Rural women empowerment through entrepreneurship in Malaysia

Last registered on July 26, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Rural women empowerment through entrepreneurship in Malaysia
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007984
Initial registration date
July 23, 2021

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
July 26, 2021, 4:20 PM EDT

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

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Monash University Malaysia

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Monash University Malaysia
PI Affiliation
Monash University Australia
PI Affiliation
Curtin University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-07-26
End date
2022-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Women's equality and empowerment is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also integral to all dimensions of inclusive and sustainable development. The social and structural hindrances faced by the women limit their economic participation, denying the communities from enjoying greater inclusive socio-economic growth. The lack of entrepreneurial skills has been identified as one of the main obstacles faced by potential women entrepreneurs, which is further exacerbated by limited access to trainings that enable the development of such skills in the rural areas. It has been reported that most training programs in rural areas are ineffective. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether we can design external mechanisms to incentivize them to apply the skills and knowledge from the trainings in their business. The main objective of this research is to encourage the adoption of knowledge and skills learned from the training programs through different incentive mechanisms. To pursue this objective, we compare participants' post-training adoption behavior in a baseline treatment with no incentive, to post-training adoption behavior in two different incentive treatments that are either gain-framed or loss-framed incentives.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Chu, Jolynn et al. 2021. "Rural women empowerment through entrepreneurship in Malaysia." AEA RCT Registry. July 26. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7984-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The incentive mechanism is an individual-level intervention designed to encourage women entrepreneurs to apply the skills and knowledge they acquired from the training programs in their business. The intervention involves two encouragement messages that are framed to emphasize the gains or losses of not taking an action to improve their business.
Intervention Start Date
2021-07-26
Intervention End Date
2022-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
1. Adoption of skills acquired from the training.
2. Effectiveness of training programs
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. We expect the encouragement messages to increase the likelihood of skills adoption acquired from the training programs.
2. The effectiveness of the training program depends on the level of technology acceptance, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and growth mindset, assessed through survey.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In collaboration with a microfinance firm, we randomly assign participants to training programs. The participants of the training programs are then further randomized to be placed in experimental groups that will receive different encouragement messages.
The experimental groups are as follows:
1. Control group. No intervention/ messages.
2. Gain-framed encouragement messages.
3. Loss-framed encouragement messages.
Experimental Design Details
The women microentrepreneurs who are randomly selected for the training programs will first be asked to participate in an online survey. Subsequently, one set of encouragement message (either gain-framed or loss-framed) will be sent to the women microentrepreneurs. In addition, we will also conduct a post-training survey to examine the effectiveness of the training programs.
Randomization Method
The microfinance randomly assigns the women microentrepreneurs to the training programs through lottery.
Randomization Unit
microfinance branch
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
13 branches
Sample size: planned number of observations
900 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
13 branches, 300 women microentrepreneurs in each treatment (300 x 3 treatments).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2021-07-19
IRB Approval Number
28888

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