Article
Campbell, C. R., & Swift, C. (2006). Attributional comparisons across biases and leader-member exchange status. Journal of Managerial Issues, 18(3), 393-408. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.boisestate.edu/docview/194164877/fulltextPDF/1364C5B8CA836E0E9BE/8?accountid=9649
Synopsis
How does the relationship between worker and manager affect the worker’s perception of the reasons for his or her level of workplace performance?
Leader-member exchange (LMX) is the theory that supervisors develop different levels of relationships with their subordinates. In-group members are those with a closer relationship to the leader, and are assigned higher levels of responsibility, trust, and access by the leader. Out-group members are those who lack this close relationship, and who function at lower levels of responsibility, trust, and access within this workgroup. One possible cause for this difference in relationship strength is the attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) theory, which assumes that individuals with similar psychological attributes think in better alignment with each other; those who are not in psychological alignment with the leader may pull back or leave altogether due to a lesser feeling of “fitting in”. In other words, in-group members may have that status because they have greater psychological similarity to their supervisor than do other subordinates.
Attribution theory states that individuals attempt to find causal relationships which explain their own experiences and the experiences or behavior of others. The creation of these perceived causal linkages may be formed through a bias, or preconception. Individuals viewing their experiences under ‘a self-serving bias’ will perceive a link between positive experiences and their own internal qualities, but attribute the cause of negative experiences to external factors. An individual operating under ‘an actor-observer bias’ links his or her actions to external factors, but perceives the actions of others as caused by their internal qualities.
Under either bias, a worker who performs poorly will attribute this lack of personal success to external factors. What happens when a worker performs well? Under the self-serving bias, the worker would attribute this success to his abilities and actions. However, under an actor-observer bias, the worker would attribute this success to external factors such as leadership support and organizational resources. The authors sought to resolve this contradiction by looking for relationships between a subordinate’s LMX status, how the subordinate perceives the causes of success and failure, and how his or her supervisor perceives the subordinate’s causes for success and failure.
Research Questions
Based on their review of the existing research, the authors stated eight hypotheses:
HI: When performance is positive, supervisors will make greater internal than external attributions for in-group subordinate performance.
H2: When performance is negative, supervisors will make greater external than internal attributions for in-group subordinate performance.
H3: In-group subordinates will make greater internal than external attributions for their own positive performance.
H4: In-group subordinates will make greater external than internal attributions for their own negative performance.
H5: When performance is positive, supervisors will make greater internal than external attributions for out-group subordinate performance.
H6: When performance is negative, supervisors will make greater internal than external attributions for out-group subordinate performance.
H7: Out-group subordinates will make greater external than internal attributions for their own positive performance.
H8: Out-group subordinates will make greater external than internal attributions for their own negative performance.
The authors believed that supervisors and in-group subordinates would attribute in-group subordinate performance to the same causes, while supervisors and out-group subordinates would attribute out-group performance to opposite causes.
Methods
The authors mailed printed surveys to employees of a U.S. regional division of a large organization in the retail industry. Responses were received from 229 subordinate employees and 51 supervisors of those subordinates; the supervisors rated up to three subordinates each, so there were 135 unique supervisor surveys completed.
Subordinates rated their LMX status using a validated scale (LMX-7), while supervisors rated their subordinates’ LMX status using a parallel scale (SMLX-7). Subordinates were then given two retail scenarios, one with a positive outcome and the other with a negative outcome, and were asked to imagine and then evaluate how they would perform in these situations. Subordinates then rated how their performance in each scenario was affected by ability, effort, ease of the task, and luck. Supervisors were asked to imagine and then evaluate how each of their subordinates would perform in these situations, and then rate how each subordinate’s performance was affected by ability, effort, ease of the task, and luck.
The authors found no significant difference between how subordinates rated their LMX status and how their supervisors rated their LMX status. Subordinates were categorized as in-group, out-group, and a middle-group; data related to the middle-group subordinates was eliminated from further analysis.
Findings
The statistical analysis of the data supported the first two hypotheses, with positive performance by in-group subordinates attributed to internal factors (ability and effort). The third hypothesis, that supervisors perceived external factors (ease of task and luck) as the cause of negative performance of in-group subordinates, was also supported by the data. However, the fourth hypothesis was not supported by the data. The in-group subordinates did not attribute their negative performance to external factors, as was hypothesized; their responses showed no significant difference between internal and external factors as the cause of negative performance.
For out-group subordinates, supervisors did not perceive any significant difference between internal and external factors as the cause for positive performance. The authors noted that this implied that supervisors do not consider the abilities and efforts of out-group members to be any greater a factor for success than external factors, which indicates that the supervisors place less value on the abilities and effort of those out-group members. However, the authors’ sixth hypothesis, in which supervisors blamed the negative performance of out-group members on internal factors, was supported by the data. The seventh hypothesis was not supported by the data while the eighth hypothesis was. The authors had assumed that out-group members would see their performance through the actor-observer bias (opposite of the self-serving bias expected of the supervisors) and thus attribute their performance, both positive and negative, to external factors. However, the data indicated that out-group members, like in-group members, attributed positive performance to internal factors.
These results support prior research which indicated that supervisors give in-group subordinates credit for their abilities and effort when performance is positive, and place the blame elsewhere when in-group subordinates perform poorly. This study also indicates that supervisors do blame out-group subordinates for poor performance, and do not give them credit for their abilities and efforts even when they perform well.
Discussion for OPWL-N Members
What implications might the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory and the results of this study have for the data you obtain from a cause analysis for a performance issue? Do you think a manager would be more likely to blame internal factors such as a knowledge or skill deficiency, capacity, or motives for poor performance when the issue is primarily among the out-group? Would the manager be more likely to accept an environmental (external) factor as the cause when his or her in-group is equally affected by the performance problem?
Workplace Oriented Research Central (WORC)
Prepared by OPWL Graduate Assistant, Perri Kennedy
Directed by OPWL Professor, Yonnie Chyung
Posted on April 24, 2012