Digital Nudges for Social Behaviour Change: A Platform Fostering Inclusion through Personal Interactions

Abstract

Research indicates that fostering an inclusive culture is valuable for organisations, leading to better job satisfaction, higher innovation in teams and higher company profits. However, there is no consensus on how to effectively stimulate inclusive behaviour of employees through technology. Moreover, research is lacking on how individual employees can contribute to this problem by having one-on-one interactions with other employees. That led us to explore how digital nudges can be used to promote inclusive behaviour through workplace interactions. The study was conducted through the use case of Burst my Bubble, an application developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The research question was answered through three sub-questions regarding the effect of the current implemented nudges, the impact of the app on inclusion and the design of new digital nudges. A think-out-loud study, 6-week pilot study and interviews pointed out the difference in barriers experienced by users, resulting in a variety of adoption behaviours. By applying digital nudges aimed at increasing adoption, enhanced engagement with making diverse connections can lead to increased platform impact on inclusive behaviour by its users. However, our results should be viewed in the light of several limitations, mostly due to a relatively low number of participants and a low adoption rate. Still, based on combining the Persuasive Systems Design framework, Persuasive by Design model and personas, we have been able to create promising suggestions for improved nudges could be created. The outcome of our proposed list of ten digital nudges strongly indicate that designs promoting inclusive behaviour should comprise reduction, tailoring, social influence, reminders, timing, social comparison, normative influence, self-monitoring, trust and liking. These digital nudges may well sketch a roadmap for future research into interventions that aim to improve inclusiveness within organisations. Furthermore, our novel design method was found useful for designing new nudges. We would recommend future research to further test and improve our design method and results, in order to demonstrate the usefulness of technology based nudges with regards to influencing human behaviour in other contexts.