Works
- Mea Culpa: Predicting Stock Prices from Organizational Attributions, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2004
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
Self-disserving attributions. Content analysis of annual reports from 14 companies over 21 years found that companies that attributed negative events to internal, controllable causes had higher stock prices a year later. The authors argue that taking responsibility made the organizations appear more in control. Caveat: The study is correlational and covers 14 companies.
What it explains
Lee and her colleagues explain why owning a setback can raise standing: an account that names a controllable cause signals that whoever gives it can fix the problem.