Social Identity and Incentives in Workgroups

Last registered on November 11, 2017

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Social Identity and Incentive Structures in Teams

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002139

Initial registration date

March 31, 2017

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

April 03, 2017, 10:57 AM EDT

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

Last updated

November 11, 2017, 3:55 PM EST

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

Locations

Country

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Jonathan Yeo

Affiliation

Nanyang Technological University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2017-05-02

End date

2018-09-30

Keywords

Welfare

Additional Keywords

Social Identity, Organizations, Social Norms, Behavioral Economics, Cooperation

JEL code(s)

C90, C92, D23

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The project focuses on the effects of social identity in combination with different economic incentives on outcomes like effort, cooperation and overall productivity. In particular, it aims to test whether common social identity in teams/ work-groups affects the relative effectiveness of cooperative versus competitive based incentives. In addition, we aim to explore the mechanisms by which this arises: e.g. more salient other-regarding social norms/moral preferences.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Yeo, Jonathan. 2017. "Social Identity and Incentive Structures in Teams." AEA RCT Registry. November 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2139-4.0

Former Citation

Yeo, Jonathan. 2017. "Social Identity and Incentive Structures in Teams." AEA RCT Registry. November 11. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2139/history/23172

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The study will consist of a laboratory experiment of which participants are recruited from the University's behavioural research platform.
They will be paid for turning up as well as their performance in a real effort task. Overall, we have a 2 X 2 treatment design.
Participants will be assigned a random group identity, with salience increased via a quiz task. They will then be assigned to teams which are either heterogeneous or homogeneous in group identity. Each team will then be randomly subject to a tournament or team incentive scheme where they complete a real effort task with some cooperative possibility.

Intervention Start Date

2017-05-02

Intervention End Date

2018-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The key outcomes variables are effort, cooperation and overall productivity.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Effort will be calculated by looking at the time taken to complete each unit of the effort task. Cooperation will be examined by looking at the proportion whom choose to help others during the task. Productivity is calculated by looking at the final scores in the real effort task.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary outcome variables: 1) measurements of participants' moral and social norms regarding cooperation. 2) Type of helper they are in the experiment.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

1) Moral and social norms will be constructed via factor analysis on several survey questions administered. 2) Their classification into types of helpers will be obtained from a survey question which asks them about how they would respond to others on their team cooperating.

Experimental Design

The experimental design consists of two parts. The first part consists of inducing a salient group identity (RED or BLUE) among participants. The second part consists of a real-effort task in teams which have different compositions of participants from the groups. There will be an element of cooperation in the real-effort task. Teams will be assigned a random incentive structure: a tournament or team scheme.
All participants are then required to fill in a post-experiment questionnaire.

Experimental Design Details

Part 1:
The group salience task involves solving a quiz which is determined by one's group membership (RED/BLUE). They are randomly assigned to these two groups at the beginning of the session. Each group is directed to seats belonging to one side of the lab. The quiz involves matching items to particular groups. Participants solve the quiz individually, but are assigned quiz topics according to their group membership. Alternatively, participants may also have a discussion session before answering the quiz.

Part 2:
Participants are then assigned into 6-person teams which can either be (maximally) heterogeneous or homogeneous. They then have to complete several rounds of a real-effort task which involves sets of decoding problems. There are 2 kinds of question sets: easy and difficult, with the latter involving a greater number of questions in the set. An element of cooperation is built into the task by allowing for help requests when facing a difficult question set. Help requests are sent automatically on behalf of the participant whom faces a difficult question set. Decisions to help must be made at the beginning of the round. Providing help reduces the difficulty (number of questions) in the question set of the requester, but increases that of the helper, with help being efficient.

Teams are then assigned a random incentive structure: team or tournament and they will play under this scheme for several rounds. Participants are only informed of their payment at the end of the experiment, after completing an online post-experiment questionnaire.

Randomization Method

Randomization into different treatment groups by software.

Randomization Unit

Randomization unit is the individual participant

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

288-360 individuals

Sample size: planned number of observations

288-360 individuals

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

72-90 in homogeneous teams, tournament incentives
72-90 in homogeneous teams, team incentives
72-90 in heterogeneous teams, tournament incentives
72-90 in heterogeneous teams, team incentives

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB