In times where a lot of employees work remotely there`s a growing interest on the impact of the various communications channels to the behaviour of subjects.
As individual lying behaviour is a key topic for behavioural and experimental economic research our Lecturer, Alumnus and Corporate Responsibility Manager at Fond of GmbH Dr. Julian Conrads (Department of Corporate Development and Business Ethics, University of Cologne) & Dr. Sebastian Berger (Institute for Organization and Human Resources, University Bern) investigated on the effects of dishonest behaviour across communication channels who differ in distance and anonymity (face-to-face, in-lab telephone, in-lab web-form, and home web-form).
The study asked the participants to flip a coin four times and report back through the different channels how many times the coin had landed on "Tails". Each time the coin landed on tails: the participants received a monetary reward. However, only the participants in the study themselves knew how often "Tails" actually landed. Dishonest answers were to be found across all communication channels to maximize payoff, but extreme outcomes increased in distance and anonymity of the channel. Partial lying - i.e. reporting that three times "Tails" appeared - decreased in distance and anonymity - here, full lies were often given and the number was reported four times. Furthermore, the study revealed that women tend to be more dishonest if the method of back reporting is more anonymous.
“The research reveals that an individual’s lying cost may be affected by social distancing concerns, and this effect seems to be more pronounced for women than men. Women were more likely to report landing on tails more often, whereas men’s behaviour does not change, despite the monetary incentive,” says Julian Conrads, who is also Corporate Responsibility Manager of the Start Up FOND OF.
The results give relevant advice to decision makers which communication channel is reliable to organise communication among employees, especially in remote work places when face-to-face communication is not possible and need to take into account that their design choice affects behaviour and might lead to detrimental outcomes effects.