One team member’s effort can jumpstart the whole team’s efforts, new analysis of soccer teams reveals

Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to measure effort instead of just performance? Can one person’s effort in a workplace actually improve everyone’s effort? And does team effort have a positive impact on individual effort? These are the questions that researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev sought to answer by examining a unique dataset from the Israeli Professional Football Leagues.

The researchers, Dr. Naomi Gershoni, Prof. Danny Cohen Zada, and former master’s student Itai Dayag, utilized detailed data from the 2017/2018 season of the soccer league to directly measure how teammates’ efforts affect each other. Their groundbreaking findings were recently published in Management Science under the title “Effort Peer Effects in Team Production: Evidence from Professional Football.”

The soccer league tracks various statistics such as players’ running distance, number of sprints, and player substitutions in five-minute intervals throughout each game. By analyzing how a player’s running distance changes when playing with teammates who typically exert more effort, the researchers were able to demonstrate that peer effort has a positive influence on individual effort.

To validate their findings, the researchers also examined player substitutions. They compared the sections before and after a substitution to observe how individual fatigue affects the team. The comparison revealed a significant difference in overall team effort resulting from the fresh player’s energy in the first five minutes of their play.

The researchers believe that these findings can be applied to other types of work teams, such as R&D units, court litigation teams, political lobbying groups, and marketing divisions. These teams, like soccer teams, involve collaborative and professional effort in a competitive environment, with infrequent observation of performance measures at an individual level.

Cohen Zada, Dayag, and Gershoni concluded that group efforts have an impact on individual efforts, and vice versa. They suggest that managers should consider compensating workers based on their effort, in addition to their direct contribution to output. This approach may be particularly effective in environments where effort strongly influences group performance and individual performance is challenging to observe or quantify.

The researchers also emphasized the importance of social connections and obligations among teammates, highlighting the benefits of encouraging social interaction and team-building activities within organizations.

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