The escalation of commitment theory owes a great deal to the works published by Staw and his team (Staw 1976; 1981; Staw and Ross 1987; Simonson and Staw 1992). Staw considers global action processes, not isolated actions: ‘many most difficult decisions an individual must make are choices not about what to do in an isolated instance but about the fate of an entire course of action’.