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A Functional Model of Social Loafing: When and How Does Social Loafing Enhance Job Performance?

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Abstract

Many previous studies have documented the detrimental effects of social loafing on others (interpersonal impacts) at the between-person level. However, social loafing may carry underappreciated intrapersonal functional effects at the within-person level. Our research develops a novel theoretical framework to investigate when and how engaging in social loafing enhances one’s job performance. Drawing on the effort-recovery model and moral cleansing theory, we propose that social loafing may improve subsequent job performance by enhancing recovery and guilt. Specifically, we argue that among employees who experience higher job demands or have higher moral identity, social loafing in the morning enhances their job performance in the afternoon by facilitating recovery or guilt in the morning. Two-wave daily data collected across ten consecutive workdays using the experience sampling method (ESM) supports this model. We discuss how this research identifies a functional basis for social loafing and provides implications for research and practice.

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Notes

  1. When we used the sample without applying the criterion of sufficient days (i.e., provided data on at least three days; N = 71 participants, rendering 632 observations), all hypotheses were supported, except that the relationship between morning guilt and afternoon job performance became significant at p < .10 (B = .08, p = .054).

  2. All results are available upon request from the authors.

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Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, specifically by Grant 72002214 and Grant 72372151 awarded to Xin Liu and by Grant 72172074 awarded to Xiaoming Zheng.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Renmin Business School, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Xin Liu

  2. School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Xiaoming Zheng & Ying Zhang

  3. School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, 611130, China

    Yu Yu

  4. Department of Management, Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA

    John M. Schaubroeck

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  1. Xin Liu
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Correspondence to Yu Yu.

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Liu, X., Zheng, X., Yu, Y. et al. A Functional Model of Social Loafing: When and How Does Social Loafing Enhance Job Performance?. J Bus Ethics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05599-3

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