MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY
STRATEGIC DECISION BIAS BY ROLE IN FAILED TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS
KENNETH ROSSON PENCE
Thesis under the direction of David M. Dilts
This empirical research examines how personnel, from different levels of an organization, reach decisions to terminate technical projects. Termination decisions are often considered failures and this research investigates strategic decision-making using failure as an outcome measure. Upper management personnel (executives) with the authority to cancel a technical project and the middle management (project managers) who manage the day-to-day operations of the project are surveyed in phase one of this research to determine what, if any, biases may have affected the decision to terminate a project under their control. Information gathering (scanning and interpretation) and environmental factors (importance, resources, complexity), leading to the decision to terminate a project, are also examined from an individualistic, not a monolithic, viewpoint among innovative technology organizations. Termination decisions are shown not to be related to the scale of a project but that different levels of the organization use different decision weighting levels with regard to project termination. Additionally, hindsight and sunk-cost biases are clearly shown by the two levels of decision-makers within an organization. Phase two of the research develops a model from two concurrent case studies portraying how bias affects project outcome perceptions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-06242003-105228 |
| Date | 25 June 2003 |
| Creators | Pence, Kenneth Rosson |
| Contributors | David M. Dilts, William R. Mahaffey |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-06242003-105228/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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