Interview with Leonie Decrinis, PhD at the CBS Sustainability Centre, Copenhagen Business School

September 5th, 2022

Sarah Netter : Leonie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today about your PhD. Could you give us a brief glimpse into what it is that you do?

Leonie Decrinis : Sure! I am Leonie and I have been a PhD at MSC since January 2021. I am focusing my PhD on sustainable / responsible employee behaviour, and I am particularly interested into studying nudging as an approach or tool to guide employees. Nudges are modifications in their choice environment to guide people without financial incentives or mandates, and there are very different examples of nudges. One of the most known ones is “defaults”, where people are opted into certain options. For instance, regarding organ donations in some countries, the default is to donate your organs, while in others this is not the case and you actively need to take a decision. And of course, this makes huge differences in outcomes. And a default would be a classic example of a nudge that works for very unconscious systems where people are not aware and therefore it is often criticized. But there are also other nudges that can be applied, and these are the nudges I study more. For instance, small reminders to remind employees about completing certain task or the use of social norms to emphasise positive peer behaviour within the organisation and so on.

Sarah: You already talked about a few different nudges. Are there any specific cases or specific nudges that you are focusing on in your work?

Leonie: Exactly. Basically, I am doing a paper-based PhD, so my first paper is a literature review, the second one is a conceptual paper, and the third one is an empirical paper. And in this empirical paper, together with my co-authors, we are testing specific nudges in a company. In our case it is Porsche, the sportscar company in Germany. We are testing three different types of nudges in form of messages that employees receive before they are brought to choose their company or leasing cars. The intention of those nudges is to guide the employees to choose electric cars as the sustainable options. There we test one message that emphasizes the emotional character of electric cars, that tries to create emotional bonds of electric cars with Porsche as a brand. The other nudge is more of a normative nudge that calls on employees to be ambassadors for sustainable Porsche Future. The third nudge is a so-called disclosure nudge, where we disclose the financial gains of driving financial vehicles. That would be some examples.

Sarah: We always have these preconceptions before we start with a new project or in your case with your PhD. You have done your literature review before you entered the field. Was there one thing that really surprised you?

Leonie: It is hard to think of something that completely surprised me, but something that I became more and more aware of is a thing that might be typical for doing a PhD. In the beginning I started out very broad and very ambitious. I was thinking of not only nudging employees, but also the heads of organisations and wanted to really contribute to the broad field of sustainability. Then through time, you realise that it is impossible. I think something that I am still trying to do is finding that small little niche in the literature, where you think this is where I can contribute and this I where I can make a difference. And in a way also cut down on your ambitions. For your own sake and time.

Sarah: I think that you are right, this appears to be a quite common experience for PhD students, with a huge part of the learning concerning the process and not so much the actual research. If you should give advice to an aspiring PhD student, what would your number one recommendation be?

Leonie: First of all, really think ahead of a topic that you are interested in. I would only recommend doing a PhD if you have a topic that you are ambitious about and think that you can spend 3 or 4 years working on. Otherwise, I think it is going to be a painful journey. But secondly, do not be scared to reach out to people who inspire you, who could be potential supervisors, or who could give you feedback on how the idea could be feasible to implement and so on.

Sarah: You mentioned how important it is to find a topic that really interests you. Can you recall the moment when you decided that the topic of your PhD would be worthwhile studying?

Leonie: For me it was really a process. During my undergraduate studies, I worked for Lucia Reisch who used to be a professor at MSC and now is in Cambridge. Therefore, I was quite familiar with her research, and I knew about nudging and sustainable behaviour, and I knew it was something that I was interested in. But for my master’s I went quite in a different direction, and I did not really think about this so much anymore. However, after that I started an internship at the OECD, in the behavioural insights team. There the idea was to experiment with nudges within the organisation, to change organisational behaviour in different areas. We were four interns or trainees hired for that programme and two of them were doing a PhD. What they were doing sounded exciting. I could learn a lot from them and how they approach different situations from their experience as PhD. That was really the moment where I thought I would like to do a PhD and build on that, to investigate nudging within organisations - because that is an area where nudges are not studied so much yet, but I think have a huge potential.

Sarah: You already mentioned you started your PhD a year and a half ago. What are the next steps for you in the process?

Leonie: That is a good question. The first year is about getting familiar with the whole process and it passes so fast. The last half a year was nice because you feel comfortable and there is not too much pressure of thinking ahead and so on. So, I was just enjoying it. But of course, now becomes a time where I start to think ahead. I have been to conferences this summer, which was nice. Talking to people you learn that if you want to continue this academic career, you need to start thinking were the journey is supposed to go one year ahead of time. As for concrete next steps, I will be going to another conference this week. I am choosing this opportunity to get to know other scholars who might be interesting to work with, to get inspired, to look for potential opportunities and then I also go on a research stay in January in Cambridge with Lucia. I hope to make new contacts and meet her team there, but also other scholars in the Business School who are relevant for my work. I am taking it step by step and I hope that after my research stay, I have a better idea of the next steps and where to go.

Sarah: Thank you so much for taking your time and all the best for your journey.