Escalation of Commitment in Groups and the Moderating Effects of Information Framing

Abstract

A manager who is responsible for making the initial decision to invest in a project will typically have a tendency to “over‐commit” additional resources to the project (Staw, 1976, 1981; Staw and Fox, 1977; Staw and Ross, 1978, 1980). This increased total investment can occur even when the project shows poor economic performance. The terms “escalation of commitment” or “escalation effects” are used to describe such investment tendencies.