Paper Number

2978

Paper Type

Complete

Description

As corporate emissions contribute substantially to climate change, policymakers are implementing regulations to enforce more sustainable business processes. Consequently, companies are seeking strategies to encourage pro-environmental employee behavior. A promising strategy is digital nudging. However, existing research on digital nudging in a corporate context is scarce and neglects that business processes typically involve multi-stage decisions. Thus, when implementing digital nudging, it is essential to ensure that employees consistently choose sustainable options. With a scenario-based online experiment, we therefore investigate whether digital nudges encourage sustainable choices and if they have spillover effects on subsequent non-nudged decisions. For our experiment, we chose a two-stage decision in terms of booking a business trip. We find that digital nudges encourage pro-environmental employee behavior within every decision stage in which a digital nudge is applied. However, we do not find spillover effects of digital nudges on subsequent non-nudged decision stages.

Comments

05-SocImpact

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Dec 15th, 12:00 AM

Effects of Digital Nudging in Multi-Stage Decisions - Experimental Evidence on Pro-Environmental Employee Behavior

As corporate emissions contribute substantially to climate change, policymakers are implementing regulations to enforce more sustainable business processes. Consequently, companies are seeking strategies to encourage pro-environmental employee behavior. A promising strategy is digital nudging. However, existing research on digital nudging in a corporate context is scarce and neglects that business processes typically involve multi-stage decisions. Thus, when implementing digital nudging, it is essential to ensure that employees consistently choose sustainable options. With a scenario-based online experiment, we therefore investigate whether digital nudges encourage sustainable choices and if they have spillover effects on subsequent non-nudged decisions. For our experiment, we chose a two-stage decision in terms of booking a business trip. We find that digital nudges encourage pro-environmental employee behavior within every decision stage in which a digital nudge is applied. However, we do not find spillover effects of digital nudges on subsequent non-nudged decision stages.