The Effect of Social Loafing on Team Performance by Mediating Role of Team Social Capital

From a long time ago, social loafing has been considered as one of the most important factors of lowering teams’ efficiency. The main purpose of this study was to examine the effect of social loafing on team performance of companies located in Science and Technology Park of the University of Tehran. Since social capital in its various forms and contexts is recognized as one of the most salient concepts of social sciences in the past two decades, the current study also considers the mediating role of team social capital in above-mentioned relationship.

Teamwork has always been considered as one of the most important organizational variables, yet, its effectiveness is just as important and significant as the concept itself. Of factors that challenge teamwork is social loafing. Early theorists have focused on the negative role of social loafing in terms of collective activities. Social loafing refers to individuals' tendency to expend less effort when working in groups than do individually. In addition, the present study examines the mediating role of team social capital in this relationship. At the team level, social capital concentrates on the following: a) how to form certain groups and to maintain social capital as a collective asset, and b) how such a collective asset enhances the life chances of group members. Accordingly, the research hypotheses are as follows. Hypothesis 1: Social loafing has a significant effect on team performance. Hypothesis 2: Social loafing has a significant effect on team social capital. Hypothesis 3: Team social capital has a significant effect on team performance. Hypothesis 4: Team social capital mediates the relationship between social loafing and team performance.

The research philosophy is positivism, its approach is deductive, and its strategy is survey. Therefore, after reviewing the literature and developing the conceptual model, a 23-item questionnaire distributed among participants. The statistical population was comprised of different teams of companies located in Science and Technology Park of the University of Tehran from which a sample of 124 teams was selected. The questionnaire's face and content validity were verified by obtaining the experts' opinions, and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed its construct validity. Also, reliability was approved by using Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, and average variance extracted. Then, gathered data was analyzed by conducting structural equation modeling in Smart-PLS software. 

Research indicated that social loafing affects the performance of knowledge-intensive teams. It also indicated that Social capital mediates the relationship between social loafing and team performance. Given the obtained results, team members’ tendency to social loafing harms the performance of the team.

Given the significant role of social loafing in reducing team productivity as well as mediating role of social capital, the following notes are discussed. At the individual level, one should pay attention to factors such as intrinsic motivation, lack of interest in the job, trait procrastination, lack of desire for career advancement, lack of self-assessment of progress, being aimless, lack of personal planning, etc. At the team level, one can refer to factors such as lack of perceived coherence, extensive workload, being hidden in the crowd, and reduced responsibility. Finally, at the organizational level, important factors are Job dissatisfaction, organizational indifference, perceived inequity, unfair compensation, ineffective salary system, ineffective performance appraisal system, etc.