Social Loafing Impairs Team Performance? A Study of Engineering Students from South India

Team performance plays a prominent role in the current scenario for both educational and corporate institutions. One of the threats to team efficiency is social loafing. This study looks into the antecedents and consequences of social loafing within a group task context. The study aimed to understand how such antecedents can impact group work efficiency. It can help the instructors to identify the social loafing problem and can motivate the group to learn effectively. Two hundred ninety-five PG and UG students were surveyed from a well-known Engineering college in South India. A 22-item instrument to measure the various components of social loafing (loafer's apathy, disconnect, disruptive behaviour and poor quality work) and its consequences (poor team performance, extra work done by other team members) was used for the study. The data collected was then analyzed and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling analysis. It was found that loafer's apathy and loafer's disconnect with other team members contributed significantly to the team's poor performance. The extra effort put in by the other team members had a strong mediating effect on the relationship between loafer's poor quality work and the team's performance