Gotta’ Have Faith: The Effect of Organizational Religiosity on Firm Competitive Positioning

Participants will be presented with a mission statement from the fictitious firm "Standard Logistics". One mission statement will be "religious" (the treatment condition) and the other will be "secular" (the control condition). I present each of those below. I note that there are grammatical mistakes in the statements because as part of the experiment and to measure employee contributions, participants will be asked to correct the mission statements:

1. RELIGIOUS MISSION STATEMENT (treatment):
Standard Logistics Mission Statement:
Standard Logistics honors the Lord in all it does by operating the company in aa manner consistent with Biblical principles. WIth this core values in mind, standard Logistics seeks to maximize financial returns for it's shareholdersby providing value-added logistics, transportation and related business services. Standard Logistics strives to meet customer requirements in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment that it serves. Further, standard Logistics tries to develop mutually rewarding relationships with the staff it employs, partners and suppliers. corporate activities are always conducted according to the highest ethic and professional standards.

2. SECULAR MISSION STATEMENT (control):
Standard Logistics Mission Statement:
Standard Logistics is committed to operating the company in aa manner consistent with the highest ethical standards. WIth this core values in mind, standard Logistics seeks to maximize financial returns for it's shareholdersby providing value-added logistics, transportation and related business services. Standard Logistics strives to meet customer requirements in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment that it serves. Further, standard Logistics tries to develop mutually rewarding relationships with the staff it employs, partners and suppliers. corporate activities are always conducted according to the highest ethic and professional standards.

2024-01-29

2024-02-29

There are three primary outcomes in this experiment:
1. "Contributions": there are 10 grammatical mistakes in both the treatment and control mission statements outlined above. "Contributions" will be measured by the number of mistakes that participants correctly identify. Specifically, participants will be assigned 1 point for identifying the mistake and 0.5 points for making an accurate correction to the mistake, for a total of 15 points
2. "Extensive Margin": after completing the initial task of correcting the mistakes in the mission statement, participants will be asked if they would be willing to help with one additional task where they will be presented with three images and slogans and then will be asked to select their favorite along with a brief description of why they selected the image they did along with any other comments they may have (i.e. perhaps other combinations and/or slogans). The "Extensive Margin" outcome is binary variable about whether they decide to help with this additional task or not.
3. "Hypothetical Wage": after correcting the mission statement ("contributions") and deciding whether or not to do the additional task ("extensive margin"), I will ask what a reasonable annual salary is for an entry-level analyst position at a company like Standard Logistics (participants will answer on a salary slider between $50,000 - $80,000). There answer to this question will be my third primary outcome. The specific language for this determining this outcome (i.e. the question) will be: "The average salary in our region for entry-level corporate analyst positions at companies like ours is approximately $65,000 and Standard Logistics typically offers salaries for entry-level analyst positions between $62,500 - $67,500. We are, however, currently in the process of reassessing this range. With that in mind, and based on what you have read about us and the work you have done for us today, what do you think a reasonable annual salary for an entry-level analyst position at a company with a [TREATMENT: God-centered vision; CONTROL: vision] like ours in a range of $50,000 - $80,000 should be?

None of my outcomes are constructed.

"Desire to work for Standard Logistics": After generating the three primary outcomes as outlined above, I will ask the question: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'Standard Logistics is the kind of company that I would like to work for.'" The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Strongly disagree" - "Strongly agree". This will be a secondary outcome.

After generating the three primary outcomes as outlined above, I will ask the question: "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'Standard Logistics is the kind of company that I would like to work for.'" The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Strongly disagree" - "Strongly agree". This will be a secondary outcome.

First, participants from the Ross Employee Pool from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan were invited to enter their names for participation in focus groups centered around the question of: what are the elements of a business that make it religious? Participants were informed that they would be compensated $40 for their participation and they would be selected randomly by lottery. As part of this, they were required to fill out a "pre-screen survey" which contained the "Religious Commitment Inventory-10 (RCI-10)", a peer-reviewed series of 10 questions (each being Likert with 5 levels from "Not at all true of me" - "Totally true of me") used to measure individual religiosity (see Worthington et. al., 2003). I note that the normative mean for a general sample of United States adults using this scale is 26 with a standard deviation of 12. Thus, according to theory (Worthington, 1988), a full-scale RCI-10 score of 38 or higher would justify considering a person to be highly religious. I received 2,932 responses from this "pre-screen survey".

Second, an equal number of emails will be sent to participants who had "low", "medium" and "high" RCI-10 scores. "Low" is defined as less than 14, "Medium" is defined as greater than or equal to 14 and less than 38. "High" is defined as greater than 38. The subject line in that email will be "Up to $100.00 for Help with Two Tasks", it will come from the email "[email protected]" and the text of the email will read:

Dear {Participant}
We (Standard Logistics) are looking for help with two main tasks. First, we are in process of establishing our mobile site and during the migration process, we have noticed formatting, grammar and spelling mistakes in the “About” section of our mobile site. As such, we are looking for help with editing the components of this section of our mobile site. Second, we are trying to better understand the most competitive and cost-effective wages we can set for potential employees and would like to ask you a few questions about that.
For these tasks, we can offer you a base payment of $5.00, a potential bonus of $2.00 and entrance into a lottery where you can win up to $93 additional dollars for a total of $100. In particular, there will be three first place prizes of $93, three second place prizes of $50 and three third place prizes of $25. We anticipate approximately 200 participants.

To be compensated for this project and to be entered into the lottery, you will need to complete all tasks and questions in the survey in contained in the link below within seven days of receiving this email.
We hope you will find the time to help us and please click the link below if you can!
{Link}

Third, participants will be randomly assigned to either the control condition or the treatment condition as outlined in the "intervention" above. They will then complete the tasks outlined in "primary outcomes" in addition to answering questions about their background including: gender, age, education, the importance of the following items for them in choosing a job: [1) Opportunities for advancement; 2) Benefits (i.e. health care, savings plans, paid-time off); 3) Collegiality; 4) Hours; 5) Location; 6) The pro bono work that the company engages in; 7) Salary; 8) Size of the company; 9) Training; 10) Extent to which the company operates in line with my religious values], and their annual wage. After the three questions used to generate the primary outcomes, they will also be asked "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'Standard Logistics is the kind of company that I would like to work for.'" The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Strongly disagree" - "Strongly agree". I note that this is my secondary outcome as outlined above. Finally, I will conduct a manipulation check by asking the question: "How religious do you think Standard Logistics is? The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Not religious at all" - "Extremely religious". Participants will also be given the opportunity to add any additional comments they might have at the end of the survey. Following the completion of all tasks, participants will be debriefed about their participation in the experiment.

First, participants from the Ross Employee Pool from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan were invited to enter their names for participation in focus groups centered around the question of: what are the elements of a business that make it religious? Participants were informed that they would be compensated $40 for their participation and they would be selected randomly by lottery. As part of this, they were required to fill out a "pre-screen survey" which contained the "Religious Commitment Inventory-10 (RCI-10)", a peer-reviewed series of 10 questions (each being Likert with 5 levels from "Not at all true of me" - "Totally true of me") used to measure individual religiosity (see Worthington et. al., 2003). I note that the normative mean for a general sample of United States adults using this scale is 26 with a standard deviation of 12. Thus, according to theory (Worthington, 1988), a full-scale RCI-10 score of 38 or higher would justify considering a person to be highly religious. I received 2,932 responses from this "pre-screen survey".

Second, an equal number of emails will be sent to participants who had "low", "medium" and "high" RCI-10 scores. "Low" is defined as less than 14, "Medium" is defined as greater than or equal to 14 and less than 38. "High" is defined as greater than 38. The subject line in that email will be "Up to $100.00 for Help with Two Tasks", it will come from the email "[email protected]" and the text of the email will read:

Dear {Participant}
We (Standard Logistics) are looking for help with two main tasks. First, we are in process of establishing our mobile site and during the migration process, we have noticed formatting, grammar and spelling mistakes in the “About” section of our mobile site. As such, we are looking for help with editing the components of this section of our mobile site. Second, we are trying to better understand the most competitive and cost-effective wages we can set for potential employees and would like to ask you a few questions about that.
For these tasks, we can offer you a base payment of $5.00, a potential bonus of $2.00 and entrance into a lottery where you can win up to $93 additional dollars for a total of $100. In particular, there will be three first place prizes of $93, three second place prizes of $50 and three third place prizes of $25. We anticipate approximately 200 participants.

To be compensated for this project and to be entered into the lottery, you will need to complete all tasks and questions in the survey in contained in the link below within seven days of receiving this email.
We hope you will find the time to help us and please click the link below if you can!
{Link}

Third, participants will be randomly assigned to either the control condition or the treatment condition as outlined in the "intervention" above. They will then complete the tasks outlined in "primary outcomes" in addition to answering questions about their background including: gender, age, education, the importance of the following items for them in choosing a job: [1) Opportunities for advancement; 2) Benefits (i.e. health care, savings plans, paid-time off); 3) Collegiality; 4) Hours; 5) Location; 6) The pro bono work that the company engages in; 7) Salary; 8) Size of the company; 9) Training; 10) Extent to which the company operates in line with my religious values], and their annual wage. After the three questions used to generate the primary outcomes, they will also be asked "To what extent do you agree with the following statement: 'Standard Logistics is the kind of company that I would like to work for.'" The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Strongly disagree" - "Strongly agree". I note that this is my secondary outcome as outlined above. Finally, I will conduct a manipulation check by asking the question: "How religious do you think Standard Logistics is? The response will be a five-level Likert scale variable from "Not religious at all" - "Extremely religious". Participants will also be given the opportunity to add any additional comments they might have at the end of the survey. Following the completion of all tasks, participants will be debriefed about their participation in the experiment.

Randomization will be conducted by Qualtrics.

The randomization will be conducted by individual.

No

As indicated above, I received 2,932 responses from my initial pre-screen survey. I have conducted a pilot with 202 of these; thus, my current pool is 2,730, from which I plant to send an approximately equal number of recruiting emails to those who have "low", "medium" and "high" individual religiosity, as measured by the RCI-10.

As indicated above, I received 2,932 responses from my initial pre-screen survey. I have conducted a pilot with 202 of these; thus, my current pool is 2,730, from which I plant to send an approximately equal number of recruiting emails to those who have "low", "medium" and "high" individual religiosity, as measured by the RCI-10.

Approximately 1,365 in both the control and treatment conditions (for the initial email ONLY).

I note that I assume a sample size of 205 here. This is based on the size of my current pool - 2,730 - and a response rate between 5% - 10%. In the pilot that I ran, I had a response rate of 11/202, or approximately 5.45%. A 5% response rate for 2,730 would yield approximately 137 respondents and a response rate of 10% would yield 273. The average of these two numbers is 205. Below I provide the minimum detectable effect size (MDES) for each of my three main outcomes, with the statistics coming from a pilot study: 1. Contributions: unit = score (out of 15); standard deviation = 3.13; percentage = 0.05. MDES = 0.411 2. Extensive Margin: unit = Yes/No (to do second task); standard deviation = 0.504; percentage = 0.05. MDES = 0.067 3. Hypothetical Wage: unit = dollars in annual wages; standard deviation = 8895.705, percentage = 0.05. MDES = 2271.35

AEA_prereg_STDLOGISTICS_20012024.pdf