Loafing in the digital age: The role of computer mediated communication in the relation between perceived loafing and group affective outcomes

Reducing perceived social loafing in virtual teams: The effect of team feedback with guided reflexivity

“…Empirical research has shown a positive relationship between virtual collaboration and social loafing (Alnuaimi, Robert, & Maruping, ; Blaskovich, ). Based on Monzani, Ripoll, Peiró, and Van Dick's () study on perceived social loafing in virtual teams, we argue that perceptions of social loafing in virtual teams represent team members' suspicions or assumptions of social loafing rather than actual perceptions. Monitoring one's teammates is more difficult in virtual environments (e.g., electronic text‐based chat) due to technological constraints, and so suspicions that peers are making less effort can arise more easily.…”

“…Second, we analyze whether team feedback with guided reflexivity reduces perceived social loafing and subsequently increases virtual teams' affective outcomes. As Monzani et al () show, perceived social loafing is negatively related to group affective outcomes, and this relationship is more pronounced in virtual teams than in face‐to‐face teams. The research model for this study is depicted in Figure .…”

“…In virtual teams, other members' performance is less visible, and traditional forms of control and monitoring are not feasible (Hertel et al, ; Wilson, Straus, & McEvily, ), perhaps because rich information (e.g., nonverbal, verbal, and visual cues) is reduced in technology‐mediated communication (Daft & Lengel, ). According to Monzani et al (), because monitoring teammates' behaviors through direct observation is often impractical in virtual teams, team members have less actual perceptions of teammates' loafing. Instead, they have to make assumptions about their peers' contributions to the team task.…”

“…Previous studies have shown a negative relationship between perceived social loafing and group outcomes such as group cohesion, group affective tone, or group members satisfaction, in both conventional communication contexts (Aggarwal & O'Brien, ; Duffy & Shaw, ; Teng & Luo, ) and virtual collaboration contexts (Shiue, Chiu, & Chang, ). Moreover, a study by Monzani et al () comparing teams working virtually (e.g., instant messaging) to teams working face‐to‐face in an experimental study showed that the negative relationships between perceived social loafing and these group affective outcomes (group cohesion and satisfaction with work processes and results) were stronger in virtual teams than in face‐to‐face teams.…”

Coping in the final frontier: An intervention to reduce spaceflight-induced stress

“…Team diversity may also lead to intercultural communication problems, which not only apply to face-to-face communication, but to computer-mediated communication (CMC) as well (Lira, Ripoll, Latorre-Navarro, & Monzani, 2016;Monzani, Ripoll, Peiró, & Van Dick, 2014). For example, in LEO missions, CMC occurs between the members of the spacecraft and the Earth ground control(s), geographically distributed in the form of Global Virtual Teams (GVTs; Glazer, Kozusznik, & Shargo, 2012).…”