in which company results are presented.

Regulators may consider the normalisation of the content of internet press releases to avoid or reduce opportunistic disclosure practices. Moreover, investors should be aware of the use of these practices to reduce the misleading effect when processing corporate information.

This pioneering study analyses and provides evidence of potentially misleading internet‐based disclosure strategies. Furthermore the paper proposes a set of measures for corporate information presentation.

This paper considers threats to the internal validity of field studies that utilize survey data. Compared to laboratory experiments and field experiments, field surveys should be strong in realism, practical significance, and normative quality. However, there are substantial threats to internal validity that fall into the general categories of sampling and measurement. We consider these issues and how to deal with them. We pay special attention to the existence and impact of common method variance including strategies for avoiding it, methods for assessing it, and approaches to correcting for it. Our objective is to provide a road map for better use of survey methods.

Research on strategic decision making has over‐emphasized the importance of cognitive conflict because of its potential benefits. Recent research documented that, apart from the benefits, cognitive conflict leads to affective conflict. Taking information processing perspective, the present study seeks to argue that the benefits of cognitive conflict can be stimulated by the cognition‐based trust, while the interplay between cognitive conflict and affective conflict can be influenced by affect‐based trust. The present study therefore aims to demonstrate the divergent roles of the perceived trustworthiness as potential moderators in strategic decision‐making teams.

Using structured survey instrument, multi‐informant data was collected from CEOs and senior executives of 109 US hospitals. After performing confirmatory factor analysis of the measures used, the data was analyzed using hierarchical regression techniques to analyze divergent roles of cognition‐ and affect‐based trust as moderators in the relationship between conflict and decision outcomes.

Results showed that cognition‐based trust is the key to fortify the benefits of cognitive conflict while affect‐based trust is the panacea for the ills of cognitive conflict.

The sample consisted of hospitals in healthcare industry only. Self‐report measures may have some inherent social desirability bias.

This study contributes to both practicing managers as well as to strategic management literature. This study suggests that trust between the executives involved in strategic decision‐making process plays an important role in enhancing decision quality. It is therefore suggested that CEOs and administrators engage the executives who have both cognition‐ and affect‐based trust with each other to have successful decision outcomes.

Though the sample in the present study focuses only on healthcare industry, to the extent strategic decision‐making process is similar in other industries, the findings can be generalizable across other industries.

The high failure rate for expatriate leaders is well documented. One major cause of these failures has been identified as the incongruencies in the perceptions of expatriate leaders and the host members that they manage. This article describes theory and research which suggests that a potential explanation for at least some of these perceptual incongruencies is that they are a result of culturally‐based attributional biases interacting with self‐serving and actor‐observer attributional biases. Although not all of the interactions of these biases result in incongruent perceptions, some interactions appear to be particularly prone to result in incongruent perceptions such as when leaders from highly individualistic and low context cultures interact with members from highly collectivistic and high context cultures. Suggestions for research and interventions designed to reduce incongruent attributions between leaders and members are discussed.

The multiple performance measures in strategic performance measurement systems should be selected to represent a set of causally linked strategic drivers and outcomes. The pattern of results thus can provide information concerning the proper execution of the strategy (i.e., the performance evaluation role) and the strength of the cause-and-effect linkages assumed by the strategy (i.e., the strategy evaluation role). Unfortunately, managers’ tendency to re-evaluate the strategy when performance falls short of target is low in practice. Possible explanations include motivational and cognitive biases. We experimentally examine two decision aids, an attribution aid, and a decomposition aid, designed to help managers ease these challenges. Study 1 shows the decision aids, individually and in combination, increase managers’ tendency to re-examine a problematic strategy. Study 2 demonstrates the effectiveness of the two decision aids, when used together, under a different pattern of results and among a sample of more experienced managers.

We review past research on the relationship between attributional perceptions, emotions, and workplace aggression and develop a conceptual model that extends this research in two ways. First, we consider the influence of controllability attributions on the type (otherdirected, self-directed, hostile, non-hostile) and likelihood of aggressive responses to negative workplace outcomes and situations. Second, we consider the extent to which discrete negative emotions might mediate these attribution-aggression relationships. Implications for anticipating and preventing workplace aggression based on this conceptual model are discussed.

This paper emphasizes that employee attributional processing is a vital element in understanding employee aggression in organizations. The purpose of this paper is to summarize attributional perspectives and integrate recent theoretical advances into a comprehensive model.

The paper achieved its objectives by reviewing and integrating research and theories on aggression, cognitive processing, and attribution processes to explain how employee aggression unfolds in the workplace. Propositions are suggested.

It was found that early conceptualizations proposing that employee attributions and attribution styles would play important and significant roles in predicting employee aggression were supported by recent research enabling theoretical advancements.

Over the last 15 years, research advances show how attributions influence employee aggression. This paper integrates recent theoretical advances with prior empirical evidence and provides a comprehensive model exhibiting how attributions influence aggression in the workplace.