Collaborative Research: Institutional capacity as an organizational challenge: a field experiment in Pakistan

摘要VybornyCollaborative Research：作为组织挑战的机构能力：实地试验有效管理组织-企业、政府或非营利组织--是经济增长和发展的核心。虽然已经有一些关于企业组织效率的研究，但很少有人研究公共部门和非政府部门的组织效率-这些部门在现代经济中所占的份额越来越大。这项研究将使用一项独特的实地实验，涉及一个大型捐助组织和800多个受援社区组织，以研究大型、多层次和复杂组织的效率，重点是如何利用通过该组织流动的信息，以及如何有效地激励代理人实现该组织的目标。这项研究将试图回答三个主要问题：(I)透明的自我报告工具和非货币激励机制能否激励社区组织实现其目标；(Ii)大型复杂组织的各部分如何回应和使用他们收到的新信息；以及(Iii)对新信息的回应如何取决于组织的特征？这项研究的结果将导致大型、复杂组织的绩效总体上的改善。这些组织的效率将改善全球经济的表现。大型组织在管理信息、设置激励措施以及将决策权下放给相关人员方面面临挑战。已有的实证工作研究了私营组织中的激励问题。然而，人们对大型非营利组织和政府组织的表现关注有限。这个项目将使用一个独特的实地实验来解决三个问题-组织内的信息和通信、组织内的不同偏好以及非政府组织的表现。实验设计将允许私人投资机构测试三个主要想法：(I)能否通过自我报告和非财务奖励来激励社区组织以改善其业绩；(Ii)大型复杂组织的每个部分如何对有关业绩指标的新信息做出反应；(Iii)管理层和工作人员对收到新信息和激励的反应是否取决于组织的特点、组织各部分之间的沟通成本以及决策权的下放？为了回答第一个问题，将对800多个受助社区组织进行调查，然后使用带有对照的2×2析因设计将其随机分为不同的自我报告方案。此设计允许PI测试自我报告对服务交付或治理的影响。为了回答第二和第三个问题，私人投资经理将进行一项新颖的揭示偏好排名实验，涉及初级和高级管理人员。这项研究的结果将加强我们对组织效率决定因素的理解，并在此过程中有助于提高世界各地的经济效率。

Abstract VybornyCollaborative Research: Institutional Capacity as an Organizational Challenge: A Field ExperimentEfficient management of organizations---businesses, governments or non-profits--is central to economic growth and development. Although there have been some studies of organizational efficiency in businesses, few have studied organizational efficiency in the public and non-governmental sectors---sectors that are becoming increasingly large shares of modern economies. This research will use a unique field experiment, involving a large donor organization and over 800 recipient community organizations, to study the efficiency in large, multitiered and complex organizations with emphasis on how information flowing through the organization is used, and how to effectively incentivize agents to achieve the organization's goals. This research will seek to answer three major questions: (i) can a transparent self-reporting tool and non-monetary incentive scheme motivate community organizations to achieve their goals; (ii) how do parts of a large complex organization respond to and use new information they receive; and (iii) how does the response to new information depend on the characteristics of the organization? The results of this research will lead to improvement in the performance of large, complex organizations generally. Efficiency in these organizations will improve the performance of economies worldwide. Large organizations face challenges in managing information, setting incentives and delegating decision-making power to the relevant personnel. Existing empirical work investigate incentive problems in private organizations. However, limited attention has been paid to the performance of large non-profit and government organizations. This project will use a unique field experiment to address three issues---information and communication within organizations, divergent preferences within organizations, and performance of non-government organizations. The experimental design will allow the PIs to test three main ideas: (i) Can community organizations be incentivized through self-reporting and non-financial rewards to improve their performance; (ii) How does each part of a large, complex organization respond to new information on performance indicators; (iii) Do the responses of management and workers to the receipt of new information and incentives depend on organizational characteristics of the organization, communication costs between parts of the organization, and decentralization of decision making authority? To answer the first question, over 800 recipient community organizations will be surveyed and then randomized into different self-reporting schemes using a two-by-two factorial design with controls. This design allows the PIs to test for the impact of self-reporting on service delivery or governance. To answer the second and third questions, the PIs will carry out a novel revealed-preference ranking experiment involving both junior and senior management staff members. The results of this research will strengthen our understanding of the determinants of efficiency in organizations and in the process, contribute to increased efficiency of economies worldwide.