Madeleine Gleave and Dr. Daniel Nielson, Department of Political Science

Overview of Research

Our research took us to the red dirt and bustling streets of Uganda. There we sought to understand how non-governmental organizations behave. We were interested in understanding the coordination behavior of NGOs in Uganda and India. With the on-site mentorship of Professor Daniel Nielson, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in the field that involved randomly assigning a subset of NGOs in our sample the ability to use an online NGO project mapping tool that we generated (to view, see: http://ngocoordinationug.tumblr.com/).

In our research, we considered the efficiency of the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the area of international development. Specifically we ask whether reducing the costs of gathering information on other NGO projects increases NGOs’ propensity to coordinate among each other. We predict that decreasing information costs associated with communication gives greater incentive to pursue coordination. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a randomized field experiment in which we invited randomly assigned NGOs to use an online mapping tool providing information about NGO activities across Uganda. Our sample comes from NGOs that complete a survey on coordination sent through e-mail, establishing a baseline measure. From this sample we randomly assigned NGOs to receive access to the online mapping tool, which included information about NGO projects from the treatment groups in the respective countries. Propensity to coordinate is measured through a follow up survey, with the outcome of interest being higher rates of communication and coordination.

To analyze the data we use a statistical tool that allows us to compare the difference in responses from subjects about communication levels following to the experimental intervention to the difference in communication levels between the control and the treatment groups before the intervention was distributed. From this measure we determined that NGOs in our sample who did not have access to the map were more likely to report higher levels of communication than NGOs who had access to the map. This was a surprising result to us. Our theory suggests that with reduced information costs about NGO activity, NGO communication and coordination should increase. That our results do not confirm this understanding of NGO coordination behavior suggests that other costs may continue to overpower the reduction of information costs, resulting in the lack of coordination. Another explanation could be that NGOs who see the map communicate less with other NGOs because seeing the competition in their area of work deters them. More research needs to be done to determine the mechanisms that lead to a lower communication rate among organizations whose communication costs have been reduced.

Next Steps

We have begun to extend this research to a sample of NGOs in Andhra Pradesh, India. We have distributed the pre-survey. The next step is to create the Andhra Pradesh, India NGO map and send this map to the randomly assigned treatment group in the sample. We will then send a post-survey. Expanding the sample to India will strengthen our confidence in the findings from the Uganda sample. This phase of the research should be completed by April 2013.

Lessons Learned

Conducting this research taught us many important lessons about field work. We learned that in designing and executing a research project in a field setting, there are always be unexpected problems that arise. The most prominent problem that arose for us was low response rates and attrition in the experiment. We feel that this restricted the confidence we can place in results; however, we feel that this can be overcome by finishing the India portion of the study.

Beyond conducting the research, we also had many opportunities open up to us as a result of conducting this research. We submitted our research to three conferences and were accepted. We presented our research at the BYU Kennedy Center Inquiry Conference, the Fulton Chair Annual Mentored Student Research Conference, the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Weber, UT, and the Mid-West Political Science Association Annual Conference in Chicago, IL (among the largest conferences in political science). We also received a grant from the BYU Library Research program, and had our paper published in their online Scholars Archive. These experiences were wonderful opportunities to engage with our discipline and receive feedback on our research. It will also give us a definite advantage as we apply for jobs and graduate programs.

Through this whole process we also gained an appreciation for the research process and a desire to conduct more research. Madeleine and Peter have both gone on to conduct and assist with a handful of other research projects in the last year, mostly through the BYU Political Economy and Development Lab (PEDL) under the direction of Daniel Nielson. Madeleine has applied her experience in a practical way in her internship at GlobalGiving, an online fundraising marketplace for grassroots NGOs. Aradhana is applying some of the skills she learned in her employment at Goldman Sachs. We are grateful to the Office of Research & Creative Activities for helping facilitate this formative and important experience in our undergraduate careers.