SOCIAL LOAFING

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SOCIAL LOAFING Ahmet Erkasap* Özet Çalışan performansı ve örgütün verimliliğini arttırmak, örgütler için öncelikli bir hedeftir. Özellikle son dönemdeki yoğun rekabetçi ve değişken koşullarda çalışanların performans kayıplarını önlemek giderek daha fazla önem kazanmaktadır. Bunun yanında takım çalışmalarının örgütlerde daha fazla ağırlık kazanması sonucunda, sosyal kaytarmayı önlemek örgütler açısından zorunlu hale gelmiştir. Sosyal kaytarma, bireylerin ortaklaşa çalıştıklarındaki motivasyon ve çabalarının, bireysel çalışmalarındakine göre azalması durumudur. Sosyal kaytarmanın tüm toplumsal ve örgütsel katmanlarda sonuçları olumsuz bir tür sosyal hastalık olduğu belirlenmiştir. Bu çalışmada, sosyal kaytarma kavramının kapsamı, tarihçe, sebep ve sonuçları konusunda bilgi verilmekte, ayrıca örgütlerde sosyal kaytarmayı azaltma önerileri sunarak bazı araştırma örnekleri verilmiştir. Anahtar Sözcükler: Sosyal Kaytarma, Örgütsel Davranış, Örgüt Kültürü, Abstract Organizations have always searched some ways to improve performance of workers and effectiveness of organizations. Nowadays, it’s getting more important to prevent performance loss under intensely competitive and changing environment. Since teamwork has become more and more important in organizations, it has been a necessity for organizations to cope with social loafing. Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to put out less effort when working collectively than when working individually. Social loafing has been defined as a social disease in every level of social strata. In this study, the definition, content, background, development, reasons and antecedents of social loafing concept are summarized and argued; with research samples added to the suggestions offered for reducing social loafing in organizations. Keywords: Social Loafing, Organizational Behavior, Organizational Culture *  Istanbul Commerce University, Social Sciences Institute, Management PhD Student    

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Introduction Nowadays competition conditions become more and more difficult and changes in dynamic environments has been gaining pace day by day. Organizations have been striving for being in a constant development so as to keep pace with these changes, and to deal with this competition. Improving the workers’ performance and preventing performance loss has been gaining more importance than ever. Organizations are in search of many different methods to improve their workers’ performance and prevent performance decrease. We can easily say that, one of the most harmful behaviors among organizational behaviors is social loafing. Social loafing means an individual, striving less than the expected in tasks performed within a group. As it’s important for administers that the workers perform all of the tasks they are required to do according to their contracts, social loafing comes foremost among the most unwanted organizational behaviors. However, managers who have a constant worry about how to enhance performance and reduce social loafing, because they can’t gather enough information on this issue, fail to solve the issue as much as desired. In this work, respectively, the definition of social loafing term and its scope, theories and hypothesis regarding emergence of social loafing theory, its development, antecedents of social loafing, research samples and suggestions regarding reducing the social loafing with conclusion is included. Theoretical Perspective of Social Loafing We can think that working with others enhance the individual potentials to the uppermost level and gives determination to work harder. However, some research results surprisingly showed that when individuals work collectively, they put less effort than when they work individually (Karau and Williams, 1997:156-168). Conscious or unconscious decrease, rooting to social awareness of groups, leads individuals to put less effort compared to when they are on their own. (Ringelmann, 1913:1-40; Williams, Harkins and Latane, 1981:303-311). Explanation of this efficiency loss as “Social Loafing “ has been accepted widely. (George, 1992:191-202). Social loafing is the situation “when individuals work collectively” and the motivation and effort in individuals decreases compared to “when they work on their own” or in “shared tasks”. “Collective work” and “Shared tasks” concepts have different meanings. When individuals work collectively, to get a single product, they unify their entries with other individuals and work in the presence of real or sensed entities. In shared tasks, putting aside the fact that individuals again work in the presence of real or sensed entities, this time entries are not unified with the other individuals. (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). With this in mind we can say, social loafing emerges from “collective work”. Latane, Williams and Harkins, used social loafing term for the first time (1979:822-832), defined this notion that causes important decrease in efficiency and emerges when not working

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individually but as a community, as a “social illness” on the basis of the troubles it causes. The first work that we can put under social loafing was conducted by French scientist Ringelmann, when observing effects of working collectively in rope pulling contests in 1880s (Williams and Karau, 1991:570-581). Ringelmann asked voluntary men to pull a rope that has a tensiometer at the end of it with their all power, on their own and in groups and surprisingly, he found out that the total individual force wasn’t equal to group force. Ringelmann observed that as the number of the individuals increased, the total performance decreased. The reverse relation between the size of the group and the effort dedicated, is named as “Ringelmann Effect” (Piezon and Ferree, 2008:1-17). These findings revelaed against the notion that group effort and being a part of a team would increase the efforts put in the task. Until 1970’s, Ringelmann’s research did not get too much attention. Steiner (1972) who examined Ringelmann’s experiments after many years put forward two probable reasons for the decrease in performance: (a) Decrease in individual motivation (b) Loss of coordination Steiner put the emphasis on the loss of coordination among the probable reasons (1972), and put forward the idea that along with synchronization errors, cause a decrease in efficiency and it’s not enough to explain the decrease in the effort put (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). In order to distinguish decrease in effort from loss of coordination, Ingham and his friends (1974:371-384) performed a new experiment. In this experiment, both real and experimental groups were formed and they were asked to pull a rope. Regarding the participants whose eyes were closed, they were made to think that they were pulling the rope with a group; but they were made to pull the rope on their own. Data gathered from the experimental group showed that the more perceived size of the group increases the more decreased the performance. This confirmed that, individuals put less effort when they work in a group than they do when they work individually (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Latane and his colleagues (1979:822-832), after this experiment, used “social loafing” term for the decrease in individual performance in working groups. Latane and his colleagues designed an experiment to test this notion. In the first experiment, researchers wanted the participants to perform physical activities like applauding and shouting, for these activities are usually performed with groups. Groups formed in different numbers and were required to applause or shout to produce noise as much as they can. The same experiment was performed with each one of the individuals. As a result, it was observed that sound level increased parallel with the size of the group; however this increase wasn’t a linear one (Latane et.al., 1979:822-832). In the second experiment, participants were guided into the separate rooms and their hearing was obstructed with earphones. Some of the participants were told that they were shouting alone; and some were told that they were shouting as a group. Each participant’s individual evaluations and evaluations within groups in different sizes were gathered. Along with the fact that this experiment’s evaluations were higher compared to the first one; tendency was found to be the same. As a result, as the

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group grew bigger, the performance decreased. It’s found that capacity of a group consisting of two people was 66%, and the capacity of a group consisting of six people was 36%. Effects of social loafing were observed even when people thought they were shouting with a group although they did alone. According to the calculations made, when they think even one person more is shouting along with them, they showed 82% of their performance they performed on their own; when they thought that 5 people more were shouting with them, they performed 74% of their performance that they performed on their own (Latane et.al., 1979:822-832). Latane and his colleagues (1979:822-832) suggested three probable reasons for social loafing through their observations in the experiments: 1- Attribution and Equity: Subjects may have lowered their voices because they may have thought that others’ voices were heard less than theirs and others might be loafing. No matter how much earphones make this loafing harder, it is possible that some people may have come up with the prejudice that others were slacking. 2- Submaximal Goal Setting: It is possible subjects may have thought that there was a standard of sound level, thus as the number of people increased they had to shout less to meet this standard. In this situation, it’s probable that they thought they had to put optimum effort rather than the maximum level. However, because these participants were told to shout as high as they could; the validity of this possibility is not expected. 3- Evaluation Error: The last one of the probabilities is that people think that they can hide themselves in a crowd thus protect themselves from the negative impacts of the social loafing or because of being scared of becoming lost in the crowd they wouldn’t get the just share of the positive side of the work their hard work. People can only be evaluated truly and thus can be awarded when they work alone. Latane later turned these into his theory, which he published in 1981 and named as social loafing. It is defined as “change in one’s psychological situation, individual emotions, motives, affectivity, cognition, beliefs and behaviors to an important degree” as a result of other individuals’ real or sensed or imaginary presence or activities. According to this, people can be source or target of the social impact. It’s thought that amount, available source and force of the targets, its importance and its number has a function (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). The base of social impact theory is social force area. This theory is a meta-theory. (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Latane (1981:303-311) put forward three hypotheses that he explained through social impact theory: 1- If a person is the target of social impact, increase in other people’s number increases the social pressure on the person that’s linked to the impact. 2- If a person’s inputs are not noticeable, this person may work less. 3-If the work that a person performs is divided into parts and thus the award he is expecting decreases, this person may work less within the group Expectancy-value theory, which is developed, by John Wiliam Atkins, is another commonly accepted theory. It is used in many fields but with respect to this paper we will take into account the social loafing side of it. It consists of three main components (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706; Mitchell, 1974:1053-1077; 1982:293-312; Porter and Lawler, 1968; Vroom, 1964): Expectation, instrumentality and value. Expectation component expresses the notion that performance is bound to

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the effort. As an example of this, it is said the more effort results in better performance. Instrumentality component expresses the notion that the result of the performance output is bound up with the performance. The fact that performance determines the output can be given as an example of instrumentality. Value component expresses the difference between the value the individual gives to get the outcome of the performance or amount of care and costs. When all these are gathered together, effort motivation can be explained as the multiplication of expectation, instrumentality and outcome value. Effort motivation reflects a person’s willingness to put effort in a task or towards an aim (Sheppard and Taylor, 1999:1147-1158). Expectation-value model states that individual motivation is related with the instrumentality of the effort to get the needed outcome (Sheppard and Taylor, 1999:1147-1158). According to Karau and Williams (1993:681-706) social loafing results when a stronger conditioned relationship is sensed between individual effort and needed outcome, when working alone. When people work together, performance is usually determined by other factors than individual effort, and cared outcome is often divided in among the group members (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Karau and Williams (1993:681-706) developed the collective effort model (CEM) in order to explain social loafing. This model expands the basic assumptions of expectation-value model. As long as the outcomes aren’t perceived as important, related or meaningful, individuals won’t be willing to work hard. Even in the situations that related to the outcomes, which have higher rates, individuals work hard only when they expect their efforts to be useful to bring performance to acquire these outcomes. If individuals find themselves insufficient to acquire group goals, they become unwilling to work hard. For this reason, in collective tasks, individual motivation is affected by the performances of other group members and the distribution of group outcomes among the members (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Collective effort model that is defined as a model unified with individual effort in collective tasks, applies expectation-value models in individual level to group level. While doing this, it puts emphasis on threats regarding motivation and uses individual evaluation theories to be able to give a clear explanation of to which outcomes values can be attributed by the individuals. Conclusively, it provides a frame determining the impacts of a key characteristic like group size or structure of the task of a working group, on the individuals’ motivation within this installation (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Just like any expectancy value model, it is assumed that people are hedonistic and they expect maximum value from their actions. Even though personal or group performances are closely related with outcomes which are highly valued, some other outcomes which are not related with performance also exist. Jackson and Williams (1985:937-942) brought forward an explanation to social loafing related to desire, by evaluating social impact theory with a different viewpoint. According to them, because other workers are side targets of an external source of social impact, their presence decreases the effort desired. To back up this theory they proposed the researches, which concluded that when people face a terrifying situation they tend to choose to be with other people. Based on this they proposed that presence of others is not always a source of desire. On the contrary,

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presence of others can be assumed as motivational only when social impact source is present; but when it is a side goal, it shows a decreasing impact on effort (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Some researchers (Harkins, 1987:1-18; Harkins and Szymanski, 1987:167-188, 1989:939-941; Kerr and Bruun, 1983:78-94) defined social loafing as a decrease in distinguishability and loss in motivation due to evaluation. According to these researchers, social loafing emerges because in many works individuals’ entries can be evaluated in common events. In collective works that individuals’ entries together bring forward a product, individuals can hide themselves within the crowd (Davis, 1969) and they can evade from the guilt of low performance in the group. According to Kerr et.al. (Kerr, 1983:819-828; Kerr and Bruun, 1983:78-94), individuals put less effort when they feel that their inputs are not necessary for a high quality product when they work collectively. Researchers pointed out that efforts of individuals who work in tasks with simple and distinct rules tend to decrease their efforts when one of the members of the group reached to a definite performance criteria and thus group reached to its goal and when there’s no need to show more efforts. This decrease emerges even when each member’s contribution is distinguishable to himself and to his co-workers. In some of the tasks, individuals who feel that their entries have a little impact on the outcome of the group, may be unwilling to show effort (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Kerr and Bruun (1983:78-94) put forward that effects futility of group size and group members’ abilities show variety in compound and separate tasks. In same tasks, group may accept only one member’s contribution and usually most skilled member’ performance is enough for the group success. In compound tasks however, group success depends on each member’s success. Also, the least skilled member’s performance is important for the group success. Members’ skills have adverse impacts in perceived futility in compound and separate tasks (Ülke, 2006). Jackson and Harkins in their Equivalence of Effort theory (1985:937-942) put forward that people tend to show equal effort to their colleagues’ efforts. According to this, social loafing occurs because individuals expect others to loaf and because of this they make their efforts equal by decreasing their efforts. Mullen (1983:295-322) expressed that individual care was underlying social loafing. According to this viewpoint, working collectively on a task leads to not to take any notice of performance standard in individuals and leads to a decrease in individual behavior control, by leading a decrease in individual-consciousness. In this case, because participants pay more attention to the requirements of the task and performance standards when they work alone; group performance will be lower than common even performance. Antecedents of Social Loafing Although there might be various antecedents of social loafing, there is a general consensus that they are all based on motivation (George, 1992:191-202; Sheppard, 1993:67-81; Wagner, 1995:152-172).

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Liden et.al. (2004:285-304), classified social loafing’s antecedents and observed them in two categories as individual level and group level. Antecedents in individual level will be listed as, Task interdependence, Task Visibility, Task Internalization, Importance of Task, Meaning of Task and Uniqueness of Individual Input, Distributional and Procedural Justice, Individual Characteristics, Cultural and Gender Differences and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Antecedents of social loafing in group level will be Work Group Size, Group Cohesiveness and Perceived Coworker Loafing. A) Antecedents of Social Loafing in Individual Level i) Task Interdependence Shea and Guzzo (1987:323-356) defined interdependence as “degree of interaction regarding the task among group members”. Although Pearce and Gregerson (1991:838-844) claim that interdependence of individuals within the group may be similar; indeed this dependence is rather variable. The more individuals feel themselves dependent on the others with their task, it may get harder for them to feel that they gained success in their task (Manz and Angle, 1986:309-334). Similarly, when conditions don’t let individuals to show their success; individuals tend to not to show effort (Jones, 1984:684-695; Williamson, 1975). When interdependence is high in a task, individuals believe that their efforts won’t be distinguished from others’ and in this case they may decide that it is best to decrease their effort. On the other hand, when interdependence is low, individuals believe that their effort can be distinguished and in this case, they think it is worth they increase their efforts to be distinguished (Liden et.al., 2004:285-304). ii) Task Visibility Workers have a varying perception of their task’s visibility and this affects social loafing (George, 1992:191-202). Perception of task visibility shows worker’s belief in his manager’s perception of the worker’s effort (Kidwell and Bennett, 1993:429-457). Individuals especially who work with people showing less effort than they do, and if this is unnoticed and these people can’t bear negative results, may feel unfairness, injustice. (Piezon and Ferree, 2008:1-17). Latane et.al. (1979:822-832) defined task visibility as “hiding in crowd”. When task visibility is low, workers think that how much they work or their supervisors cannot exactly notice how much they put effort. In this case, workers think that they won’t be noticed and this won’t bring them a negative result, thus they fall into social loafing. When the visibility of the task is low, individuals think that they won’t get any benefits from putting hard effort and can’t be punished from for their low efforts (George, 1992:191-202). When it’s the adverse of this, in other words, when the visibility of task is high, workers don’t fall into social loafing because they think their supervisors are aware of their efforts. In this case they believe that they will be rewarded for the efforts they show or will be punished for the efforts they refrain from showing. (Ilgın, 2013; 252).

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iii) Task Internalization Although external motivation like wage or status is a strong external force (Lawler, 1971); workers can also be internally motivated. When inner motivation is high, managers may not have to inspect the workers closely. Task internalization is worker’s extra contribution done to realize a work and the belief about it that it is important (George, 1992:191-202). It is believed that this internalization has a negative affect on social loafing. (Ilgın, 2013; 253) When task internalization is high, workers think that their efforts are important to group success and they do not fall into social loafing even when the task visibility is low. When the task internalization is low, individuals may feel that their efforts are not needed or their efforts are not important for group performance at all. In this case, task visibility is more important than task internalization (George, 1992:191-202). iv) Importance of Task, Meaning of Task and Uniqueness of Individual Input As long as workers don’t find their individual task, meaningful for group project, they are unwilling to show extra effort (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-702). When individuals think that they don’t have any affect on the outcomes, usually they tend to refrain from much effort, look for personal awards and maximize their benefits (Liden et.al., 2004:285-304). Karau and Williams (1993:681-706) stated that social loafing decreases as the importance of a task increases and social loafing may diminish when the meaningfulness of the work is top notch. Another factor showing similar results is that workers see their individual participation as unique. When workers perceive their input as unique, they put the same amount of effort when they work alone as they work within a group; however they tend to loaf when they perceive their input as unnecessary (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). v) Distributional Justice and Procedural Justice Distributional justice makes sure the worker gets the return he deserves and it is a motivational factor (Liden et.al., 2004:285-304). George (1995:327-338), consistent with theory on organizational justice, found that social loafing was lowest under conditions of contingent rewards. Liden and his colleagues (2004:285-304) proved that social loafing increases when distributional justice is low. Pabico and his colleagues (2008:22-28) also found a negative relationship between distributional justice and social loafing in the same way. vi) Individual Characteristics Diligent individuals are mostly decisive, organized, meticulous, disciplined, persevering, tidy, willed, precautious, projecting and motivated to succeed in their goals (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Lack of this characteristic may cause impaired coordination, insufficiency at disciplining himself. That’s why; a person at lower level of diligence is expected to loaf more, compared to the one with high diligence level. Tan and Tan (2008:89-108), in their study that they observed roles of personality and urge and effects of contextual factors in the emergence of social

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loafing, found out that diligence and responsibility feeling has a negative relationship with social loafing. The feeling of responsibility stands for a personal responsibility to help colleagues. As the responsibility towards the job, colleagues and to the organization increases, behaviors towards increasing the effort will increase. As the number of the workers increase, work per individual will thus decrease (Latane et.al., 1979:822-832); and responsibility towards group performance will decrease with the notion that burden of the work will be shared. When the responsibility, felt towards co-workers or task done collectively decrease, it’s probable for an individual to feel his success is dispensable and thus put less effort in the group (Kerr and Bruun, 1983:78-94). vii) Cultural and Gender Differences An individual’s behaviors in a working group emerge from his own cultural basis and affected by other members’ cultural values (Murphy and Domicone, 2009:1-10). Karau and Williams 1993:681-706) examined 78 researches and found out that culture has a very strong impact on social loafing. In this analysis, it was observed that participants from Western culture are more prone to social loafing than the participants from Eastern cultures. Also, it was stated that women workers do less social loafing. This situation was thought to be so because women workers and workers from Eastern cultures have more priority towards the group than men and workers from Western cultures. Karau and Williams (1993:681-706) in an experiment with only male participants found out that more social loafing was made compared to the conducted with only women participants. According to collective effort model, when working as a group, men are expected to be tidier than women in strategic subjects. However, in the results, it was understood that although men were more tidier when working in bigger groups, they showed more social loafing; women showed effort in a much more consistent level as the groups grew bigger. viii) Organizational Citizenship Behavior OCB is a demanded property by organizations whereas social loafing is a much-disliked one. These two issues are assumed to be exact opposites of each other. When one is present the other is not. OCB is “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization" (Organ, 1988; 4) From what we know as social loafing and OCB, we can deduce that a negative relationship between social loafing and organizational citizenship behavior is expected. Liden and his colleagues (2004:285-304) found out that there is a strong negative relationship between social loafing and organizational citizenship behaviors. B) Antecedents of Social Loafing in Group Level i) Work Group Size As the number of workers in a group increases, distinguishability of individuals decreases. This situation makes each individual’s contribution hard to be evaluated separately (Jones, 1984:684-695). Other members’ presence may lead to a feeling of

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not being understood (Garcia et.al., 2002:843-853). Because they think it won’t affect the outcome, individuals tend to refrain from putting their efforts consciously or unconsciously (Karau and Williams, 1993:681-706). Because of this reason, although individuals limit their individual efforts, they both have the same awards and they get more benefits with a low cost. In some cases, individuals lower their efforts consciously; sometimes especially in big groups hey made show an unintentional decrease in efforts. In laboratory experiments, when the number of the people working on the same task was increased, a decrease in average individual effort was observed. (Harkins et.al., 1980:457-465; Harkins and Petty, 1982:1214-1230; Ingham et.al., 1974:371-384; Kerr and Bruun, 1983:78-94; Sorkin et.al., 2001:183-203). According to these experiments, as the group grows bigger, encouraging and inspecting the individuals gets harder (Hechter, 1987). Feedback and insufficient support resulting from group size encourages the workers to social loafing (Liden et.al., 2004:285-304). ii) Group Cohesiveness Mudrack (1989:771-785) defined group cohesiveness as group members’ degree of will to be pulled together and be together. With a much more explanatory definition, group cohesiveness, is a measurement of group members’ closeness to each other, level of the will to remain a part of the group and willingness to work and group members’ value that they hold (Karau and Hart, 1998:185-191). Group cohesiveness has been accepted as a significant precursor of social loafing. Group members may display social loafing when they don’t like each other and don’t feel any strong bounds between them. On the other hand, when “we” feeling has set down among the group members, individuals may see social loafing as a disappointing behavior towards other group members. Research results, too, approve this negative relationship between group cohesiveness and social loafing (Liden and friends, 2004:285-304). Karau and Williams (1993:681-706) stated that when group cohesiveness is high, social loafing may decrease or can be diminished. Karau and Williams (1997:156-168) researched this relationship again in their two experiments they conducted later. In the first experiment, secretary students were required to write special words both alone and with a group work. Some of the group was formed with strangers and some was formed with friends. In the second experiment, some had a stranger partner and some had a friend partner, and they were asked to do the same task. Both two experiments approved the hypothesis that group cohesiveness at high level affects social loafing in a negative way. Karau and Hart (1998:185-191) and Duffy and Shaw (2000:3-23) put forward that social loafing only occurred in groups among which cohesiveness degree is low or it doesn’t exit; in groups with cohesiveness is high, individuals work as hard as they do on their own. This situation probably, emerges from the fact that group members’ tendency to worry about the group welfare and thus so as not to affect group performance negatively they don’t refrain from putting effort (Tan and Tan, 2008:89-108).

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iii) Perceived Coworker Loafing Co-workers’ perceived loafing, shows the degree of perceiving the social loafing of others (Comer, 1995:647-677). The actual situation is not of importance; indeed what is important is the worker’s perception of social loafing (Mulvey and Klein, 1998:62-87). Workers observe others’ behaviors and these observations affect their own behaviors (Mitchell and friends, 1985:48-55). Group members usually can observe what their co-workers do and what they don’t better and closer than their managers. How workers perceive of other members of the group affect their own behaviors. In this case, individuals who suspect that others are doing social loafing, they become more pro social loafing (Liden and friends, 2004:285-304). Research Samples a) Social Loafing: A Field Investigation – 2003 Liden, R., Wayne, S., Jaworski, R., Bennett, N. (University of Illinios at Chicago – USA) This research is one of few ones, which examine both the individual and group level analysis of social loafing in an organization. Even though the time frame was not adequate, I wanted to include it in this paper. In one sentence the purpose of the study was “to simultaneously examine key individual- and group-level antecedents of social loafing among members of intact work groups in an organizational setting.” To get a deeper understanding we need to divide this purpose into three forms. The first purpose was to examine several key antecedents of social loafing simultaneously. The second purpose was to examine multiple antecedents of social loafing with multilevel analyses both in individual- and group levels. Although expectancy theory has been the dominant theoretical framework used to explain the identification of the antecedents of social loafing was derived from Kidwell and Bennett’s (1993) comprehensive model. The antecedents divided into 2 as the individual level of analysis or the group-level of analysis. Specifically, individual-level antecedents of social loafing included the degree to which individuals felt that their jobs required close interaction with fellow group members (task interdependence), task visibility, and individuals’ perceptions of distributive and procedural justice. Antecedents representing the group level were group size, cohesiveness, and perceptions of the prevalence of social loafing among members of the group. The third purpose was to investigate social loafing in an organizational field study involving members of intact work groups. Employees and their immediate superiors representing two large organizations engaged in global operations participated in the research. One organization produces electronics and computer equipment and the other produces heavy machinery. Both organizations are USA origin. The sample consisted of 168 employees (35 from the electronics firm and 133 from the machinery producing firm). Individual-Level Antecedents of Social Loafing

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Hypothesis 1a: An individual’s perception of the degree of task interdependence is positively related to that individual’s social loafing. Hypothesis 1b: An individual’s perception of the degree of task visibility is negatively related to that individual’s social loafing. Hypothesis 1c: An individual’s perception of distributive justice is negatively related to that individual’s social loafing. Hypothesis 1d: An individual’s perception of procedural justice is negatively related to that individual’s social loafing. Group-Level Antecedents of Social Loafing Hypothesis 2a: The size of a work group is positively related to social loafing. Hypothesis 2b: Group cohesiveness, aggregated to the group level, is negatively related to social loafing. Hypothesis 2c: Perceived coworker loafing, aggregated to the group level, is positively related to social loafing. Task interdependence (H1a) is positively correlated with social loafing, and both task visibility (H1b) and distributive justice (H1c) are negatively correlated with social loafing. Procedural justice was found to be unrelated to social loafing, thus not supporting Hypothesis 1d. Group size (H2a) is positively correlated and cohesiveness (H2b) negatively correlated with an individual’s social loafing. Opposite to the prediction, perceived coworker loafing (H2c) was found to be negatively related to manager reports of employee social loafing. Results demonstrated that at the individual level, increases in task interdependence and decreases in task visibility and distributive justice were associated with greater occurrence of social loafing. At the group level, increased group size and decreased cohesiveness were related to increased levels of social loafing. The first purpose of the research, to simultaneously test multiple antecedents of social loafing that had previously been tested in a piecemeal fashion, demonstrated that even when tested in a multivariate model, all of the independent variables except procedural justice significantly predicted social loafing. The second purpose, which was to examine social loafing with a multilevel research design, proved social loafing operates at both individual The third purpose, which was to investigate social loafing in an organizational field study involving members of intact work groups, served to enhance the importance of doing so. The results suggested that there are multiple factors related to social loafing at both the individual and group level that all need to be addressed by organizations. b) Team Size, Dispersion, and Social Loafing in Technology-Supported Teams: A Perspective on the Theory of Moral Disengagement - 2010 Alnuaimi, O. A., (UAE University) Lionel P. RJr., (University of Arkansas – USA) Maruping, L. M. (University of Louisville – USA)

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During this paper’s research I noticed that the social loafing issue is central nowadays in IT groups. This research is a very good example of a research, which combines IT sector, group behavior and Social Loafing. The idea behind this study is to “identify the cognitive mechanisms that mediate the effect of team size and dispersion on social loafing in technology-supported teams.” Based on the theory of moral disengagement, there primary cognitive mechanisms— diffusion of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanization—were used to measure the effect of team size and dispersion on social loafing. The theory of moral disengagement has been used to explain why individuals knowingly choose to engage in socially inappropriate/delinquent behavior when they understand it is wrong to do so [5, 9]. Also the theory of moral disengagement, is used as a provider of a useful theoretical lens for understanding why certain team settings facilitate a specific form of antisocial behavior—social loafing. The research is conducted as a laboratory study involving “140 students randomly assigned to 32 teams performing a brainstorming task using group systems software.” Hypothesis 1a: Diffusion of responsibility will mediate the relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing. Hypothesis 1b: Diffusion of responsibility will mediate the relationship between team dispersion and individuals’ social loafing. Hypothesis 2a: Dehumanization will mediate the relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing. Hypothesis 2b: Dehumanization will mediate the relationship between team dispersion and individuals’ social loafing. Hypothesis 3a: Attribution of blame will mediate the relationship between team size and individuals’ social loafing. Hypothesis 3b: Attribution of blame will mediate the relationship between team dispersion and individuals’ social loafing.

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The results show that diffusion of responsibility, attribution of blame, and dehumanization all mediate the effects of team size on social loafing. Meanwhile, only dehumanization mediates the effect of dispersion on social loafing. It is found that the three mechanisms of moral disengagement played an important role in explaining social loafing. First, the research shows that diffusion of responsibility partially mediated the effect of team size on social loafing. Individuals in larger teams had higher perceptions of diffusion of responsibility and therefore produced fewer ideas than those in smaller teams. Individuals in larger teams felt that they were less responsible for achieving the team’s goal and, hence, reduced their efforts. In contrast, members of smaller teams contributed more as their perceptions of their own responsibility were higher. Second, the findings show that dehumanization was a significant antecedent of social loafing. Individuals who did not perceive the interactions to be personalized and humanized generated fewer ideas than those with low levels of dehumanization perceptions. As teams become larger or dispersed, perceptions of the human qualities of members become less obvious and team members, therefore, contribute less. Third, and lastly support for attribution of blame is an antecedent of social loafing. Individuals in larger teams tended to blame other members for their own loafing. In this context, individuals who blamed other members for their own loafing contributed fewer ideas than those who did not attribute the blame to others. The two outcomes of this research were, firstly social loafing, as a problem that hinders team productivity, is more prominent in technology supported settings than face-to-face settings. The characteristics of a technology-supported environment make social loafing an easier behavior to engage in. Secondly, team structure variables that induce social loafing do so through their influence on cognitive

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Discussion

RECENTLY, TEAM AND IS RESEARCHERS IDENTIFIED SOCIAL LOAFING as a major explanation for productivity loss in technology-supported team settings and called for further inves-tigation of this problem (e.g., [19, 31, 79, 97]). In response to these calls, the current study sought to understand why social loafing occurs in technology-supported team settings. Given that team size and dispersion have been identified as major anteced-ents of loafing in technology-supported teams [19], our objective was to identify the cognitive mechanisms that mediate the effect of these two variables on social loafing within technology-supported teams. We accomplished this by employing the theory of moral disengagement [5] as a theoretical lens, identifying three mediating variables—diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization, and attribution of blame. The proposed model explained about 37 percent of the variance in social loafing, operationalized as number of unique ideas contributed by an individual.

We found that the three mechanisms of moral disengagement played an important role in explaining social loafing. First, we found that diffusion of responsibility par-tially mediated the effect of team size on social loafing. Individuals in larger teams had higher perceptions of diffusion of responsibility and therefore produced fewer ideas than those in smaller teams. Individuals in larger teams felt that they were less responsible for achieving the team’s goal and, hence, reduced their efforts. In contrast, members of smaller teams contributed more as their perceptions of their own responsi-bility were higher. Second, we found that dehumanization was a significant antecedent of social loafing. Individuals who did not perceive the interactions to be personalized and humanized generated fewer ideas than those with low levels of dehumanization

Table 5. Summary of Findings

Hypothesis Findings

H1a: Individual’s perception of diffusion of responsibility will Supported mediate the relationship between team size and individual’s social loafing.

H1b: Individual’s perception of diffusion of responsibility will Not supported mediate the relationship between dispersion and individual’s social loafing.

H2a: Individual’s perception of human qualities of other Supported members will mediate the relationship between team size and individual’s social loafing.

H2b: Individual’s perception of human qualities of other Supported members will mediate the relationship between team dispersion and individual’s social loafing.

H3a Attribution of blame will mediate the relationship Supported between team size and individual’s social loafing.

H3b Attribution of blame will mediate the relationship Not supported between team dispersion and individual’s social loafing.

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disengagement mechanisms. c) Social Loafing and Culture: Does Gender Matter? - 2011 Tsaw, D., Murphy, S., Detgen, J. (California Lutheran University – USA) This article is not exactly a research, but the idea of Confucian values and social loafing mixed in one paper makes it very interesting to have an idea. It required a spot in this paper. This article tries to examine gender and Confucian values’ affect on social loafing. The idea is to present empirical and theoretical material to open up the way to conduct research in order to measure the level of social loafing. The first part is based on an examination of Confucian values relating to reciprocity and face in conjunction with the importance of the in-group designation and privacy conventions held by the Chinese culture. They proposed these as “useful in explaining the apparent absence of social loafing in the Chinese workplace.” Proposition 1: Chinese workers will not social loaf nor will they over contribute when the workgroup contains in-group members only. Proposition 2: Chinese workers may social loaf or over contribute when the work group contains out-group members. On another concept, the writers tried to explain the differences between genders in a social loafing situation. They based their propositions on an evolutionary perspective. “The evolutionary explanation suggests that men genetically feel the need to provide while women feel the need to raise children (Kashima 1995). Survival required men to hunt and provide the means of life for the family. “ Not only an evolutionary perspective but they included Hofstede’s research in their theoretical perspective. “Bond and Hofstede (1988) offer empirical support for an evolutionary explanation with their analyses revealing that women's values differ less among societies than do men's values.” Lastly they included a research of Gabrenya, Wang, and Latané (1985). They found consistent differences between men and women across cultures with regards to social loafing. They concluded that in both Chinese and American cultures, social loafing varied between men and women, with women loafing less. As a result writers concluded, “Social loafing is more likely to be exhibited by men than women.” Genetic and evolutionary characteristics that even cultural differences cannot overcome have been suggested as the source of these distinctions. Proposition 3: Chinese men will be more likely to social loaf than Chinese women in work groups containing in-group members only. Proposition 4: Chinese men will be more likely to social loaf than Chinese women in work groups containing out-group members. To conclude the writers believe these propositions will be helpful in conducting a research model of social loafing that incorporates culture and gender.

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d) Protestant Work Ethic Moderates Social Loafing - 2011 Smrt, D.L., (Western Illinois University – USA) Karau, S.J. (Southern Illinois University – USA) The interesting part of this research was that it included the concept of Protestant Work Ethic of Weber and moved it into social loafing theory. It is fascinating yet very probable that the result would be people with PWE would be more reasonable and less of a free rider or a loafer. The current study attempted to explore the potential of Protestant work ethic (PWE) to reduce or eliminate social loafing. Individuals who had been pretested on PWE were asked to work either coactively or collectively on an idea generation task. The hypothesis is based on PWE being low or high in terms of the level of social loafing. Individuals with low levels of PWE do not attach much importance to hard work for its own sake, and are therefore likely to only work hard when they have to. In contrast, individuals with high levels of PWE place a premium on hard work and persistence in general, and are therefore likely to want to perform well on an effortful task regardless of whether or not they are easily accountable to others. PWE would moderate social loafing, such that higher PWE scores would be associated with lower levels of social loafing. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in one of three business classes in either of two semesters at a public university in the United States. As a result of the research low levels of PWE were associated with much higher effort in the coactive condition than in the collective condition (indicating social loafing) but this difference was reduced significantly as levels of PWE increased, with the difference eliminated at high levels of PWE. e) The Effects of Member Familiarity, Task Results Visibility and Perceived Co-worker Loafing on Technology-Supported Team Performance: Social Loafing Effect Perspective - 2011 Fang, H.M., Chang, W.C. (Department of Business Administration, Providence University, Taiwan) The research is interested in social loafing in technology supported teams. But the main topic is member familiarity and it is interesting to see that eastern cultures to produce much-unexpected outcomes, like covering for a free rider or a social loafer. This research was adopted as a laboratory experimental design to examine the influences of three independent variables (member familiarity, task results visibility, and perceived co-worker loafing) on team performance in technology-supported teams. It was conducted with 95 online brainstorming teams composed of 286 students from five classes at three Taiwan universities. As for hypotheses they based each of them to a specific theoretical base. First one is based on Steiner (1972) and Hunter et al. (2010) who indicated that the more

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familiar team members are, the more likely they are be able to support and encourage each other to perform well and provide developmental feedback. H1: Compared to teams in which members are familiar with each other, teams in which members are strangers will have lower performance The second hypothesis argues that the incidence and extent of social loafing is higher when individual tasks are more invisible and unrecognizable than when they are visible and recognizable (George, 1992; Gagné and Zuckerman, 1999; Liden et al., 2004; Suleiman and Watson, 2008). H2: Compared to teams in which task results are visible, teams in which these results are invisible will have lower team performance. The third hypothesis refers to perceived co-worker loafing where it is explained as the extent to which group members feel that one or more co-workers engage in social loafing (Comer, 1995). Individuals do not want to share their hardworking outcomes with free riders, so once they recognize a co-worker’s loafing behavior, they will probably do the same thing and may dedicate less energy to their team (Kerr, 1983; Schnake, 1991). H3: Compared to teams in which team members are not perceived as engaging in co-worker loafing, teams in which members are perceived as engaging in co-worker loafing will have lower team performance. The results revealed under what situations social loafing effects exist and how the impacts of team member familiarity, perceived co-worker loafing, and task results visibility work on technology supported team performance. The team task performance of the familiar teams was significantly better than that of the unfamiliar teams. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. But, there was no significant difference between the performance of the task identifiable and task unidentifiable teams. So Hypothesis 2 thus was not supported. For the Hypothesis 3, it seems that the second research we discussed in this paper explains the situation. It was originally predicted that after receiving the “social loafing of team members” instructions, social loafing would occur, and the number of ideas provided by that team would decrease. The outcome is opposite. Chinese subjects seem to act diversely to a natural cause and the number of ideas provided by the perceived co-worker loafing teams actually increased. This research indicates that member familiarity plays a key role in technology supported team performance in situations where they are facing social loafing. f) Social Loafing and Group Development: When “I” Comes Last - 2011 Worchel, S., (University of Hawaii-Hilo) Rothgerber, H., (Bellarmine University) Day, E.A., (University of Oklahoma) The interesting part of this research was that the group’s chronological stages can be observed with the amount of social loafing it possesses. The counter is also possible

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where amount of social loafing shows the stage of the group. This research examined social loafing in groups across different stages of group development. According to the model proposed by Worchel et al. (1992), groups progress through a six stage developmental process. A period of discontent and a precipitating event lead to the development of the new group. The third stage involves group identification. The group becomes very concerned with drawing clear in-group, out-group boundaries. During the previous two stages, the focus was on the group. During the individuation stage, attention shifts to the individual group member. Individuals begin to negotiate with the group to expand task efforts to meet personal goals. Individuals demand personal recognition; equity norms are favored. Group members base their satisfaction with the group on their personal views of what they deserve from the group. Individuals, rather than the group, may recruit new members who will help the individual achieve personal goals. Cooperative interaction with out-groups is desired. Eventually, these individualistic concerns lead the group to disintegrate during the final stage of decay. Based in this theory the hypothesis of this research is “In the beginning of a group's life, when members focus on the group and having a positive social identity, group members should be motivated to work harder in a group setting and be more productive when working as a group than as individuals. Conversely, at the end of a group's life, members should be more individualistic, concerned with personal identity, and more productive when working as individuals.” One hundred and seventy-four undergraduates (106 males, 68 females) from the Psychology Subject pool at a Texas A&M University participated in the present study. Results of the present study were analyzed at the group level. The performance results supported the hypothesis that significantly more social loafing would occur at the end of a group's life than in the beginning. Not only were groups in the middle and late stages of development more likely to loaf, groups in the beginning of development did not loaf at all. In fact, groups early in development produced more in the group setting than as individuals. Individuals working in newly formed groups worked harder in the group setting than alone, although this difference was non-significant. However, individuals working in groups that were at the midpoint or end of their existence performed better when working by themselves. Overall, the study suggests that social loafing is affected by the group's developmental cycle and suggests that early in a group's life - when social identity is higher- no social loafing will occur. From a practical standpoint, the results suggest that organizations employing groups need to be sensitive to how long the group has been working together. g) Justice Perceptions and Drives of Hotel Employee Social Loafing Behavior – 2012

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Luo, Z., (Beijing Union University -China) Qu, H., (Oklahoma State University-USA) Marnburg, E. (University of Stavanger – Norway) Eastern cultures tend to make more social loafing research nowadays and this one is a fair example of this. Justice perceptions, justice-related satisfaction, employee commitment, and turnover intention are several positive or negative factors influencing employee social loafing behavior. This study analyzed the relationships between these variables in the context of China’s hotel industry. That is to say the study is focused on justice perceptions, justice-related satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention within the hospitality industry in the context of Chinese culture, at both first-order and second-order levels. The main idea behind this study is to analyze the impacts of justice perceptions and satisfaction on employee social loafing behavior via employee organizational commitment and turnover intention. A total of 585 valid responses were collected from employees within different departments at 43 hotels in mainland China. The hypotheses are below. We should notice that h7, h8, h9 and h10 are relevant to social loafing topic and to this article. H1. Employee justice perception is positively related to justice related satisfaction. H2. Justice perception is positively related to employee commitment. H3. Justice-related satisfaction is positively related to employee commitment. H4. Justice perception has a negative impact on employee turnover intention. H5. Justice-related satisfaction has a negative impact on employee turnover intention. H6. Employee commitment has a negative impact on employee turnover intention H7. Justice perception is negatively related to social loafing. H8. Justice-related satisfaction is negatively related to social loafing. H9. Commitment is negatively related to social loafing. H10. Turnover intention is positively related to social loafing. The results mean that justice-related satisfaction does not explain the variance of turnover intention and social loafing directly, so the direct relationships between justice-related satisfaction and turnover intention (and social loafing) were not supported. So we can say that seven H1, H2, H3 H4, H6, H9, and H10 are supported, two are partly supported (H5 and H8), and H7 was not supported because the correlations between justice perception and social loafing is not significant in this study. Affective organizational commitment has the largest impact on employee turnover intention and social loafing; management satisfaction has the largest impact on employee affective organizational commitment; and procedural justice perception has the largest impact on management satisfaction. In detail, the relationship between justice perception and social loafing is mediated by other variables, and this indirect relationship is consistent with prior studies (Murphy et al., 2003). Employee commitment is the alleviator of social loafing because they have a negative

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correlation, while turnover intention is the drive for social loafing with a positive correlation. Justice perception has both direct and indirect impacts (mediated by justice-related satisfaction and employee commitment) on turnover intention, and it also has direct and indirect impacts (mediated by justice-related satisfaction) on employee commitment. Results show that employee commitment is an important mediator, while turnover intention is the main drive of employee social loafing behavior, and justice-related satisfaction significantly influences employee commitment. h) An Investigation of the Relationship between Social Loafing and Organizational Citizenship Behavior - 2013 Karadal, H., Saygın, M. (Aksaray University) A research from Turkey which shows that the interest in social loafing is increasing. I wanted to include this paper because it shows just as proposed in the second research I presentd in this paper; gender plays an important role in social loafing. The main aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between social loafing and organizational citizenship behavior. To examine this relationship, 158 questionnaire forms were collected from school principals and bank managers & employees in Aksaray, Turkey. The hypotheses of the research were; H1: There is a relationship between social loafing and organizational citizenship H2: There is a relationship between social loafing and demographical features. H3: There is a relationship between organizational citizenship and demographical features. The relationship between social loafing tendency and organizational citizenship behavior is analyzed. According to the statistical assessment results, there is a meaningful difference between organizational citizenship and social loafing scale. Also citizenship behavior of participants isn’t related with their social loafing tendency. Therefore, participants’ citizenship behavior occurs differently from their social loafing tendencies. Besides that relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, social loafing tendency and demographical features of the participants are analyzed. Gender and marital status of the participants are seen to be related with citizenship and loafing. Especially gender of participants has an effect on social loafing tendency and marital status is a key element to differentiate organizational citizenship behavior. Just like the Chinese example we stated above, there seems to be less social loafing among women. The other demographical features don’t have any effect on citizenship and loafing. The research argues that, organizational citizenship concept is a key element of success and motivation. Employees should have this attitude in order to be efficient in their workplaces; on the other hand, social loafing is the underlying reason of

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inefficiency. i) Nominal versus Interacting Electronic Fraud Brainstorming in Hierarchical Audit Teams - 2014 Chen, C.X., (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) Trotman, K.T., (UNSW Australia) Zhou, F.H. (Georgia State University) This research’s aim is to examine a deep audit topic but what interests us is that social loafing is part of a hypothesis that is argued. The general idea of the paper is to examine whether interacting hierarchical teams outperform nominal hierarchical teams in electronic brainstorming. The hierarchical audit teams were composed of 111 managers and seniors from two Big 4 accounting firms. It is compared that fraud brainstorming outcomes between nominal and interacting teams for two tasks of varying complexity: a simpler task of fraud risk factor identification and a more complex task of fraud hypothesis generation. The result is that nominal teams generate a significantly larger number of unique fraud risk factors and fraud hypotheses than interacting teams. Nominal teams also generate higher-quality fraud hypotheses. Here is the point where we see that social loafing causes this difference. Less experienced auditors in interacting teams drives the differences between nominal and interacting teams in the fraud hypothesis generation task. In addition, less experienced auditors have less developed mental simulations for frauds in interacting teams compared to those in nominal teams. The hypotheses are like below: H1: Electronic nominal teams will generate more fraud risk factors than electronic interacting teams. H2a: There will be no difference in the quantity of fraud hypotheses generated between electronic nominal teams and electronic interacting teams. H2b: There will be no difference in the quality of fraud hypotheses generated between electronic nominal teams and electronic interacting teams. H3: Social loafing of less experienced auditors in electronic interacting brainstorming teams will be greater for the fraud hypothesis generation task than for the fraud risk identification task. H4: Mental simulations of less experienced auditors will be less well developed in electronic interacting brainstorming teams than in electronic nominal brainstorming teams. The H1, H2 and H4 are not directly related to this paper’s topic. So what is in our interest is the H3. H3 predicts greater social loafing by less experienced auditors in the interacting teams for the fraud hypothesis generation task than for the fraud risk factor identification task. As expected the findings provide evidence that social loafing drives the differences between nominal and interacting teams in the fraud hypothesis generation task. Specifically, seniors in interacting teams contribute less to fraud hypothesis generation than seniors in nominal teams in the more complex fraud hypothesis generation task.

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j) Social Loafing and Impression Management in an Organizational Context - 2014 Meydan, C.H., Kahraman, Ç., H., Başar, U. (Turkish Army) This research is one of the latest articles printed in Turkey, with social loafing as its central topic. It is also interesting to see that Turkish army officers with no academic title to conduct a research and have it printed in an academic journal. The aim of this study is to find out relationship between behaviors of people who tend to loaf in organizational context and their impression management strategies, and to reveal specific impression management strategies applied by loafers. The research is conducted with voluntary participation of 100 bank clerks, who work at a private bank located in Ankara, Turkey. Data were collected by means of questionnaires. The cause of this study is that; Individuals and employees consider their impressions on other individuals. Therefore individuals want to shape and control these impressions in order to be perceived favorable by others and in this way gain promotions (Gardner, 1992: 34). Added to this, in organizational context, accomplishment of various tasks require establishment of groups in order to combine individuals’ capabilities toward a common goal. However individuals reduce their efforts when they take part in groups, their contributions are pooled in evaluations (Shepperd & Taylor, 1999: 1147). That’s why other group members experience difficulty; feel dissatisfaction and inequity when they compensate for loafers reduced efforts. In this context social loafers may tend to engage in impression management strategies in order to save their face and get respect of other group member. So social loafers may tend to save their faces, when other group members perceive social loafing and react negatively. As a result, social loafers may try to win other group members’ approval and respect by making favorable impressions on them. Hypothesis 1: There is significant relationship between social loafing and impression management. Hypothesis 2: Social loafing causes implementation of impression management tactics. Findings of this study revealed significant relationship between social loafing and impression management, in addition to causal ties between social loafers’ behaviors, attitudes and impression management strategies. k) Social Loafing Tendencies and Team Performance: The Compensating Effect of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness – 2014 Schippers, M.C. (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University) An interesting research from Netherlands has caught my attention. It proposes on the contrary to general conception that the level of conscientiousness and agreeableness in teams could compensate for social loafing tendencies, in terms of team performance. The unorthodox positive outcome

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made me include this research into my paper. The main idea of this research is that the agreeableness and conscientiousness moderate the social loafing tendencies–team performance relationship: When they are high on conscientiousness and agreeableness, team members are likely to go the extra mile and compensate for loafing team members, especially when the need to do so is high. This will especially be the case if the loafer is felt to be a nice and agreeable person. The hypotheses are as follows Hypothesis 1: Mean level of conscientiousness is negatively related to the tendency to engage in social loafing in teams. Hypothesis 2: Mean level of agreeableness is negatively related to tendency to engage in social loafing in teams. Hypothesis 3: Team-level conscientiousness will moderate the relationship between social loafing tendencies and team performance, such that: (a) When social loafing tendencies are high, the relationship with team performance will be positive when team-level conscientiousness is high. (b) When social loafing tendencies are low, the relationship with team performance will be positive when team-level conscientiousness is low rather than high. Hypothesis 4: Team-level agreeableness and conscientiousness will jointly moderate the relationship between social loafing tendencies and team performance, such that: (a) When social loafing tendencies are high, the relationship with team performance will be positive when team-level agreeableness and conscientiousness are both high. (b) The positive relationship will be weaker when only conscientiousness is high, and will be lowest for teams low on conscientiousness and/or agreeableness. (c) When social loafing tendencies are low, the relationship with team performance will be positive when team-level agreeableness is high The participants in this study were first-year business students in their first trimester at a Dutch university. The results are rather interesting. Teams with a lot of agreeable or conscientious team members had less social loafing. Which is in line with Hypotheses 1 and 2. Hypothesis 3 predicted an interaction between social loafing tendencies and conscientiousness on team performance only need for cognition and team performance are significantly related to team performance. Hypothesis 4 implied a 3-way interaction between social loafing tendencies, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and this predicted interaction was indeed highly significant. The research indicated that when social loafing tendencies are high, the combination of high agreeableness and high conscientiousness is related to higher team performance; whereas this positive relationship is weaker when only conscientiousness is high. When social loafing tendencies are low , the combination of high agreeableness and low conscientiousness is related to higher team performance, while the other combinations of agreeableness and conscientiousness seem irrelevant for performance.

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The research has shown that the relationship with performance is a complex one. The relationship between social loafing and team performance is moderated by both agreeableness and conscientiousness. The unorthodox conclusion is that the group members might compensate social loafing in case they feel the other member is open and kind. Conclusion and Suggestions to Prevent Social Loafing Social Loafing was defined by Latane et.al. as a social disease. In the information age we call too many concepts as a social disease like alienation or workaholism. Social Loafing is another one of those concepts but we should not forget that social loafing is a negative concept in terms of organizations. Sometimes people benefit from social loafing by putting less effort during a group work and still getting the same result as a whole. So we must divide social loafing from the perspective of organization and from the perspective of individual. Since our scope is from the organizational behavior we can say that social loafing should be handled with great care and should be given great importance. Organizations should fight off social loafing in whatever power they have. Some tools for this great war are already hidden in antecedents of social loafing both in individual level and group level which we had expressed in earlier parts of this paper. The most important 2 factors are, to decrease the work group size and increasing the group cohesiveness. Social loafing level is expected to decrease in organizations which promote group cohesiveness and which try to keep groups as small as possible.

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