Organizational performance shocks – i.e., unexpected performance variations – can present challenges for organizations. Paying attention to performance shocks – before and after they happen – is important for organizational adaptation and responsiveness. But do organizations reallocate their attention before and after performance shocks? Do positive and negative shocks have the same effects on attention? We study the relationship between performance shocks and organizational attention allocation empirically with longitudinal data about information source use of knowledge workers of a large corporation. Our results indicate that performance shocks affect attention shifts of the knowledge workers, but positive and negative shocks have different effects. Negative shocks intensify problemistic search and allocation of attention to sources of problem-relevant information. Positive shocks intensify opportunistic search and allocation of attention to sources of opportunity-relevant information. The results support the view that performance shocks shape organizational attention because they induce search, and that positive and negative shocks have different effects because they induce different types of search.