Relationships Between HPWS, Causal Ascriptions and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour: A Cross‐Level Investigation

ABSTRACT

Attribution scholarship has sought to gain insights into employees' human resource attributions , or beliefs about managerial motives, to explain workplace behaviours. Yet this perspective remains confined to the front end of the cognitive process, overlooking how causal ascriptions arising from strategic HRM practices inform subsequent emotions, intrinsic motivation, and behaviours. Drawing on signalling and attribution theories, this study conceptualises the notion of causal ascriptions of success as a distinct explanatory mechanism linking high‐performance work systems to organisational citizenship behaviours. Based on prior attribution scholarship, leader–member exchange and organisational cynicism are further integrated as the boundary conditions that moderate these relationships. Using a sample of 430 employees nested within 108 teams in Vietnamese small and medium‐sized enterprises, we analysed the data using multilevel structural equation modelling in Mplus. The findings broadly support the hypothesised relationships and offer both theoretical and practical implications.