Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

PGDM Executive Programme

End-Term Examination, (July 2021 Batch, Term - II)
Name of the Course…OB-I

Name of the course Faculty: - Anil Anand Pathak

Nature of Exam: - Closed Book

Date & Time of Examination: - 18.1.2022 7.00 pm

Maximum Marks: - 50 Weightage: - 30%

Time: - 2 Hours

AACSB: - LG5, LO4

Case Incident: Is Social Loafing Unethical?

Social loafing is one potential downside of working in groups. Regardless of the type of task
—from games of Tug of War to working on a group projects—research suggests that when
working in a group, most individuals contribute less than if they were working on their own.
Sometimes, these people are labeled shirkers, because they don’t fulfill their responsibilities
as group members. Other times, social loafing is overlooked, and the industrious employees
do the work alone to meet the group’s performance goals. Either way, social loafing is an
ethical dilemma.

Whether in class projects or in jobs we’ve held, most of us have experienced social loafing,
or shirking, in groups. And there may have even been times when we were guilty of social
loafing ourselves. We discussed earlier in this chapter some ways of discouraging social
loafing, such as limiting group size, holding individuals responsible for their contributions,
setting group goals, and providing “hybrid” incentives that reward both individual and group
performance. Although these strategies might help to reduce the occurrence of social loafing,
in many cases, it seems that people just try to work around shirkers rather than motivate them
to perform at higher levels.

Managers and employees must decide the ethics of social loafing acceptance. Managers must
determine what level of social loafing for groups and for individual employees will be
tolerated in terms of time wasted in nonproductive meetings, performance expectations, and
counterproductive work behaviors. Employees must decide what limits to social loafing they
will impose on themselves and what tolerance they have for social loafers in their work
groups.
Questions

1. Do group members have an ethical responsibility to report shirkers to leadership? Do you

think social loafing is always shirking? How can social loafing be checked in a task
group? 25 Marks (Word limit = 250 words)

2. Refer to the simulation game “Win as much as you Can” played in the virtual classroom.
What lessons do you take from the above simulation game and how can you apply it at
the workplace? Build your case with appropriate theory of workteams and leadership
referring to the simulation data provided below. 25 Marks (word limit = 250 words)

10 20 50 O 100
          2X  
X X X H X
CM CM
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7   8
1 2
T S Squad P M M   M P   M M   P
TEAM SNOW U I I   I U   I I   U
ENIGMA R X X   X R   X X   R
CELESTIAL
E E E   E E   E E   E
WARLORDS
PRAYAS   D D   D     D D    
Re Re
GOAL DIGGERS                 Red
d d

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