Locus of Control as a Moderator Variable for the Attribution and Learning Processes of Marketing Managers

Abstract

A mail survey study (N = 762) was conducted in Canada in 1989 to verify two hypotheses on the relation between marketing managers' locus of control and the aspects of two cognitive processes: the attribution process and the learning process. The first hypothesis proposed that internally controlled managers attributed past commercial results of their company more to internal factors (i.e., the company's management, marketing management, and marketing personnel) than to external factors (i.e., competitors, political/legal environment, general economic conditions). The second hypothesis proposed that internally controlled managers expected the influence of the marketing department on the company to evolve in the same direction as a combined result of past influence and past commercial results. A LISREL procedure was used to build the statistical model. The first hypothesis was verified only for externally controlled managers who weighted external factors more than internal factors in their assessment of past commercial results; internal factors were not weighted differently by either internally or externally controlled managers. The second hypothesis was partially supported in that internally controlled marketing managers expected their departments to influence the company more in the future than tney had done in the past. Such a relation did not apply to externally controlled managers. However, contrary to the the second hypothesis, past commercial results had no impact on the expectations of internally controlled managers.