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Group work is pervading modern society's life with potentially huge advantages but also the peril of motivational losses. This master thesis focuses on the latter ones, namely on free-riding and social loafing, in the educational context. I conducted a field research at the Institute of Economic Studies at Charles University in Prague. The results are set into context with existing studies from the US, scrutinizing the generalizability of these studies. Students of this sample consider teamwork as relatively neutral, appreciate the possibility to learn from each other the strongest and consider free-riding as the biggest disadvantage. Free-riders are described as poorly prepared, having trouble to complete work at home and delivering poor quality work. As remedy, students prefer to be able to pick a team on their own. This thesis can partially confirm prior research but also contradicts some anterior findings since free-riders in this thesis are not described as behaving distractively and students do not primarily want instructors to grade them on their individual performance.

This study sought to explore the perceptions of social loafing held by post-graduate university students within a group work context. The study aimed to advance understanding of how such perceptions can impact group work endeavours. Specifically, the key tenets that guided the study were whether or not the participants had experienced the phenomenon of social loafing through the duration of their university careers; how prevalent it was; how the encounter had shaped their views on group work; how it impacted their motivational levels; whether they had personally engaged in social loafing or not; as well as how they dealt with social loafers within their groups. This purely qualitative study employed a phenomenological lens in deriving exploratory information from a purposive sample (eight post-graduate students enrolled in the University of Pretoria's Human Resource Management Department). The findings from the research illustrate that the whole sample had experienced social loafing within a group work context. What differed, were the subjective interpretations of the phenomenon held by the students. Students were readily able to provide specific examples and instances where they had been exposed to loafing by a peer or where they, themselves, had loafed. Students' applied various mechanisms to deal with loafers within their work groups, namely, direct confrontation; eliminating perceived loafers from in-group selection from the onset; peer review or evaluations/appraisals; as well complete conflict avoidance through no action at all. The presence of a loafer created feelings of frustration amongst most of the students. The phenomenon itself was more likely to occur when there was a lack of incentive or evaluation, disinterest in the topic or limited knowledge of the work content. Further, the larger the group size, the greater the likelihood of a loafer being present. From these findings it is evident that social loafing is common and leaves a lasting impression on those that have been exposed or engaged in the phenomenon. Recommendations include: the optimal size for a group work task be ideally set at 4 to 5 people; group work activities should have clearly defined goals and objectives; clear means of evaluation must exist to ensure that each group member's contribution can be appraised; prior exposure to the content of the task is important and group work should not take place before modular assessment; lecturers need to take on an active role in mitigating against loafing; realistic time frames for group task completion must be present; and increased focus on educating students on how to be constructive group members should be considered as part of a best practice group work approach. / Mini Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Human Resource Management / MCom / Unrestricted

The concept of social loafing is important with regard to organizational effectiveness particularly as organizations are relying on teams as a means to drive productivity. The composition of those teams is likely to reflect the current movement of racial and ethnic minorities in the work place. The primary purpose of this research was to determine the role cultural diversity plays in enhancing performance and thereby eliminating social loafing. The research study is significant because 1) it is among the first to use culturally diverse work groups while examining the social loafing phenomenon, and 2) the groups were intact project teams, rather than ad-hoc groups commonly found in social loafing experiments. It was anticipated that the members of culturally homogeneous groups would engage in social loafing when their individual efforts were "buried." However, subjects in both culturally diverse and culturally homogeneous groups resisted social loafing behaviors. Additional statistical analysis revealed that as group orientation increased, performance levels increased as well. Group orientation, then, appears to be a more powerful determinant of performance than group composition. It is expected that the time these groups had together and the performance feedback opportunities provided them, prior to the experiment, contributed significantly to these results. Future research suggestions were made that could help establish a causal relationship.

This study investigated perceptions of social loafing in undergraduate student teams at a South African university. Student participants, randomly assigned to teams, received coursework instruction about team dynamics (including social loafing) and worked together for 12 weeks on a team assignment that was graded at the end of the semester. Students (n = 243) wrote individual reflections on the reasons for social loafing in student teams. Some (n = 24) also participated in an experiential social loafing exercise. These two sources of qualitative data were used in the development of a survey questionnaire, which was completed by 229 students. Fifty-four percent of the student participants (n = 229) perceived social loafing to have occurred in their teams. Four components of perceived social loafing behaviour were identified using factor analysis: unavailability, poor work quality, tech loafing and discussion non-contribution. Loafer apathy (a general lack of care or interest) predicted significant variance in each of the four loafing behaviours and social compensation. Team performance (assignment grades) was not related to the perceived presence social loafing in a team. Rather than reducing effort in response to perceived social loafing (the sucker effect), a social compensation effect occurred in the perceived presence of poor work quality. Effective leadership moderated the relationship between loafer apathy and tech loafing as well as loafer apathy and social compensation. Practical implications and recommendations for future research are presented.

Det finns en utmaning för designers att skapa digitala miljöer som främjar aktivitet, för att skapa goda vanor och rutiner som leder till växandet av communitys. Online communitys kan ibland sakna målstyrning som leder till minskat engagemang och motivation för medlemmar att bidrag till communityt. Det kan vara svårt för deltagare i dessa digitala miljöer att se vilket värde deras egna bidragande skapar. Eftersom online communitys får en allt mer växande roll i dagens samhälle när distanskollaborationer blir allt vanligare är det relevant att undersöka dessa problem. Tidigare forskning uppmärksammar social loafing som en förklaring till minskat engagemang och motivation i samarbeten. Vad som har kunnat påvisa förebyggande faktorer för denna negativa utveckling är att om individer blir påminda om deras värde till en community kan bidragandet öka, samt att gruppmål kan ge en mer bidragande effekt än individuella mål. Vad som även påverkar motivationen hos deltagarna är arbetsmönster i form av vanor och rutiner och den gemensamma grund som etableras mellan parter som inleder samarbeten. Denna studie fördjupar sig i aktiviteter hos innehållsskapare i kreativa online communitys inom spelutveckling, musikproduktion och andra typer av distanskollaborationer som är beroende av datorstödd kollaborativt arbete (CSCW). Resultat från intervjuer och enkätundersökningar har analyserats med hjälp av Aktivitetsteorin för att förstå vilka vanor som leder till framgångsrika kreativa samarbeten i en online community. Detta har genererat riktlinjer för design av digitala plattformar avsedda som online communitys och grundar sig i de aktiviteter som etablerar gemensam grund och deltagarkultur. Ett bästa praxisexempel presenteras även, baserat på de fynd från datainsamlingen som beskriver en distansbaserad musiktävling som främjar deltagande kultur och etablering av gemensam grund. Fortsatt forskning inom online communitys för kreatörer rekommenderas eftersom det finns ett behov tillgodose användarens specifika behov som grundar sig i personliga mål men även deras specifika användande av externa verktyg. / There is a challenge when designing digital environments that promotes activities for the purpose to creates routines and habits leading to the growth of a community. Online communities could sometime lack objective management, resulting in lowered engagement and motivation amongst the members to contribute. Members in these environments sometimes struggle to see how their contribution can make an impact. The importance of online communities has a greater role in society while attitude towards distance collaborations are becoming familiar, consequently investigating these issues is relevant. Previous research has observed this behavior and defines it as social loafing, groups and communitys lack contribution even though they have many members. What has been found as a prevention to this negative development shows that individuals are more likely to contribute when their value are acknowledged. What also has a motivating and positive effect is when they are assigned group-oriented goals rather than just assigned goals individually. Establishing routines, habits, and common ground between members of a collaboration has a role in this development. This study explores activities amongst creators that are active in creative online communities oriented in game development, music production and other types of distance collaborations dependent on computer supported collaborative work (CSCW). The results gathered from interviews and user-surveys, has been analyzed through Activity theory, to better understand the habits that leads to successful creative collaborations in online communities. We propose design guidelines for development of digital platforms that serves the purpose for online communities and stems through the activities that establishes common ground and a culture for participation. We also present a best practice example based on the finding, describing a distance facilitated competition in music production that promotes participation and establishment of common ground. Taking to account the wide variety of different technical and individual needs and goals of multidisciplinary creators serves as a suggestion for further research.

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This exploratory study examined the relationship between public speaking anxiety levels indicated by scores on the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker questionnaire (PRCS: Paul, 1966) and evaluation probability on a wide domain of evaluation items reflected by scores on the Audience Attention Allocation questionnaire (devised for the purpose of this study). A large student sample (n=220) completed the PRCS as well as the AAA questionnaire. The AAA assessed the perceived allocation of the attentional resources of the audience members during a speech by asking respondents to rate how probable it is that a speaker is evaluated on a set of domains. The results of regression analyses indicated that AAA scores, Gender, and Study year were significant predictors of PRCS scores accounting for 8.5% of the variance. More interestingly, the nature of results obtained was contrary to the hypothesis of the study. It was in fact revealed that subjects scoring low on the AAA questionnaire, indicating less likelihood that audience members make evaluations about the speaker on a variety of items, tended to have higher anxiety scores. The results are discussed in terms of defense mechanisms and response bias.