An individual’s bad news reporting behavior has been studied from a number of perspectives and has resulted in a variety of research streams including the MUM effect (or reluctance to transmit bad news), whistle-blowing, and organizational silence. While many scholars in different areas have studied reporting behavior, it has not been widely discussed in the information systems literature. This dissertation research addresses an individual’s bad news reporting behavior (and its antecedents) in the troubled IT project context. Many social phenomena are multi-causal (Hollander 1971). The silence phenomenon involved in an individual’s bad news reporting behavior is multi-causal too. While prior research has identified many antecedents to the bad news reporting behavior, it has not provided any systematic approach for categorizing them. In this dissertation, the antecedents are categorized into three different levels: personal factors (i.e., individual-level factors), situational factors (i.e., project-level factors), and organizational factors. This research empirically investigates how the antecedents at different levels affect (i.e., encourage or discourage) an individual’s decision to report or not report bad news in the IT project context. The dissertation follows a multi-paper model, and includes three independent, empirical studies, each with its own research model focusing on personal, situational, and organizational factors.

People are reluctant to transmit bad news, which is named as the MUM effect in the literature. One explanation of this effect suggests that people do not want to construct negative impressions by being associated with bad news. On the other hand, people are also willing to transmit good news which is largely ignored in the literature. In this study, transmission of good news is examined from an impression management perspective. It was suggested that people would be more likely to transmit good news and less likely to transmit bad news when they were dependent on the recipient of the news than when they were not. Four variables, likeability, perceived favor doing, expectations of gratitude and ulterior motives were hypothesized as potential mediators. Also, self &ndash / esteem, self &ndash / monitoring, Narcissism and Machiavellianism were assessed as personality variables. University students (N = 306) participated in a scenario study, with the valence of the news (good / bad) and outcome dependence on the recipient (high / low) as independent variables. The main dependent variable was transmission likelihood of the news. Results showed that, high dependence participants were more likely to transmit good news than low dependence participants. In contrast, high dependence participants were less likely to transmit bad news than low dependence participants. Moreover, likeability was found to be a partial mediator of the relationship. Participants tend to think that they would be perceived as more likeable if they transmit good news and thus they were more likely to communicate the good news. From the personality variables only Machiavellianism had a significant effect. High Machs were more likely to transmit good news in high dependence condition than did low Machs. The results of the study were discussed in the relevant literature.