Analysis on subjective reasons of difficulty in making termination decision for R&D project

For almost 40 years academics and applications from a wide range have sought to improve management of R&D project. Many people has seen it: the R&D project that takes on such life of its own that it becomes virtually impossible to stop even though all signs point to its ultimate failure. This paper analyzes the subjective reasons of why bad project are so hard to kill. The conjunction of sunk cost bias, self-justification, strategy and individual reasons containing top management, project manager and team members forms decision maker's initial belief stickiness. Besides decision maker's initial belief stickiness, R&D project termination decision is hard to make results from a fervent and widespread belief among decision makers in the inevitability of their projects' ultimate success which is called collective belief. We focus on how the these subjective reasons influence the termination decision. Some useful suggestions are given.