Complex Management training in LucerneComplex management in the canton of Lucerne: when should a project backed by senior management be stopped?
In the canton of Lucerne, tourism, hospitality, regional financial services and industrial SMEs form a business landscape in which family ownership and short decision-making chains play an important role. For SHR's “Complex Management” programme, this context raises a specific question: how can a project be reassessed when its future also puts its sponsor's credibility at stake?
What the literature establishes: responsibility can strengthen commitment
Barry Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) demonstrates experimentally that personal responsibility for an earlier decision can encourage further investment after negative outcomes. The decision to continue therefore depends not only on the project's prospects: it may also serve to justify the initial choice. This finding identifies a decision-making risk without establishing that every decision to continue after a setback is irrational.
A mechanism: defending a decision to preserve credibility
Joel Brockner (1992, Academy of Management Review) offers a theoretical review of escalation of commitment and emphasises that self-justification alone cannot explain every situation. The information available and the context in which the decision is made also matter. In a hypothetical family business in Lucerne, discontinuing a new tourism offering might therefore be experienced as a repudiation of the owner-manager rather than a routine revision of commercial assumptions.
The hasty conclusion: stop as soon as results disappoint
It would be premature to conclude that every project encountering difficulties should be stopped. A poor hotel season or industrial development taking longer than expected does not, on its own, demonstrate a lack of prospects. The useful distinction concerns the reasons for continuing: are future benefits still plausible, or is the aim to make past expenditure seem acceptable? (our executive and employee training programmes)
The limits of the evidence and of simply seeking an outside opinion
Staw's experiment does not reproduce the timescales, contractual obligations and relationships of an actual business; Brockner's review is not a study of the canton of Lucerne. These papers therefore cannot establish how common the phenomenon is locally or define a universal stopping threshold. Seeking an outside opinion is also insufficient if the reviewer receives only the project sponsor's arguments or cannot challenge the underlying assumptions.
A practical check in Lucerne
Within the “Complex Management” programme, one possible exercise would be to reassess an actual project: hypothetical examples in Lucerne could include an off-season hotel offering, a new regional financial service or equipment for an industrial SME. Before committing further resources, record unrecoverable expenditure separately from future costs, the benefits still expected and an observable condition for continuing or stopping, then have someone who did not sponsor the initial decision review the note. At the agreed review date, measure the proportion of renewed commitments supported by a previously written condition and check whether that condition was followed or amended with a documented justification. This check makes the process verifiable without claiming to guarantee the project's profitability. To go further: explore the Complex Management training in Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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