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Impact evaluation of a Business Ethics Program in a Mexican Company

Last registered on January 17, 2018
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact evaluation of a Business Ethics Program in a Mexican Company
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001454
Initial registration date
September 07, 2016

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
September 07, 2016, 1:28 PM EDT

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

Last updated
January 17, 2018, 9:59 AM EST

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

Locations

Country
Mexico
Region
10 States in the Center, South and South-East of Mexico

Primary Investigator

Name
Eugenio Gomez-Alatorre
Affiliation
Universidad Panamericana
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2016-09-07
End date
2018-06-29
Keywords
Labor
Additional Keywords
Business ethics, ethical program
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Companies implement different business ethics programs like codes of conduct, training, hotlines, and others, to enhance the conduct of its stakeholders, mainly of its employees. But we don´t know how effective those programs are. RCTs may be a useful tool to learn about the effectiveness of ethics programs in organizations.
We will evaluate the impact of the communication of a Mexican company's values code among its employees. We will randomize the treatment using the company's different branches as the level of randomization.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gomez-Alatorre, Eugenio. 2018. "Impact evaluation of a Business Ethics Program in a Mexican Company." AEA RCT Registry. January 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1454-4.0
Former Citation
Gomez-Alatorre, Eugenio. 2018. "Impact evaluation of a Business Ethics Program in a Mexican Company." AEA RCT Registry. January 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1454/history/24974
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We examine a program of communication of the main values in the organization's Values Code. Some of the values will be communicated to the employees trying to improve their moral conduct.
Intervention Start Date
2016-09-07
Intervention End Date
2016-10-19

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Corporate Ethical Values.
Understanding of the corporation's values.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
To measure Corporate Ethical Values we will use the questionnaire developed in Hunt, S.D., V. Wood and L. Chonko (1989) "Corporate Ethical Values and Organizational Commitment in Marketing", Journal of Marketing 53, 79-90. The questionnaire has five questions and the responses will be recorded in a five-level Likert scale.
Additionaly, we will use 7 vignettes developed by the company to measure how well employees understand the corporation's values.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomize the 206 company branches into treatment and control groups of equal size. The company will run the values communication program in all the treatment branches. A week after the intervention is complete, we will send a survey to all the employees working in treatment and control branches.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer using Stata.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization will be the company's branches. The company has 206 different branches in 10 Mexican States.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
206 branches
Sample size: planned number of observations
About 600 employees
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
103 branches control, 103 branches 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
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials