My last post was about a surprising piece of research[1] about how language in codes of conduct can affect behaviour within organisations. I’ve since seen some new research[2] on whether the form of codes of conduct influence behaviour – how long they are, how simple they are, and whether visuals help.
It’s something we often hear practitioners query as they engage in new policy commitments or updates to policies. How long should the policy be? How should we balance including what we need to include, while not turning people off by making it too long? How technical, legal, or plain-speaking should the language of the code of conduct be? Should we be using visuals and illustrations?
A team of researchers tested whether the length, form, and legalese of anti-bribery policies improved employee knowledge of rules and subsequent ethical behaviour. The researchers tested:
A traditional policy – a 19-page long anti-bribery policy in “legalese” language
A short policy – a 2-page summary of a traditional policy in “legalese” language
An infographic – a one-page of rules in plain language with icons and illustrations
A control – no policy
They found no difference in how variations of policies affected knowledge or subsequent behaviour. But they found that social norms mattered. Employees who thought others would accept unethical behaviour, did worse in knowledge tests. This sounds obvious, but now we have some data to prove it. And maybe it’s not-so-obvious because I would have thought that obviously longer, legalese-language code of conducts would be harder to understand and affect behaviour. But I’d be wrong, and these researchers have the data to show it. The researchers suggest that organisations should assess the extent to which employees have internalised social norms regarding bribery and corruption as a predictor of unethical behaviour.
In the responsible business and human rights field, there are other issues to consider. Organisations need to communicate policies to people with different levels of literacy, so there may be a particular need for visuals and illustrations to communicate. But, we should not assume that providing these will necessarily lead to behaviour change. Instead, we need to find ways to test our interventions and get data to understand whether our behaviour change interventions work. I found this research super interesting and I’m keen to hear your thoughts.
[1] Kouchaki, M., Gino, F., & Feldman, Y. (2019). The Ethical Perils of Personal, Communal Relations: A Language Perspective. Psychological Science, 30(12), 1745–1766. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619882917
[2] Köbis, N., Oded, S., de Bruijin, A. L., Huang, S., & van Rooij, B. (2022). Is Less More? Field Evidence on the Impact of Anti-bribery Policies on Employee Knowledge and Behavior. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4255148 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4255148