Cross‐cultural perceptions in the leadership process: Theoretical perspective on the influence of culture on self‐concepts and manager‐worker attributions

This article examines the influence of culture on the way managers and workers perceive causes of success and failure in organizational tasks. The author argues that selfserving and actor‐observer biases, as well as other attribution errors, will be moderated by culture. Specifically, managers and workers with a sociocentric self‐concept from high‐context cultures may be biased toward external attributions, while managers from low‐context cultures with an idiocentric self‐concept have a tendency to make more internal attributions. These variations in attributions have consequences that affect both managers and workers. Theoretical propositions and implications for international management practices are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.