Business Commons^™

Always The Optimist?, Eric Kordt, Craig Standing

Research outputs pre 2011

The purpose of this research is to determine the attributional style (optimistic or pessimistic) of Information Technology support workers and executive managers using attribution theory, This research suggests that support workers are likely to exhibit an optimistic attributional style whilst executive managers are likely to exhibit a pessimistic attributional style, The differences in attributional style reflected in aspects such as the strength to participate (support workers) or avoid (executive managers) projects destined for failure, The research suggests that managers can positively influence the causal dimensions of attributional style by increasing support worker involvement, supporting executive managers, empowering employees and supporting …