Social loafing in electronic brainstorming: invoking social comparison through technology and facilitation techniques to improve group productivity

This paper reports a study of electronic brainstorming that begins with field experience, moves through theory building and experimentation and ends with practical guidance for facilitators and developers. The paper argues that social loafing impairs the productivity of electronic brainstorming groups, and that social comparison is a way to decrease the effect(s) of social loafing. By inducing social comparison with a graphical feedback tool we increased the output of EBS groups by 23%. By increasing the salience of the social comparison treatment with facilitation techniques we improved the output of EBS groups by an additional 33%