The Behaviourally Informed Organization (Behaviourally Informed Organizations) (Behaviorally Informed Organizations)

325 Pages·2021·5.799 MB·English

by  Dilip Soman (editor), Catherine Yeung (editor)

THE BEHAVIORALLY INFORMED ORGANIZATION
BEHAVIOURALLY INFORMED
ORGANIZATIONS
To date, there has been a lack of practical advice for organizations
based on behavioural research. The Behaviourally Informed Orga-
nizations series fills this knowledge gap with a strategic perspec-
tive on how governments, businesses, and other organizations
have embedded behavioural insights into their operations. The
series is rooted in work by academics and practitioners co-creating
knowledge via the Behaviourally Informed Organizations Part-
nership (www.biorgpartnership.com), and is written in a highly
accessible style to highlight key ideas, pragmatic frameworks, and
prescriptive outcomes based on illustrative case studies.
The Behaviorally Informed
Organization
EDITED BY DILIP SOMAN AND
CATHERINE YEUNG
WITH A FOREWORD BY CASS R. SUNSTEIN
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
Rotman-UTP Publishing
An imprint of University of Toronto Press
Toronto Buffalo London
utorontopress.com
© University of Toronto Press 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: The behaviorally informed organization / edited by Dilip Soman and Catherine
Yeung ; with a foreword by Cass Sunstein.
Names: Soman, Dilip, editor. | Yeung, Catherine, 1976– editor.
Description: Series statement: Behaviourally informed organizations | Includes
bibliographical references.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200344285 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200344439 | ISBN
9781487507893 (cloth) | ISBN 9781487537173 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487537166 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Organizational behavior – Case studies. | LCSH: Organizational
change – Case studies. | LCSH: Human behavior – Case studies. | LCSH:
Psychology, Industrial – Case studies.
Classification: LCC HD58.7 .B456 2021 | DDC 302.3/5 – dc23
ISBN 978-1-4875-0789-3 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-4875-3717-3 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-3716-6 (PDF)
Printed in Canada
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, the Canada
Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of
Ontario, for our publishing activities.
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword: A Very Short Guide to Nudging xi
cass r. sunstein
Preface: The Behaviorally Informed Organization xix
Part One: The Behaviorally Informed Organization: An Agenda
1 The Science of Using Behavioral Science 3
dilip soman
2 Embedding Behavioral Insights in Organizations 23
bing feng, melanie kim, and dilip soman
3 Why Should Organizations Want to Be Behaviorally
Informed? 41
melaina vinski
4 Gut Check: Why Organizations That Need to Be
Behaviorally Informed Resist It 51
shannon o’malley and kelly peters
vi Contents
Part Two: Overarching Insights and Tools
5 Seeing Sludge 73
daniel cowen, niketana kannan,
and dilip soman
6 A Guide to Guidelines 96
sophie duncan, melanie kim, and dilip soman
7 Boundedly Rational Complex Consumer
Continuum 111
derek ireland
8 A Scarcity of Attention 129
matthew hilchey and j. eric t. taylor
Part Three: Examples of Behavioral Initiatives
from Business and Policy
9 Workplace Habits and How to Change Them 155
kyle murray and shirley chen
10 Humanizing Financial Services with Behavioral
Science 170
jane howe, alex henderson,
jennifer nachshen, and sarah reid
11 Choice Architecture in Programs and Policy 184
elizabeth hardy, lauryn conway,
and haris khan
12 Helping Low-Income Canadians to File Taxes
and Access Benefits 201
jennifer robson
13 Online Privacy 216
melanie kim, kim ly, and dilip soman
Contents vii
14 Behavioral Science for International Development 232
abigail dalton, varun gauri, and renos vakis
Part Four: Making It Work
15 Building Partnerships for Behavioral-Science
Initiatives in the Public Sector 255
mathieu audet, emilie eve gravel,
rebecca friesdorf, and hasti rahbar
16 Behavioral Science in Policy and Government:
A Roadmap 272
catherine yeung and sharon tham
Contributors 291
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Acknowledgments
The co-editors thank all the members of the Behaviourally Informed
Organizations partnership (biorgpartnership.com) housed at the
Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) research cen-
ter for their many comments and suggestions on the manuscript.
Special thanks are given to the founding project manager, Melanie
Kim, and to BEAR team members Bing Feng, Matthew Hilchey, Liz
Kang, Aki Kim, Cindy Luo, and Renante Rondina for assisting with
project coordination and preparation of the manuscript. This book
project is funded by BEAR, and by a grant from the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and we are
grateful for their support.
The Foreword draws upon a brief essay: Sunstein, C.R. (2014).
Nudging: A Very Short Guide. Journal of Consumer Policy, 37, 583–8.
Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-014-9273-1. The mate-
rial is used with permission of the publisher.
The material in chapter 2 is an expanded and revised version of
an earlier report: Feng, B., Oyunsuren, J., Tymko, M., Kim, M., and
Soman, D. (2018). How Should Organizations Best Embed and Harness
Behavioural Insights? A Playbook. Toronto: Behavioural Economics in
Action at Rotman (BEAR) Report Series. Available at http://www
.rotman.utoronto.ca/bear. The authors thank BEAR for permission
to use materials from the report in this chapter.