{
  "title": "A struggling project: when should commitment be reassessed in Fribourg?",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2025-05-27",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "Persevering with a difficult project can be rational. Justifying it by what it has already cost is a different line of reasoning, which research invites us to examine.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Complex Management",
  "place": {
    "name": "Fribourg",
    "region": "Fribourg",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes",
      "point": "Barry Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) experimentally studied resource allocation following unfavourable results."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The sunk-cost mechanism",
      "point": "Hal Arkes and Catherine Blumer (1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) describe the tendency to continue an undertaking after investing money, time or effort in it."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The premature conclusion",
      "point": "One might conclude that a disappointing project should be stopped or routinely handed to a new manager."
    },
    {
      "heading": "What the evidence cannot settle",
      "point": "These classic studies do not determine the right stopping threshold for an agri-food investment or university collaboration."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Fribourg",
      "point": "Within the “Management complexe” programme, SHR can propose an exercise applied to an agri-food project in Fribourg involving a bilingual industrial team and a partner from the university hub: before the next review, define a reassessment threshold shared in French and German."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "Staw",
      "year": "1976",
      "source": "Organizational Behavior and Human Performance"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Blumer",
      "year": "1985",
      "source": "Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 405,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-Training-Complex-Management-Fribourg-fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/fribourg-projet-en-difficulte-quand-reexaminer-engagement-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation-management-complexe-fribourg",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/fribourg",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}