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Business Boost, the Cavendish Enterprise productivity improvement trial; using leading management practices with young businesses with fewer than 20 employees to improve productivity.

Last registered on December 19, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Business Boost, the Cavendish Enterprise productivity improvement trial; using leading management practices with young businesses with fewer than 20 employees to improve productivity.
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004111
Initial registration date
April 16, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
April 17, 2019, 8:26 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
December 19, 2019, 5:58 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Cavendish Enterprise

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2019-01-01
End date
2020-03-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The trial addresses the impact of leadership training on business productivity.
The businesses are 3 years old or less, and are employers but have fewer than 20 employees.
The intervention forms part of the UK government sponsored trials programme: Business Basics Fund. It is one of five full trials in the first round of programmes (others are proof of concept trials)
The trial will be completed in 12 months. The training will be completed in the first six months; the research will be completed and reported upon within 12 months.
The measures collected during this period are proxy measures for productivity.
Identifiers of treatment and control groups enable longer term tracking of direct measures of productivity.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Scott, Doug. 2019. "Business Boost, the Cavendish Enterprise productivity improvement trial; using leading management practices with young businesses with fewer than 20 employees to improve productivity.." AEA RCT Registry. December 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4111-1.1
Former Citation
Scott, Doug. 2019. "Business Boost, the Cavendish Enterprise productivity improvement trial; using leading management practices with young businesses with fewer than 20 employees to improve productivity.." AEA RCT Registry. December 19. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/4111/history/59264
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
A series of leadership training workshops are followed by one to one sessions to support implementation of plans
Intervention Start Date
2019-01-01
Intervention End Date
2019-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
An
A plan for the business (to improve productivity)
Action has been undertaken in accordance with the plan
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Baseline information on productivity and planning methods and activities will be collected at the start of the trial from the individual firms involved. After the treatment period is over, the firms will be surveyed to ascertain what the effects of the support received by the treatment group has been, by measuring changes to the baseline information. In addition to the survey, qualitative research (interviews) will be undertaken with the participants in the trial to gather more in-depth, granular information about the effectiveness of the intervention.

Using the chosen methodology the study will be able to evidence the benefits of the approach versus typical 1:1 business support, or no intervention.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
This is a relatively small trial so no formal pairing structure or stratification will be adopted. A simple random number based allocation to the treatment and control groups done in office by a computer has been adopted.
Randomization Unit
Firm
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
150 business owners per randomisation unit
Sample size: planned number of observations
150 business owners per randomisation unit
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
The trial will involve 450 firms in total. This will consist of a treatment group of 150 selected firms selected from the participants in a previous programme, with a further 150 firms from this group used as a control group. A second control group will be drawn at random from the general business population.

Given the assumptions (and assuming no attrition in survey response) the trial will be able to distinguish differences in proportions of around 0.15 (e.g. the difference between 0.4 and 0.55 of firms in each arm having any capability).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Criterion for statistical significance (probability level = 0.05) Power against alternative hypothesis (80%)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials