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Smart-working

Last registered on May 15, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Smart-working
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002979
Initial registration date
May 11, 2018

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
May 15, 2018, 11:09 AM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Bocconi University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2016-06-01
End date
2017-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Flexibility in work arrangements has become increasingly relevant for employees and their ability to reconcile work and family life, both for men and women, and for employers, who are looking for new ways to increase productivity, adapt to new technologies and retain talents. This project aims at assessing the causal impact of flexible work on socio-economic outcomes.
We design a randomized experiment on a sample of workers in a large Italian company, and introduce smart-working for 9 months for a randomly selected group of workers in the sample. By comparing the two groups of workers - those subject to smart-working and the others - before and after the introduction of smart-working, we find causal evidence that the introduction of smart-working increases productivity of workers and their well-being.
To assess the effective success of the introduction of flexibility, we administered 2 questionnaires: one before the introduction of the policy, and one immediately after the end of the trial policy. In these questionnaires, after questions on general socio-demographic variables, we have asked questions about several dimensions: productivity at work, flexibility, individual well-being, individuals’ work-life balance and commitment towards the company.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Angelici, Marta and Paola Profeta. 2018. "Smart-working." AEA RCT Registry. May 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2979-1.1
Former Citation
Angelici, Marta and Paola Profeta. 2018. "Smart-working." AEA RCT Registry. May 15. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2979/history/200916
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We introduce for workers in the treated group the possibility to work at flexible place and time one day per week during the experiment
Intervention Start Date
2016-10-17
Intervention End Date
2017-07-17

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Productivity
Wellbeing
Work-life balance
Commitment
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

The productivity outcome is very hard to measure, as it emerged from the literature review. On the basis of the academic and best practice literature, we have decided to measure it through self-reporting. However, in order to obtain a more objective measure of we will also ask workers’ supervisors to report on this matter. Finally we have asked to the firm to measure productivity also with objective indicators. For the others outcome we consider the single answers to the questionnaires pre/post policy and a grouped occurrence of them.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Randomized experiment on a target population of workers of a large multi-utility company
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Stratified randomization, computer assisted. The randomization has been done by randomly extracting within each strata, with the "sample" function in R, the designated percentage of subjects to be assigned to the treatment. We have considered 8 strata: Gender, 2 age classes, 2 different kind of jobs. The assignment to the treatment is totally random, with equal probability of 65% within the strata.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization is the worker, and the groups are the 8 strata expressly created
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1
Sample size: planned number of observations
310
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
200 workers treated with smart-working, 110 control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Bocconi Ethical Commitee
IRB Approval Date
Details not available
IRB Approval Number
Details not available

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Program Files URL
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials

Description
The paper has been published, together with data and methods
Citation
Marta Angelici, Paola Profeta (2023) Smart Working: Work Flexibility Without Constraints. Management Science