Exploring the efficacy of behavioural boosts in corporate training
An exciting collaboration between behavioural scientists at the University of Warwick, BestAtDigital (BAD), and global biopharma company 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.
The Challenge of Compliance
GSK aimed to enhance reporting rates, a challenge faced across the industry, by addressing the barriers that made it difficult for employees to recognise when and how to make declarations, or to prioritise them amid competing work demands.
Amanda Bunten, Behavioural Science expert at GSK stated: “This was an excellent topic to focus our efforts on as it is not only a crucial reputational issue for responsible businesses, but also employees generally agree a COI should be declared. It just needs to be 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.
Barriers
Completing such declarations may be limited by:
. Capability barriers - such as not being able to easily recall when one is required.
. Motivation barriers - such as not perceiving declarations to be an attractive prospect.
. Opportunity barriers - such as the perception of not having time to complete one.
What is a boost?
‘Behavioural boosts’ are a relatively new behaviour change intervention developed by Professor Ralf Hertwig that can offer a superior alternative to the commonly used nudge approach, with the potential to promote longer lasting results than nudges (e,g, van Roekel et al., 2022, Hertwig et al, 2025).
Boosts have been shown to be effective in building competency-based behaviour change in areas such as risk management, health, and digital information.
Using Behavioural Boosts to Drive Change
BAD and Warwick’s team applied the concept of behavioural boosts 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 recognise as important and necessary.
There were two key questions guiding our design:
Is it possible to ‘boost’ conflict of interest declarations more effectively than a control?
Is it possible to enhance the efficacy of a boost through the design of its presentation?
In the end, 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.
Achieving Tangible Results
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 significant action, 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.”
Looking to the future
The success of this partnership offers a scalable model for organisations across various sectors looking to embed ethical behaviour in the workplace.
BAD 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 from BAD, who led the academic side of the project, remarked: “This partnership bridged academic theory and practical application, delivering insights that will influence future innovations.”
Amanda Bunten at GSK reflects: “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, has shown us that this approach can be applied in the workplace to drive positive behaviour and decision making.”
Looking ahead, BAD is planning to refine these approaches and expand its reach to ensure more organisations benefit from the power of behavioural science in fostering ethical corporate cultures.
