Although human resource (HR) attributions and leadership behaviors (LB) attributions have attracted increasing scholarly attention over the past several decade, they have largely been studied in isolation. Drawing on attribution theories, this study integrates and compares two prevailing streams of attributions in organizational behavior and human resource management (OBHRM) through the lens of commitment-focused versus control-focused attributions. Using meta-analysis, we found that HR attributions and LB attributions share some commonalities: (1) commitment-focused attributions toward both HR and LB were positively related to task performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and work engagement, whereas control-focused attributions toward these variables did not significantly relate to task performance, OCB, or work engagement; (2) both constructive HR practices and LB were positively associated with commitment-focused attributions and showed no inherent connection with control-focused attributions. HR attributions differed from LB attributions in the following ways: (1) HR commitment-focused attributions have a stronger association with task performance and work engagement compared to LB’s similar attributions; (2) LB commitment-focused attributions have a stronger association with counterproductive work behavior (CWB) compared to HR’s similar attributions. This study responds to calls for integrating the leadership and HR fields and advances attribution theory by offering a comparative analysis of HR and LB attributions, which have predominantly been examined in isolation.
