Looking forward and looking back: integrating completion and sunk-cost effects within an escalation-of-commitment progress decision.
Currently, there are 2 conflicting frameworks with which to understand why decision makers might escalate their commitment to a previously chosen course of action: sunk costs and project completion. The author proposes that sunk costs and need to complete exert simultaneous pressures, both independent and interactive, on a decision maker's level of commitment. The responses of 340 participants were analyzed and supported a complementary relationship between the 2 predictors. In addition, sunk costs demonstrated a curvilinear influence on commitment and an interaction with level of completion that supported a Level of Completion x Sunk Cost moderation model. (A marginal utility model was not supported.) Results are discussed in terms of their relevance toward offering a complementary view of 2 potential antecedents to a decision maker's propensity to escalate his or her commitment to a previously chosen course of action.
Moon
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Eli Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824-1122, USA. moonhenr@pilot.msu.edu
D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans