A Randomized Mentorship Intervention in the Retail Sector of Lusaka, Zambia

Last registered on January 05, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
A Randomized Mentorship Intervention in the Retail Sector of Lusaka, Zambia
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012744
Initial registration date
January 02, 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
January 05, 2024, 2:46 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Ajay Shenoy
Affiliation
U.C. Santa Cruz
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Brenda Samaniego de la Parra
PI Affiliation
University of California, Santa Cruz
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PI Name
Heather Huntington
PI Affiliation
DevLab@Penn
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-09-01
End date
2024-07-31
Keywords
Firms & Productivity
Additional Keywords
Retail, mentorship
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
From a sample of independent retailers in Lusaka, Zambia, we assign highly profitable "mentors" to groups of up to 3 "mentees." The study will measure what managerial practices, and what dimensions of retail productivity, are transferrable from mentors to mentees.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Huntington, Heather, Brenda Samaniego de la Parra and Ajay Shenoy. 2024. "A Randomized Mentorship Intervention in the Retail Sector of Lusaka, Zambia." AEA RCT Registry. January 05. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12744-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our partner Prospero will conduct the mentorship sessions. Mentees are taken to the mentor's shop for a facilitated in-person session where they are guided to share advice and observe the mentor's practices. Mentors and mentees are encouraged to exchange contact information so that the mentees can have two follow-up phone sessions.
Intervention Start Date
2023-12-01
Intervention End Date
2024-03-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Gross profits/value-added
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Goods sold (valued at sales price) minus goods sold (valued at the order price)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
3 dimensions of retail productivity, management practices
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Productivity is estimated as per Samaniego de la Parra and Shenoy (2023), "Measuring and Estimating Retail Productivity"

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We collected an in-person baseline survey in Jan--March of 2023, with a total sample of roughly 1000. We then did an 8-month follow-up to construct a panel dataset of key shop-level outcomes. Using this panel we construct a simple measure of gross profit/value added on a set of fixed effects to control for time and location. Within each "industry" (defined by the main products sold by the shop) we identify the most profitable 15% as "mentors" and assign the rest to pool of potential mentees. Within each location and industry, we randomly select roughly 300 for the intervention, and randomly select 300 of those untreated as our control group. We then assign mentees to mentors within their industry but outside of their location using sequential randomization. Our partner Prospero then does the intervention: mentees are taken to the mentor's shop for a facilitated in-person session where they are guided to share advice and observe the mentor's practices. After the intervention we will collect a second round of in-person data, and then another 3 months of follow-up.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
List-wise randomization procedure done using Stata
Randomization Unit
Shop/manager
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
600 shops
Sample size: planned number of observations
1800 shop-months in the post-intervention panel, plus 600 observations from the in-person end-line; this will be added to as many as 4800 observations from the pre-intervention panel, and 600 observations from the in-person baseline
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Roughly 300 treated, 300 control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of California, Santa Cruz Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2022-05-24
IRB Approval Number
HS-FY2022-265
Analysis Plan