NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 group is less than could be expected on the basis of the abilities of the indi-

80 I NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 group is less than could be expected on the basis of the abilities of the indi-

vidual workers, i.e., ‘social loafing’ (Karau & Williams, 1993), and under what circumstances the whole is more effective than the sum of its parts (‘social laboring’; see also Haslam, 2001). The majority of the work in this area has focused on the danger of so-called motivation losses in groups (Steiner, 1972), aiming to establish means to avoid or minimize their occur- rence. Based on the assumption that people who work on a collective task feel less individually accountable for their efforts than when they perform the same task individually, it is argued that people generally tend to work less hard on group tasks than on individual tasks (Kravitz & Martin, 1986). Accordingly, typical solutions to the social loafing problem involve measures that emphasize how the individual may benefit from the group’s perform- ance—for instance, by making the contributions of individual team members more visible, or by showing how the achievement of group goals may help obtain personally valued outcomes (Karau & Williams, 1997).

When people primarily conceive of themselves as separate individuals, they can only be expected to direct their efforts toward the achievement of col- lective goals when this affects their individual outcomes (e.g., because they fear they may be sanctioned for failing to exert themselves on behalf of the group). Under such circumstances, individual accountability can also increase performance with respect to collective goals. However, research by Barretoand Ellemers (2001; see alsoJetten, Bransco mbe, Spears, & McKimmie, 2003) suggests that such measures have only limited value. That is, people who identify as separate individuals can be induced to work for the group as long as they have to account for their efforts in public, but fail to do so when working under more private conditions. Furthermore, while increased individual accountability can help avoid moti- vational losses in groups, it does not inform us of the possible gains that may

be achieved from teamwork. In fact, to the extent that the individuation of team members takes away from the ‘groupiness’ of the team, measures taken to avoid motivational losses might even preclude processes that would achieve synergy through collaboration (i.e., where ‘two plus two equals five’).

While the avoidance of motivational losses (rather than the promotion of motivation gains) is the best possible outcome in cases where people do not feel emotionally involved with the group, we argue that increased motivation and performance (‘social laboring’) can be achieved in groups where people primarily see themselves in terms of their workteam or organization. The same Barreto and Ellemers study that showed how people who define the self at the individual level make their efforts contingent on the likelihood that they will be personally sanctioned for failing to show the desired behavior, also revealed that those who defined themselves in terms of social identity consistently worked for the group regardless of whether or not their behavior was subject to scrutiny from others. This suggests that a self-definition in collective terms leads people to internalize group goals as intrinsically

81 motivating, while self-definition as a separate individual implies that displays

S OCIAL I DENTITY IN I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY

of group-oriented behavior depend on the presence or absence of external pressure todoso(in this case, public acco untability; see alsoBarreto& Ellemers, 2002, 2003). Consistent with this notion, research has revealed that groups of close friends or teammates display less social loafing than groups comprising strangers or mere acquaintances (Williams, Karau, & Bourgeois, 1993). This appears to be a product of the higher levels of com- mitment that are observed in the friendship groups (Jehn & Shah, 1997). Such evidence implies that—while traditional remedies for social loafing may

be effective when workers collaborate with each other as separate indi- viduals—measures that enhance the salience of a collective identity should provide a more effective way of motivating people to achieve collective goals and optimize group performance (see also Ellemers, 2001b; Tyler & Blader, 2000; van Knippenberg & Ellemers, 2003).

While we have argued that the awareness of a shared identity may direct group members’ efforts toward the achievement of collective goals, it is important to note that this will not necessarily result in greater group productivity. When group members establish their collective identity by setting distinct goals for the group, this not only fosters their sense of identification with the group, but also increases their efforts to achieve these particular group goals (see Wegge & Haslam, 2003). However, depend- ing on the content of these goals, systematic underperformance or excessive absence can also be the result, which would seem undesirable from a managerial point of view (as in the case of so-called ‘soldiering’ where a group contrives collectively to underperform; Taylor, 1911; see also Gellatly & Luchak, 1998). Thus, a counter-intuitive consequence of this process is that enhanced group identification can even increase the amount of effort directed at the achievement of individual goals when distinctive group norms prescribe individualistic behavior (Barreto & Ellemers, 2001)—for instance, when organizational culture emphasizes individual competitiveness.