Why are we having this innovation? Employee attributions of innovation and implementation behavior

We used attribution theory to explain employee behavior toward innovation implementation. We focused on employee innovation attributions to organizational intentionality as employees’ sensemaking of why their organization has adopted an innovation. We identified two types of employee attributions: to constructive intentionality and to deceptive intentionality. We collected data from 397 employees and 84 managers of Chinese and Korean organizations. Results showed that employee attribution to constructive intentionality enhanced innovation effectiveness by increasing active implementation and decreasing implementation avoidance. By contrast, employee attribution to deceptive intentionality diminished innovation effectiveness by increasing implementation avoidance. These findings enrich the innovation implementation literature by introducing the attribution-based perspective of sensemaking.