A MODEL OF SOCIAL LOAFING: AN ARTICLE ANALYSIS
This article reviewed the concept of social loafing, and the application of this concept in work groups (Comer, 1995, pp. 647-667). The article focused on those factors that promote member reduction of effort toward group tasks. Factors were reviewed that research has consistently linked with social loafing, such as potential for evaluation of contributions and perceived dispensability of effort. The contributions to the phenomenon of social loafing of less studied factors, such as perceived lack of influence over task outcomes and the wish to avoid the sucker role also were reviewed in the article.
The article develops and presents a model that is designed to explain loafing by accounting for the on-going dynamics and processes of real work groups (entities that are characterized by interdependence, boundaries that distinguish members from non-members, and role differentiation) that generate ideas, solve problems, make decisions, and execute plans. The model of the factors affecting social loafing is "offered to facilitate the transition of social loafing research from laboratory to field settings, where real work groups are simultaneously affected by a complexity of variables" (Comer, 1995, p. 649). Comer (1995, p. p. 661) states that, in the model, the relevant factors have been "conceptualized as forces driving an individual group member's propensity to loaf, so as to acknowledge the multiplicity of forces impinging on real work groups."
The material presented in the article is directly related to organizing and leadership concepts and issues discussed by Hellriegel and Slocum (1996, pp. 331-364, 408-443, and 510-550). The most pertinent relationship between the content of the article and the concepts and issues discussed by Hellriegel and Slocum involves the functioning of groups and teams within organizations. It is within groups and teams that the concept
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