IJMB Journal – Abstracts

International Journal of Management and Business

IJMB Volume VI, Issue 2

 

Influence of Long-Standing Formal Groups on Attribution:
Formation and Expression

Robert H. Bennett III and Mark A. Grimes

School of Business Administration, Georgia Southwestern State University,
Americus, GA.

robert.bennett@gsw.edu, mark.grimes@gsw.edu

ABSTRACT

In modern organizations, groups and teams cooperate, interact, and work very closely together over an extended period. With these long-standing, formal groups, individual members become inextricably bound to the other members, group cognitive processes, and outcomes experienced by the group. This article explores our current understandings of attributions and interpretive interactions of formal group and proposes refinement due to group dynamics, behavior, and cognition associated with long-lived groups. While group attribution research is extensive, causal ascriptions and reflective sense-making efforts in these formal groups are likely quite different when compared to that of more casual, shorter-lived groups. Two perspectives are utilized to illustrate these variations. The first perspective deals with members’ dual concerns of ego protection and enhancement versus group interdependence, harmony, and long-term productivity/performance. A typology of attributions and interpretations that are formed and shared within groups is proposed and implications are discussed. The second perspective pertains to the possibility of various departures from the careful, rational information processing that has dominated existing attribution literature. A number of heuristic and limited processing attributions are suggested and implications are discussed.

Keywords: Attributions, Groups, Teams, Self-Serving Bias, Group-Serving Bias, Limited Rationality, Heuristics

Click for full manuscript (PDF) or back to Volume 6-2, Table of Content.