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Field
Abstract
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Before
We study whether the social relationship between the employer and the employee is an important determinant of gift exchange. Inspired by the anthropological literature, which claims that only monetary transfers that take place in a close and intimate social relationship can be considered gifts, we modify a standard gift-exchange field experiment by exogenously manipulating the degree of closeness and intimacy between the employer and employees. We aim to revisit existing field studies from this novel point of view to study whether the existence and degree of the employer-employee social relationship can organize the conflicting results in gift-exchange field studies.
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After
We study whether the social relationship between the employer and the employee is an important determinant of gift exchange. Inspired by the anthropological literature, which claims that only monetary transfers that take place in a close and intimate social relationship can be considered gifts, we implement two gift-exchange field experiment which exogenously manipulate the degree of closeness and intimacy between the employer and employees. We aim to revisit existing field studies from this novel point of view to study whether the existence and degree of the employer-employee social relationship can organize the conflicting results in gift-exchange field studies.
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Field
Last Published
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Before
December 21, 2016 02:20 PM
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After
December 21, 2016 02:55 PM
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Workers’ productivity (total number of characters, total number of characters inputted, number of references, number of typos).
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After
Study 1: Workers’ productivity (total number of characters, total number of characters inputted, number of references, number of typos). Study 2: Worker's productivity (Number of audios and minutes evaluated, actual time worked).
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
Following the standard field-experiment design in gift exchange, we recruit subjects to build the electronic library of a professor in a Chilean University. Subjects older than 18 from 13 different high-education institutions were recruited as workers for a 6-hour work of inputting academic cites on a software tracking their performance without their knowledge. The job consisted of an initial training session and four work shifts of 50 minutes each with three coffee breaks and a half-an-hour lunch. The task was advertised a one time job offering the market wage.
Workers were randomly assigned to one of six treatments varying whether a gift was granted or not and the existence and strength of the social relationship with the employer. In particular, we have a 3x2 design, with and without a gift and three different levels of social relation: No-Social relation, Weak-Social relation and Strong-Social relation.
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After
STUDY 1: Following the standard field-experiment design in gift exchange, we recruit subjects to build the electronic library of a professor in a Chilean University. Subjects older than 18 from 13 different high-education institutions were recruited as workers for a 6-hour work of inputting academic cites on a software tracking their performance without their knowledge. The job consisted of an initial training session and four work shifts of 50 minutes each with three coffee breaks and a half-an-hour lunch. The task was advertised a one time job offering the market wage.
Workers were randomly assigned to one of six treatments varying whether a gift was granted or not and the existence and strength of the social relationship with the employer. In particular, we have a 3x2 design, with and without a gift and three different levels of social relation: No-Social relation, Weak-Social relation and Strong-Social relation.
STUDY2: Similar to study 1, we recruit workers to perform a one time job (this time, evaluating audio files from a call center). Workers are recruited though a social media platform that advertises part-time jobs (students and non-students). We recruit them at the market wage and instruct them that this is a one-time 6-hour job, which can be executed from whichever computer they desire. They are only required to attend a training session. Their 6 hours of work are due three days after they complete the training. Payment occurs at the end of the training, before the job takes place.
Workers are randomly assigned to one of five treatments varying whether a gift was granted or not, the existence and strength of the social relationship with the employer and whether the employer explicitly states that she holds the expectation that workers will reciprocate the gift with higher effort.
This second study differs from the first in three fundamental aspects. First, by allowing subjects to work form home, it provides workers with enough room to reciprocate without fatigue or time restriction concerns. Second, it strengths the social relation treatments by manipulating not only workers interaction with the principal but the interaction with other relevant people involved (RAs). Third, it explicitly manipulates workers' second order beliefs about the principal's expectations on their effort response to the monetary gift.
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Field
Randomization Method
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Before
Randomization at the time of recruitment. As interested students contacted the research assistant in charge of recruiting, they were randomly offered two possibles dates to work, each with two possible time schedules. We did not randomly assign people to a give date and time as that affects the external validity of the study.
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After
In both studies randomization takes place at the time of recruitment. As interested students contacted the research assistant in charge of recruiting, they were randomly offered two possibles dates to work, each with two possible time schedules. In STUDY 1, we did not randomly assign people to a give date and time as that affects the external validity of the study. In STUDY 2 we did random assigned workers to shifts as the pool of applicants is extremely large and thus it does not affect the external validity as groups of friends are unlikely.
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Field
Randomization Unit
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Before
Worker level.
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After
Worker level (STUDY 1 and 2).
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Field
Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
13
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After
In STUDY 1 workers were randomly assigned to two time schedules as they applied. In STUDY 2 we had a large number of simultaneous applicants, which allowed us to construct strata by gender, occupation, and age to randomise within the resulting clusters (36 clusters)
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
Around 200-250 workers (actual number will depend on the amount of no shows).
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After
Around 200-250 workers in both studies (actual number will depend on the amount of no shows).
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Field
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
There is not similar study to make power calculations.
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After
Field studies on gift exchange are extremely disperse in their results. Thus, it is impossible to do power calculations without cherry pick.
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