Social loafing in virtual collaborative decision making: Relationship among media richness, media synchronicity, group performance, and individual effort

The study aimed to understand productivity loss during virtual collaboration when different communication channels are used. Previous research postulated that media richness could affect group performance depending on the task nature. However, there remains an important gap in the current literature regarding how to quantify the performance loss. The purposes of the study are to determine the impact of social loafing as an underlying mechanism of performance loss based on the collective effort model and to quantify performance differences in channels of varying media richness. The hypotheses are that social loafing exists in virtual collaborations, richer channels have higher brainstorming productivity and motivation levels, and synchronous channels allow faster decision-making. Following a quantitative research method, four groups of four were assigned to three channels---instant chat, teleconferencing, and face-to-face channels---and the control. They worked on three cognitive tasks, and three variables were measured respectively, including group productivity, group efficiency, and individual effort. Results from MANOVA confirmed the social loafing effect during virtual collaboration (eta2 = .688). Lower motivation loss and higher decision-making efficiency were found in groups using richer channels, whereas brainstorming productivity did not differ significantly across channels. This study contributes to social change by making virtual teamwork more productive and practical, which advances the emerging field of virtual operations and increases opportunities for employees in remote locations, with physical challenges, or who require flexible schedules to balance family and other lifestyle needs. This study also contributes to cross-cultural trust-building in global project teams.