Sustaining Collaborative Effort in Work Teams: Exchange Ideology and Employee Social Loafing

Abstract

To sustain the effort of work team members as a collaborative resource over time, organizations need to avoid the social loafing of employees. Recognizing the importance of this relationship, we investigated both individual (i.e., exchange ideology) and situational factors (i.e., task visibility and professional respect) that influence employees’ attitudes toward social exchange and team collaboration and thus their social loafing. Using survey responses of 223 employee–supervisor dyads in South Korean firms, hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that employees with a low exchange ideology were unlikely to engage in social loafing. In addition, exchange ideology interacted with both task visibility and professional respect to influence social loafing. Specifically, task visibility was negatively associated with social loafing, and this effect was stronger when employees were low, rather than high, in exchange ideology. Moreover, professional respect was negatively associated with social loafing, and this effect was stronger among those low in exchange ideology. Thus, a low level of exchange ideology can reduce social loafing and can also enhance the potential for task visibility and professional respect to strengthen effort levels. Accordingly, this study suggested that individual characteristics, especially exchange ideology, are important in reducing social loafing and clearly stated what managerial guidelines can be implemented to practically reduce social loafing.