Collaboration and Performance in Retail Auditing

Participants complete a browser-based visual product-counting task in repeated timed 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.

2026-08-13

2026-12-31

Round-level exact-counting productivity, measured as the number of shelf images answered with the exact correct product count per second of elapsed round time.

For participant i in round r, the primary outcome is correct product count per second.

An answer is correct only if the submitted integer exactly matches the prespecified answer key for the image. Elapsed time is measured from the beginning of the round until the participant completes all available images or the 120-second limit expires. The outcome is zero when no response is correct. The primary analysis compares the four within-participant condition-specific outcomes.

Total number of exact correct responses in each round.
Proportion of available images answered correctly.
Accuracy among submitted non-skipped responses.
Number of images answered, skipped, and not reached.
Item-level response time and round completion time.
The transformed 0–100 personal performance score.
Team score and performance-contingent round bonus.
Post-experiment questionnaire scale scores: perceived task interdependence, perceived indispensability, other-oriented performance pressure, accountability, and team identity/solidarity.

Total correct responses are measured out of the 20 images assigned to each round. Accuracy among available images equals correct responses divided by 20. Accuracy among answered images equals correct responses divided by non-skipped submitted answers. Item-level response times are constructed from the elapsed timestamps recorded at successive submissions. The personal performance score, team score, and monetary bonus are deterministic transformations of task performance and the assigned collaboration condition and will primarily be used for descriptive and robustness analyses.
Post-task questionnaire outcomes comprise three multi-item scales—perceived task interdependence, accountability, and team identity/solidarity—each calculated as the unweighted mean of three items, and two single-item outcomes—perceived indispensability and other-oriented performance pressure. Item-level responses will also be retained.

The study is an online, within-participant randomized crossover experiment. Each participant completes four timed formal rounds and experiences each of four collaboration conditions once. Participants are assigned by computer to one of four counterbalanced treatment sequences so that each condition appears in each round position and the principal first-order transitions are balanced across participants.

Every formal round uses the same underlying visual product-counting task, the same time limit, and the same number of images. Formal image stimuli are allocated without replacement from prespecified image pools, with balanced representation of the image groups in every round. Images and their presentation order are randomized within participant.

Adult online participants will be recruited through an online research-participant platform. Participants must provide informed consent, meet the preregistered eligibility requirements, and use a supported desktop or laptop browser. We plan to recruit no more than 220 participants and target at least 180 analyzable participants.

Not available

Participants will be assigned by a computerized randomization procedure, with approximately equal allocation, to one of four prespecified counterbalanced condition sequences. Allocation will occur before the first formal treatment round and will not involve investigator discretion. Within the task, shelf images will be randomized across rounds and presentation positions by a computerized shuffling algorithm, subject to the restriction that each round contains equal representation from each image group.

Individual participant for assignment to condition sequence. Shelf image within participant for allocation to round and presentation position.

No

Not applicable. Randomization occurs at the individual-participant level.

Up to 220 participants. Each participant is scheduled to provide four participant-round observations and up to 80 formal image-response observations, corresponding to up to 880 participant-round observations and 17,600 image-level observations.

All participants experience all four experimental conditions. Participants are assigned approximately equally across four order sequences, with a maximum target of approximately 55 recruited participants per sequence. The target analyzable sample is approximately 45 participants per sequence, or 180 participants total.

The study is powered for its smallest principal within-participant factorial contrast. Assuming a standardized within-participant contrast effect of d_z=0.25, a two-sided significance level of 0.05, and 90 percent statistical power, approximately 171 analyzable participants are required. We target at least 180 analyzable participants and plan to recruit up to 220 participants to allow for incomplete participation, technical failure, duplicate participation, and preregistered exclusions.