  In this research, we investigate the impact of delegating decision making to
information technology (IT) on an important human decision bias - the sunk cost
effect. To address our research question, we use a unique and very rich dataset
containing actual market transaction data for approximately 7,000 pay-per-bid
auctions. Thus, unlike previous studies that are primarily laboratory
experiments, we investigate the effects of using IT on the proneness to a
decision bias in real market transactions. We identify and analyze irrational
decision scenarios of auction participants. We find that participants with a
higher monetary investment have an increased likelihood of violating the
assumption of rationality, due to the sunk cost effect. Interestingly, after
controlling for monetary investments, participants who delegate their decision
making to IT and, consequently, have comparably lower behavioral investments
(e.g., emotional attachment, effort, time) are less prone to the sunk cost
effect. In particular, delegation to IT reduces the impact of overall
investments on the sunk cost effect by approximately 50%.
