Rethinking Project Escalation: An Institutional Perspective on the Persistence of Failing Large-Scale Information System Projects

ABSTRACT

Project escalation involves the continued, persistent commitment to a failing project. Through a qualitative meta-analysis of 15 published cases of large information systems (IS) projects in escalation situations, we develop an institutional perspective on IS projects in escalation situations. This perspective describes how project persistence emerges from a plurality of legitimizing institutional logics that decision-makers draw upon at different project stages to maintain and reduce their commitment to the project. Logics related to the project’s approval are not the same logics that guide decisions throughout the project. For example, while we find that innovation and economic logics of return on investment are salient before approval, economic costs tend to be more salient after approval, along with technical impositions and managerial concerns. We further find that managerial logics are particularly salient in reducing commitment to projects, and we detail the differences and point out contextual triggers of external scrutiny and leadership changes that can contribute to reduced commitment to a project and eventual de-escalation.

KEYWORDS:

• IS projects
• project escalation
• project de-escalation
• project legitimacy
• project commitment
• institutional logics
• IT projects

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Other good journals in the IS field are not in the basket. Still, the basket is a suitable reference for searching the existing literature. Here, we acknowledge the limitations of our conclusions caused by this sampling strategy, meaning our findings may not necessarily extend to research published in other good journals in the field.

² To avoid confusion, we note that commitment decisions reflect higher-order decisions used to classify the project-related decisions occurring across project phases. We also note that commitment decisions and project phases are interrelated but different. You can have multiple commitment decisions within a specific project phase (e.g., “maintain commitment” and “reduce commitment” within “post-approval”)..

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Berente

Nicholas Berente is a Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. He received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Berente’s research interests include digital innovation, artificial intelligence, and institutional change in organizations. He is Visiting Fellow at the University of Liechtenstein, and Senior Editor at MIS Quarterly and Information and Organization.

Carolina Alves de Lima Salge

Carolina Alves de Lima Salge is an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Her research focuses at generating insights to improve social interactions with computer algorithms in ethical ways and has published in MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Academy of Management Discoveries, and Communications of the ACM.

Venkata K.P. Mallampalli

Kamesh Mallampalli is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Arkansas’s Sam M. Walton College of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His research interests lie in post implementation life cycle of information systems and in software-driven innovation.

Ken Park

Ken Park is a former Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Georgia and currently owns and operates KP Consulting, a strategic consulting practice in Atlanta, GA. His professional interests include strategic decision making, entrepreneurship, and new venture development.