The Escalation of Commitment to a Course of Action: A Critical Test of Some Determinants

By Glen R. Whyte. 2009

326 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, General Decision Sciences, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/99a682a7d29eed848abbe386b067e52ac04cbdff

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Citations in the corpus

The fallacy of "only the strong survive": The effects of extrinsic motivation on the persistence decisions for under-performing firms (2008, unknown): “Figure1 Operational model of Staw’s (1981) Commitment Process”
Motivation and Ability? A Behavioral Perspective on the Pursuit of Radical Invention in Multi-Technology Incumbents (2017, unknown): “…radical inventions in areas of existing strength (Baum, Rowley, Shipilov, & Chuang, 2005; Cyert & March, 1963; Nohria & Gulati, 1996), while also being more tolerant of failure in underperforming technologyareas (Staw,1981;Whyte, 1986), leading to less threat rigidity in theseareas.”
23 Ways to Nudge: A Review of Technology-Mediated Nudging in Human-Computer Interaction (2019, background): “The commitment bias is our tendency to “be true to our word” and keep commitments we have made, even if there is evidence that this is not paying off [84].”
Pre-Entry Knowledge, Learning, and the Survival of New Firms (2009, background): “Planning might also lead to " escalation of commitment " toward a failing course of action because of the decision maker's unwillingness to admit that their prior judgments were erroneous (Staw 1981, Bowen 1987, Brockner 1992).”
Deciding to Persist: Adversity, Values, and Entrepreneurs’ Decision Policies (2013, background): “Staw (1981) proposes that a shared norm for consistency may lead to the notion that it is better to stay committed to a previously selected course, even if it is failing, than to be perceived as a quitter or as indecisive.”
Entrepreneurs’ decision making under different levels of uncertainty: the role of emotions (2013, background): “According to the theories of rational choice, entrepreneurs should terminate failing investments as soon as possible; still scholars have noticed that individuals often persist with and continue to commit resources to a failing course of action (Staw, 1981).”
The Family Innovator's Dilemma: How Family Influence Affects the Adoption of Discontinuous Technologies by Incumbent Firms (2013, background): “In the organization literature the notion of strategic patience, or stamina, has primarily been discussed with a negative connotation under such labels as organizational persistence (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1990) and escalation of commitment (Staw, 1981).”
Construal Levels and Psychological Distance: Effects on Representation, Prediction, Evaluation, and Behavior. (2007, background): “The sunk-cost error, referred to in the management literature as " escalation of commitment " (cf. Staw, 1981), is the tendency to continue to commit resources (e.g., money, time) to a failing course of action.”
Throwing Good Money after Bad? Political and Institutional Influences on Sequential Decision Making in the Venture Capital Industry (2007, background): “Individual decision makers exhibit a systematic tendency to commit to a course of action, even when they receive negative information about future prospects (Staw, 1976, 1981; Staw and Fox, 1977; Teger, 1980; Arkes and Blumer, 1985; Brockner and Rubin, 1985).”
Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation–Augmentation Paradox (2020, background): “…large augmentation investments, organizations experiencing failure may be tempted to reinforce their augmentation efforts further, which could escalate their commitment (Sabherwal & Jeyaraj, 2015; Staw, 1981), with failure leading to continued augmentation, in turn leading to continued failure.”
MODELING HOW TO GROW: AN INDUCTIVE EXAMINATION OF HUMBLE LEADER BEHAVIORS, CONTINGENCIES, AND OUTCOMES (2012, background): “Humble leaders were less likely to escalate commitment to failed courses of action (e.g., Staw, 1981) because they were more open to feedback and less likely to make and adhere to decisions for purposes of selfvalidation or self-enhancement.”
Affordable loss: behavioral economic aspects of the plunge decision (2009, background): “In conventional analyses of investment decisions, researchers have found that investors often throw good money after bad when they fi nd projects underperforming in terms of their expectations of return (Staw, 1981).”
Venturing for Others with Heart and Head: How Compassion Encourages Social Entrepreneurship (2012, background): “Commitment to alleviating suffering also delays one's willingness or ability to confront the possibility that social entrepreneurship may not be a plausible or desirable way to help those who are suffering (Brockner, 1992; Staw, 1981).”
Prospect Theory and the Disposition Effect (2008, background): “Such behavior would be consistent with the literature on the escalation of commitment (Staw (1981)).”
Self-other decision making and loss aversion (2012, background): “…them—the notion of loss aversion has been shown to underlie stock investing (i.e., the disposition effect; Odean, 1999), pursuit of failing courses of action (i.e., the sunk cost effect; Staw, 1981), and reluctance to depart from the status-quo (i.e., the omission bias; Baron & Ritov, 1994).”
Weakness of the will: Is a quick fix possible? (2014, background): “Furthermore, people seem to have problems with calling a halt to unsuccessful efforts to reach a desired goal as studied in research on the escalation of commitment (e.g., Brockner 1992; Staw 1981), and finally, by extending much energy with respect to an ongoing goal pursuit people often fail to pr”