The Influence of Real-Time Identifiability and Evaluability Performance Feedback on Group Electronic Brainstorming Performance

This study addresses the question of how to mitigate productivity losses in Electronic Brainstorming (EBS) due to social loafing. This article posits that loafing in the context of EBS may occur due to the combined effect of random group composition and anonymity in conjunction with unregulated individual performance behavior, not anonymity per se, and presents real-time, objective performance feedback as a plausible solution to combat social loafing. An automated real-time performance feedback system was incorporated into an existing EBS system and its effect on performance was empirically examined. Consistent with the suggestions of prior loafing research, in a controlled laboratory experiment groups given the identifiability treatment outperformed other treatments. Similarly, groups given the evaluability treatment outperformed other treatments. Furthermore, groups in the Identifiability and Evaluability treatment showed competitiveness among participants, promoting upward social comparison, and in turn outperforming all other groups in terms of idea quality.