Groups and teams: A review of bad apple behavior
(2017). Team Performance Management, 23(5/6), 243–259.
Cited 15 times · OpenAlex, 2026-11-07
What the paper shows
In short
The paper reviews research on three kinds of difficult team members: those who hold back effort, those who are interpersonally hostile, and those with a negative mood. The evidence suggests that coworkers who see loafing may respond badly, hostile behaviour can erode team cohesion, but a negative-mood member can help a team on creative or decision-making tasks. Managers get a summary of what to control and what to use.
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this conceptual paper is to broaden the understanding of the three negative member (bad apple) behaviors – withholding of effort, interpersonal deviance and negative affect – put forth by Felps et al. (2006). Design/methodology/approach An integrative review of extant literature was conducted to understand the impact of the negative member behaviors on other team members. Potential interventions to control this bad apple behavior are identified with supporting evidence from recent empirical studies. Findings A review of empirical findings in the literature indicate that perceived coworker loafing may lead to counterproductive work behavior toward coworkers and interpersonal deviance may affect the task cohesion of the group. However, the presence of affectively negative individuals is empirically proven to improve the group performance, especially when the group task is related to creativity or information processing (decision-making and idea generation). Originality/value Despite the empirical attention paid to “bad apple” behaviors, the implications for managing negative member behaviors are unclear and scattered. In this paper, building on the framework proposed by Felps et al. (2006), the authors focus on three behaviors and provide a concise review of literature and interventions to control or exploit these behaviors.
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