Incentives and team identity in a gamified environment

Last registered on July 19, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Incentives and team identity in a gamified environment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011735
Initial registration date
July 06, 2023

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
July 19, 2023, 11:52 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
The Hotel School, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Arizona State University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-07-10
End date
2024-05-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We want to analyze what is the effect of the team culture on the effectiveness of incentive systems and how the use of team incentives impact individual productivity and team culture.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Casas-Arce, Pablo and Francisco de Asis Martinez Jerez. 2023. "Incentives and team identity in a gamified environment." AEA RCT Registry. July 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11735-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We plan to give some teams a group incentive and to other teams include an individual incentive. The incentive will be a bonus that will be a function of achieving some sales targets.
Intervention (Hidden)
We plan to change the incentive system and the visibility of the progress towards the target.
We will maintain the target number of enrollments for the properties included in the trial.
A new gamified system of performance tracking will be implemented in all the properties included in the trial.
We will change the incentive system for the properties in the trial in two ways:
1.- All the individuals in the property will receive 10% of their bonus if they complete certain training modules.
2a.- Individuals in half of the properties will receive the remaining 90% as a function of the property achieving a property target number of enrollments.
2b.- Individuals in the other half of the properties will receive the remaining 90% as follows: 30% as a function of the property achieving a property target number of enrollments and 60% as a function of the individual achieving an individual enrollment target.
Properties in the control group will receive 100% of their bonus as a function of the property achieving the target number of enrollments.
Intervention Start Date
2023-07-10
Intervention End Date
2024-01-10

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Number of customers enrolled in the loyalty program.
Percentage of customers enrolled in the loyalty program over the total set of addressable customers.
Change in the culture and team identity of the property.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Culture and team identity will be measure through an instrument that will ask team members about their level of engagement with the company and the team.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We plan to give some teams a group incentive and to other teams include an individual incentive. The incentive will be a bonus that will be a function of achieving some sales targets.
Experimental Design Details
Our setting is an international hospitality company headquartered in the US. We will be running an intervention on a set of properties, some of them are managed by the company and some by a third party. Currently the company does not have visibility to the performance of individuals at the properties managed by a third party.
The main performance measure we will be focusing on is enrollment in the loyalty program.
At the beginning of the pilot we plan to administer a survey to measure the level of team and company culture at each of the properties.
Then we plan to implement a new gamification environment in around 45 properties. We will motivate individuals in the rct properties according to two treatments:
Individuals at half of the properties will have a team target, in other words they will receive 90% of their bonus based on whether the property achieves the target enrollment number in the loyalty program (10% will be a function of completing some training modules).
Individuals at the other half of the rct properties will receive the bonus 60% as a function of their own individual performance targets, and 30% of their bonus based on whether the property achieves the target enrollment number in the loyalty program (as in the first group, 10% will be a function of completing some training modules).
We will have a control set of properties for which there is no gamified environment that will act as a control.
Randomization Method
Randomization will be done in office computer in two stages. First, the teams to be included in the trial will be selected from the set of all teams in the company. Then the teams in the trial will be randomly assigned to one of the two treatments.
Randomization Unit
The team.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
46 in the trial group (two treatments) and 46 in the control group.
Sample size: planned number of observations
46 teams/ 500 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
23 teams 250 individuals in treatment 1
23 teams 250 individuals in treatment 2
46 teams in control (no information on individuals)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Team incentives in enrollment targets
IRB Approval Date
2023-07-10
IRB Approval Number
N/A

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