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  • 2018
  • Working Paper
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Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment

By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:50
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Abstract

When workers make operational decisions, the firm's global knowledge and the workers’ domain-specific knowledge complement each other. Oftentimes workers have the final decision-making power. Two key decisions a firm makes when designing systems to support these workers are 1) what guidance to deliver and 2) what kind of training (if any) to provide. We examine these choices in the context of mobile money platforms—systems that allow users in developing economies to deposit, transfer, and withdraw money using their mobile phones. Mobile money has grown quickly, but high stockout rates of currency persist due to suboptimal inventory decisions made by contracted employees (called agents). In partnership with a Tanzanian mobile money operator, we perform a randomized controlled trial with 4,771 agents over eight weeks to examine how differing types of guidance and training impact the agents' inventory management. We find agents who are trained in person and receive an explicit, personalized, daily text message recommendation of how much electronic currency to stock are less likely to stock out. These agents are more likely to alter their electronic currency balance on a day (rebalance). In contrast, agents trained in person but who receive summary statistics of transaction volumes or agents who are notified about the program and not offered in-person training do not experience changes in stockouts or rebalances. We observe no evidence of learning or fatigue. Agent-level heterogeneity in the treatment effects shows that the agents who handle substantially more customer deposits than withdrawals benefit most from the intervention.

Keywords

Employees; Decision Making; Training; Performance Improvement; Money; Mobile Technology; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Services Industry

Citation

Acimovic, Jason, Chris Parker, David F. Drake, and Karthik Balasubramanian. "Show or Tell? Improving Agent Decision Making in a Tanzanian Mobile Money Field Experiment." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-106, May 2018.
  • SSRN

More from the Authors

    • 2017
    • Faculty Research

    Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World

    By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing
    • 2017
    • Faculty Research

    Show or Tell?: Behavioral Inventory Response to an East African Mobile Money Field Experiment

    By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian
    • 2017
    • Faculty Research

    Kicking Ash: Who (or What) Is Winning the War on Coal?

    By: David F. Drake and Jeffrey York
More from the Authors
  • Inventory Management for Mobile Money Agents in the Developing World By: Karthik Balasubramanian, David F. Drake and Douglas Fearing
  • Show or Tell?: Behavioral Inventory Response to an East African Mobile Money Field Experiment By: Jason Acimovic, Chris Parker, David F. Drake and Karthik Balasubramanian
  • Kicking Ash: Who (or What) Is Winning the War on Coal? By: David F. Drake and Jeffrey York
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