East—West Differences in Attributions for Company Performance
- 1 September 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
- Vol. 39 (5), 618-629
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022108321309
Abstract
Prior cross-cultural studies indicate that the self-serving attributional bias is more prevalent in Western cultures than in Eastern cultures. There is, however, a dearth of research looking into cross-cultural differences in attributional patterns that is based on publicly available archival data. This study tries to fill that lacuna. It reports the results based on a content analysis of corporate annual reports from U.S. and Japanese companies. The results reported in this study demonstrate that cross-cultural differences found in experimental settings are not necessarily observed in naturalistic settings. Specifically, this study reveals that both U.S. as well as Japanese companies explain company results in a self-serving fashion. Overall, the results support the notion that the nature of the relationship affects the extent to which cross-cultural differences in attributional patterns emerge.Keywords
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