Escalation commitment in decision making and its possible effects in the long run

摘要

The objective of this study is to investigate the causes of the escalation commitment type of faulty decision making and evaluates its destructive effects on the firms, business, state, governments and for all other decision makers. The model is developed step by step and analyzed purely on theoretical foundations. The model identifies certain factors that may lead to escalation commitment in decision making. Even though the escalation commitment is faulty decision, many decision makers including business leaders, head of the states and other decision makers have one way or other adopted escalation commitment in decision making and created disasters for their organizations as well as for the world. The Two World Wars, Vietnam War, Iraq war are some of the examples where the actors and decision makers adopted escalation commitment and employed more and resources, soldiers and thus only created deaths and destructions and such destructions are so massive that minor gains, if any, do not justify such escalation commitment. The results and findings of this study show that sunk cost, absolute power of the leaders, non-accountability, blind support, hiding own faults, personal involvement are some of the major factors that may lead to such escalation commitment while rational thinking in decision making process can put a halt to such faulty decision making where enormous resources and the lives of the millions of the people can be saved if the decision makers apply rational thinking prior to any decision making process. This study will serve as eye opener to the world leaders and to major decision makers in busines and key policy makers to prevent escalation commitment by forcing the decision makers to rational thinking, accountability and by curbing their absolute powers and placing other restrictive measures prior to commit any further resources, manpower and waging any unnecessary wars.