Organizations construct justifications for expansions they already have reason to want

Evidence

The TVA justified the increase of electricity supply (for which more power plants had to be built) by spreading the gospel that economic development of the Valley was dependent on the availability of cheap electricity. Power supply should stay ahead of the demand in order to create growth. When from the 1940s onwards the interests of national defense also justified increasing supply, the tail was beginning to wag the dog (Hargrove, 1994, p. 63 and pp. 125–127). — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 278

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the learned claim that the Army manufactured the split-basing problem to justify a new base — institutions generate the rationale for projects already chosen.