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Tuesday, June 20, 2006 · posted at 12:08 PM

The Requisite of Personal Responsibility

In a study of 96 business students Staw and Fox (1977) gave the subjects a choice between making an R&D investment in either an underperforming company department, or in other sections of the hypothetical company. Staw and Fox divided the participants into two groups; a low responsibility condition and a high responsibility condition. In the high responsibility condition the participants where told that they as manager had made a earlier, disappointing R&D investment. In the low responsibility condition, subjects were told that a former manager had made a previous R&D investment in the underperforming division and where given the same profit data as the other group. In both cases subjects where then ask to make a new $20 million investment. There was a significant interaction between assumed responsibility and average investment, with the high responsibility condition averaging $12.97 million and the low condition averaging $9.43 million.
- "Sunk Cost Heuristic" on Wikipedia

Staw (1976) and colleagues (Staw and Fox, 1977; Staw and Ross, 1978) studied the tendency for college students to increase their commitments to unsuccessful courses of action in simulated tasks. That is, indications of failure may induce people to allocate more effort or resources to their current behavioral strategies rather than to adopt new behaviors. Milliken and Lant (1991) argued that "a number of forces push managers toward persistence after experiences of both success and failure" although these forces are stronger after success than after failure. The forces fostering persistence include the self-serving bias.
- "How Organizations Learn From Success and Failure" by William H. Starbuck & Bo Hedberg.



	Tuesday, June 20, 2006 · posted at 12:08 PM The Requisite of Personal Responsibility In a study of 96 business students Staw and Fox (1977) gave the subjects a choice between making an R&D investment in either an underperforming company department, or in other sections of the hypothetical company. Staw and Fox divided the participants into two groups; a low responsibility condition and a high responsibility condition. In the high responsibility condition the participants where told that they as manager had made a earlier, disappointing R&D investment. In the low responsibility condition, subjects were told that a former manager had made a previous R&D investment in the underperforming division and where given the same profit data as the other group. In both cases subjects where then ask to make a new $20 million investment. There was a significant interaction between assumed responsibility and average investment, with the high responsibility condition averaging $12.97 million and the low condition averaging $9.43 million. - "Sunk Cost Heuristic" on Wikipedia Staw (1976) and colleagues (Staw and Fox, 1977; Staw and Ross, 1978) studied the tendency for college students to increase their commitments to unsuccessful courses of action in simulated tasks. That is, indications of failure may induce people to allocate more effort or resources to their current behavioral strategies rather than to adopt new behaviors. Milliken and Lant (1991) argued that "a number of forces push managers toward persistence after experiences of both success and failure" although these forces are stronger after success than after failure. The forces fostering persistence include the self-serving bias. - "How Organizations Learn From Success and Failure" by William H. Starbuck & Bo Hedberg.	Recent Posts Crunchy granola. adj. A term used to describe a pe... Will work for (campus)food, a dot com.One seldom h... the red carpet. Justin's movie premiered tonight.... In many species with long childhoods, female choic... jam session. As a girl, you attend a lot of slumbe... Zhongwen ke. I recently went to a Mandarin class ... "And come to think of it your eyes are different. ... XXV. Today I am a quarter century old. And what ... Getting Off on FeminismAdmittedly, much of my frus... and how many subscriptions do you own? There's not... Morning news babie goose ryan bluemouse daves son dawntaught desiree diorama emily escadawg galveric high entropy invisible cube jepgato kyellow lilly mhuang mogbert nudream starfish + coffee verbivore Archives March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 January 2007 March 2007 April 2007 November 2008

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