The roles of mood and conscientiousness in reporting of self‐committed errors on IT projects
Authors: Lee, Hyung Koo; Keil, Mark; Smith, H. Jeff; Sarkar, Sumantra
Journal: Information Systems Journal (2017)
DOI: 10.1111/isj.12111
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Over the past two decades, several studies have investigated the factors that lead to and away from individuals' reporting of truthful status information on IT projects. These studies have typically considered the reporting decisions of an individual who is aware of negative status information that is attributed to others' errors. These previous studies have seldom examined the situation in which the individual is considering whether to report information about his or her own self‐committed error on the project. In this study, we consider this largely unexamined phenomenon. In this context, we focus on the influences that different affective states and a personality trait (conscientiousness) can have on error reporting decisions. Specifically, we investigate how different moods (i.e. positive vs. negative) and conscientiousness can influence error reporting decisions in the context of an IT project. Based on the results from a controlled laboratory experiment, we find that individuals in a negative mood are more willing to report their errors compared to individuals in a positive mood. Conscientiousness also positively influences individual…