During the last few decades, ‘Nudge’ has become a topic of intense interest, deliberation, and debate. Despite its beneficial outcomes, the concept of nudge is yet to be adequately studied in the organizational context. To address this gap, our research aims to assess if nudges, specifically social norm nudges, can improve an essential organizational outcome, i.e., task effectiveness. Moreover, we aim to examine the impact of exaggerated social norm nudges on individuals’ task effectiveness. Drawing on the focus theory of normative conduct and the goal-setting theory, we propose that social norm nudges influence individuals’ task effectiveness. Moreover, we assert that this influence can be extended to exaggerated social norm nudges. However, exaggeration beyond an inflection point results in the loss of the effect of social norm nudges on individuals’ task effectiveness. In total, we interacted with approximately 1500 students and present the results of 12 studies to showcase these relationships with the two different types of social norm nudges, namely descriptive and injunctive, and across various types of tasks, including tasks of varied difficulty levels, tasks that invoke different levels of interest among the participants, and tasks that require varied levels of creativity for the participants to be successful. In general, we have found support for the hypothesized relationships. The present research carries significant implications for academicians as well as practitioners.
