14
work can be expected to have greater mastery of the brands and deals offered at their stores. Consequently, they should be better able to communicate these offerings to their customers and
relate them to their customers’ needs even if the quality of their creative work may not improve significantly i.e., there could be benefits in the act of creating, regardless of the outcome. Prior
studies on employee engagement demonstrate that employees who are highly engaged in their work exhibit greater task performance, since they not only exert greater physical effort but also
focus their cognitive and emotional energies on achieving work-related goals Kahn [1990], Rich, Lepine, and Crawford [2010]. These arguments suggest that the direction in which the
implementation of an ISSC will affect financial performance will be contingent on the effect of the system on the quality of creative work and employee engagement. Following the predictions
above, we state our third hypothesis as follows. Hypothesis 3a: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative
work ISSC will lead to an increase in financial performance. Hypothesis 3b: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative
work ISSC will lead to a decrease in financial performance.
3. Research Method and Setting
We test our hypotheses by running a field experiment in a mobile phone retail chain MPR in
India that operated 42 company-owned stores as of September 1, 2016. On that date, the company introduced a pilot project in a random group of stores to test the effects of an ISSC.
The system consisted of a web app that displayed sales posters generated by salespeople across different stores operating across different markets. The managing director of the company
performed the pilot project following our instructions to conduct the tests as a natural field
15
experiment, where the stores adopted the system as part of their regular work and the store teams did not know that they were part of an experiment Floyd and List, 2016.
This method has several advantages. First, a natural field experiment allows us to test the impact of an intervention on a randomly selected group of participants who are doing the types
of tasks they naturally perform in their working environment and who possess all the tacit knowledge needed to perform those tasks. This point is particularly relevant, since some of the
reasons why ISSCs may work e.g., employees exerting greater efforts to avoid exposing low- quality work or may not work e.g., employees’ free riding on their peers’ work may be more
relevant in natural settings where individuals have been engaged with their work and their peers over a long period than in laboratory settings. Second, the natural field experiment
method we employ also allows us to avoid the selection problem that arises when subjects choose whether to participate in an experiment. In our study, participants were automatically
enrolled in the experiment because the implementation of the ISSC was a pilot program that they were unable to opt out of.
Finally, apart from avoiding this selection bias, a natural field experiment can mitigate concerns related to the Hawthorne effect the effect of employees
reacting to being observed rather than reacting to the treatment itself. MPR operates in a highly dynamic and locally idiosyncratic competitive environment. Its
primary competitors are small independent sellers of handsets and connection services who, through their intimate knowledge of the local setting, are able to quickly respond to customer
needs and changes in customer preferences. The second most relevant set of competitors is online retailers who often offer lower prices. To compete with these two sets of competitors,
MPR positions itself as a retailer that offers more value to customers. This is reflected by its offering of attractive promotion deals that make customers feel that they are getting more value
16
for the prices offered; its extensive assortment of products and services to better match customer needs; and its trustworthy, high-quality customer service. It is essential to MPR’s business
strategy and commercial success that salespeople at the store level can effectively convey the value of product or service offerings to local customers.
The MPR stores are staffed by a manager, a cashier, and multiple promoters representing various brands connection providers, insurance providers, credit providers, and handset manufacturers.
The managers and cashiers are employed directly by MPR and are tasked with efficiently managing and operating the stores. However, most of the salespeople who interact with
customers and generate sales at each store are so-called brand promoters. Each promoter is hired by, and receives compensation from, the MPR supplier whose brand she represents. A
promoter’s pay typically includes a salary component andor a sales commission component. MPR occasionally offers promoters incentives for strong sales performance as well as career
opportunities to become cashiers or store managers.
8
None of the explicit incentives promoters receive are related to the quality of their posters or of any other creative work they produce.
Both the MPR and MPR’s suppliers offer customers attractive packages for their products and services, including bundles of handsets and connections, accessories, different credit options, and
promotional rewards hereafter promotion deals. Promoters have significant discretion to advertise these promotion deals by making their own sales posters to match the needs of their
local customers and displaying them in their stores.
8
The performance-based incentive structure at this setting is typical for the retail industry where frontline employees interact with customers and directly impact the results of customer interaction.
17
In a competitive market such as the mobile phone retailing industry in India, promotion deals are updated weekly. Successful sales posters clearly communicate the essence of the latest deals
through a creative visual design that grabs people’s attention and attracts foot traffic into the store. Even after customers are drawn into the store, promoters often explain the offering and
make a sales pitch by referring to the posters see Figure 1 for a sample of the posters designed by promoters.
The process of coming up with posters requires both a deep understanding of the local customer base e.g., what deals and what features in the deals would be most appreciated by the customers
in a specific region and what language is required to connect with them and a great deal of creativity e.g., presenting the important features of the deals in a clear and visually appealing
way. The company realized that motivating promoters to generate more creative posters that attract local customers is a very important part of achieving commercial success in this market.
However, although most if not all promoters come up with some form of posters as a part of their sales effort, only a handful of them have consistently generated appealing sales posters that stand
out. Many promoters exert little effort or lack the skills to come up with more creative visual designs Figure 1.
To engage more promoters in the process of generating creative posters and to increase the overall quality and effectiveness of these posters, the company implemented its ISSC.
This setting provides us with a valuable opportunity to test our hypotheses. First, it exemplifies a typical setting in which ISSCs have the potential to add significant value: retail chains that
differentiate on customer service and which rely on the empowerment and creativity of their frontline staff to deliver value to their customers. Frontline personnel in a retail setting frequently
18
interact with local customers and possess deep and real-time knowledge of their preferences and needs. This knowledge is highly relevant input to producing creative work that aims to generate
sales from local customers. Second, creative output in the natural work environment is generally difficult to measure. Sales posters developed at the store level enable us to reasonably measure
the quality of creative work, identifying the two main aspects that the literature highlights regarding the quality of creative work: their value and their novelty Hennessey and Amabile
[2009]. Furthermore, sales posters are a natural part of the frontline salespeople’s work at this company and have a direct link to attracting local foot traffic and generating sales. Our findings
are generalizable to service organization settings in which frontline employees’ participation in creative outputs is valuable and an important driver of financial performance and where such
employees have implicit or explicit incentives linked to financial performance.
4. Research Design, Analyses, and Results
