A behavioral insights approach to recruiting entrepreneurs for an academic study during the COVID-19 pandemic

What should researchers say when recruiting entrepreneurs to participate in their study? Using a sample of entrepreneurs (N = 1,450) who were being asked to participate in an academic research project, we conducted an experiment to determine recruitment message efficacy. Drawing on best practices from the behavioral insights literature, we developed different email message recruitment statements that were randomly assigned across four phases of our experiment. Results indicate that a message grounded in the “descriptive norms” (i.e., social norms) approach resulted in the highest percentage of participants who clicked on the link to participate in our online survey. We discuss the theoretical as well as practical implications of our work.