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Attribution theory argues that people assess the locus of causality of achievementrelevant events as either internal or external. Given the frequency of interpersonal interactions in organizations, we posit that a third category-relational attributionsmay be used. Drawing on relational perspectives, we lay the conceptual foundation and develop a dyadic theory of relational attributions, proposing their antecedents and linking them to relationship-focused behaviors, which influence the quality of interpersonal links within organizations.

It has recently been suggested that attribution theory expand its locus of causality dimension beyond internal and external attributions to include relational (i.e., interpersonal) attributions (Eberly, Holley, Johnson, & Mitchell, 2011). The current investigation was designed to empirically focus on relationship dynamics, specifically where 1 member of the relationship receives negative performance-related feedback. We use quantitative and qualitative data from 7 samples (5 samples for scale validation in Study 1 and 2 for hypothesis testing in Studies 2 and 3) that provide empirical support for the existence and impact of relational attributions. Our findings identify the circumstances under which relational attributions are likely to be formed and indicate that relational attributions are related to relational improvement behaviors, particularly when employees are of the same sex as their relationship partner and perceive sufficient time and energy to engage in relational improvement efforts. A personal attribute, relational self, contrary to expectations, did not moderate the link between relational attributions and improvement behaviors. These findings make an important contribution to attribution theory by providing evidence for the criticality of relational attributions within interdependent work relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record

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This paper examines how a group member's individual‐targeted citizenship behavior (OCBI) and organization‐targeted citizenship behavior (OCBO) interact with a salient group‐level contextual variable, group cohesiveness, to foster positive change for that group member, starting with job self‐efficacy change, and followed by objective task performance change. Over a span of 6 months, we engaged in multilevel, multisource, multistage data collection and surveyed 587 members in 83 work groups. Our results indicate that a group member's OCBI, in comparison with OCBO, is more positively related to his or her job self‐efficacy change. Group cohesiveness was found to attenuate the relationship between a group member's OCBI and job self‐efficacy change, and conversely, to accentuate the relationship between a group member's OCBO and job self‐efficacy change. Furthermore, a group member's job self‐efficacy change mediated the interactive effects of the group member's OCBI and group cohesiveness (as well as the group member's OCBO and group cohesiveness) on his or her objective task performance change.