Selective Perception

Many Information Systems (IS) projects experience serious problems that prevent them from meeting schedule, budget, and functionality targets. Managers often escalate their commitment to such projects, plowing ahead with them instead of hitting the pause button to address issues, a process known as project escalation. Due to the increasing pressure to develop systems and bring products to market faster, making decisions that involve time are more important than ever. While time has been studied in the IS domain, the effect of emphasizing time in a project’s name on IS project escalation decisions is not known. In this study, we explore whether a project name that explicitly refers to time can influence escalation decisions, and we examine the underlying mechanism through which that occurs. Sixty-two practitioners participated in a 2x1 factorial design experiment in which the project name was manipulated, but all other project information was identical. We theorize that emphasizing time in the project name can cause selective perception, drawing attention towards the schedule of the project and away from other aspects. Such selective perception can increase the likelihood of escalation of commitment to the schedule of the project when facing quality issues that require deviating from this schedule. We hypothesize that this effect of selective perception on escalation can be both direct and indirect. The results from the experiment support our research model.