Final Project: Design an Intervention to Solve a Managerial Problem

Final Project:  Design an Intervention to Solve a Managerial Problem

Your group (3‐4 students) should develop a behavioral intervention to address a managerial problem at a specific organization.
Example: The problem could be high rates of worker absenteeism at a specific U.S.
manufacturing facility. The behavioral intervention could be mailings to workers emphasizinglow absenteeism rates among their peers (social proof).  

The project must:

1. Identify a specific managerial problem and a specific site (within specific organization) where it arises.

2. Apply one (or more) of the topics from this course to solve the managerial problem. The intervention you propose must rely on persuasion techniques covered in the course, although it may rely on additional techniques.  However, it should not rely on neoclassical incentives (such as payment or punishment for specific behavior) or restrictions (e.g. outright bans). (Neoclassical solutions for the example described above, which would not be appropriate interventions for this project, might be to impose fines for absenteeism or propose restrictions on absenteeism such as “three absences in a month and you are fired”.)

3. Articulate the problem you are solving and how and why your proposal should be implemented by the organization. Aim to convince management at the organization in question that they should implement your intervention and explain how to deploy it. Concrete implementation details can be helpful.