American and Thai Managers′ Explanations for Poor Company Performance: Role of Perspective and Culture in Causal Selection

Abstract

An experiment is reported that examines the impact of cultural orientation and judgmental perspective on managers′ causal explanations for poor company performance. Results indicate that the explanation offered by subjects depended on the perspective taken. Subjects from an individualist culture (the United States) who were instructed to imagine themselves managers of the target firm compared the target firm′s poor performance to superior performance by the same firm in earlier years, whereas individualist subjects who were instructed to imagine themselves managers of a competing firm compared the poor performance of the target firm to the superior performance of a competitor. By contrast, subjects from a collectivist culture (Thailand) compared the target firm′s poor performance to the superior performance by the same firm in earlier years, regardless of management perspective.