Pay for Performance – Evidence from a large discount retailer

Last registered on November 18, 2015

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Pay for Performance – Evidence from a large discount retailer

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0000961

Initial registration date

November 18, 2015

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 18, 2015, 9:53 AM EST

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

Locations

Country

Germany

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Timo Vogelsang

Affiliation

Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Kathrin Manthei

PI Affiliation

University of Applied Science Neuss

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Dirk Sliwka

PI Affiliation

University of Cologne

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2015-01-01

End date

2016-12-31

Keywords

Labor

Additional Keywords

pay for performance, monetary incentive, field experiment, salience

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

Within a large retail discounter we monetarily incentivize a key performance variable, the normalized average receipt, for a randomly assigned set of middle (district) managers in one region. As a robustness check we used a different region in which we do almost the same procedure and intervention but without a monetary incentive. The middle management of this region receives a kick-off mail stating that the focus should be on the performance of the average receipt for the next months and they receive an additional feedback about their performance each month. This allows us to control whether a change in the performance is due to the monetary incentive or due to salience of the performance.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Manthei, Kathrin, Dirk Sliwka and Timo Vogelsang. 2015. "Pay for Performance – Evidence from a large discount retailer." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.961-1.0

Former Citation

Manthei, Kathrin, Dirk Sliwka and Timo Vogelsang. 2015. "Pay for Performance – Evidence from a large discount retailer." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/961/history/6078

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2015-11-02

Intervention End Date

2016-01-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Among many: the change of the key performance indicator (avg. receipt), order behavior of managers, food expiration, FTEs, mystery shopping results, questionnaire

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The intervention takes place in two regions of Germany. We randomly assign managers within each region to either the treatment (1) or control group (2) using the stratification method by Thomas Barrios (2013).

Region 1 (monetary incentive):

T1-1: Middle (district) management attended a kick-off event, receives a monthly notification concerning their performance of the key performance variable (average receipt normalized) and get €100 for each percentage point increase of this variable.
T1-2: Middle (district) management receives nothing except a notification that they will get a bonus for the increase of some other (at this point unknown) variable at a later stage (after this intervention).

Region 2 (salience):

T2-1: Middle (district) management receives a kick-off email and monthly notification concerning their performance of the key performance variable (average receipt normalized).
T2-2: Middle (district) management receives nothing.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Stratification method by Thomas Barrios (2013)

Randomization Unit

District Managers

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

Bonus treatment: approx. 304 shop managers; Salience treatment: approx. 256 shop managers

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

(we are not sure about the exact number of shop managers at the stage of registration because the discounter wants to drop shops which do not exist for at least 3 years and shops which have been reconstructed this year. Unfortunately, we haven’t received this information yet)

Bonus treatment: 25 district managers
Salience treatment: 17 district managers

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB