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IAI Actuarial Core Principles · Business Management · Mission, business strategy, teamwork and time management

A Pune actuarial consultancy has a team of five for a valuation project. Leader Meera notes that two members contribute less in the group than they do when working alone, assuming their individual work will not be identified. She wants to reduce this tendency while keeping the team structure. Which action most directly addresses the cause?

Assigning identifiable individual responsibilities and measuring each person's contribution is best. The problem is social loafing, caused by anonymity of effort, so greater accountability tackles it directly, whereas larger teams, equal rewards or fewer controls tend to worsen it.

  1. AAssign clearly identifiable individual responsibilities and measure each member's contributionCorrect
  2. BAdd more members so that the workload per person falls
  3. CReplace regular meetings with an all-staff email summary
  4. DReward only the final team output equally regardless of input
  5. Remove the team deadline so members feel less pressure

Explanation

The behaviour is social loafing, which arises when individual effort cannot be identified. Making responsibilities and contributions visible increases accountability. Adding members usually worsens loafing, and equal rewards with no deadline remove accountability further; dropping meetings reduces visibility.

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