Impact of Virtual Coworking on Productivity

Last registered on July 08, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact of Virtual Coworking on Productivity
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0011779
Initial registration date
June 10, 2024

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 08, 2024, 12:38 PM EDT

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

Last updated
July 08, 2024, 12:45 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Angela Tran
Affiliation
UCLA
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Aruna Ranganathan
PI Affiliation
UC Berkeley
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-05-15
End date
2026-12-27
Keywords
Behavior, Firms & Productivity, Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
Remote Work, Science of Science, Productivity
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In this project, we investigate virtual coworking, where participants join timed, quiet digital work sessions that begin with goal-setting and end with progress debriefing. We randomize participants into control and virtual coworking treatment, where treated participants engage in a five-day, three-hours-per-day virtual coworking program. Effectiveness will be measured by comparing scholarly output and psychosocial measures between the control and treatment groups. Additionally, we aim to understand the heterogeneous effects of virtual coworking based on participants' demographics as well as group members' demographics and behavior.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Ranganathan, Aruna and Angela Tran. 2024. "Impact of Virtual Coworking on Productivity." AEA RCT Registry. July 08. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11779-1.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Participants are medical research faculty recruited through U.S. medical schools' faculty development offices. After assigning participants based on their availability to one of 8 week-long timeslots, we will randomize recruited participants into two groups: 1) control, and 2) virtual coworking treatment. Those who receive the treatment will be further assigned to small groups of 5-7, and participate in a 3-hour-per-day online writing session for 5 consecutive days. Each day, participants will given the session by sharing their intended goals for the day, and end each day with debrief. There is a 5-minute break at each hour mark. Participants are encouraged to turn their cameras on during the writing session. By employing the intention-to-treat (ITT) approach and assuming some extent of dropout at baseline and during the treatment period, we can assess the overall treatment effect, take-up, and the effectiveness of virtual coworking.
Intervention Start Date
2024-07-15
Intervention End Date
2024-08-09

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Productivity, deep work engagement, innovation, collaboration, job satisfaction, writing behavior.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We administer a baseline survey during the pre-intervention registration phase, and collect information on participants' research domain,
research interests, home institution, demographics, rank, and other psychosocial measures. During the intervention, we aim to collect information on participants' task completion, interactions with other participants, length of participation, etc. Upon completion of the intervention, we again administer an endline survey that collects information on participants' self-reported productivity and other psychosocial measures. As part of the endline survey, participants may share their writing samples with the research team, which allows the research team to conduct semantic analyses. The research team will also collect grants submission data from participants' home institutions, and scrape publicly available grants acceptance, paper publication, conference submissions data. To measure program efficacy, we compare differences between the control and treated groups in productivity, innovation, and other psychosocial measures.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done on a computer.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
8 timeslots
Sample size: planned number of observations
200-300
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
200 in control, 100 in treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Berkeley
IRB Approval Date
2024-06-07
IRB Approval Number
2024-04-17377
Analysis Plan