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Workplace Health and Safety, and Business Training: A case study of the light engineering sector in Bangladesh

Last registered on November 17, 2018
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Workplace Health and Safety, and Business Training: A case study of the light engineering sector in Bangladesh
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003386
Initial registration date
November 14, 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
November 17, 2018, 9:41 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Bangladesh
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Asad Islam
Affiliation
Monash University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Gary Fields
PI Affiliation
Cornell
PI Name
Ummul Ruthbah
PI Affiliation
Monash University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Asadul Islam
PI Affiliation
Monash University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2017-08-01
End date
2021-06-30
Keywords
Firms & Productivity, Health, Labor
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The incidence of workplace injury is high in manufacturing in developing countries. In this project, we focus on the impact of intensive training and information on decent work environment among workers and firms. We partner with BRAC, which also collaborates with different trade associations, to understand and evaluate the workplace safety and awareness in the light engineering (LE) sector in Bangladesh. In order to understand the causal effects of information and training on the health and safety at the firm level, we randomly assign firms in LE sectors into two treatment arms: T1: Managers/owners of firms receive intensive training on occupational health and safety (OHS). T2: OHS + business training and financial linkages, C: the firms in the control group receive no training. We examine a range of outcomes related to workers’ safety and health issues, working environment and safety standards of firm, cost, business growth, investment and profitability.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Fields, Gary et al. 2018. "Workplace Health and Safety, and Business Training: A case study of the light engineering sector in Bangladesh." AEA RCT Registry. November 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3386-1.0
Former Citation
Fields, Gary et al. 2018. "Workplace Health and Safety, and Business Training: A case study of the light engineering sector in Bangladesh." AEA RCT Registry. November 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3386/history/37390
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention at the firm level:
There were 2451 firms selected for randomization at the beginning from 1356 market places in 79 sub-districts from 20 districts. The randomization was carried out at the market level such that all firms in a market were either considered as treatment or control groups. There were 650 markets selected for treatment and 706 markets for control groups. In terms of the number of firms, they comprised 1172 firms in treatment groups and 1279 firms in control groups.

The treatment firms are further randomly divided into two treatment arms T1 and T2. T1 has 597 firms and T2 has 575 firms

Intervention T1: The owners/managers of the firms in treatment group T1 receive intensive training on occupational health and safety. A training module was developed with videos demonstrating safety awareness of firms and workers. The managers/owners receive a week-long training on the module considering the hazardous working environment of the firms.

Intervention T2: Mangers/owners of the firms in this arm receive training on business management and was offered to provide financial linkages in addition to the training on decent work received by the T1 firms. .

Intervention Start Date
2017-10-15
Intervention End Date
2020-10-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes of interest are owners/managers’ knowledge and workers’ perception and experience of working environment of the firms. We will also examine changes and practices of firms in improving the working conditions, the incidence of accidents, revenue, sales, profits, number of employees, and other potential outcomes. For measuring decent and safe work environment, our primary outcomes of interest are ventilation system, cleanliness of the workplace, use of safety equipment such as gloves, helmets etc., access to fire extinguisher, access to clean drinking water, clean toilets, timely wage payment, employment agreement, weekly off days, etc. Owners/managers’ knowledge of OSH includes knowing the protocols in case of accidents such as short-circuit, fire, injury etc.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will explore the mechanisms through which the intervention may change the behaviour of owners/managers. We examine owners/managers’ attitude towards risk, general health risk and safety concern, concern about the environment and others (altruism), self-esteem, resilience, competitiveness, entrepreneurial aspirations, and cognitive abilities.
A detail framework for measuring decent work has been provided by the ILO (Anker, Chernyshev, Egger, Mehran, & Ritter, 2002). We follow it in creating our measure of decent work environment. Appendix A provides a detailed description of the various outcome variables.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
This is a clustered randomized controlled trials. Each market is treated as single cluster. Firms were randomly assigned in different groups across different markets (clusters)
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
market (a number of firms in a geographic area)
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1356 market clusters
Sample size: planned number of observations
2451 firms
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1172 firms in treatment, 1279 firms in control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Monash Ethics and Compliance
IRB Approval Date
2018-05-11
IRB Approval Number
13569
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Analysis Plan

MD5: bbcf8dd0b44494f9a8619bf6121b4cad

SHA1: fbd61e97091c3592c231d288d0d0e916f5d34f5a

Uploaded At: November 14, 2018

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials