INCENTIVES IN TECHNICAL STUDIES

THE FACTS
Why do people open their door to a stranger, or spend a half hour with an unknown person on the telephone? Research suggests that there are three main reasons: altruism, an interest in the survey, and egoistic reasons (Porst, 1995). Over the summer, we travelled to Ghana and conducted a technical study in two slums within Accra city. Our major aim was to understand our potential consumers purchasing behavior with a goal of determining the target groups readiness for rice-bran fortified porridge flour. The product was a baby porridge dish intended for children older than 6 months to be consumed for breakfast on a daily basis. While in Accra, we encountered a typical phenomenon that most researchers doing fieldwork encounter: the question of whether or not to give incentives to attract, retain and compensate key contacts. In most situations, we found that the women we were interested in speaking to typically lived under $2 a day. Most of them had no jobs or income generating activities and typically depended solely on their husbands for financial support. As a result the women were able to dedicate more time to us. In return they expected compensation for time and efforts spent with us.

DEFINE THE ISSUES

The main issue to our team was if incentives would bias our research findings. Was it unethical to offer these incentives? Would these be considered a form of undue influence or coercive offer? Our potential participants did not specify if they preferred monetary or non-monetary incentives. In some cases, they asked for items including the gumboots we wore and the ACLU t-shirts and bags we were carrying. We recognized that incentives could become particularly problematic in our case due to a number of reasons. We were conducting a study that spanned several weeks and as such we needed to establish a relationship with a set group of mothers. We also had a situation where a participant was in a dependency relationship with our team. Research has shown that such a relationship could be negatively impacted if incentives are introduced. (Grant RW, 2001) This was the case with Jane Njambi our key contact in Okulu slum. Njambi had lived in Okulu for 30 years and had connections with an extensive network of mothers through her community building initiatives over the years.

As a casual laborer in the garment industry in Accras Industrial Area was prone to the fluctuations that came with the blue collar jobs in the manufacturing industry. During our summer visit, she was in between jobs. Uwezo recognized that she was an invaluable resource and we specifically requested her to avail 4 days a week to acquaint us with the operating environment. We pondered the question of whether our ethical concerns were misplaced when incentives were used to attract and retain participants who were faced with such severe economic obstacles (A. Banerjee, 2011). For instance, another of our participants had just been left jobless after the school she was teaching in was abruptly closed by the local administration due to subpar standards. We wondered what impacts our decision would have given the multiple players involved in our venture project.

IDENTIFY THE STAKEHOLDERS

We had diverse stakeholders who would be impacted directly or indirectly by the outcome of our technical study. The BREE program was the primary stakeholder of our venture project as the program provided the enabling environment including academic and financial support to carry out the research. Dr. Martina Bryant from ACLUs department of Public Health has been involved with rice bran research over the last 5 years and was our principle partner. The potential beneficiaries of our research included our target market of children in the weaning phase between 6 and 59 months that are affected by micro-nutrient deficiencies. The agroprocessing industry in Ghana would also stand to benefit from the utilization of a wasted byproduct of the milling process as a food ingredient. Indirectly, the public health officials and local government administration were stakeholders as they stood to be impacted by our goal of ensuring the alleviation of child malnutrition.

ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS
We had the following as alternative courses of actions: we could choose to reimburse expenses the participants had incurred in transport and meals to attend our meeting sessions. We could choose to fully compensate the participants for their time and effort at reasonable daily wages. Failure to the above, we could also chose to express our gratitude without any form of monetary consideration being exchanged.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES

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LONG TERM
The long term consequences of our actions included exacerbating social inequalities within the Okulu slum and forming an unsustainable precedent for other organizations conducting studies in these communities. Due to the implicit coercive nature of incentives in a situation of economic lack, our actions could also result in the exploitation of vulnerable populations who would otherwise not voluntarily participate in such studies.

SHORT TERM
In the short-term, we were also concerned that incentives may undermine the autonomy of participant choice and ultimately hinder the disclosure of accurate information.

PERCEIVED DOWNSIDE
From a utilitarian standpoint, public health issues such as alleviation of child malnutrition provide critically important benefits to society. Therefore impediments that make it unlikely for fieldwork to be a success for instance, a shortage of participants, carry an ethical burden. Incentives can effectively turn an inconvenient task for a participant into a worthwhile activity, thus reversing this downside.

WHAT ARE THE OBLIGATIONS

Although we were exempt from the Universitys Institutional review board regulations as we were not publishing or disseminating the information beyond ACLU (), we had an obligation to take appropriate steps to protect the rights and welfare of participants in our technical study.

WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES/COMPANY VALUES

Primarily as a venture team we were guided by the core values that we had set out in our team charter. These were to: Improve the quality of life of our ultimate beneficiaries Have integrity which we defined as our responsibility to our customers, employees and the environments in which we work not to take professional or ethical shortcuts Empowerment of the people and communities throughout our value chain as our success depends on the collective efforts of all actors

IS THERE A CREATIVE SOLUTION

We considered a creative solution of providing a benefit after the decision to participate had been made by the participant. This gift or token of appreciation would not be an incentive as it would not serve as a motivator to participate. However, we were anxious as to the effectiveness of this approach as it fell down to our credibility. As we were new comers in the slum community, which was a very relationship-based community we had not formed the necessary links and ties that would enable them to trust our word.

WHAT DOES YOUR GUT SAY

Our decision had to take into consideration all of the factors outlined above. We had an obligation to design and conduct fieldwork in an exhaustive manner and incentives that provide benefits promised a high participant outcome. However, we also had to consider the consequences of our actions at present and in the longer run. Guided by our core value of integrity, we decided against monetary incentives as they would bias the responses we obtained and in the long-term would make it difficult for other researchers to conduct studies in the community without using similar incentives. Based on our two other core values of integrity and empowerment, I felt within my gut that we could not leave without recognizing the efforts the mothers in the community had put in to make our study a success. As a result, we decided to provide a benefit to the participants after we had completed our study. This action allowed us to act with integrity and showed the trust the mothers had developed with us and our mission as we were able to retain all the participants we had recruited on the first day, barring family emergencies and job availability. In pursuance to our findings, we believe that these will go a long way in ensuring that the quality of life of children affected by malnutrition and therefore benefitting our participants and the community at large in the long run.

WORKS CITED A. Banerjee, E. D. (2011). Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. Boston: Perseus Books Group. Grant RW, S. J. (2001). Ethics in human subjects research: do incentives matter? Journal of Political Science, 22. Porst, V. B. (1995). ie vielleicht bereit, sich gegebenenfalls noch einmal befragen zu lassen? . Grnde fr die Teilnahme an Panelbefragungen, 95/04.