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Abstract
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This project will be a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) aimed at studying the impact of worker heterogeneity (demographic) on team production in a production plant in India. The plant employs over 900 workers. This study will experimentally vary exposure of workers to non-coreligionists, co-workers from other castes and social groups (by creating worker teams that vary on these dimensions) in order to study whether greater integration at workplace can positively affect perception and in turn impact productivity. We will complement high frequency production data from the firm with a range of baseline and endline survey measures of out-group preferences and perceptions to answer this question.
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After
This project will be a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) aimed at studying the impact of worker heterogeneity on team production in a production plant in India. The plant employs over 900 workers. This study will experimentally vary exposure of workers to non-coreligionists, in order to study whether greater contact at the workplace can affect attitudes and in turn impact productivity. We will complement high frequency production data from the firm with a range of baseline and endline survey measures of out-group preferences and perceptions to answer this question.
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Last Published
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July 28, 2019 08:53 AM
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November 23, 2019 03:45 PM
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Intervention Start Date
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May 03, 2019
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After
November 25, 2019
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
- High frequency daily team level output data obtained from the firm
- Different measures of implicit and explicit out-group perceptions and prejudice across treatment and control arms
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After
- High frequency daily team level output data obtained from the firm.
- Different measures of implicit and explicit out-group perceptions and prejudice across treatment arms
- Workers will participate in lab-in-the-field experiments at endline in order to understand mechanisms that result in productivity differences in religiously mixed and homogeneous teams
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
- measures of out-group perceptions and prejudice will be constructed using survey data in order to analyze whether greater integration with individuals from other groups have an affect on beliefs
- there will be direct measures of social distance, for example through survey responses to questions on preferences towards marriage outside one's religion and caste
- there will also an indirect measure using an implicit association test to elicit implicit prejudice
These outcomes will be compared across treatment and control groups at baseline and endline.
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After
- Production Data will be obtained directly from the firm which is recorded daily at the firm. Such data are recorded primarily at the line level and not at the section level. Production data for some sections are available which will be used. In addition, during the course of the intervention, production supervisors will record their own assessment of each section's performance daily.
- Measures of out-group perception and prejudice constructed using survey data in order to analyze whether contact with individuals from other religious groups affect preferences and how these effects vary across sections that require high and low dependency amongst workers
- There will be direct measures of social distance, for example survey questions on cross-religion communication at workplace and preferences towards having non-coreligionist supervisors
- An Implicit Association Test (IAT) where workers associate identifiable Hindu and Muslims names with positions in the hierarchy at the firm to understand whether workers have bias towards their own religious group occupying higher positions.
These outcomes will be compared across treatment arms at baseline and endline.
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
The experiment involves randomizing workers in the firm into teams that vary on ethnic dimensions (religion and caste) in order to analyze the effect of ethnic team composition on daily firm productivity. Team production will be studied over a period of time. The hypothesis we want to test through this intervention is whether greater contact with non-co ethnics can positively affect perception, reduce prejudice and improve firm production. Understanding temporal variation in differences across teams is also an important objective of this study. Production data will be complemented with baseline and endline survey data to understand mechanisms driving productivity differences across groups should they exist.
4 different production lines will be part of the experiment. Within each production line three distinct teams will be randomly created, a control group, and two different treatment arms (treatment1 and treatment2). Therefore, there will be 12 different groups.
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After
The experiment involves randomizing workers in the firm into religiously mixed and homogeneous teams and tracking productivity. Team production will be studied over a period of 4-5 months after the intervention. The hypothesis we want to test through this intervention is whether greater contact with non-co-coreligionists affects perception, prejudice and productivity. Understanding heterogeneity in these effects with respect to the production technology is an important objective of this study. Production data will be complemented with baseline and endline survey data to understand mechanisms driving productivity differences across groups.
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Randomization Unit
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Individual
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Individual, Team
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Planned Number of Clusters
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n/a
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16-18 production-line teams
100-110 production line-section teams
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Planned Number of Observations
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400 individuals (at the very least) will be part of the experiment and will be surveyed.
Output data is recorded daily at the firm at the team level. The experiment will run for at least 5 months in 4 production lines, and therefore a minimum of (20 days per month x 5 months x 12 groups) = 1200 output data points are expected to be observed.
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Approximately 600 firm workers.
Daily production data from 6 production lines for approximately 5 months - 1500 shifts of production data
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Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
- At least 400 individuals will be part of the experiment and will be surveyed approximately 133 in control, 133 in treatment1 and 133 in treatment2.
- Team level output data will be generated on a daily basis for 5 months (duration of intervention) at the very least. Considering 4 groups in each of the arms (control, treatment1 and treatment2) there will be 400 data points per arm.
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After
750 shifts of production data for each of the two different treatment groups
Workers in high or low dependency sections will be randomized either into mixed or non-mixed teams.
Approximate number of workers in each type of section:
Low Dependency-Non-Mixed : 100
Low Dependency- Mixed : 105
High Dependency-Non-Mixed : 190
High Dependency-Mixed : 150
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Intervention (Hidden)
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This study is aimed at understanding the effect of religious team composition on team productivity and how the effects vary with production technology. The firm in which the experiment will take place produces packaged bakery products. It has 6 different production lines, each of which has multiple sections. Workers in each section of a production line perform different tasks which eventually lead to production of the final product.
There is large variation across sections in the degree of dependency amongst workers. There are some sections which require workers to directly depend on each other for the production process to move without interruption, for e.g. workers standing next to each other before a conveyor belt with each worker responsible for picking every alternate piece of moving product to pack. Other sections such as mixing and baking, require lower direct dependency amongst workers - they have greater control over process speed and require coordination with other workers less frequently than high dependency sections. Dependency is measured using time-use data with a stopwatch - the proportion of time (out of every 10 minutes) that workers are directly dependent on each other for production to occur without interruption. Work monotony and stress are likely to be greater in high dependency sections.
The intervention will involve randomizing workers into either high or low dependency and religiously mixed or non-mixed sections. The objective of the intervention is to analyze whether there are differential effects on team output depending on whether high or low dependency sections in a production line have mixed teams.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
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After
- Political preferences (political affiliation, preference over bills)
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