Social Cognitive Theory of Organizational Management

TLDR

Social cognitive theory explains organizational functioning through triadic reciprocal causation among behavior, cognition, personal factors, and environmental events. The authors tested this causal structure in simulated organization experiments on complex managerial decision making, varying organizational properties and belief systems to assess their impact on self‑regulatory determinants. Results show that beliefs about organizational controllability and managerial ability shape managers’ self‑regulatory processes and organizational outcomes, while organizational complexity and performance standards also influence these effects. Path analysis was used to evaluate the causal relationships among the studied variables.

Abstract

This article analyzes organizational functioning from the perspective of social cognitive theory, which explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. In this causal structure, behavior, cognitive, and other personal factors and environmental events operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally. The application of the theory is illustrated in a series of experiments of complex managerial decision making, using a simulated organization. The interactional causal structure is tested in conjunction with experimentally varied organizational properties and belief systems that can enhance or undermine the operation of the self-regulatory determinants. Induced beliefs about the controllability of organizations and the conception of managerial ability strongly affect both managers' self-regulatory processes and their organizational attainments. Organizational complexity and assigned performance standards also serve as contributing influences. Path analys...