What are the incentives behind organisations’ usage of nudges in sustainable marketing? : And is the dualistic definition of the term influencing how organisations apply nudging?

Abstract: Problem: Currently, there are two definitions of nudging, one that is connected to sustainable development and another one that is not. This can create confusion for researchers and customers and could potentially lead to greenwashing when the incentive of the nudge does not match with the best outcome of the person being nudged. Purpose: The purpose is to explore how organisations interpret nudging and how their underlying incentives affect the use of nudging in practice. Aim: This research aims to explore the incentives behind organisations use of nudging for sustainable marketing in practice. The organisations incentives will be connected to any of the dualistic definitions of nudging in order to see which of the definitions that are aligned to practice. Method: This research is a qualitative study and has been conducted under an interpretivist paradigm. It has made use of semi-structured interviews to collect primary data, as well as newspaper articles and web sites to collect secondary data. To analyse the data, a general analytical procedure was used. The data was presented in a within-case analysis together with a cross-case analysis where the empirical data was compared with the theoretical framework to discuss and answer the research questions. Result and Conclusions: The comparisons showed that three out of five organisations have the main incentive of earning money from their nudge despite their sustainability agenda. Another finding was that only one organisation exclusively uses the definition of nudging that is connected to libertarian paternalism. These findings contribute to the literature and informs customers that nudges can be used for several purposes.