Obtaining Management Support for IT Projects: A Persuasion View

While it is widely agreed that obtaining top management support is critical for the success of IT projects, little research has provided prescriptive implications for how such support can be obtained. Much of the prescriptive literature has argued for cognition-based approaches, where managers are persuaded to participate in an IT project using logical arguments and factual evidence. We apply a persuasion view to investigate how management can be persuaded to participate in an IT project. Through a survey, we demonstrate the importance of not only cognition, but affect; one can influence top management’s emotions to support an IT project. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of two persuasion behaviors by the project team on management attitude and participation. Both persuasion behaviors induce management participation by increasing management’s cognitive and emotional involvement in the project, albeit with emotion being a stronger predictor of management participation. Some important implications for theory and practice are discussed.