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Escalating Commitment in the Death Zone New Insights from the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster ⁎ Juan Felipe Aegerter Alvarez, Aferdita Pustina, Markus Hällgren

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Escalating Commitment in the Death Zone New Insights from the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster ⁎ Juan Felipe Aegerter Alvarez, Aferdita Pustina, Markus Hällgren JPMA-01298; No of Pages 15 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management xx (2011) xxx–xxx www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman Escalating commitment in the death zone New insights from the 1996 Mount Everest disaster ⁎ Juan Felipe Aegerter Alvarez, Aferdita Pustina, Markus Hällgren Umeå School of Business, Umeå University, 90187 Umeå, Sweden Received 28 July 2010; received in revised form 11 January 2011; accepted 27 January 2011 Abstract The procession of people and organisations that pour resources into evidently failing causes is surprising and seemingly never-ending. This phenomenon, which is called “escalating commitment” (Staw, 1976), refers to situations in which people are incapable of turning future disasters into sound current decisions. The purpose of this paper is to use the, in project management literature (Kloppenborg and Opfer, 2002), non-traditional case of the 1996 Mt Everest disaster to explain and analyse escalating commitment determinants and processes. Not only does the paper identify and add a determinant to escalation but it also treats determinants and processes in a novel and intertwined fashion. The conceptual developments and findings suggest that escalating commitment strives on conditions that are inherent to any project, which consequently project managers should be aware of. Based on the results project failures could be better explained and understood by examining several explanatory levels simultaneously. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Escalating commitment; Temporary organizations; Mount Everest; Processes 1. Introduction The runaway tendencies found in IT can be assumed to apply to other industries as well. Outside IT, however, neither The procession of people and organisations that pour resources traditional nor non-traditional project industries have paid a into evidently failing causes is surprising and seemingly never- great deal of attention to escalating commitment. Most of the ending. This phenomenon, which is called “escalating commit- attention that escalation has received has focused on the ment” (Staw, 1976), refers to situations in which people are determinants (Staw, 1976; Staw and Ross, 1987a) and phases of incapable of turning future disasters into sound current decisions. escalation processes (Mähring and Keil, 2008). Although these Commitment is not a stable rational phenomenon, which suggests two streams have made important contributions to understand- some degree of dynamics in the phenomenon. To date, however, ing the phenomenon, there is a tendency to allocate blame to a the theory has focused mostly on the determinants of commitment single point of failure, which is not necessarily the case rather than the process (Mähring et al., 2004). Escalating (Mähring et al., 2004). This paper contrasts the traditional commitment has received a certain degree of attention in IT entity-based narrative process view with the neglected organis- industry projects (Keil, 1995; Mähring and Keil, 2008), where it has ing-based narrative process view (Van de Ven and Poole, 2005). been found to account for a high proportion of failed projects in In doing so, the paper helps re-orient the focus of project terms of the inability to meet requirements in time, cost and scope. management studies towards embracing process studies “more These are referred to as “runaway projects” (Sabherwaletal., openly and consistently” (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002:567). By 2003). emphasising the changing nature of the entire set of processes, from beginning to end, the approach does not allocate blame ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 90 786 58 85. which allows for a novel and integrated analysis (Van de Ven E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.F. Aegerter Alvarez), [email protected] (A. Pustina), [email protected] and Poole, 2005:1384) and in practical terms suggesting that (M. Hällgren). escalation is the outcome of continuous change rather than a URL: http://www.markushaellgren.com (M. Hällgren). predefined path (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002). 0263-7863/$ - see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2011.01.013 Please cite this article as: Alvarez Aegerter, J.F., et al., Escalating commitment in the death zone, International Journal of Project Management (2011), doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2011.01.013 2 J.F. Aegerter Alvarez et al. / International Journal of Project Management xx (2011) xxx–xxx The climbing expedition industry on Mount Everest is not and (4) definable in terms of a specific goal. A temporary typically investigated (Kloppenborg and Opfer, 2002:21). It has organisation, therefore, has the characteristics of a project, as they been shown, however, that less traditional industries can offer are both exposed to the constraint of time and resources. In fact, new perspectives on common phenomenon (Kayes, 2004; Elmes Turner and Müller (2003) drew an equal sign between the two. and Barry, 1999; Elmes and Frame, 2008; Aubry et al., 2010), The traditional industries – construction, IT, utilities, R&D, which is one reason for choosing a particular case (Siggelkow, manufacturing, education and telecommunications – account for 2007:21). Escalating commitment was originally developed for 63% of all researched project industries (Kloppenborg and Opfer, policy-making decisions (Staw, 1976) and is not associated with a 2002:21). Projects in these industries, however, are only one type of specific industry. Therefore, broadening the industrial application temporary organisation. The use of temporary organisations/ contributes to the understanding of escalation, per se. The purpose projects by less traditional industries was recognised in a recently of this paper is to use a, in project management literature, non- published special issue of Project Management Journal,2010(Vol. traditional case to explain and analyse escalating commitment 41, No. 3) and in a special issue of International Journal of determinants and processes. Through the widely publicised and Managing Projects in Business, 2010 (Vol. 3, No. 1). The former researched 1996 climbing disaster on Mt Everest, this paper focused mostly on polar expeditions, while the latter included an contributes to the understanding of escalating commitment by overview of the applicability of project management to non- broadening the empirical context, by paying attention to both traditional industries such as mergers and acquisitions (Nogeste, determinants and the entire set of processes in an integrated 2010) and, more importantly for this paper, climbing expeditions detailed fashion which do not allocate blame, suggesting that (Hällgren, 2010). In climbing expeditions – the focus of this there is a certain element of manageability in escalating processes. paper – planning is crucial, just as it is in traditional projects. Although it is unusual for mountain climbing to be considered for this purpose, such expeditions are known to have the constraints 2. Expeditions as temporary organisations and characteristics of temporary organisations (time, task, team and transition) (Hällgren, 2007:774–775). Indeed, a mountain climbing The concept of “temporary systems” has been further expedition is a temporary organisation (Kayes, 2004:1281)andthe developed through the introduction of the “temporary organisa- features of the expedition are the same as in any other temporary tions” literature (Bennis, 1965, 1966; Bennis and Slater, 1968; organisation, except that they arepresentinadifferent setting. Goodman and Goodman, 1972, 1976). Temporary organisations Planning is an important feature of project management (Dvir and are defined as “a set of diversely skilled people working jointly at Lechler, 2004) and expeditions (Choo, 2002), as is risk calculation a task of some complexity over a limited time period” (Goodman and assessment (Hällgren, 2007). In terms of time, task, team and and Goodman, 1976:494). It is necessary to consider the concepts transition, not only are climbing expeditions limited in duration of time, task, team and transition in the demarcation of a (acclimatisation for climbing Mt Everest takes about four weeks temporary organisation (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995:439). The and the ascent and descent take about six days) but they are also time aspect is especially important for distinguishing temporary limited in terms of when they can take place during the year — organisations from other organisations (Lundin and Söderholm, namely spring and autumn (http://www.alpineascents.com). The 1995). The assumption that an organisation ends at a certain point time limit is also implied by the fact that a task must be in time places the focus on the present rather than the past or the accomplished within a certain time and weather window. future. The focus shifts away from utilising resources and towards Furthermore,thetasktobeachievedisspecified:toreachthetop the assigned problem (Goodman, 1981). The focus on the and then come back. Paid expeditions, which involve a team of presence and problem-solving has led to “action” rather than climbers, share the team feature with other temporary organisations. “decision” becoming the heart of the temporary organisation In terms of transition, reaching the goal represents a change in the (unlike a permanent organisation) (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995). climbers' lives and in the business of the expedition companies. See This differentiation follows a behavioural approach of decision- Hällgren (2007:775) and
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