SOCIAL LOAFING
By Ruth Pauline WachterSuccessful group collaboration requires leaders to provide clear structure, targets, and support to reduce the risk of group unproductiveness. Employees understand that group collaboration enables them to improve their productivity, but social researchers do not support this expectation. The present paper debunks the issue of social loafing at work and provides intervention for leaders.
Group collaboration was continuously developed and improved in the scope of business management theories for quite a long time. Whether in the economy, politics, or sports, collective decisions are made together, and collaborative performance is provided in groups consisting of individual tasks, behavior, and attitude. The principal part of group tasks is often a sum of individual tasks combined into a
group result. Professor Edgar Pierce stresses, ”I have no question that a team can generate magic. But don’t count on it” (Coutu, D., 2009, p. 3). Hackman (2002) documents that, on the one side, group leaders often do not provide explicit directions or even structures; on the other hand, they over-manager their team without having a rest.
The focus of the study is to provide a shared understanding of the difficulties of group collaboration and the risk performance and outcome. The central question to be examined in this paper is why social loafing is that risky for companies and how leaders could support decreasing the risk and increasing performance and motivation.
While examining group dynamics and attitudes in greater detail would be interesting, this study has a different objective.
Social Loafing & Collaboration
Long ago, humans had to form social groups for hunting and surviving (Talfinger, 1996). Following Alvard (2012), human collaboration starts with stage hunting. All participants anticipate a more significant benefit from hunting a stag than hares that hunters can do alone. In addition, the use of collaboration needs to be greater than those of solo hunting. For the first time, Ringelman (1913) asks himself about the influence of teamwork on group performance. He argues that each participant performs
SOCIAL LOAFING IS THE REDUCTION OF INDIVIDUAL EFFORT THAT OCCURS WHEN PEOPLE WORK IN GROUPS COMPARED TO WHEN THEY WORK ALONE.
- American Psychology Association
better at tug-of-the-war than pulling together in a social group.
Ringelman himself states the reason for the decrease in loss of coordination. Steiner (1972) extends the theory by the reduction of motivation, which also has an impact on group performance. Latané, Williams & Harkins (1979) calls the phenomenon of motivational decrease later “social loafing.”
As the research activities on Ringelsman’s effect are mainly based on simple tasks (e.i. rope pulling), a differentiation between performance and effort was unnecessary. The performance is used only as an indicator of motivation and performance. Karau & Williams (1993) identify no differentiation between performance and effort within analyzed papers for their meta-analysis. Harkins & Petty (1982) point out that social loafing does not occur when group members rank tasks as necessary. A closer look reveals that the used indicator is not effort but performance assumed as triggered by motivation.
In the literature on social loafing can be identified four different approaches. The first one is an Increase in Motivation & Group Compensation. Hackman and Morris (1975) argue that working in groups increases the motivation of each group member.
Reimer (2001) concludes, in addition, that also the possibility to compensate mistakes of a single group member is an advantage of working in groups. The second detected approach is the Loss of Motivation, which causes Negative Effects. Shepperd & Taylor (1999) demonstrates that the performance of groups is lower than the sum of the performance of its members if they are solely responsible for their production. According to Karau & Willams (1993) and Latané, Williams & Harkins (1979), the reason for this phenomenon is the missing imputability of individual contribution. The third approach is the Loss of Motivation, which causes Positive Effects. Within this approach, researchers demonstrate that working in groups results in
higher performance then among individual conditions (Jackson & William 1985). At this point, it should be noted that Jackson & William also concludes that a smaller group performs better than a larger group in a difficult task. The dependence on group size needs to be highlighted as well. It is an indicator that was not considered relevant in most studies.
The last perceived approach is Hypothesis of Indispensability. Due to the approach of authors like Harkins & Perry (1982), doubts emerge about the universal validity of social loafing. Comer (1995) and Shepperd (1993) take up this issue and develop a new approach. If the group members are intrinsically motivated, situational factors in collaboration have neither positive nor adverse effects on their effort.
However, prior research on social loafing is focused on laboratory rather than field research. It is necessary to distinguish between performance and effort, including a focus on individual differences than on situational ones, to get a realistic result.
Interventions
In its most general sense, leadership refers to the process of social influencing. The method includes one individual leading another (follower) for the reason of a collective task or decision (Steyrer, 2002). This paper defines leadership as ”Affecting others by socially accepted behavior that causes behavioral adaptions on other persons (directly or indirectly).”
The possibility to influence others’ behavior is primarily characterized by the base of power (Pfeffer, 1992). The traditional approach to influencing others’ behavior is based on the assumption that behavior results from attitude. Petty & Cacioppo (1986), as documented in their Elaboration-Likelihood-Modell (ELM), distinguish between
Hybrid work, in particular, prevents managers from noticing social laziness less quickly.
attitudes established by the peripheral route and set up by the main persuasion course. The authors argue that attitudes that peripheral pathways have created are much more stable. This approach contrasts with Fazio &
attitudes are formed intuitively (heuristic route). Similarities exist between ELM and HSM. The systematic procession route (HSM) is slow because of processing detailed information that is similar to the
collective tasks and for collective decisions. The example provides a representation of two highly engaged managers with a workload of more than 50 hours a week.
Zanna (1981), who find that attitudes that own experiences have aroused are more strongly resistant to changes than attitudes stimulated based on communication. Smith & Swinyard (1983) support the approach of Fazio & Zanna (1981) and add that if any information is missing, the social environment is the primary impulse for establishing the attitude. Another approach, based on the cognitive processing of information, is the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) documented by Chaiken (1980). Following Chaiken (1980), the individual is oriented on the data (systematic route). This assumes that the topic is essential for the individual. If the topic complex is unattractive, storage performance is lower, and
central processing route of ELM. The heuristic processing route (HSM) is slow because of a low number of processed data and the mental rules of thumb. It helps reduce the time for making decisions. The most significant difference between ELM and HSM is that the processing routes in HSM work independently. Sometimes the models mixed up. Some components of a complex decision need to be done in the central processing route, while the heuristic process route can solve other (less critical points) (Dillard & Pfau, 2002).
Methodology
The sample consists of employees without any leadership role from different multinational companies. Participants usually work in groups on
The researcher developed an interview guideline designed to collect qualitative responses from participants. Please refer to Appendix 2 to view the used interview questions. The data was gathered between 10th November and 2nd December 2014. The participants had either the possibility of a personal interview or an interview done via Skype. Both participants are female and between 35 and 50 years old. One of the participants is married with children. The other participant is single, never married, and has no children. The participants have both left their hometowns to get a better job.
A helpful technique for the analysis in qualitative research is coding. For this reason, transcribed interviews were coded. The following items were coded: (a) individual motivation; (b) social loafing; (c) group collaboration; and (d) compensation as a solution. Ruth P. Wachter coded all variables.
Social loafing is an issue that must be addressed early on.
The Ringelmann effect describes the tendency for groups to become less productive in terms of output per member as they increase in size.
INTERVIEW 1
Based on his 2-4-6 experiments, Watson (1968) argues that humans often look for things that support them rather than falsify them. Pieces of information like “When it comes to special tasks, like rebuilding the patient‘s bathroom, I get the job” were put together, and missing parts were filled in with assumptions. According to Heider (1958), P1f uses internal attribution “because the others do not want to spend more hours as necessary at work.” Heider argues that internal attribution is often used because, in the primary cases, we do not know the context of the event. Following Weiner (1971), P1f is shown that it is not still an internal attribution but also a stable and non-controllable (director‘s strategy) one. She argues that her colleagues do not have the skills she supports, with “most caregivers are semi-skilled women that had no other job perspectives.” Weiner‘s model of causal dimension (1994) shows that this situation could lead to helplessness, supporting her last statement. „Me, how else?“ indicates that P1f is following the term social compensation developed by Williams & Karau (1991).
INTERVIEW 2
P2f argues according to the social loafing approach of group compensation. She knows that she can compensate for the loafers. She must know that her input is necessary for a good group performance. This intrinsic motivation is high enough to spend one night after another at the office. This supports Shepperd (1993) and Comer (1995) in their hypothesis of indispensability. If P2f loses her intrinsic motivation, the group will have trouble with its performance. According to William & Karau (1991), P2f compensates for the lower effort/ motivation of others. On this level of analysis, it is unclear if she is paid because she needs to do so or because of the helper’s syndrome. She gets motivation from others’ emails that show their appreciation.
Discussion
People believe that if their group is productive in doing something good together that is recognized by others, they feel satisfied (Coutu, 2009). Both interviews carried out the phenomenon of social loafing.
According to Harkins & Perry (1982), both participants are intrinsically motivated initially. Closer examination shows that every intrinsic motivation
is also connected to an extrinsic condition. While P1f wants to improve the client's situation, P2f must fulfill her individual MBO (management by objectives) targets for the year. Unfortunately, it is not clear which kind of motivation drives the most.
A point that can be made is that people working more than 50 hours a week compensate for loafers in their working groups. Pf2 explicitly states
that she wanted to leave the office earlier, like all other colleagues. Von der Oelsnitz & Busch (2006) describe eight different types of social loafers: (a) latecomers/early leavers; (b) communicative showstoppers; (c) phlegmatic obstructionist; (d) time scroungers; (e) permanently recipient; (f) free-rider; (g) delegating alpha dogs; and (h) nasty bloodsucker. Data analysis revealed that forever recipients are the type of loafers in the case of P1f. In the case of P2f, it is impossible to analyze the kind of social loafers involved in the situation. Employees who work in groups need to know who is in the team and who is not (real teams). Team members need to know the precise direction that is given by the leader (Hackman, 2002). In addition, the structure of the team needs to be chosen with consideration (i.e., the number of members and the right mix of members). Not only does the organization structure need to support teamwork, but the group also needs coaching in specific team process phases (i.e., the storming stage, according to Tuckman, 1965).
The research shows that leaders often need to be more involved in group collaboration and, therefore, more informed about social loafing in their teams. There is some indication that compensating employees do so to avoid in-group discussions and jealousy. They fear negative consequences from their group if they inform their leaders about loafers. This raises a further question: How can leaders intervene in social loafing when they often do not know about it?
Although it may well be true that leaders' intervention could only be cognitive-heuristic, it is essential to recognize why those group members are loafers. It is easy to underestimate an individual's emotions during the storming phase of the group. If one group member has the subjective feeling that all other members are bounded except themself, the group goal is no longer critical, and motivation decreases.
“Many hands make light work.” — John Heywood.