Abstract
An individual’s accountability to oneself leads to self-regulatory behaviour. A field experiment afforded an opportunity to test this relation, given that external accountability conditions were absent. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used to test the hypothesis. A group of full-time resident management students, n ≈ 550, take four meals during the day in the institute mess. As a part of the experiment, food wastage in the form of leftovers on the plates of subjects was measured. As a pre-test, the measurement occurred at two levels. Subjects could see how much they are adding to the total waste by looking at a weighing scale placed under a waste basket, and they could also see the total waste data for each of the four meals for the day and a day earlier displayed at a prominent place. After 105 days, the weighing scale under the basket was removed, and as a post-test measurement, the total waste data for the four meals were noted down for another 72 days. A manipulation test indicated that the experiment has had the desired effect of invoking self-accountability in subjects during the pre-test phase, and diluting it during the post-test phase. Time series analysis of pre-test and post-test data indicated that the wastage data decreased in the pre-test phase. However, the post-test waste data showed an increase over a period of time. The results indicate that accountability conditions like social norms invoke self-accountability cognition leading to self-regulatory behaviours in individuals.
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Notes
Based on ACF and PACF plots for dinner wastage figures for series 2, y t−5 and y t−10 also seem to have influence on y t . Although there seems no logic for these effects, we included these lags also in Eq. 1 and ran regression again. Except that it improved \(R_{\text{adj}}^{2}\) to 17 %, and ACF and PACF plots for residuals fell within 95 % limits, and time (t) remained insignificant but in positive direction.
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Appendix 1: Online Survey Questionnaire
Appendix 1: Online Survey Questionnaire
A major endeavour of the outgoing messcom 2006–2007 has been to reduce food wastage on all counts. One of the sources identified by committee was the food unconsumed and leftover by student members in their plates. One of the obvious reason was lower quality of food on a given day, and uneatables like peels and chicken bones. But the initial waste figures suggested wastage much beyond estimates accounted for by these reasons. To understand better as to why this is happening, we started collecting waste, measuring it, and displaying it in the mess. We are conducting a short survey related to our study. All mess members are requested to respond to it online within a period of next week. It will not take more than 5 min of your time. It will be your contribution to a noble cause, as we may leave a small legacy for future batches.
Kindly tick mark in one empty box against each question on six-point scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’.
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Dhiman, A., Sen, A. & Bhardwaj, P. Effect of Self-Accountability on Self-Regulatory Behaviour: A Quasi-Experiment. J Bus Ethics 148, 79–97 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2995-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2995-4