A December episode of This American Life starts with an interview with Will Felps.

He placed college students on teams with an actor alternately playing a “jerk, slacker, and depressive”.

The “bad apple” not only wrecked the team’s performance, the other members began to think and act like him.

Here’s a Google book preview of Will Felps’ paper, How, When and Why Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel: Negative Group Members and Dysfunctional Groups