Title

Social Loafing and Collectivism: A Comparison of the United States and the People's Republic of China.

Authors

Earley, P. Christopher

Abstract

The present paper examines the effect of a central cultural value, individualism-collectivism, on social loafing in an organizational setting. A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that collectivistic beliefs influence the incidence of social loafing. Forty-eight managerial trainees each from the United States and the People's Republic of China worked on an in-basket task under conditions of low or high accountability and low or high shared responsibility. The results of regression analyses demonstrate the moderating role of collectivistic beliefs on social loafing, and they are discussed in terms of social responsibility and its relation to performance in work groups.

Subjects

CHINA; UNITED States; SOCIAL loafing; INDIVIDUALISM; COLLECTIVISM (Social psychology); SOCIOLOGY of work; TEAMS in the workplace; PSYCHOLOGY of executives; CROSS-cultural differences

Publication

Administrative Science Quarterly, 1989, Vol 34, Issue 4, p565

ISSN

0001-8392

Publication type

Academic Journal

DOI

10.2307/2393567