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

对企业、政府或非营利组织的有效管理是经济增长和发展的核心。虽然有一些关于企业组织效率的研究，但很少有人研究公共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。本研究将采用一个独特的现场实验，涉及一个大型捐赠组织和800多个受赠社区组织，研究大型、多层次和复杂组织的效率，重点是如何利用组织中的信息流动，以及如何有效激励代理人实现组织目标。本研究将寻求回答三个主要问题：(i)透明的自我报告工具和非金钱激励计划能否激励社区组织实现其目标；（ii）一个大型复杂组织的各个部分如何响应和使用他们收到的新信息；（iii）对新信息的反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、设置激励措施和将决策权委托给相关人员方面面临挑战。已有的实证研究对民营企业的激励问题进行了探讨。然而，对大型非营利组织和政府组织的绩效关注有限。本项目将通过一个独特的实地实验来解决三个问题——组织内部的信息和沟通、组织内部的偏好差异和非政府组织的绩效。实验设计将允许项目负责人测试三个主要想法：(i)能否通过自我报告和非经济奖励来激励社区组织改善其表现；一个大型复杂组织的每个部分如何对关于业绩指标的新资料作出反应；管理层和工人对收到新信息和奖励的反应是否取决于组织的组织特点、组织各部分之间的通讯费用和决策权的分散？为了回答第一个问题，将对800多个接受调查的社区组织进行调查，然后使用2乘2的因子设计随机分为不同的自我报告方案。这种设计允许pi测试自我报告对服务交付或治理的影响。为了回答第二个和第三个问题，pi将进行一个涉及初级和高级管理人员的新颖的揭示偏好排序实验。这项研究的结果将加强我们对组织和过程中效率决定因素的理解，有助于提高全球经济的效率。

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.