Research Question

Escalation of commitment refers to “the tendency for decision makers to persist with failing courses of action” (Brockner 1992, p. 39). In marketing, previous studies on escalation of commitment mainly focused on new product development. The escalation of commitment of individual consumers is rarely examined. Moreover, throughout the years, researchers have developed a number of theories to explain escalation of commitment. However, when they are applied to explain cultural differences in escalation of commitment, different theories produce different or even contrasting results. As such, this study attempts to address a few research questions: What is the underlying process through which culture affects escalation of commitment at the individual consumer level? Is locus of attention culture-specific? That is, is analytic attentional style (attend more to a salient object itself and believe oneself as the main agent in endeavors) more prevalent among individualists while the holistic attentional style (attend more to the relationship between objects and the field to which these objects are embedded) more prevalent among collectivists? In turn, does locus of attention affect escalation of commitment? That is, will those having holistic attentional style under less pressure to self-justify their previous decisions and so engage in lower propensity to escalate?

Method and Data

One hundred sixty-three students from a university in Macao filled in a questionnaire which contains six items measuring individualism and collectivism (IC), six items measuring locus of attention (Attention), and two scenarios with negative outcomes measuring propensity to escalate. The first scenario (Jazz) is about writing a jazz proposal for the application of funding. The second scenario (Bus) is about betting with friends with regard to the next bus coming within the next five minutes. The first scenario is purposefully focused on invested time and effort and the second one on invested time and money. Both scenarios meet the three conditions of escalation of commitment specified by Brockner (1992). On a scale ranging from 0% (definitely would not continue) to 100% (definitely would continue), respondents indicate their propensity to continue the course of action. Basic personal data are included in the questionnaire and standard back translation approach is applied to the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis finds that all items of the latent variables load significantly on their respective factors. However, one item from Attention has factor loadings less than .4 and so it is omitted from further analyses. Cronbach’s alphas for IC and Attention are .833 and .725, respectively.

Summary of Findings

The structural equation model which contains IC, Attention, Jazz and Bus shows that it has a good fit. The structural model also shows that the higher the level of collectivism, the higher the level of attention to the field. In addition, the model also shows that the higher the level of attention to the field (holistic attentional style), the lower the propensity to escalate. However, the effect is found significant only in the scenario involving invested time and effort, but not in the scenario involving invested time and money. The effect size for Attention is considered medium while that for escalation of commitment (in this case Jazz) is small.

Key Contributions

Current findings of this exploratory study have both theoretical and practical contributions. First of all, other than the existing theories, current study finds that analytic and holistic attention also helps to explain escalation of commitment. So in case customers’ find products and services not meeting their expectations and have to decide whether to commit further into the products and services, marketers should also consider customers’ cultural values which provide cues of their locus of attention before they persuade their customers to commit further into the purchase and services. Second, the effect of attention is not applicable across escalation decisions. Results of the current study suggest that attention poses its influence on escalation decisions involving invested time and effort, but not those involving invested time and money.