What is escalation of commitment and how can the tendency to escalate commitment to a failing course of action be prevented?

Escalation of commitment refers to the tendency to invest additional resources to an apparently failing course of action.Rather than accept sunk costs due to a past decision, the decision maker allows them to enter into future decisions in an attempt to recoup them.There are five ways to prevent it described in the chapter: be alert for excessive optimism or extremely positive media attention early in a project cycle; encouraging continuous experimentation with reframing the problem to avoid the decision trap of feeling more resources have to be invested; setting specific goals for the project in advance that must be met if more resources are to be invested; placing more emphasis in evaluating managers on how they made decisions and less on decision outcomes; separating initial and subsequent decision making so that individuals who make the initial decision to embark on a course of action are assisted or replaced by others who decide if a course of action should be continued.