| This study deals with the extension of assumptions postulated in the attributional model of motivation (Weiner, 1979) from students to workers and from the context of intellectual achievement to work performance in organizations. Five hypotheses were studied. First, it was tested that in the same work episodes of organization workers differ in their causal attributions of performance. Next, the existence of the three causal dimensions (locus, stability, controllability) postulated in the model was tested. Later, the assumption that the stability, the locus, and the controllability causal dimensions are primarily related to future expectancy of success, satisfaction, and interpersonal judgements, respectively, was tested. Also, causal attributions ascribed in work descriptions and relationships between informational cues and causal dimensions were explored.;This study stresses the importance of individual perceptions related to organizational setting for dealing with some motivational problems of organizations. The major findings are: (a) causal attributions for performance are important in order to understand some motivational problems. Differences in causal attributions are usually related to differences in organizational behavior, (b) in a common work episode different causal attributions are ascribed by workers, (c) informational cues as well as personal characteristics are antecedents to causal attributions, (d) workers classify the causes on the three causal dimensions, (e) relationships between causal dimensions and psychological consequences were partially supported. The findings were discusssed, and a compendium integrating the findings, additional research, and practical guidelines for dealing with some motivational problems of organizations were provided.;Two hundred and fifty-five workers from 14 manufacturing enterprises located in Santiago, Chile, voluntarily participated in the study. Hypothetical cases describing another worker's performance in a job-related situation comprised the attributional questionnaires. Two types of work descriptions were presented. First, the outcome, incentive, consistency and consensus information were included. Second, the outcome and the cause which accounted for that outcome were provided. |
