Mitigating the Impact of Social Loafing through the use of Team Charters and Team Evaluations

Abstract

In many university courses students work in teams on class activities, papers and projects. Instructors often choose the team method as students will be expected to work in teams in many of their jobs. Team-based activities facilitate cooperative learning which occurs when individuals work together to accomplish a common goal. Collaboration amongst team members can occur in both face-to-face settings and in online environments. Teaching students the skills needed to collaborate in both environments helps prepare students for future jobs in which they may need to coordinate work efforts across different time and/or geographical settings. When students are part of a group, we often find that some students choose not to do their fair share of the work. Social loafing occurs when students are in a group and exert less effort than they would if they were working independently. In order to combat social loafing team charters and team evaluations were used in a marketing course. The instructor provided students with example team charters that have the workload equitably distributed for teams of three to four students. Students then create their own charter that discusses team norms (rules of behavior), assigns responsibilities to different sections of a project, and outlines sanctions for not meeting guidelines in the team charter. Team evaluations are also used in the class so that students can discuss throughout the semester how they perceive the performance level of team members. This paper will discuss the use of team charters and evaluations to level the impact of social loafing.

Career Readiness Skills for Marketing Majors: An Examination of Soft Skills, Hard Skills and Course Applications

“…A semester-long team project gives students the opportunity to collaborate with others, organize their schedules, communicate with members in both written and oral form, work with and meet deadlines, demonstrate their work ethic, and be professional in their interactions within the group and with the instructor. Students can be given opportunities to lead portions of the project which can be assisted with a team charter that establishes norms of expected behavior on the team, allocates responsibilities, sets deadlines, and indicates what consequences will be for not meeting group expectations (Johnson & Horn, 2019). For example, GANTT charts allow students to envision an entire project's timing and when activities need to occur.…”

Soft Skills Needed by Marketing Majors upon Graduation

“…While working in a group is a necessary skill for survival in marketing, being able to demonstrate the ability to work by oneself is also necessary (Mackenzie, 2021;Schlee & Karns, 2017). Working independently in a team can be assisted by the use of team that assign tasks and hold students accountable for a specific portion of a project (Johnson & Horn, 2019).…”

Teaching Engineers the Leadership Skill of Conflict Resolution

“…• Rewarding both group and individual effort [29] • Assigning instrumental and equitable tasks to all team members; an instrumental task is one that is indispensable to the team's project so that each team member believes that an adequate collective performance depends on his or her personal contribution [29] • Conducting peer evaluations [30] • Having each team adopt a written team charter [30]. (This is similar to the group rules and processes found that correlate with teamwork satisfaction [16] and the team expectations document [31].…”

“…Although experiential exercises are necessary, students want hard copy to read and study [11]. For example, students can be provided with a handout ("Coping with Hitchhikers and Couch Potatoes on Teams") analyzing example situations involving social loafing [30]. Al-Hammoud et al [32] introduced task, process, and relationship conflicts plus strategies to help mitigate or resolve personal conflict, including when and why these different types of conflicts occur, when they are productive or destructive, and how differences among team members' needs and perspectives may lead to conflict.…”

“…Fourth, team charters, expectations, and rules [e.g., 17,30,31] can provide direct experience both in resolving process conflicts and in preventing destructive future conflict.…”