Everyday examples for Management terms

Yes, exactly that. For your edification.

ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT

Definition: an increased commitment to a previous decision despite evidence that it may have been wrong

Example: You realise that the person you are dating is terrible. Your mom, your friends, and your 6th grade Science teacher told you so. Some of his behaviours such as never returning calls, forgetting to stick to commitments, and misogynistic Facebook posts may have planted a seed of doubt in your heart but you being you decided to ignore it. You can't admit you're wrong, so you make more room in your heart for this person and devote more hours to them. Plus you've spent a lot of time, money, and effort trying to woo this person; backing out would mean all of that was a waste, even though looking for alternatives might have been highly beneficial for you. Staying with this person is just loss aversion. Who said human beings aren't rational? That Nobel laureate of course but what does he know?

SELF-SERVING BIAS

Definition: the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors

Example: Very self-explanatory but it would be sinful to not mention the students who credit only their brains when they ace a course but have a huge list of other factors and people to point fingers at when they flunk a subject or do not get a desired grade. The teachers being bad at their jobs and putting too much pressure on students are of course favourites, and the subject being boring to them or the education system being flawed all of a sudden are honourable mentions.

ASSUMED SIMILARITY

Definition: the belief that others are like oneself

Example: What better example of this phenomenon in our daily lives than the act of giving and receiving gifts. Gift-givers of course are the ones afflicted with this condition where they simply assume the person they will gift is like them and will like what they like. So of course when special days come around, these gift-givers present these people with books, comics, superhero merchandise and makeup that they, not the person they are gifting, will like.

UNRELATED DIVERSIFICATION

Definition: when a company grows by merging with or acquiring firms in different and unrelated industries

Example: Imagine yourself to be a firm that makes decisions to achieve certain results in life. You decide to apply to a university abroad and realise that it is encouraged to have the dreaded thing called ECA when applying. Regardless of what you're actually passionate about and not paying heed to the people repeatedly telling you that depth is more important than breadth, you try all kinds of activities by dipping a toe into each pool but never really taking a deep dive into any one of them. That, is unrelated diversification.

THEORY X

Definition: the assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, avoid responsibility, and must be coerced to perform

Example: Teachers make this assumption about students and they are almost always correct. Of course, some teachers may start out as believers in Theory Y which is an assumption that employees are creative, enjoy work, seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction. However, these novices soon realise that without cutting marks for absences, not locking the door fifteen minutes after the class has started, and caving in to student's requests to shorten the syllabus and curve grades does not really motivate students to learn without pressure but rather allows them to pass without effort.