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Field Before After
Trial Start Date July 15, 2016 January 15, 2017
Trial End Date July 15, 2018 July 31, 2019
Last Published June 14, 2016 05:25 PM February 24, 2017 09:23 AM
Intervention Start Date August 01, 2016 March 01, 2017
Intervention End Date July 01, 2018 January 15, 2019
Experimental Design (Public) The trial will be a completely randomized design with two treatment levels. The treatments conditions and levels will be: i) No Structured Accountability (control group) and ii) Structured Accountability. The number of entrepreneurs that participate in Start-Up Chile is approximately 100 in each cohort. Therefore, in approximately a year and a half, 300 participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two treatments. In each cohort half of the participants will be randomly assigned to the Structure Accountability Treatment. Obviously, randomization will occur independently in each of the cohorts. Approximately on a once a month basis the entrepreneurs will meet with an expert (a mentor, SUP Chile executive or a specific industry expert). A meeting scribe will also be present taking notes in every one of these meetings, both control and treatment groups. The treated group, those subject to structured accountability, will be asked to articulate the strategic tasks to be completed during the following month, and report about their progress from the previous month. That is, the meeting scribe will make sure that the treatment group entrepreneur gets asked “what would you say are the most important tasks you need to work on during the next month?” The scribe will write down the tasks in a document, which will be revised and discussed during the next monthly meeting. The control group meetings will not have any kind of explicit tracking of their tasks. Regardless, if control group entrepreneurs wish to have a copy of the meeting notes (which will be a summary of the meeting conversation), the scribe will make them available. Besides taking notes of the meeting, the job of the scribe is to verify the fidelity of the treatment. This means that the only ones getting the structured accountability in each one of their meetings are the entrepreneurs on the treated group. Moreover, the scribe will register the number of tasks committed for the next month, the number of tasks from the last meeting in some state of progress, quality of the tasks, and the time spent on structured accountability. For all (treatment and control) meetings, the scribe will register the total duration of the meeting, and the name of participants and their roles. The trial will be a completely randomized design with two treatment levels. The treatments conditions and levels will be: i) No Structured Accountability (control group) and ii) Structured Accountability. The number of entrepreneurs that participate in Start-Up Chile is approximately 100 in each cohort. Therefore, in two years, 400 participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two treatments. In each cohort half of the participants will be randomly assigned to the Structure Accountability Treatment. Obviously, randomization will occur independently in each of the cohorts. Approximately on a once a month basis the entrepreneurs will meet with an expert (a mentor, SUP Chile executive or a specific industry expert). A meeting scribe will also be present taking notes in every one of these meetings, both control and treatment groups. The treated group, those subject to structured accountability, will be asked to articulate the strategic tasks to be completed during the following month, and report about their progress from the previous month. That is, the meeting scribe will make sure that the treatment group entrepreneur gets asked “what would you say are the most important tasks you need to work on during the next month?” The scribe will write down the tasks in a document, which will be revised and discussed during the next monthly meeting. The control group meetings will not have any kind of explicit tracking of their tasks. Regardless, if control group entrepreneurs wish to have a copy of the meeting notes (which will be a summary of the meeting conversation), the scribe will make them available. Besides taking notes of the meeting, the job of the scribe is to verify the fidelity of the treatment. This means that the only ones getting the structured accountability in each one of their meetings are the entrepreneurs on the treated group. Moreover, the scribe will register the number of tasks committed for the next month, the number of tasks from the last meeting in some state of progress, quality of the tasks, and the time spent on structured accountability. For all (treatment and control) meetings, the scribe will register the total duration of the meeting, and the name of participants and their roles.
Planned Number of Clusters The treatment is not clustered so the number of observations is 270 start-ups The treatment is not clustered so the number of observations is 360 start-ups
Planned Number of Observations 270 start-ups 360 start-ups
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms We will conduct the experiment in three cohorts wich will give us a sample size 270 start-ups, with 135 start-ups treated and 135 non-treated We will conduct the experiment in three cohorts wich will give us a sample size 360 start-ups, with 180 start-ups treated and 180 non-treated
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes A sample size of 360 start-ups (given by four cohorts in two years) and 180 start-ups in each arm of the trial is enough to detect a minimum effect size of 0.33 (Cohen’s D) of our outcome variables. This is assuming an R2 0f 0.06 from our previous study (González-Uribe & Leatherbee 2016) a level of significance of 0.05 and a power of 0.80 on a two-tailed test.
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