AEA RCT Registry

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Remote Socialization: Field Experiment in India

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0012248

Initial registration date

October 08, 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

October 17, 2023, 11:43 AM EDT

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

Locations

Country

India

Region

Pune

Primary Investigator

Name

Stephanie Chan-Ahuja

Affiliation

London Business School

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-10-09

End date

2024-04-30

Keywords

Behavior, Firms & Productivity, Gender

Additional Keywords

employee behavior, organizational behavior, remote working

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Existing research on remote working has yielded mixed results on employee's performance and organizational behavior. They have largely sampled from a population that has started their job working in the office prior to working remotely. As a result, we know very little about the effects of remote working on new hires and the newcomer socialization process. This question is significant as millions of new hires have been socialized exclusively remotely, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. This RCT studies the effects of remote working vs. office working on new hires.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Chan-Ahuja, Stephanie. 2023. "Remote Socialization: Field Experiment in India." AEA RCT Registry. October 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12248-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention compares remote working with office working for new hires.

Intervention Start Date

2023-10-09

Intervention End Date

2024-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The primary outcomes of this study are socialization outcomes and remote work preferences. My primary mediator of this study is colleague interactions.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Socialization outcomes include the Newcomer Understanding and Integration Scale (general socialization measure), as well as helping behavior, organizational identification, relational identification, and sense of belonging measures.

Remote working preferences will be asked at baseline and endline for comparison.

Colleague interactions are measured in several ways. First, I will collect communication information through Slack, a communication tool that participants will use throughout the study. Second, I will collect self-reported measures of daily interactions through surveys. Third, a research assistant will be conducting participant observations, assisted by security camera footages, to capture communications that are not conducted via Slack.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary outcomes include individual performance, retention, well-being (job satisfaction and engagement), and work-family conflict. My secondary mediators are trust, burnout, and loneliness.

At baseline, I will measure the control variables: self-efficacy, proactive behavior, familiarity with other colleagues prior to the study, personality traits, commute time, and other demographics, including gender, age, caregiving responsibilities, and caste.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Performance will be measured unobtrusively through participants' work as well as elicited through self-reported measures weekly. From their work, I will collect data such as number of texts completed, hours worked, and accuracy scores.

Employee retention will be measured in two ways. First, as a binary variable of whether participants stay would like to stay for a fourth week. Second, conditional on wanting to stay for a fourth week, I measure their reservation wage as a continuous variable. I will measure reservation wage first prior allowing for any discussion with their colleagues and then again after allowing for discussion between colleagues.

Other outcome variables will be measured on a weekly basis through self-reported surveys and baseline measures will be measured once.

Experimental Design

The experiment will be conducted in Pune.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

Randomization will be done in Stata.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

240 individuals.

Sample size: planned number of observations

240 individuals.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

120 individuals in treatment (remote working) and 120 individuals in control (office working).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

London Business School

IRB Approval Date

2023-08-30

IRB Approval Number

REC892-30082026

Analysis Plan