2.1. Rational persuasion
We posit that rational persuasion will positively influence
management's cognitive involvement in persuasion communication given that both are associated with rational processing.
Management often does not understand the implications of an
IT project (Wilson and Howcroft, 2005). Clear arguments,
outlining how a new IT project benefits an organization, help
management to learn and make inferences about the importance
and relevance of the project. Previous studies have suggested
that ambiguous messages and evidence create difficulties for
targets. When messages are ambiguous, targets cannot (e.g.,
because they do not understand) or will not (e.g., because they
hold different views) reason their way to an advocated claim to
understand the persuading messages (O'Keefe, 1997). We thus
expect: