Perceived risk of lock-in in the front-end phase of major transportation projects

Abstract

Lock-in is defined as the tendency to continue with an inefficient decision or project proposal. The front-end phase is critical to project success, yet most studies have focused on lock-in in the implementation phase. Moreover, little is known about the way in which decision-makers perceive the risk of lock-in. In this paper we identify determinants of lock-in in the front-end phase and we reveal decision-makers’ perceptions of risk of lock-in. Our findings show that risk attitudes towards lock-in vary with the level of risk aversion. However, this is not sufficiently acute to drive the level of regret needed to avoid lock-in. This implies that decision-makers do not accurately assess the risk of lock-in and as such their risk perceptions are a mediating factor in the formation of lock-in. Based on escalation of commitment, path dependency, and prospect theory, the main contribution lies in providing a more comprehensive understanding of lock-in in the front-end phase.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Cantarelli, C.C. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1376-941X Oglethorpe, D. van Wee, B.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Lock-in; escalation of commitment; path dependency; decision making; risk perception; major transportation project
Dates:	Published: April 2022 Published (online): 11 May 2021 Accepted: 31 March 2021
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	15 Apr 2021 10:01
Last Modified:	26 May 2022 13:50
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s11116-021-10191-7
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:172820

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Perceived risk of lock-in in the front-end phase of major transportation projects

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