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Field
Trial Status
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Before
in_development
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After
on_going
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Field
Last Published
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Before
October 26, 2021 02:59 PM
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After
November 15, 2021 07:19 AM
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Field
Intervention (Public)
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Before
The intervention is an information treatment whereby three different e-mails will be sent to a sample of 4343 Tunisian firms to motivate them to participate in an e-commerce training that intends to promote exports of SMEs. The sample is randomly split into three groups whereby two treatment groups will receive e-mails that, in addition to the general information about the program, contains information that shall encourage female business owners to participate. The first e-mail contains information about free-of-charge childcare services during the classroom trainings that will be offered to participants. The second email includes information and link to a video of a successful female Tunisian entrepreneur that talks about her experience as an exporter. The third e-mail contains just the information required for registration but no additional encouragement messages and will be sent to the control group. The sample consists of both female and male-led firms, as both the potential effect of female encouragement and a potential backlash (by male business owners) who may feel discouraged by the additional messages shall be investigated.
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After
The intervention is an information treatment whereby three different e-mails will be sent to a sample of 4847 Tunisian firms to motivate them to participate in an e-commerce training that intends to promote exports of SMEs. The sample is randomly split into three groups whereby two treatment groups will receive e-mails that, in addition to the general information about the program, contains information that shall encourage female business owners to participate. The first e-mail contains information about free-of-charge childcare services during the classroom trainings that will be offered to participants. The second email includes information and link to a video of a successful female Tunisian entrepreneur that talks about her experience as an exporter. The third e-mail contains just the information required for registration but no additional encouragement messages and will be sent to the control group. The sample consists of both female and male-led firms, as both the potential effect of female encouragement and a potential backlash (by male business owners) who may feel discouraged by the additional messages shall be investigated.
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Intervention Start Date
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Before
October 26, 2021
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After
November 01, 2021
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Field
Intervention End Date
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Before
November 19, 2021
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After
November 30, 2021
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
The sample consists of 4343 firms. The firms were randomly assigned to treatment 1 (childcare message), treatment 2 (influencer video) or control group. Prior to the randomization, the sample was stratified based on the gender of the firms' director and the sector. Sector information was only obtained for 3772 out of the 4343 firms. For the remaining 571 firms, sector was categorized as “undefined” and two additional strata were formed for female and male firms with undefined sector information. In total 17 strata were formed. In cases where the number of firms per strata was not divisible by 3, the remaining firms (misfits) were allocated randomly within each strata.
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After
The sample consists of 4847 firms. The firms were randomly assigned to treatment 1 (childcare message), treatment 2 (influencer video) or control group. Prior to the randomization, the sample was stratified based on the gender of the firms' director and the sector. Sector information was only obtained for 3723 out of the 4847 firms. For the remaining 1124 firms, sector was categorized as “undefined” and two additional strata were formed for female and male firms with undefined sector information. In total 17 strata were formed. In cases where the number of firms per strata was not divisible by 3, the remaining firms (misfits) were allocated randomly to treatment or control groups within each strata.
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Planned Number of Clusters
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Before
4343 firms
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After
4847 firms
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Field
Planned Number of Observations
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Before
4343 firms
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After
4847 firms
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Field
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
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Before
Treatment Arm 1 (child-care message): 1444 firms
Treatment Arm 2 (female export entrepreneur encouragement message): 1448 firms
Control Group (neutral message): 1441
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After
Treatment Arm 1 (child-care message): 1615 firms
Treatment Arm 2 (female export entrepreneur encouragement message): 1617 firms
Control Group (neutral message): 1615 firms
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Field
Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
see Pre-Analysis Plan.
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After
see pre-Analysis plan (available from authors upon request).
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Field
Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
We will estimate the gender-specific treatment effect and undertake subgroup-analyses by firm size, governorate (region), town and sectors. The gender-specific effect of the e-mail treatment on registration will be estimated through a gender variable, binary-coded based on first name of the director that was indicated in the data set, which will be interacted with the two treatment dummies (E-Mail 1, E-Mail 2).
Secondary Hypothesis 1: Receiving information about free-of-charge childcare services will lead to increase in program registration among female-led firms.
Secondary Hypothesis 2: Receiving information about a female entrepreneur that suceeded in exporting through e-commerce will lead to an increase in program registration among female-led firms.
Secondary Hypothesis 3: Receiving information about free-of-charge childcare services will have no impact on the number of male-led firms that register for the program.
Secondary Hypothesis 4: Receiving information about a female entrepreneur that suceeded in exporting through e-commerce will have no impact on the number of male-led firms that register for the program.
The hypotheses 1-4 are based on existing evidence that suggest that female encouragement for application will lead to an increase in female applications, without deterring male applications (Ibanez & Riener 2018).
To analyse the treatment effect by firm size (number of employees) and sector, subgroup-analyses will be done.
Secondary Hypothesis 5: Receiving information about free-of-charge childcare services will increase the registration more for small firms than for larger firms. We expect this size-specific effect because larger firms usually have more possibilities to dispose an employee for the training, whereas this may be more difficult for smaller where employees or the business owners have more conflicting duties. Hence, offering complementary child care should have a larger impact on the latter.
Secondary Hypothesis 6: Receiving information about a female entrepreneur that suceeded in exporting through e-commerce will increase the registration more among small firms than among larger firms. We expect that small firms perceive the act of exporting as more complex and hence the encouragement effect of seeing a sucessful example of an established (female) entrepreurship should have a larger effect on this group.
Secondary Hypothesis 7: Both treatment effects will vary across sectors. We expect the encouragement messages to have a larger impact in sectors were female underrepresentation is stronger.
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After
We will estimate the gender-specific treatment effect and undertake subgroup-analyses by firm size, governorate (region), town and sectors. The gender-specific effect of the e-mail treatment on registration will be estimated through a gender variable, binary-coded based on first name of the director that was indicated in the data set, which will be interacted with the two treatment dummies (E-Mail 1, E-Mail 2).
Secondary Hypothesis 1: Receiving information about free-of-charge childcare services will lead to a larger increase in program registration among women-led firms than among men-led firms.
Secondary Hypothesis 2: Receiving information about a female entrepreneur that succeeded in exporting through e-commerce will lead to a larger increase in program registration among women-led firms than among men-led firms.
Secondary Hypothesis 1 and 2 are based on the same evidence cited above (Ibanez & Riener 2018)
Secondary Hypothesis 3: Receiving information about free-of-charge childcare services will increase the registration more for small firms than for larger firms. We expect this size-specific effect because larger firms usually have more possibilities to dispose of an employee for the training, whereas this may be more difficult for smaller firms where employees or the business owners have more conflicting duties. Hence, the childcare information will be more relevant for the latter group.
Secondary Hypothesis 4: Receiving information about a female entrepreneur that succeeded in exporting through e-commerce will increase the registration more among small firms than among larger firms. We expect that small firms perceive the act of exporting as more complex and hence the encouragement effect of seeing a successful example of an established (female) entrepreneur should have a larger effect on this group.
Secondary Hypothesis 5: Both treatment effects will vary across sectors. We expect the encouragement messages to have a larger impact in sectors where female underrepresentation is stronger.
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Field
Public locations
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Before
No
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After
Yes
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