„Digital Nudging“

With the ongoing digitalisation in business and society, an ever-increasing proportion of our daily lives is taking place in digital environments. More and more individuals shop online, consume news and media using their smartphones and even track their health status using smart wearables. This ubiquity of digital technology opens the door for novel approaches to steer human behaviour.

One such approach is digital nudging. It builds upon the concept of nudging which describes adjustments in decision environments that aim to influence people’s judgment, choice or behaviour in a predictable way, helping them to overcome their lack of self-control. Digital nudging extends this analog approach by using information technology and communication technology to guide people’s behaviour in digital choice environments. While the central goal of nudging, according to its original definition, is to “make choosers better off, as judged by themselves” (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008, p. 5), the principle has also been increasingly adopted by marketers trying to nudge people into purchasing their products, giving rise to a vivid ethical debate about nudging.

Learning Objectives

The aim of this seminar is to investigate the concept of digital nudging. For this purpose, students are working in a team and follow a qualitative research approach. Each team will conduct interviews and analyse the collected data.
Finally, each team will write one seminar paper and present the results to the other participants of the course.

Organization

The seminar is organized as a block seminar. Please note that attendance is mandatory. In case of absence, you will be excluded from the whole seminar and your admission to this seminar expires.
The seminar language is German. However, you have the opportunity to write and present your seminar paper in English.
The evaluation of the module performance is composed as follows:

• 67 percent on the written output
• 33 percent on the final presentation

In order to pass the seminar, both partial performances must be passed.

Scheduling

The dates for the upcoming winter semester 2021/22 are as follows: