The Justification of Organizational Performance in Annual Report Narratives (Report‪)‬

Introduction Self-serving attributional patterns are usually manifested in the justification of organizational performance by a tendency to associate positive events to internal causes and negative events to external ones. The pattern is identified as opportunistic, biased or hedonic, because it allows one to take credit for successes and to avoid blame for failures (Staw, Mckechnie, & Puffer, 1983). It has also been associated with impression management, a term that embraces a diverse set of strategic behaviors aimed at controlling others' perception of oneself (Gardner & Martinko, 1988; Schelenker & Weigold, 1992).