Collaboration and Performance in Retail Auditing

Last registered on September 25, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Collaboration and Performance in Retail Auditing
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019230
Initial registration date
August 09, 2026

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
August 19, 2026, 9:31 AM EDT

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

Last updated
September 25, 2026, 4:01 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Xinwen Huang
Affiliation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Helen Wang
PI Affiliation
London Business School
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PI Name
Chenghuai Li
PI Affiliation
University of Alberta
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-08-13
End date
2028-12-25
Keywords
Firms & Productivity, Labor
Additional Keywords
team production, collaboration, real-effort task, visual inspection, retail operations, incentive design, online experiment
JEL code(s)
C92, M54
Secondary IDs
None
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This online randomized crossover experiment examines how alternative collaboration arrangements and team incentive structures affect effort and performance in a visual retail task. Each participant completes four incentivized rounds under four collaboration conditions presented in a randomized, counterbalanced order. We plan to recruit up to 325 participants, targeting at least 264 analyzable participants.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Huang, Xinwen, Chenghuai Li and Helen Wang. 2026. "Collaboration and Performance in Retail Auditing." AEA RCT Registry. September 25. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19230-2.1
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Participants complete a browser-based visual product-counting task in repeated rounds. They receive standardized instructions, practice examples with feedback, and performance-contingent compensation. Across formal rounds, features of the collaboration environment and the mapping from individual performance to team reward vary according to a randomized, counterbalanced schedule. The purpose is to measure how collaboration arrangements and team incentive design affect effort and performance in a routine visual-inspection task.
Intervention Start Date
2026-08-13
Intervention End Date
2026-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Mean item response time within a formal round.
2. Variance of item response time within a formal round.
3. Exact accuracy across all items within a formal round.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Score per second; proportion of skipped images; post-task comparative mechanism measures.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A 2-by-2 within-participant crossover experiment with individual-level random assignment to one of four counterbalanced treatment orders.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Done by computer through Prolific Taskflow before treatment exposure. The main Prolific study contains four prespecified external URLs, one for each treatment-order version. Taskflow is configured with equal planned allocation across the four URLs. When an eligible participant starts the study, Prolific assigns that submission to one of the available Taskflow URLs according to the platform's prespecified allocation procedure. The participant does not choose the treatment order, and the researchers do not alter the assigned order after observing participant characteristics or outcomes.
Randomization Unit
Individual participant.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Up to 325 individual subjects. The unit of randomization is the individual participant.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Up to 325 individual subjects will be recruited. The target is at least 264 analyzable participants.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Participants are assigned to four mutually exclusive treatment-order arms rather than to separate treatment cells, because every participant experiences all four treatment conditions.

The target analyzable sample is approximately 66 participants in each order group, for 264 analyzable participants in total. If the full recruitment cap of 325 is required, recruitment will be distributed as evenly as possible across the four mutually exclusive study/order groups.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The study targets a standardized within-participant effect size of absolute dz = 0.25. A sample of 264 analyzable participants provides approximately 95% power. Recruitment may continue up to 325 participants to achieve the analyzable-sample target after incomplete sessions, technical failures, duplicates, and prespecified exclusions.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
London Business School Ethics Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2026-07-30
IRB Approval Number
REC1131
Analysis Plan

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