Predicting firm success from task motivation and attributional style: a longitudinal study

The main thrust of this longitudinal study was directed at providing empirical evidence for a model of entrepreneurial behaviour and firm success employed in recent research. The model, grounded on Miner's task role motivation theory and Weiner's approach to attribution theory, specifies the influence of role requirements on certain motivational patterns, and identifies the mediating effects of attributional processes for failure and success, and of perceived environmental uncertainty, on a type of entrepreneurial behaviour likely to spawn firm success. The findings of this study support, overall, the predictive feature of I he model.