The Effect of Project Names on Escalation of Commitment in Information Systems Projects.

This article investigates how project names influence escalation of commitment—the tendency of decision makers to continue investing in failing projects—through two experiments. Experiment 1 found that positive project names evoke more positive affective reactions, which increase willingness to continue a failing information systems project. Experiment 2 showed that technological project names elicit more positive affect and escalation only among decision makers with high technology readiness, measured by the Technology Readiness Index (TRI); those with low technology readiness reacted negatively to technological names. The study identifies affect as the mediating mechanism between project names and escalation decisions and highlights technology readiness as a moderator, contributing new insights to project escalation, naming effects, and affect heuristic literatures. These findings suggest that project names can subconsciously bias decision-making, underscoring the importance for practitioners to carefully consider naming to manage escalation risks.