Task Visibility, Free Riding, and Shirking: Explaining the Effect of Structure and Technology on Employee Behavior

Abstract

The properties of organized or team production affect three phenomena--free riding, shirking, and task visibility--that mediate the relationship between organizational structure and technology, on the one hand, and employee performance and satisfaction, on the other. Using transaction cost theory, a model of the expected effects of the mediating variables on organizational behavior is presented, and a set of derived hypotheses concerning the structure-technology-behavior relationship is developed.