The Behaviorally Informed Organization

Every organization is fundamentally in the business of behavior change, whether it be a government trying to get a business to comply with environmental regulations, a business persuading its customers to be loyal to its products, or a financial institution encouraging a client to start saving for retirement. Behavior change is critical to organizational success, but despite its centrality to organizations, we do not have a good understanding of how organizations can successfully employ insights from behavioral science in their operations. To address this gap, this book develops an overarching framework for using behavioral science. It shows how behavioral insights (BI) can be embedded in organizations to achieve better outcomes, improve the efficiency of processes, and maximize stakeholder engagement.

This edited volume provides an enterprise-wide strategic perspective on how governments, businesses, and other organizations have embedded BI into their operations. Contributions by academics and practitioners from the Behaviourally Informed Organizations partnership highlight pragmatic frameworks and prescriptive outcomes via illustrative case studies. Featuring a foreword by Cass R. Sunstein, this book investigates key findings from BI, with an eye toward how it can be used to solve problems and seize opportunities in diverse organizations.

Dilip Soman is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Behavioural Science and Economics, a professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, and the director of Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) research centre.


Catherine Yeung is an associate professor of marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.