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East—West Differences in Attributions for Company Performance

A Content Analysis of Japanese and U.S. Corporate Annual Reports

University of Groningen

Prior cross-cultural studies indicate that the self-serving attributional bias is more prevalent in Western cultures than in Eastern cultures. There is, however, a dearth of research looking into cross-cultural differences in attributional patterns that is based on publicly available archival data. This study tries to fill that lacuna. It reports the results based on a content analysis of corporate annual reports from U.S. and Japanese companies. The results reported in this study demonstrate that cross-cultural differences found in experimental settings are not necessarily observed in naturalistic settings. Specifically, this study reveals that both U.S. as well as Japanese companies explain company results in a self-serving fashion. Overall, the results support the notion that the nature of the relationship affects the extent to which cross-cultural differences in attributional patterns emerge.

Key Words: communication • cultural psychology • social cognition

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 39, No. 5, 618-629 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0022022108321309


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