Charisma, collective action, and cooperative culture at work

Last registered on September 21, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Charisma, collective action, and cooperative culture at work
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019536
Initial registration date
September 07, 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
September 21, 2026, 7:55 AM EDT

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

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Primary Investigator

Name
Tiffany Kreutschy
Affiliation
University of Lausanne
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
John Antonakis
PI Affiliation
University of Lausanne
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PI Name
Christian Zehnder
PI Affiliation
University of Lausanne
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PI Name
Rustamdjan Hakimov
PI Affiliation
University of Lausanne
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-09-07
End date
2027-05-01
Keywords
Behavior, Finance & Microfinance, Firms & Productivity
Additional Keywords
Leadership, Charismatic communciation, Collaboration, Goal Alignment
JEL code(s)
C93: Field Experiments, D23: Organizational Behavior, M12: Personnel Management and Executives, M53: Training
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This field experiment studies whether managers can be trained to use charismatic communication to mobilize collective action and foster cooperative workplace behavior. The study involves 104 managers and their employees in a microfinance company in Kyrgyzstan. After baseline surveys and a baseline speech video, managers are randomized to one of two half-day leadership trainings. The treatment provides practical training in concrete, learnable charismatic leadership communication tactics. The active-comparison training covers closely related leadership concepts but does not train managers in the same concrete behavioral communication techniques.
A distinctive feature of the study is a repeated panel of structured, task-specific managerial communication episodes. In addition to the baseline video, each manager prepares and records four post-training messages addressed to employees: an October message concerning a company team competition, a November message intended to foster a collaborative work environment, a January message concerning the office-specific performance target, and a February message concerning a second team competition. Within each wave, managers receive the same broad communication task, while choosing the content, framing, and delivery of their message.
The videos are used to measure managers’ use of charismatic leadership tactics and overall video charisma. Their complete audiovisual and verbal content also permits analysis of communication channels, including goal clarity and actionability, collective framing and shared identity, leader commitment and confidence, appeals to coordination and coworker effort, and appeals to helping, advice, and information sharing. Each communication episode is linked to corresponding employee beliefs, survey outcomes, incentivized behavior, and administrative performance.
Primary outcomes are organizational performance during two internal competitions and an office-goal period, and cooperative behavior in incentivized public-good and sabotage games. Mechanisms include employees’ knowledge of organizational goals, commitment, beliefs about coworkers, workplace helping and information sharing, collegiality. Additional secondary outcomes include leadership perceptions, trust, individual productivity, and retention. Outcomes are collected repeatedly from baseline through March 2027.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Antonakis, John et al. 2026. "Charisma, collective action, and cooperative culture at work." AEA RCT Registry. September 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19536-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We compare two active, half-day leadership trainings delivered on September 11, 2026. Managers assigned to the charisma-training arm receive instruction and practice in concrete, learnable charismatic leadership communication tactics, drawing on Antonakis et al. (2011, 2012). Managers assigned to the active-comparison arm receive leadership training of similar duration and broad thematic content, but charisma is presented through outcome-based leadership theories rather than through the same concrete behavioral communication techniques. Both trainings are administered on the same day. After training, managers return to their offices and apply the material during ordinary communication about team goals, office performance, and workplace collaboration. During the February competition period, all managers receive a booster reminding them of the trained tactics.
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-07
Intervention End Date
2026-09-11

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Organizational Team Performance, Cooperative Workplace Behavior
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Primary Outcome Family A: Organizational Team Performance
1. Competition Performance Component, pooling performance in the October and February competition periods.
2. January Office-Goal Attainment Component.
3. Pooled Organizational Team Performance Index, combining the Competition Performance Component and January Office-Goal Attainment Component.
Primary Outcome Family B: Cooperative Workplace Behavior
1. Contribution in the incentivized public-good game.
2. Non-sabotage in the incentivized sabotage game, defined as 100 KGS minus the amount spent on sabotage.
3. Public-Good and Sabotage Game Index, combining the two measures.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
First-stage family
1. Charismatic Leadership Tactics Index, coded from manager videos.
2. Overall video-charisma score.
Mechanism Family 1: Collective-Goal Mobilization
Mechanism Family 2: Workplace Cooperation and Collegiality
Supporting channels
1. General Leadership Impression.
2. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire scale.
3. Employee-rated manager charisma.
4. Trust in the manager.
5. Frequency and intensity of managerial communication.
6. Message clarity, motivational salience, and memorability.
7. Persuasiveness.
8. Inferred leader preparation, commitment, and follow-through.
9. Team identity and shared ownership.
10. Coworker trust.
11. Coordination beliefs and beliefs about coworkers’ commitment.
Secondary administrative outcomes
1. Individual employee productivity.
2. Employee retention.
Repeated behavioral outcome: Public-good contribution measured during the February–March period.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
First-stage family
Managers record a baseline speech video before treatment and post-treatment videos during subsequent managerial communication episodes, including the November–December collaboration episode and the January office-goal episode. Videos will be scored using a prespecified coding protocol for:
1. use of charismatic leadership tactics; and
2. overall video charisma.
Mechanism Family 1: Collective-Goal Mobilization Index
The Collective-Goal Mobilization Index combines
1. Goal Knowledge Component. Employees answer two questions about the current organizational goal
2. Second-Order Goal-Knowledge Belief. Employees report the percentage of coworkers in their office whom they expect to answer the goal-knowledge questions correctly.
3. Goal Commitment, Intended Effort, and Alignment Subindex. This is the equal-weighted mean of seven items adapted from Hollenbeck et al. (1989).
Mechanism Family 2: Workplace Cooperation Diary and Collegiality Index
Workplace Cooperation Diary Index. Employees report how often during the previous month they engaged in different work activities. Responses use a seven-category scale ranging from “almost never” to “more than three hours per day on average.”
Collegiality Index. Employees respond to six statements about team cohesion, mutual support, trust, friendliness, self-interested behavior, helping, and the acceptability of asking for help.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We compare two active, half-day leadership trainings delivered on September 11, 2026. Managers assigned to the charisma-training arm receive instruction and practice in concrete, learnable charismatic leadership communication tactics, drawing on Antonakis et al. (2011, 2012). Managers assigned to the active-comparison arm receive leadership training of similar duration and broad thematic content, but charisma is presented through outcome-based leadership theories rather than through the same concrete behavioral communication techniques.
Following training, managers in both experimental arms complete four structured communication assignments embedded in actual organizational episodes. Managers prepare and record messages addressed to their employees concerning:
1. an October team competition;
2. the creation of a collaborative work environment in November;
3. attainment of an office-specific performance target in January; and
4. a second team competition in February.
Within each wave, the broad topic and organizational context are common across managers, but managers choose how to formulate, structure, frame, and deliver their message. These repeated communication assignments allow us to observe whether the training changes managers’ actual communication behavior across different organizational tasks and over time. During the January competition period, managers assigned to the charisma-training arm receive a booster reminding them of the trained tactics.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Clustered randomization.
Randomization Unit
Managers.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
104 managers.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Around 1000 loan officers.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
52 custers in control and 52 in treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Power calculations are based on 104 manager–office clusters, approximately 1,000–1,100 employees, approximately equal assignment across the two experimental arms, a two-sided significance level of 5%, and 80% power. Taking into account constrained randomization, adjustment for prespecified baseline covariates, and the pooling of repeated post-treatment measurements, we anticipate minimum detectable effects in the range of approximately 0.20–0.25 standard deviations, equivalent to 20–25% of one outcome standard deviation, for the main standardized outcome indices. This range is calibrated to a prior cluster-randomized experiment in the same firm with a nearly identical sample size and clustering structure. For organizational performance, the range refers to the common effect across the pooled repeated performance measures rather than to a single one-period office outcome.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Comission for Ethics in Research (CER-HEC)
IRB Approval Date
2026-07-06
IRB Approval Number
6a4bf6c032caf
Analysis Plan