Understanding the Behavioural Drivers of Organisational Decision-Making: Executive Summary

The Government has set out a desire to cut red tape for business, and a ‘one in, two out’ rule for business regulations forms an explicit part of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) policy. The prospect of less reliance on regulation and legal levers requires governmental departments and agencies to influence the behaviours of organisations via other means . A need has been identified to understand the generalisable/common behavioural factors which explain organisational behaviours and influence organisational decision-making and change and, in particular, those influences that do not centre on fiscal incentives or penalties, or direct means of regulation such as inspections or reporting requirements.

This is a summary of the rapid evidence assessment (REA) which was undertaken by the Institute for Employment Studies has been produced in response to an identified need to address the following overarching research questions:

• What does the existing evidence tell us about the behavioural factors which explain organisational behaviours and influence organisational decision-making?
• Are any of these insights (i) generalisable across multiple organisation types, and (ii) utilisable by those seeking to influence organisations’ behaviours and/or decision-making?

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• Read the full research report
• Explore the tool that resulted from this research