Supplier sustainability risks (SSRs), such as human rights violations, continue to prevail at supplier locations globally. When considering how buying firm managers respond to these complex issues, moral disengagement is potentially a major underlying behavioral mechanism behind inaction toward SSRs. Moral disengagement has been shown to facilitate unethical decisions; and likewise, that men are more prone to moral disengagement compared to women. However, less is known regarding how to mitigate the negative effects of moral disengagement, particularly regarding SSRs. In addition to testing the role of moral disengagement in buyers’ decisions toward SSRs, our goal in this study is to employ mechanisms known as nudges, which are behavioral change interventions aimed at producing socially desirable outcomes, in attempts to mitigate the unethical behavior associated with moral disengagement. We adopt two types of nudges, a text-based nudge outlining moral disengagement and a visual nudge showing affected workers in our proposed scenario. Using controlled behavioral experiments across two separate studies with a total sample of 314 participants, we find evidence for moral disengagement explaining supplier retainment tendencies and that men are more prone to retain suppliers in the presence of SSRs compared to women. We also find that while text-based nudges are a more effective tool for reducing the effects of moral disengagement on supplier retainment decisions, visual nudges are particularly more effective on men.
