Social innovation and teamwork within organizations: Lab-in-the-Field Evidence on Cooperation and recognition

Last registered on November 19, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social innovation and teamwork within organizations: Lab-in-the-Field Evidence on Cooperation and recognition
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014866
Initial registration date
November 19, 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
November 19, 2024, 4:45 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Colombia
Region
Navarra

Primary Investigator

Name
Sandra Polania-Reyes
Affiliation
University of Navarra
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
David Echeverry
PI Affiliation
University of Navarra
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2016-01-01
End date
2017-02-20
Keywords
Behavior, Firms & Productivity, Lab
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
C92, D70, D78, Z13
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This economic lab in the field experiment tests the effects of recognition on voluntary contributions to a public good at the onset of a behavioral intervention. Using a within-subjects design to look at the behavioral differences between no recognition, group and private recognition; three hundred employees participated in an on-line public goods game before the intervention. After the intervention, a new selected sample was part of the same past design. Recognition has a sizable effect on contributions. The intervention improves the response to private recognition but, strikingly, it has a distributional effect on the cooperative response to the group recognition.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Echeverry, David and Sandra Polania-Reyes. 2024. "Social innovation and teamwork within organizations: Lab-in-the-Field Evidence on Cooperation and recognition." AEA RCT Registry. November 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14866-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention was designed by a think tank in social innovation and cultural change, Corpovisionarios and implemented at a private organization whose executive board is concerned with motivating cooperation among its employees. The mail goal was to motivate teamwork using three creative tools. First, aligning expectations that is resetting normative and empirical expectations. Second,
using art and communication to establish a new signal that represented a job well done and a box where any message could be introduced. Finally, the third tool, called the Pentagon intended to increase awareness of the importance of teamwork and commitment to improve current levels of cooperation and recognition within the organization
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2016-08-30
Intervention End Date
2017-01-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Willingness to Cooperate in a Public Goods game during three rounds.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A random sample of employees are invited to participate in the baseline, before the intervention.
A random sample of employees are invited to participate in the follow up, after the intervention.
Diff in Diff quasi experimental approach to see the effect of the intervention on the marginal change in contributions in the game.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer,
Randomization Unit
individual, employees
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
none
Sample size: planned number of observations
600
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
300 baseline and 300 follow up
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With a total sample size of 600 (300 per group), a standard deviation of 1, and a significance level of 0.05 and power of 0.80, the min. detectable effect size of approximately 0.34 standard deviations.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Universidad Javeriana
IRB Approval Date
2018-04-26
IRB Approval Number
FCEA-DF-0177-2018
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
January 30, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
February 20, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
one, employees
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
597 employees
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
one
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
This paper investigates the interactive effect of two types of recognition on employee prosociality. Using an online public goods game in a large financial corporation in Colombia, we document that both public and private recognition amplify unconditional
cooperation. Following a work climate intervention conducted by the firm promoting peer recognition, we obtain difference-in-differences estimates of its impact on the recognition multiplier. The results suggest that the intervention boosted the private recognition amplifier. Instead, public recognition is partially crowded out, as altruism scores drop while reciprocity rises. This lends support to the view that the intervention interacted with the employees’ sense of autonomy.
Citation
Echeverry, David and Polania-Reyes, Sandra, Boosting the Effect of Peer Recognition on Cooperation? Experimental Evidence on a Workplace Intervention (January 26, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4338554
URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4338554

Reports & Other Materials