Collaborative partner or opponent: How the messenger influences the deaf effect in IT projects

Arno Nuijten, Mark Keil and Harry Commandeur

European Journal of Information Systems, 2016, vol. 25, issue 6, 534-552

Abstract: Prior research suggests that information technology (IT) project escalation can result from the deaf effect, a phenomenon in which decision makers fail to heed risk warnings communicated by others. Drawing inspiration from stewardship theory, we posited that when messengers carrying risk warnings about a project are seen as collaborative partners, decision makers are more likely to heed the message. Conversely, we theorized that when messengers are seen as opponents, decision makers are more likely to exhibit the deaf effect. We further posited that certain psychological factors (i.e., framing and perceived control) would moderate the effect of the messenger-recipient relationship on the deaf effect. To test these ideas, we conducted two experiments. When messengers were seen as collaborative partners, recipients assigned more relevance to the risk warning and perceived a higher risk, making them less willing to continue the project. Framing the outcomes associated with redirecting or continuing the project in terms of losses (rather than gains) weakened this effect. However, when recipients perceived a high degree of control over the project the effect was strengthened. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/ejis.2016.6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:25:y:2016:i:6:p:534-552

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2016.6

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().