Motivation and performance in teams: Transforming loafing into resonance

1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Glynn ◽  
Stuart G. Carr

AbstractEmployee responses to being placed in workplace “teams” range from free-riding (shirking, social loafing) to working harder than ever before, and feelings of identity (or in-group) with the team may play a key role in facilitating the working harder response. Fifty-two Australian future managers worked on a workplace simulation task, either (a) alone (Control), (b) among a simulated unidentified aggregate of other students (team setting, no social identity), (c) with simulated other students from the same faculty competing against the Faculty of Law (in-group, social identity condition), or (d) amid a simulated out-group of students from Law, competing against the participant's own faculty (out-group condition, pre-existing conflicting loyalty condition). As predicted, compared to (a) working alone, aggregation (b) resulted in free-riding, which was reversed by merely invoking (c) a social (faculty) identity, but then reappeared under (d) an out-group condition. Tentative though the current data may be, “flip-over” effects like these may depend on a worker's pluralistic mix of individualistic and collectivistic repertoires. To the extent that such pluralism is found throughout Australia and elsewhere in the South Pacific (Taylor & S. Yavalanavanua, 1997), our findings may apply to ‘thinking through’ workplace team development elsewhere in the region.

2000 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly S. Fielding ◽  
Michael A. Hogg

Summary: A social identity model of effort exertion in groups is presented. In contrast to most traditional research on productivity and performance motivation, the model is assumed to apply to groups of all sizes and nature, and to all membership contingent norms that specify group behaviors and goals. It is proposed that group identification renders behavior group-normative and encourages people to behave in line with group norms. The effect should be strengthened among people who most need consensual identity validation from fellow members, and in intergroup contexts where there is inescapable identity threat from an outgroup. Together these processes should encourage people to exert substantial effort on behalf of their group.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1494
Author(s):  
Sha Jiang ◽  
Fei-Fei Yan ◽  
Jia-Ying Hu ◽  
Ahmed Mohammed ◽  
Heng-Wei Cheng

The elevation of ambient temperature beyond the thermoneutral zone leads to heat stress, which is a growing health and welfare issue for homeothermic animals aiming to maintain relatively constant reproducibility and survivability. Particularly, global warming over the past decades has resulted in more hot days with more intense, frequent, and long-lasting heat waves, resulting in a global surge in animals suffering from heat stress. Heat stress causes pathophysiological changes in animals, increasing stress sensitivity and immunosuppression, consequently leading to increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and related neuroinflammation. Probiotics, as well as prebiotics and synbiotics, have been used to prevent or reduce stress-induced negative effects on physiological and behavioral homeostasis in humans and various animals. The current data indicate dietary supplementation with a Bacillus subtilis-based probiotic has similar functions in poultry. This review highlights the recent findings on the effects of the probiotic Bacillus subtilis on skeletal health of broiler chickens exposed to heat stress. It provides insights to aid in the development of practical strategies for improving health and performance in poultry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-978
Author(s):  
Rosella Cappella Zielinski ◽  
Ryan Grauer

States often fight side-by-side on the battlefield. As detailed in our new dataset, Belligerents in Battle, 178 of the 480 major land battles fought during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003 involved at least one multinational coalition. Though coalition partners fight battles together to increase their odds of securing specific objectives, they vary significantly in their capacity to do so. Why? Drawing on organization theory insights, we argue that coalitions’ variable battlefield effectiveness is a function of interactions between their command structures and the resources each partner brings to the fight. Coalitions adopting command structures tailored to simultaneously facilitate the efficient use of partners’ variably sized resource contributions and discourage free-riding, shirking, and other counterproductive actions will fight effectively; those that employ inappropriate command structures will not. Evidence from Anglo-French operations during World War I and Axis operations during World War II strongly supports our claim. For scholars, our argument and findings about the importance of military organizational dynamics for the operation and performance of coalitions raise important new questions and provide potential insights about coalition formation, duration, and termination. For practitioners, it is significant that, since 1990, 36 of 49 of major battles in interstate wars have involved at least one coalition and the majority of those coalitions have been, like the cases we study, ad hoc in nature. Understanding how command arrangements affect performance and getting organization right at the outset of wars is increasingly important.


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