Performance Management: Poor Performance Attribution - Cues

In the last byte, we began our discussion on attribution theory. In today's byte, we look at this in a greater detail.

Kelly (about whom we mentioned in the last byte) attempted to explain the behavior of other people by identifying antecedents of internal and external attribution. The attributions that people make as based on information gathered in the form of informational cues. There are 3 classifications of cues [defined in the last byte]:

1. Consensus
2. Distinctiveness
3. Consistency

Based on whether these 3 cues are high or low, we make attributions. In case we summarize the way the choices are made, we could say:

1. The combination of low consensus, low distinctiveness and high consistency leads to internal attribution
2. Other combinations lead to external attribution!