Escalation of commitment, read through Staw's self-justification account, explains a cooperative's three-cycle portal rebuild; a classmate reply follows in this finished GM591 Unit 1 board post. Searches like "gm 591 unit 1 assignment example", "gm591 unit 1 sample" and "gm591 unit 1 example" land here.
What a finished GM591 Unit 1 discussion board post looks like
The post runs near four hundred words in the first person, and a reply of about two hundred sits beneath it. Paragraph one puts the facts in order: approval in year one with a [$450,000] budget, the vendor's acquisition [seven] months later and the freeze on its portal product, then two further requests totaling [$650,000], approved without debate. The second paragraph lists what everyone knew: the platform would lose support, no launch date had held, and members were already paying online through the billing vendor's page. The third brings in Staw's 1976 experiment on escalation, in which participants personally responsible for a losing investment put more money behind it, and ties that finding to the general manager's announcement of the portal at an annual meeting. The close drafts the exit clause nobody wrote at approval.
How a GM591 Unit 1 example is structured
The post is ordered as a timeline and then an explanation, because an escalation story told out of sequence hides the moments when stopping was cheapest. Paragraph one is dates and figures only. Paragraph two separates what was known from what was hoped, and cites the evidence for each: the vendor's end-of-support notice, the missed launch dates, the payment page members already used. Paragraph three applies Staw's self-justification account and Keil's later work on software project escalation, and argues that public commitment, not ignorance, kept the money moving. The close is the post's contribution: one sentence, the kind an approval memo could have carried, returning the project to the board if the vendor's product plans changed. Replying to a classmate's stalled school district learning platform, the writer asks who, in that district, could have called a halt without losing standing.
Three budget cycles, dated
Approval, the vendor's acquisition, the product freeze and two further budget requests appear with dates and amounts. Nothing is interpreted yet, so a reader can see exactly when the case for continuing had already failed.
Known, not hoped
The end-of-support notice, [four] missed launch dates and a working payment page elsewhere were all on record. The post shows that nobody lacked information, which moves the explanation away from ignorance and toward commitment.
An announcement at the annual meeting
The general manager had promised members the portal in public. Staw's account of self-justification explains why that promise made each new request easier to approve than the last, and Keil's software studies show the pattern is common.
The sentence nobody wrote
The close drafts it: if the vendor's product plans change materially, the project returns to the board before further spending. A clause like that, set down while everyone was hopeful, would have made halting routine rather than personal.
Reply on a learning platform
A classmate described a school district's learning platform, [two] years late and still funded. The reply asks which administrator could have called a halt without losing standing, and whether anyone was ever given that role.
Where marks go in GM591 Unit 1
First posts in GM591 earn the analysis credit when they explain why a project continued, and lose it when they simply narrate that it did. Blame on one person, usually the sponsor, is the explanation graders see most and credit least, since escalation research describes a pattern ordinary people fall into. A post that shows what was known at each point, with dates, gives the course's selection and termination concepts something to work on. Several sections expect a named mechanism, self-justification, sunk cost reasoning or project escalation, applied to specific moments rather than listed. Posts that end without saying what would have halted the project leave the opening question half answered. On the reply, participation credit follows a question about the classmate's mechanism for ending work, not sympathy for the waste.
Get a GM591 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Pick a project at your own workplace that kept running after its case had collapsed, and note roughly when each warning appeared and who could have halted it. Send that sketch with the Unit 1 prompt and its rubric. A first post comes back free inside 24-48h, the organization and people described by role.
GM591 Unit 1 questions, answered
What if the project eventually succeeded?
It can still carry the post, provided it continued through a period when ending it was the sensible choice on the information available. Success afterward does not prove the continuation was reasoned; it may have been lucky. Say what was known at each decision point and judge the decisions on that, which is how the course usually wants such calls assessed.
Is it fair to criticize my own organization's leaders on the board?
Keep the account factual and the people described by role, and treat their pressures seriously. Escalation research is useful precisely because it explains how capable people keep funding a failing effort, so the post can be critical of the decisions without accusing anyone. Leave out details that would identify the organization to classmates.
Do I need to cite research in a first post?
Most opening boards expect at least one source, and the escalation literature is the natural one here. Staw's early experiments and later studies of software projects give the post a mechanism to apply rather than an opinion to state. One source applied closely to your project typically earns more than three mentioned in passing.