How should leaders incentive people to maximize their performance?

Last registered on March 02, 2016

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
How should leaders incentive people to maximize their performance?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001090
Initial registration date
March 02, 2016

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
March 02, 2016, 5:29 PM EST

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Norwegian School of Economics

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Norwegian School of Economics

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2016-02-22
End date
2016-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The experiment is designed to study the effects of non-economic incentives in the form of motivating feedback, economic incentives (“pay for performance”) and the relation between them. The two manipulations we wish to study are increased economic incentives and increased positive feedback relative to the control groups. Our design will ensure that these two manipulated variables are the only thing separating the different groups from one another. We wish to study if there are causal connections related to these two manipulations.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hervig, Espen and Henrik Reigstad. 2016. "How should leaders incentive people to maximize their performance?." AEA RCT Registry. March 02. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1090-1.0
Former Citation
Hervig, Espen and Henrik Reigstad. 2016. "How should leaders incentive people to maximize their performance?." AEA RCT Registry. March 02. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1090/history/7100
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2016-02-22
Intervention End Date
2016-02-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The main outcome variable of interest is the task productivity of the participants
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We plan to perform the economic experiment using the 2x2 design. Participants will complete “Slider Task” (Gill & Prowse, 2012). “Slider Task” involves drawing a line with a marker on a line from 0 to exactly 50. The participants have 120 seconds to complete as many sliders as possible.

Participants will be randomized into four different groups, where the first will receive a fixed salary and neutral feedback, the second a fixed salary and positive feedback, the third a pay for performance with neutral feedback, and the fourth pay for performance and positive feedback. The figure below summarizes the method:

Overview treatments
Fixed payment Performance payment
Neutral talk fixed treatment pfp treatment
Motivational talk fixed-moti treatment pfp-moti treatment



Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Public lottery
Randomization Unit
Individual randomization
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
300
Sample size: planned number of observations
300
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
75
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We did a Power Calcualtion in Stata indicating that we needed 300 participants to get significant results with a power of 80 %. We used "Slider Task" Gill and Prowse (2012, American Economic Review) and used a standard deviation 5,4 (from the paper) and a difference in mean between the controll and the treatment group on two sliders.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

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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