Ethical issues

There are some ethical concerns that need to be discussed and mitigated with regards to the proper conduct of the quasi-experiment in this thesis. This section will outline how we dealt with concerns regarding potential harm to participants, lack of informed consent, privacy, and deception, as well as data management.

5.7.1 Potential harm to participants

Researchers are required to minimize potential harm to participants (Shadish, Cook, and Campbell 2002, 281, Bryman and Bell 2011, 128). This also includes harm to participants’ self-esteem (Diener and Crandall, 1978 cited in Bryman and Bell 2011).

One potential source of harm to participants is that participants in the experimental group may experience feelings of embarrassment if they feel they are ‘caught’ not recycling because of the nudge we used in our communication.

This may harm their self-esteem. In reality, we expect the risk of this happening to be quite low, as all participants should already know they are required to recycle their waste. Another important point is that the idea using activation of social norms to change behaviour is to induce a feeling of ‘unpleasantness’ because the established norms are not followed. We therefore believe the end (i.e. improving recycling behaviour by encouraging people to do what is already required of them through conducting our study) justifies the means (i.e. taking the risk that the

‘nudged’ participants may be embarrassed when they feel ‘caught’ not recycling).

In order to further minimize this risk, we also avoided asking participants if they recycle or not when we handed out equipment as part of our intervention.

5.7.2 Informed consent

Informed consent could not be obtained from the experimental and control group prior to the pick-analysis because this could severely skew our results due awareness of being tested (Bryman and Bell 2011, 281). Such an effect would damage the results, as we did not want respondents to recycle more than they

normally would just because they knew they were being observed. We did get consent to perform the analysis from the director of the housing cooperative.

Informed consent was obtained from questionnaire respondents. The questionnaire was prefaced with an information sheet based on the Norwegian Social Science Data Services’ guidelines, which stated the purpose of the study, that anonymity would be ensured in the final study, and that participation was voluntary and could be withdrawn at all times. Each participant was assigned a sheet number so that they were able to withdraw even after they had handed in their responses.

5.7.3 Privacy

Some participants may feel like their privacy had been invaded if they knew we had analysed their waste. We also knew we would find personal information in the waste. Because of this we were careful not to include any personal information in illustrative pictures we took of the waste. The only other data noted in the pick analysis was the weight of each fraction.

When collecting the questionnaires from the respondents, we chose to collect them through an envelope hanging the entrance hall of building. This was chosen as a compromise, because we knew we would not get the responses required in a postal questionnaire and it was not possible to obtain email addresses of the respondents. During the time the sheets were in this envelope it was technically possible for the participant’s neighbours to look at the questionnaire and work out who filled it out based on the background information. However, we believe it reasonable to assume little harm would come from this, as it may be assumed that neighbours already know personal information such as number of children, ethic origin about each other. Income information is also possible to obtain through official sources. If the participants still felt this was too great an invasion of privacy, it was made clear they could refrain from answering the questionnaire.

In terms of data management, the study is approved by and conducted in accordance with the Norwegian Social Science Data Services guidelines and requirements.

5.7.4 Deception

The informational nudge regarding food waste was a modified version of the truth because we used data from the control group pre-test as basis for this number.

This wording may be considered a form of deception, as we twisted the number a bit. The number ‘8 of 10’ reflects the percentage ‘uncontaminated’ green bags (i.e.

food waste bags not containing other waste), and does not take into account the food waste that was thrown into residual waste. Despite this, we argue that the wording was appropriate, as the control group correctly sorted 50% of bags. We wrote ‘of your neighbours’ to be more general, as it would be an invasion of the control group’s privacy to claim that 8 of 10 of your neighbours living in ”those specific apartments” recycle their food waste.

5.7.5 Funding of the study and conflict of interest

This study was written with the support of Oslo Municipality’s Agency for Waste Management. They have covered operational costs that were incurred during the study, such as rent of equipment, vaccines, protective clothing, and paper and printing costs. No other funding was received.

Other costs (e.g. taxi trips, miscellaneous operating costs) were covered by the researches themselves. No grants besides a universal scholarship from the State Educational Loan Fund were received during the writing of this study.

It should also be mentioned that our supervisor at BI Norwegian Business School was the project manager for the design and implementation of the waste management system in Oslo, and is currently employed there at a part-time basis in addition to her academic work at BI.

5.8 Summary

To summarize, this thesis followed a deductive strategy and a mainly quantitative approach, which allowed possible causal relationships to be inferred. A quasi-experiment was designed to test the two hypotheses (c.f. Chapter 3), through the use of a waste analysis and questionnaire to investigate actual and intended recycling behaviour. Primary data was collected through conducting a pick analysis before and after the experiment intervention, as well as through a postal

questionnaire. Other sources of supportive primary data and secondary data were also described.

The study was carefully designed to ensure the quality of research in terms of internal and external validity, reliability, and replicability. The measures taken to mitigate any threats to the quality of the study, as well as any ethical issues encountered, have been discussed.