| Sensemaking the Everest Disaster: Escalating Commitment in Groups |
| | Kayes, Damian Christopher | Case Western Reserve U. | dck4@exchange.som.cwru.edu | (216)-371-6047 |
| | The 1996 Mt. Everest climbing disaster is analyzed to illustrate escalating commitment in groups. Five sensemaking processes are posed to fuel escalating commitments: committing early, fantasizing success, limiting alternatives, goal theodicy, and relying on leaders. Analysis is generalized to the literature on groups and sensemaking.
Abating earlier commitments in groups is suggested to stem from a groups ability to resolve these competing commitments using four processes: sanctioning multiple committments, learning from experience, alternating sensemaking, and reciprocally coupled leadership.
Events point to shifting emphasis in group research in four areas: from assumptions of psycho-emotional cohesion to social-cognitive committing, from research on context and structures to processes and sensemaking, from variance theories of learning to experiential processes theories, and from disaster analysis as authoritative discourse to informal sensemaking.It is concluded that groups which commit to various kinds of sensemaking are more likely to abate escalting commitments and that future climbing groups might balance commitments of getting to the top of a mountain with commitments to getting back down.
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| | Keywords: groups; sensemaking; Everest |
| The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy And Escalating Commitment: Fuel For The Waco Fire |
| | Edwards, John C. | Southern Illinois U., Carbondale | jce109@siu.edu | (618) 453-3307 |
| | Researchers examining the causes of organizational decline have identified global competition, shifting consumer demand, and mergers as macro variables that cause organizational decline. More recently, the micro phenomena of self-fulfilling prophecy and escalating commitment were forwarded as causes of organizational decline. Varying degrees of three variables, perceived behavioral control, risk-taking propensity, and cognitive categorization are posited as determining the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy or escalating commitment being enacted. In this paper, I extend the work on self-fulfilling prophecy and escalating commitment as cognitive phenomena that can cause organizational crisis and initiate organizational decline. A detailed description of the FBI standoff with the Branch Dividians at Waco, Texas provides a unique setting in which to examine the phenomena of self-fulfilling prophecy and escalating commitment. Based on a detailed description, an analysis of the cognitive processes during the Waco standoff reveals that both self-fulfilling prophecy and escalating commitment combined to cause a declining situation. The analysis further suggests that variances in perceived behavioral control, risk-taking propensity, and cognitive categorization altered the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy or an escalating commitment being enacted by decision makers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for academic researchers and organizational managers. |
| | Keywords: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy; Escalating Commitment; Organizational Crisis |
| John Henry Versus the Locomotive: Do Individuals Treat Other Individuals Different Than They Do Objects Within an Escalation of Commitment Scenario? |
| | Moon, Henry | Michigan State U. | moonhenr@pilot.msu.edu | (517)-353-6428 |
| | This is the first known study to directly address potential differences in how decision-makers might treat individuals differently
than they do objects within an escalation of commitment scenario. Students (N=391) were asked to evaluate random escalation of
commitment scenarios half of which contained an evaluation of an individual and the other half of which contained an evaluation of
a computer software package. The person/object scenarios were worded as similarly as possible. Although person/object main effects
were not supported, support was found for an attribution by person/object interaction. Here, decision-makers paid more attention to
attributive causes for people than they did for objects. There was also partial support found for a previous success by person/object
interaction whereby objects with previous successes were more commited to than were people with previous successes or people or
objects with mediocre previous success. These results are discussed in terms of their relevance for past escalation of commitment
research, future escalation of commitment research and managerial decision-making.
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| | Keywords: Commitment; Person/object; Decision-making |
| When the Going Gets Tough: How Escalating Commitment Can Help Innovations to Succeed |
| | Gallivan, Mike John | Georgia State U. | MGallivan@gsu.edu | 404 651-3773 |
| | This paper explores the issue of learning from near-failures that occur during innovation adoption. While the IS literature has repeatedly shown that escalating commitment to technology projects is a recipe for disaster, the process reengineering, change management, and innovation diffusion literatures have remained silent on this issue. To date, little theoretical or anecdotal evidence suggests when escalating commitment to an innovation may be necessary - either due to the nature of the innovation, or to particular organizational hurdles that may thwart it. The merits of the argument from the technology literature - that managers should de-escalate commitment when near-failures occur during adoption - is re-examined in light of evidence from a field study where escalating commitment was precisely the required solution when implementing an administrative innovation. Theory on managerial cognition and sense-making (Weick, 1988) is integrated with the escalation of commitment theory base (Staw, 1981; Brockner, 1992; Keil, 1996) to develop a contingency theory for understanding when escalating commitment may be necessary, given certain features of the innovation or the organization. |
| | Keywords: Change Management; Escalation of Commitment; Innovation Adoption |