A RESEARCH ABOUT INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL LOAFING BEHAVIOR AND THE PERCEPTION OF TASK VISIBILITY

Yıl 2012, Cilt: 12 Sayı: 24, 53 - 80, 01.12.2012

Altan Doğan Serdar Bozkurt Rıza Demir

Öz

It would be easier to define employees’ contribution to their organization as long as
they perform their individual work, in other words, their activities in organizations, since
an employee who works individually and does a little amount of work or none will not
produce anything and such an employee will be defined and disciplined through various
ways. It is more difficult to define the individual contribution of team members when a
performance is carried out by a group in which the group members carry out their duties
in the group, not individually. In such cases some employees would show social loafing
behavior (Wright and Noe, 1996: 586). Employees would have the tendency to make
efforts if they work individually, not a member of a group (Johns, 1996: 254). For that
reason, the importance of social loafing behavior has increased nowadays when group and
team work has become common. Not only should organizations know the reasons for
social loafing behavior, but also they should take steps to eradicate these reasons. Task
visibility has been defined as one of the factors of social loafing behavior. Task visibility
is defined as the belief of a person on how much the manager is aware of his/her effort on
work (George, 1992: 192). In this study, the relationship between perceptions of managers
about social loafing behaviors of their employees and the perceptions of employees about
their task visibility has been investigated.
Social loafing is defined as the aptitude of effort reduction of an individual in a group
(Latane et al., 1979: 823; Kidwell Jr. and Robie, 2003: 540). In other words; social loafing
describes the aptitude of a person to be less productive when working in a group (Harcum
and Badura, 1990: 629). The main reason for observing this behavior in a group can be
seen as the decrease of social awareness in a group situation. Employees usually show
social loafing behavior for some reasons such as; thinking that their effort will not be
evaluated in the group, thinking that individual outputs can not be measured, thinking that
their efforts will not be important and assuming that their work can be done by other
employees sıralanabilir (Hitt et al., 2009: 383-384; Moorhead and Griffin, 2010: 235;
McShane and Von Glinow, 2010: 238; Robbins and Coulter, 2009: 255; Karau and
Williams, 1997: 156; Earley, 1989: 565-566; Plaks and Higgins, 2000: 962).
Task visibility is defined as the belief of a person on how much the manager is aware
of his/her effort on work (George, 1992: 192; Liden et al., 2004: 288; Kidwell Jr. and
Bennett, 1993). When the task visibility is low, employees can think that their managers
do not realize their effort. In this situation, it is possible to see social loafing behavior
(George, 1992: 192). Because when employees show social loafing behavior, they may
believe that this behavior will not be realized by anyone. The level of visibility for any
task depends on the environmental factors for the job, the observation and evaluation level
for performance of the employee. For this reason, when individuals work alone and the
outputs of their work can be measured, task visibility will be high (Jones, 1984: 686).
The failure in evaluating the effort or contribution made by an individual working in a
group would be one of the reasons of social loafing behavior. That's to say, task visibility
is a determining factor of social loafing behavior. When his/her task is not seen by his/her
manager, he/she would show social loafing behavior. Thereby, social loafing behavior can
be eradicated on the condition that an individual working in a group thinks that his/her contribution is seen or measured and this contribution is appraisable (George, 1995: 327;
Murphy et al., 2003:71).
The aim of this research is to analyze the relationship between social loafing behavior
and task visibility of employees working in service and production sectors in sales and
marketing branches. The relationship between perceptions of managers about social
loafing behaviors of their employees and the perceptions of employees about their task
visibility has been investigated. Also another aim of the study is to determine if the
perception of social loafing behavior and task visibility show difference or not.
We think that the results of this study will help the managers in order to reduce or
prevent the social loafing behaviors of employees. Results of the study are important
because the managers can realize the behaviors that can reduce efficiency. There is a lack
of study in the related literature which investigates production and service sector
employees in our country so this research gains more importance. The sample of the
research consists of the employees who are working in production and service sectors in
sales and marketing departments of the organizations in Istanbul. The method of the
sampling is “convenience sampling”. Totally 180 people including 101 sales and
marketing employees and 79 managers participated to the research. The questionnaire
which was developed by Jennifer M. George (1992) about social loafing behavior and
perceived task visibility has been used in the study.
As the hypothesis of the research, no relationship is found between social loafing
behavior and task visibility. The social loafing perception of male managers is found
higher than female managers. The task visibility perceptions of male and female
employees are found very close to each other so there is no statistical difference between
these factors. Also it is found in the research that younger managers can realize social
loafing behavior more than lower aged managers. The task visibility perceptions of
emplayees also show difference depending on the age variable. The employees who are
above 36 age perceive task visibility more than lower aged employees. No relationship is
found between social loafing behavior and task visibility depending on seniority.
The results of the study reveal that sale and marketing managers and employees do
not perceive social loafing behavior and task visibility a lot. As a result of the study, it is
possible to say that it will be suitable to design HR systems that can help to realize social
loafing behavior in work environment and these systems will help to increase
organizational effectiveness and individual work satisfaction. It is not possible to
generalize the results of this study for all sales and marketing employees. Because of this
reason, this kind of empirical studies should be done for larger samples in the future.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Social loafing, task visibility, sales and marketing employees

SOSYAL KAYTARMA DAVRANIŞI İLE ALGILANAN GÖREV GÖRÜNÜRLÜĞÜ ARASINDAKİ İLİŞKİNİN İNCELENMESİNE YÖNELİK BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Öz

Çalışmada yöneticilerin, çalışanlarının sosyal kaytarma davranışı gösterip göstermediklerine yönelik algıları ile çalışanların, kendi görevlerinin görünürlüklerine yönelik algıları arasındaki ilişki araştırılmıştır. Ayrıca sosyal kaytarma davranışının ve görev görünürlüğü algısının demografik değişkenlere göre farklılık gösterip göstermediği de incelenmiştir. Araştırmaya satış ve pazarlama alanında çalışan (yönetici ve satış temsilcisi) 180 kişi katılmıştır. Veriler SPSS 18.0 programında analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda, sosyal kaytarma davranışı ile algılanan görev görünürlüğü arasında ilişki bulunamamıştır. Demografik değişkenler olarak incelenen cinsiyet, yaş ve kıdeme göre, görev görünürlüğü ve sosyal kaytarma davranışına yönelik algılamalarda farklılıklar saptanmıştır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sosyal kaytarma (aylaklık), görev görünürlüğü, satış ve pazarlama çalışanları