Understanding the Effects of Freeriding in Team Dynamics

摘要

Social and business researchers have long recognized freeriding as a main obstacle to team success. Previous research focuses much on the causes of freeriding and the design of reward/sanction systems to counteract freeriding. The impacts of freeriding on team progress are however less understood. A longitudinal study is designed to investigate the dynamic effects of freeriding in student work teams. The results suggest that during team progress, freeriding not only has a strong detrimental effect on the current team performance, it also affects the team's future performance by influence the development of team morale. Implications for both research and team practices are discussed.