Prior research suggests that the use of third party (independent) consultants to review on-going projects is an effective way to recognize and prevent escalation of commitment. This study uses an experiment to investigate whether the type of consultant (internal or external) and the stated purpose of the task assigned to the consultant influences willingness to communicate concerns about a project manager’s decision to escalate an unprofitable project to top management. We find that explicitly asking internal consultants to communicate concerns reduces both their tendency to disagree with the project manager’s escalation decision and their willingness to communicate their concerns. In contrast, external consultants’ willingness to communicate escalation concerns is not affected by the stated purpose of their assigned task. Our findings have implications for organizations seeking to engage consultants as part of their management control to prevent project escalation.

先前的研究表明，使用第三方（独立）顾问来审查正在进行的项目是识别和防止承诺升级的有效方法。这项研究使用一个实验来调查顾问的类型（内部还是外部）以及指定给顾问的任务目的是否影响就项目经理将无利可图的项目升级为高层管理人员的决定传达担忧的意愿。我们发现，明确要求内部顾问传达关注点可以减少他们不同意项目经理升级决策的趋势，也可以减少他们传达关注点的意愿。相反，外部顾问表达升级问题的意愿不受其指定任务的既定目的的影响。