Transforming Ethical Behaviour in Corporate Environments

A groundbreaking collaboration between behavioural scientists at the University of Warwick, BestAtDigital (BAD), and global healthcare leader GSK suggests a new way of tackling Conflict of Interest Reporting (COI) reporting. With funding from Innovate UK’s Accelerated Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme, the team successfully identified an opportunity for improvement in COI declaration rates. By blending academic insights, behavioural science, and corporate expertise, this partnership is reshaping how organisations embed ethical behaviours in the workplace ensuring a culture that encourages transparent COI reporting across all business areas.

 

Ensuring that employees consistently declare conflicts of interest is essential for organisational transparency and integrity. GSK sought to identify ways of improving reporting rates, by tackling barriers faced by employees which made it difficult to recognise when and how to make declarations or to prioritise them amid other work demands. Amanda Bunten, formerly Director of Behavioural Ethics at GSK stated; “This was an excellent topic to focus our efforts on as it is not only crucial for our reputation as a responsible business, but employees agree a COI should be declared, we just need to make it easier and more attractive to do so. Traditional methods focused on providing detailed informational resources rather than considering specific audience barriers to reporting. Boosts presented an opportunity to tackle these barriers in a simple, actionable format.”

 

BestAtDigital and Warwick’s team applied the concept of behavioural ‘Boosts’ developed by Professor Ralf Hertwig to improve behaviour and sustain change in a real-world setting. These targeted interventions are specifically designed to shift employee behaviour towards more desirable actions, encouraging behaviours that employees recognize as important and necessary. Three intervention designs were trialled:

• Text-only: Clear, concise instructions to guide employees.
• Text + Imagery: Visual enhancements to improve salience and memory retention.
• Professional Identity: Messaging tailored to align with employees’ career aspirations.

Andrea Day, Chief Executive Officer at BAD, , described the collaboration: “Having access to Warwick’s academic expertise allowed us to refine our designs and ensure we were addressing real-world challenges effectively.”

 

The project’s findings were both promising and actionable. Among the three behavioural boosts trialled, the Text + Imagery Boost proved most effective at enhancing employee competence and memory retention, while the Professional Identity Boost led to the highest rate of COI declarations. Overall, 8% of participants across experimental groups reported taking action to declare a COI, a promising result that highlights the scalability and potential of these interventions. Dr. Elaine Gallagher, Behavioural Science Consultant at BAD, noted: “Even modest numbers in our initial trials show how impactful behavioural interventions can be in driving compliance.”

 

The Innovate UK Accelerated Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme played a central role in the success of this project. This government-backed initiative supports collaborations between businesses and academic institutions to drive innovation. The programme allows companies to partner with academic experts to develop new capabilities, solve complex challenges, and bring fresh ideas into practice.

The low-risk environment of the Accelerated KTP allowed for agile testing and experimentation, ensuring that the team could quickly iterate on their ideas and implement effective solutions. This collaborative approach created a platform for both academic and industry stakeholders to work together, ensuring that the interventions were both practical and grounded in real-world insights.

Amanda Bunten reflected on the value of this framework: “This partnership enabled us to run rapid, robust, real-world experiments leveraging academic and applied behavioural science expertise. The concept of ‘boosts’ was new to me, and the results, combined with the ease of testing different boosts with various audiences, has shown us that this approach can be applied to many communication challenges.”

 

The success of this partnership extends beyond GSK’s immediate needs, offering a scalable model for organisations across various sectors looking to embed ethical behaviour in the workplace. BestAtDigital is now positioned to offer validated interventions to clients, while the University of Warwick has strengthened its role as a leader in applied behavioural research. Dr. Charlotte Hills, who led the academic side of the project, remarked: “This partnership bridged academic theory and practical application, delivering insights that will influence future innovations.”

Looking ahead, the team plans to refine these approaches and expand their reach to ensure more organisations benefit from the power of behavioural science in fostering ethical corporate cultures.