Accounting - Research Publications

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Manager ‘Growth Mindset’ and Resource Management Practices

Abernethy, M ; Anderson, SW ; Nair, S ; Jiang, Y (Elsevier, 2021)

We study the relation between a manager’s growth mindset and their use of resource management practices. Growth mindset is based on implicit person theory and is an established and measurable psychological construct. It refers to a person’s deeply held beliefs about whether, in general, people can learn, develop, and change throughout their lives or whether “who they are” is relatively fixed by initial talent endowments (termed a ‘fixed mindset’). Given the demonstrated importance of a growth mindset for educational outcomes and the emerging research studying the influence of mindset on behavior within organizations, we explore whether school principals’ mindset is associated with their resource management practices. Using survey and archival data from 257 primary and secondary school principals, we find that a growth mindset is associated with greater use of budgets to explain and discuss budget variances with key constituents and as an enabler in their managerial role. Principals with a growth mindset also engage in fundraising activities and use non-financial rewards for their teachers significantly more than fixed mindset principals. We also find that the relations between a principal’s mindset and some of these practices are different depending on the school’s performance context.