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The critical importance of meetings to leader and organizational success
Abstract
Workplace meetings take place for many reasons.
Employees meet to talk about problems, develop solutions,
generate ideas, reach consensus, and make decisions. But in
addition to the outcomes they are intended to achieve,
meetings are also sites for many other organizational
phenomena, including sensemaking, leadership influence,
relationship building, team dynamics, conflict, and the
shaping of employee attitudes. The impact of meetings
extends well beyond the boundaries of the meeting itself.
Today,
scholars from multiple disciplines, including management
and organizational behavior, communication, organizational
psychology, and sociology, have all made efforts to better
understand the many facets of meetings, such as how meetings
are planned and conducted in organizations, what
happens inside of the meetings, and how meetings may
affect overall individual, team, and organizational outcomes.
... This paper extends current conversations on common knowledge (Dixon, 2000) and proposes four practices contributing to the construction of common knowledge in the context of organizational meetings. In this paper, common knowledge is defined as a form of organizational knowledge related to the internal know-how unique to specific organizational projects that are created through experience (Dixon, 2000) accumulated during organizational meetings (Allen et al., 2015;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018) and that becomes publicly known to the members of the organization (Desouza and Awazu, 2006). ...
... This paper aims to fill in this research gap and contribute to current conversations related to common knowledge (Dixon, 2000;Desouza and Awazu, 2006), providing a means to better understand the practices associated to the construction of common knowledge in the context of organizational meetings (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018;Allen et al., 2015). This paper answers the following research question: "How do organizational members construct common knowledge practices in the context of organizational meetings?" ...
... Organizational practices such as meetings, after-action reflections or debriefings offer unique opportunities to better understand commonly constructed knowledge in organizational contexts (e.g. Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018;Allen et al., 2016). Meetings, in particular, have been conceptualized as social system stabilizers (Peck et al., 2004), forums for coordination (Boden, 2014) and have been proposed to contribute to the shaping of organizational strategy (Jarzabkowski and Seidl, 2008). ...
... In organizational meetings, effective communication is the key to success (Kauffeld and Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2012). Designing effective meetings as well as ensuring that measures discussed are taken into action after a meeting are central interests of team managers and organizations (e.g., Scott et al., 2012;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). Shifting focus to the way in which team members exchange information within a meeting can lay ground for a deeper understanding of team communication processes and their role in the relationship between team compositional factors and team outcomes. ...
... As a substantial number of meetings is ineffective and even described as a "waste of time" (Rogelberg et al., 2006), scholars have focused on factors for successful meetings (e.g., Scott et al., 2012;Reiter-Palmon and Sands, 2015;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). In this regard, research has shown that the way in which a group communicates within a meeting is central to their success (e.g., Kauffeld and Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2012;Sauer and Kauffeld, 2013). ...
... Research as shown that solutions only foster productivity when they are not only discussed but also implemented later on (Kauffeld, 2006;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). To ensure that measures planned in a meeting are also taken into action later on, communicating effectively within a meeting is crucial (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2013). ...
Communication between different subgroups is essential to group success, as different perspectives and knowledge need to be integrated. Especially when subgroups form due to faultlines, hypothetical dividing lines splitting a group into homogeneous subgroups, the resulting subgroups are vulnerable to negative intergroup processes. In this article, we evaluate different methods that have been used to trace communication between faultline-based subgroups and discuss challenges that researchers face when applying those methods. We further present the faultline communication index (FCI) as a novel approach to meet those challenges. We combine techniques from social network analysis with a behavioral process approach to trace communication processes between subgroups and provide scholars with tools to integrate in their own research. We illustrate this approach by observing and coding real time interactions in 29 organizational meetings. Results show that although functional faultline strength does not impact information exchange between subgroups, intersubgroup interactions positively relate to the quality of action plans defined at the end of a meeting. Managers and practitioners who work with diverse teams can be given guidance on how communication between subgroups evolves and how it can be shaped to become more effective. We further discuss implications for future research on communication between subgroups.
... It is especially frustrating for attendees when they think they will have opportunities to provide input, only to realize the information will only flow 1 way: from the science expert to the local expert. Fortunately, we have also found that local experts are likely to attend meetings when they know why the meeting is being called and when they trust that the meeting organizers will not deviate from the defined purpose (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. 2018). We advise being as explicit as possible when announcing meetings and communicating clearly whether they are informational meetings or ones where local input will be solicited (Willems et al. 2020). ...
... We advise scheduling meetings for the convenience of the attendees and providing refreshments (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. 2018). Meeting attendance will be enhanced when meetings are scheduled at a time and place convenient for attendees. ...
... During the meeting, it is also important to maintain and encourage a positive tone. If participants find a meeting too stressful, that experience is likely to deter their attendance at future meetings (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. 2018). One need not be a comedian or entertainer, but consider modeling people you know who maintain their good humor even under crisis. ...
Transformative research in freshwater ecosystems requires successfully engaging an
array of stakeholders. Local community members are experts of the social and ecological
systems in which they are embedded and can improve scientific research in many ways. We
outline several steps for researchers to engage local experts specifically by focusing on making
their projects meaningful to participants. Based on the authors’ collective experiences of
engaging communities in freshwater research, we offer 3 sets of practical strategies for
facilitating public engagement in natural resources research. We outline 3 techniques for
building mutuality with the local community and local experts, 2 strategies for building and
maintaining relationships, and 5 key efforts that help research teams achieve reliable attendance
at meetings. Involving locals is not merely a means for arranging access to valuable research
sites or for gathering data. Local experts can inform scientific investigations of the ways local
social and ecological systems interact, improve the communication of science, and enrich the
experience of field research.
... This chapter investigates how meetings, as essential features of organizations (Allen, Lehmann-Willenbrock, & Rogelberg, 2015;Lehmann-Willenbrock, Rogelberg, Allen, & Kello, 2018;Scott, Allen, Rogelberg, & Kello, 2015), can develop into a planned emergence strategy (Grant, 2003;Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson, & Schwarz, 2006). This investigation is based on an exploratory case study within a large organization which is currently experimenting with the development of new forms of decentralized strategy. ...
... So far, the strategy literature has provided only few empirical studies on open strategy processes which include strategy meetings or strategy workshops (Grant, 2003;Hutzschenreuter & Kleindienst, 2006;Laine & Vaara, 2015;Mirabeau & Maguire, 2014). In addition, meeting science is still a young research field, and to date, empirical studies have often addressed regular team meetings with the team leader moderating the meeting (Lehmann-Willenbrock, Rogelberg, Allen, & Kello, 2018). This chapter addresses these gaps and adds to the micro-level of strategy process research by focusing on the micro-activities in strategy meetings (Hutzschenreuter & Kleindienst, 2006). ...
... Meetings form organizational life Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018;Scott et al., 2015). They enable organizational members to coordinate and synchronize their work, and foster sensemaking (Weick, 1995) for example through the recognition and evaluation of problems or development of new ideas (Seidl & Guérard, 2015). ...
Organizations increasingly view their internal staff as a source of innovation and change and tend to involve an increasing number of organizational members in strategy work. This inclusion is a form of decentralized strategy and usually takes place in meetings. This chapter explores how meetings can become a planned emergence strategy for unlocking endogenous innovation potential. Data have been gathered from a still ongoing field project in which employees of six public offices such as the police or fire brigade participate. The public offices’ administration is characterized by a traditional division of responsibility, meaning that strategy has so far been the business of only few people at the top of the organization. For the first time in this organization, managers and other specialists at various organizational levels have been invited to partake in the new bottom-up strategy format Think Tank. The goals of the Think Tank are to identify the needs of the employees, to find and show potential, create a subculture and encourage innovation. The Think Tank meetings are attended by highly motivated employees who want to develop further organizational goals. The investigation illustrates that exchange on an equal basis, voluntary participation and mixed teams form the foundation for planned emergence strategy meetings. The interactions within the groups are characterized by participants having a positive attitude and avoiding negatively connoted behavior. In the strategy meetings, the various organizational members are enabled to join forces and contribute to strategic renewal. Strategic renewal is essential in a volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, and complex world. This chapter illustrates how meetings can facilitate strategic renewal through planned emergence.
Keywords: Meetings; emergent strategy; planned emergence; strategic renewal; case study; interaction analysis
... Virtual Meetings (VMs), which we define as meetings in which participants interact through media technology such as videoconference and webinar platforms, have become a standard in many organizations, especially since the COVID-19 lockdowns (Standaert et al., 2021) and continue to be valued by workers in dispersed locations. Despite the essential role that meetings play in workers' well-being (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2017), researchers are still only now beginning to understand how workers use VM tools and how workers' behaviors relate to occupational status and psychological well-being. Further, it is unclear what features (i.e., audio controls, avatars, filters, etc.) will support different workers. ...
... Group meetings and group interactions are important elements in many educational contexts, including remote teaching and virtual learning formats (e.g., Könings et al., 2016). Defined as pre-scheduled social gatherings of at least three persons coming together to discuss a problem or a work-related matter, group meetings are an essential context for exchanging ideas, enabling collaboration, and making collective decisions, among many other purposes (Allen et al., 2015;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018;Mroz et al., 2018). ...
... Group meetings and group interactions are important elements in many educational contexts, including remote teaching and virtual learning formats (e.g., [33]). Defined as pre-scheduled social gatherings of at least three persons coming together to discuss a problem or a work-related matter, group meetings are an essential context for exchanging ideas, enabling collaboration, and making collective decisions, among many other purposes [2,43,49]. ...
We describe a novel course design that utilizes the Metaverse as a learning and research environment to explore immersive meetings using virtual reality (VR) headsets. In this course, students were randomly assigned to zero-history groups to investigate attendee experiences, group participation, and emergent group entitativity as a key factor for interaction behavior in the Metaverse. They gained hands-on experience with VR technology, insights into the opportunities and challenges for group collaboration, and analyzed interaction dynamics based on other teams’ observed immersive meeting. Our preliminary findings provide descriptive information on team members’ meeting satisfaction, individual VR experiences (i.e., avatar perception, simulator sickness, and task load) as well as self-reported and observed group entitativity. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of the Metaverse for teaching about group dynamics specifically and enabling immersive learning scenarios more generally. Crossing disciplinary bridges by integrating research on Human–Computer Interaction, group dynamics, and workplace meetings contributes to a better scientific understanding on how the Metaverse and emerging technologies can shape educational programs. We close with an outlook for future research, focusing on inclusion, familiarization, and engagement as key goals of designing learning experiences in the Metaverse.
... For the current study, key themes and strategies were discussed in consensus with clinic leadership in a series of stakeholder meetings. Stakeholder meetings were conducted following guidance from Lehmann-Willenbrock and colleagues including providing opportunities for each stakeholder to have a "voice" in the meeting and promoting open communication (Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). ...
To slow the spread of COVID-19 many mental health providers transitioned to telehealth delivery of trauma-focused treatment for maltreated children. However, these providers faced myriad challenges, including equitable access to equipment and technical demands of telehealth software. Training clinics overseeing pre-doctoral clinical psychology interns experienced the added challenge of providing quality supervision and training via telehealth. This study involves a retrospective application of the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) framework to describe the innovative adaptation to a telehealth service delivery model in a training clinic providing evidence-based trauma-focused treatment to children and their families. Mixed methods data from clinic records and intern evaluations indicate that compared to pre-COVID (February 2019 – February 2020), during early COVID (April 2020 – April 2021) more patients accessed clinic services, interns reported fewer hours of individual supervision, and interns reported greater satisfaction with their training experiences. Implications for ongoing provision of telehealth services are discussed.
... In an international university context, the adoption of various virtual meeting tools helped enhance disciplinary collaboration and research productivity during the pandemic. It is essential to provide academics, including seniors and young researchers, with technology training for using software and tools required for attending virtual meetings, thereby minimizing their jobrelated stress during the pandemic (Rogelberg et al., 2006;Cheng et al., 2016;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). These trainings and workshops should not only introduce the key features of the technology tools and platforms for virtual meetings (e.g., Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Tencent) but also show demos of new features of these tools or apps that help enhance meeting effectiveness. ...
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought interdisciplinary academics and research students many uncertainties and challenges in adapting to new communication styles. Compared with other academics in the same field, interdisciplinary academics might face more challenges in transitioning from traditional face-to-face communication to virtual communication.
Objective
This study aimed to explore the pain and joy of using Western and Chinese localized communication channels in experienced interdisciplinary academics (N = 10) and young research students (N = 14) during the pandemic. Among them, 14 are Europeans and 10 are Chinese.
Method
Meeting records and participants' reflective writing were used as qualitative data.
Results
We identified five key themes: two were tied to personal and behavioral issues, two were involved in management issues, and one dealt with topic choice issues.
Conclusion
Considering that virtual interdisciplinary teamwork is likely to continue in the post-pandemic period, it is necessary to implement measures such as technical training and voluntary assistants to help alleviate some of the issues that make virtual meetings difficult for participants. Study limitations and future directions are also discussed.
... Meeting relevance (i.e., employee perceptions that the meeting is related to their personal work goals and objectives) is related to meeting member engagement and perceptions of quality (Allen & Rogelberg, 2013). A simple but important recommendation for meeting practitioners is to invite only those employees who are truly needed to attend in order to accomplish the purposes for which the meeting was called (Cohen et al., 2011;Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). ...
We test entitativity, a group member’s feeling of groupness, as a theoretical explanation of successful meetings. Specifically, characteristics known to contribute to meeting success (e.g., participation and meeting relevance) are tested as specific instances of entitativity antecedents (interactivity and similarity of goals). Entitativity is further tested as a link to positive meeting outcomes. We explore entitativity as a potential mediator for meeting outcomes.
Finally, we examine how support for dissent is important in meeting
entitativity. Structural equation modeling using data from a sample of 279 MTurk participants supports our hypotheses linking meeting characteristics and entitativity perceptions. Further, the results show the importance of entitativity for positive meeting outcomes. We also demonstrate that support for dissent is good for entitativity when meeting relevance is low. When meeting relevance is high, and support for dissent is low, entitativity is high but it may make it more difficult for the group to handle conflict. Our study implies that
entitativity is a theoretical explanation for why meeting characteristics lead to successful meetings. Further implications for theory and practice in entitativity and in the context of workplace meetings are discussed
... This might be typical for think tank meetings but cannot necessarily be generalized to agile meetings. The fact that the think tank groups do not share typical team characteristics such as shared office spaces or frequent interaction (e.g., Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018) reduces the generalizability for team research. In addition, further research could focus on diversity among meeting members. ...
... Managers have attracted particular attention in that regard, as their position of formal power allows them to shape meeting agendas and enforce decisions. Furthermore, they attend numerous meetings, with Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. (2018) reporting that managers spend up to 80% of their working hours in meetings. Using formal power to guide meetings is, however, not the same as enacting leadership, which is defined as the exhibition of a goal-directed social influence process that requires the acceptance of employees, who are supposed to follow (Antonakis, 2018). ...
In this conceptual paper, we define a person's meeting mindset as the individual belief that meetings represent opportunities to realize goals falling into one of three categories: personal, relational, and collective. We propose that in alignment with their respective meeting mindsets, managers use specific leadership claiming behaviors in team meetings and express these behaviors in alignment with the meeting setting (virtual or face-to-face) and their prior experiences with their employees. Employees’ responses, however, are also influenced by their meeting mindsets, the meeting setting, and prior experiences with their managers. The interplay between managers’ leadership claiming behavior and their employees’ responses shapes leader–follower relations. Embedded in the team context, the emerging leader–follower relations impact the meaning of meetings. We outline match/mismatch combinations of manager–employee meeting mindsets and discuss the influence that a manager and employee can have on each other's meeting mindset through their behavior in a meeting.
... In the United States alone, there are as many as 55 million meetings every day (Keith, 2015), with employees averaging 6 hours per week spent in meetings. Managers invest even more time in meetings, with averages around 23 hours per week (for an overview, see Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2018). These figures demonstrate the vast amount of organizational resources (e.g., employee time, salaries) that go into meetings, with organizations devoting between 7% and 15% of their personnel budgets to meetings (Doyle & Straus, 1993;Rogelberg, 2019). ...
Meeting lateness—that is, meetings starting past the pre-scheduled time—can be viewed as a disruption to the temporal pacing of work. Previous research in the United States indicates that late meetings produce less optimal outcomes, but empirical insights concerning the extent to which experiences of meeting lateness are similar or different across different cultures remain sparse. While prior work suggests differences in how individuals from different cultures experience time-related phenomena, globalization trends suggest increasing similarities in employees’ work experiences, and potentially similar experiences of meeting lateness across different cultural settings. We explore this idea in a cross-cultural study of meeting lateness in China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. We empirically establish the cross-cultural relevance of meeting lateness and their generally negative outcome. We show how meeting lateness relates to perceptions of impaired meeting processes, meeting outcomes, and group-related attitudes across cultures. We discuss these findings in light of extending meeting science to different cultures as well as contributions to the debate between cross-cultural differences versus globalization tendencies.
... An essential part of the success of the organisations Rozaliya Amirova, Sergey Masyagin, Anastasia Reprintseva, Giancarlo Succi, and Herman Tarasau is effective communication and interaction among all levelsdevel opers, management and stakeholders. But despite meetings being a necessary part of many organisations everyday life, as many as half of them are rated as "poor" and lead to a waste of more than 200 billion US dollars per year [ 5 ]. The success of a meeting is affected by the attention of its individual participants. ...
Nowadays, Computer Science tightly entered all spheres of human activity. To improve quality and speed of development process, it is important to help programmers improve their working conditions. This paper proposes a vision on exploring this issue and presents in conjunction a factor that has been claimed multiple time to affect the effectiveness of software production, concentration and attention of software developers. We choose to focus on developers brain activity and features that can be extracted from it.
... An essential part of the success of the organisations is effective communication and interaction among all levels -developers, management and stakeholders. But despite meetings being a necessary part of many organisations everyday life, as many as half of them are rated as "poor" and lead to a waste of more than 200 billion US dollars per year [5]. The success of a meeting is affected by the attention of its individual participants. ...
Nowadays, Computer Science tightly entered all spheres of human activity. To improve quality and speed of development process, it is important to help programmers improve their working conditions. This paper proposes a vision on exploring this issue and presents in conjunction a factor that has been claimed multiple time to affect the effectiveness of software production, concentration and attention of software developers. We choose to focus on developers brain activity and features that can be extracted from it. CCS CONCEPTS • Software and its engineering → Collaboration in software development.
... In a normal workday, as many as 55 million meetings happen every day. Employees spend on average six hours per week sitting in meetings (Lehmann-Willenbrock, Rogelberg, Allen, & Kello, 2018). Depending upon the organization's culture, the costs of meetings, such as collective salaries of the attendees, and time, are incentives to have productive meetings (Leach, Rogelberg, Warr, & Burnfield, 2009). ...
... to promote information sharing among the right people, it is essential that pre-meeting criteria are established, such as who should and should not be a part of the meeting. When non-essential personnel are in attendance, meetings are less efficient and more likely to fail at achieving the desired outcome (lehmann-Willenbrock, rogelberg, allen, & Kello, 2017). Furthermore, research has demonstrated that the number of meeting attendees has an inverse relationship with meeting quality (Cohen, rogelberg, allen, & luong, 2011). ...
... Meetings are an important and ubiquitous part of working life. Understanding how to successfully manage and direct meetings is a vital step towards improving workplace satisfaction and employee engagement and productivity [1,9]. Thus, a system for automatic analysis of a group's attitudes towards their management, their own group processes, and towards each other, could be very useful for providing feedback to a group or the group leader. ...
We present experimental results on the task of automatically predicting group members' attitudes about management of their meeting, based on linguistic and acoustic features derived from the meeting recordings and transcripts. The group members' attitudes were gathered from detailed post-meeting questionnaires. A key finding is that features of linguistic content by themselves yield poor prediction performance on this task, but the best results are found by combining acoustic and linguistic features in a multimodal prediction model. When trying to automate the detection of group member attitudes that might be manifested subtly in their language and behaviour, a multimodal analysis is key.
... As Lehmann-Willenbrock et al. (2018) discuss, in the organizations literature there are three major approaches to studying dynamic interactional data: lag sequential analysis, pattern analysis, and statistical discourse analysis. The lag sequential approach analyzes temporal patterns in sequentially recorded events of groups or individuals (Sackett 1987). ...
In recent years social network analysis, influenced by relational sociology, has taken a cultural turn. One result has been a growing interest in the cultural, and not just structural, aspects of social networks. And yet, while relational literature conceptualizes network ties as being interactionally constructed through cultural processes, relationalist inspired quantitative network analysts have rarely made face-to-face interaction a focus of study. More often, these scholars have adopted an interpretive approach and examined the network structure of cultural forms and belief systems. This article argues that network analysis is missing an opportunity to study procedural aspects of culture by taking advantage of our growing ability to collect and analyze streaming data of face-to-face interaction. To productively do so, however, network studies of interaction can apply ideas from sociolinguistics related to the context and style of communication in order to capture cultural aspects of interaction.
The metaverse offers new technological possibilities for conducting 3D immersive meetings with head-mounted displays that can enrich virtual teamwork. To conceptualize this new interaction space, we synthesize interdisciplinary findings from human-computer interaction literature, group research, and meeting science. We develop a conceptual framework of 3D immersive group meetings that integrates technological design characteristics, subjective attendee experiences, mediating mechanisms, and meeting outcomes. As a first empirical glimpse into this framework, we include a pilot study of group member’s self-reported experiences and observed group dynamics in the metaverse. Building on our framework and first empirical insights, we discuss implications for future investigations of group dynamics in the metaverse.
One-sixth of the global Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) population resides in India. However, most of the research on the DHH population is situated in the Global North. In this work, we study the accessibility issues faced by the DHH community in India by conducting 15 interviews and surveying 131 people. We focus on the employed DHH community for two reasons: (a) to gauge the effectiveness of the widespread intent to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplaces, and (b) to establish the state of early adoption of (accessible) technology. Our work reveals that our participants face acute communication challenges at the workplace primarily due to non-availability of certified interpreters critically impacting their outcomes at work. We report the consequent workarounds used, including the human infrastructure available to our participants and how at times it impacts their agency and privacy. We identify socio-cultural and linguistic contexts that contribute to our participants’ reduced language proficiency both in sign language and English. We also identify that our participants use a variety of technologies, from video conferencing tools to ride hailing apps, and identify their current usability failings. Based on our findings, we recommend several assistive technologies, such as providing access to on-demand interpreters and accessibility improvements for current video conferencing and smartphone telephony apps.KeywordsAccessibilityDisabilityAssistive TechnologiesWorkplaceEmpirical studyDeafHard-of-Hearing
Insights into the behavioral profile of groups during meetings help us understand why some groups outperform others on meeting and work tasks. The presented studies investigate behavior-based group profiles in meetings and their relation to group performance. A total of 101 problem-solving meetings took place in two studies in a laboratory setting; data were coded using the act4teams coding scheme and analyzed using INTERACT software. The findings indicate there are four distinct group profile clusters: story-telling, well-organized networking, solution-focused, and problem-focused profiles. These behavior-based group profiles were meaningfully and differentially linked to group performance in the context of a meeting task.
Workplace bias creates negative psychological outcomes for employees, permeating the larger organization. Workplace meetings are frequent, making them a key context where bias may occur. Video conferencing (VC) is an increasingly common medium for workplace meetings; we therefore investigated how VC tools contribute to increasing or reducing bias in meetings. Through a semi-structured interview study with 22 professionals, we found that VC features push meeting leaders to exercise control over various meeting parameters, giving leaders an outsized role in affecting bias. We demonstrate this with respect to four core VC features---user tiles, raise hand, text-based chat, and meeting recording---and recommend employing at least one of two mechanisms for mitigating bias in VC meetings---1) transferring control from meeting leaders to technical systems or other attendees and 2) helping meeting leaders better exercise the control they do wield.
Markmiðið er að prófa réttmæti og áreiðanleika mælitækis til að meta einkenni og árangur funda, bæði í hagnýtum og fræðilegum tilgangi og samtímis gefa innsýn í einkenni árangursríkra funda eftir fundarformi. Hugsmíðarréttmæti og áreiðanleiki mælitækis eru prófuð og vísbendingar um einkenni fengin með því að bera saman lykileinkenni og árangur staðfunda, fjarfunda og blandaðra funda og greina hvað einkennir fundarformin þrjú og árangur þeirra. Hentugleikaúrtak var tekið meðal háskólanema á meistarastigi og í opnu snjóboltaúrtaki á samfélagsmiðli. Rafræn könnun var lögð fyrir í febrúar 2022 og byggja niðurstöður á svörum 289 þátttakenda. Einkenni funda eru hér, samkvæmt niðurstöðu þáttagreiningar og áreiðanleikaprófunar, flokkuð í fjóra yfirþætti: undirbúning, fundaraðstæður, framkvæmd og skipulag. Styrkleikar og veikleikar þriggja fundarforma eru greindir með samanburði og tengsl einkenna við árangur eru greind með fylgni- og aðhvarfsgreiningu. Þátttakendur upplifa fjarfundi og staðfundi álíka árangursríka, en blandaða fundi árangursminni. Framkvæmd funda hefur sterkasta fylgni við mat á árangri funda, óháð fundarformi. Fjarfundir hafa ýmsa mikilvæga yfirburði varðandi framkvæmd, skipulag og undirbúning en blandaða fundarformið ýmsa veikleika í framkvæmd, fundaraðstæðum og skipulagi. Jákvæð einkenni fjarfunda birtast í skýrri markmiðssetningu, betur virtum tímamörkum og faglegri undirbúningi, s.s. eins og í formi dagskrár, fundarstjóra og upplýsingamiðlunar fyrir fundi. Samskipti fara meira út fyrir efni fundar á staðfundum, en þátttakendur upplifa þó virkari hlustun á þeim en á öðrum fundum. Niðurstöður benda til þess að fjarfundir séu ákjósanlegur kostur þegar þarf skilvirka úrlausn og ákvörðunartöku, og þegar ná þarf fleira fólki saman. Staðfundir eru þó enn mikilvægir til að byggja upp og viðhalda tengslum og þar sem þátttakendur virðast upplifa virkari hlustun í því fundarformi. Huga þarf vel að framkvæmd og fundaraðstæðum á blönduðum fundum, þ.m.t. að tæknimálum og hljóðvist, en einnig leitast við að koma í veg fyrir að þátttakendur upplifi sig afskipta.
As more employees work in different locations, meetings become the primary opportunity for workgroup interactions. We explore how workgroup entitativity develops within successful meetings and grounds positive employee and group outcomes between meetings. Social identity theory and self-categorization processes explain how entitativity develops during meetings and activates workgroup identification between meetings. Further, construal level theory, which establishes that physical and psychological distance are positively related, affects entitativity and social identity for dispersed and hybrid workgroups. We propose that entitativity develops in meetings through interactions, co-presence, leader behavior, and meeting size. Between meetings, the frequency of self-categorization into a workgroup identity maintains and even increases work-group entitativity. Further, task interdependence, informal interactions, and time between meetings affects frequency of self-categorization and, thus, employees' workgroup entitativity between meetings. We conclude that meetings serve as the primary formal occasion in which workgroup entitativity can be maintained or repaired for optimal workgroup performance. Plain Language Summary Successful meetings lead to productive workgroups but we do not know why or now. We suggest that entitativity (a person's perception of a "group") develops during successful meetings and explains productive workgroups. Specifically, when people start to work, they can either think of their group or themselves. If they think about their group, a process follows such that the employee comes under the influence of all of the positive characteristics of their group.
The purpose of this special issue is to bring more theory into meeting science by reviewing literature, identifying knowledge gaps, developing theoretical propositions drawing from different disciplines, and providing direction for future research. The special issue will open with a general overarching review of the literature on meeting science provided by the co-editors. Each subsequent article will focus on a particular domain within meeting science, provide a focused review of the literature, identify knowledge gaps, and push towards theories that will drive future research. Plain Text Abstract This is the introduction to the special issue of Organizational Psychology Review that positions meetings at the core of organizations and provides a roadmap for the future science of workplace meetings.
Meeting science has advanced significantly in its short history. However, one-on-one (1:1) meetings have not been studied empirically as a focal topic despite making up nearly half of all workplace meetings. While some meeting science insights may apply to 1:1 meetings, others may not (or may function differently) due to conceptual, theoretical, and practical differences between meetings involving dyads and groups. Although 1:1 meetings come in various forms (e.g., peer-to-peer, employee-to-customer), we chose to use manager-direct report 1:1 meetings as an exemplar given their prevalence, theoretical relevance, and practical implications. In this paper, we first review some conceptual differences between dyads and groups. We then discuss how these differences likely manifest in the meeting context (before, during, and after meetings), and outline related propositions. Last, we leverage this conceptual framework and subsequent propositions to provide guidance for future research and theory on 1:1 meetings. In doing so, we hope this paper will act as the impetus for research and theory development on 1:1 meetings.
This article offers initial theorizing on an understudied phenomenon in the workplace: the meeting after the meeting (MATM). As an informal and unscheduled event, the MATM takes place outside managerial control and has potentially far-reaching consequences. However, our current knowledge of the MATM relies primarily on practitioner observations, and conceptual work that integrates the MATM into the larger meeting science literature is missing. This article fills this gap by outlining key defining features of the MATM that can be used to structure future research. Moreover, and based on theorizing concerning the affect-generating nature of meetings, we develop an affect-based process model that focuses on the antecedents and boundary conditions of the MATM at the episodic level and shines light on meetings as a sequential phenomenon.
Plain Language Summary
This article sheds light on an understudied but rather common phenomenon in the workplace: The meeting after the meeting (MATM). Defined as an unscheduled, informal and confidential communication event, the MATM has the potential to create new structures in everyday organizational life. Yet, our current knowledge of this particular meeting type is very limited and largely based on anecdotal accounts by practitioners. To guide future research, this article first outlines key features of the MATM, focusing on when the MATM occurs, where it takes place, how it takes place, why it takes place, and who is involved in the MATM. Next, this article presents an affect-based process model of the MATM. To this end, antecedents and boundary conditions at the episodic level are outlined, highlighting that meetings should be seen as interconnected, sequential events.
Organizations without healthy dissent stagnate from myopic thinking. Previous research has examined how employees might dissent to supervisors or coworkers, but little research has focused on how dissent might be expressed to multiple audiences simultaneously. Dissent conversations might happen only once or might be repeated over time, but the ways in which dissent processes unfold over time has also been neglected in past research. The present study examined biweekly meetings in the fundraising department of a nonprofit organization for 2 years to explore organizational dissent across time and to reveal possible nuances in the ways in which dissenters express disagreement. Results revealed several dissent topics repeated during the data collection period with mixed results—some of these topics were resolved whereas others were not. Two dissent conversations emerged as particularly meaningful events in the history of the department. At the same time, these data illustrated dissent expressed to multiple audiences (a single dissenter simultaneously talking to a supervisor and multiple coworkers) and dissent expressed by multiple dissenters. These forms of collective dissent extend previous models of organizational dissent that typically conceptualize a conversation between a single dissenter and a single dissent audience.
This study focuses on the good, the bad and the ugly of using videoconferencing for work-related meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a text mining process and qualitative content analysis of 549 comments posted to a LinkedIn online discussion board, we identified six key themes; three were tied to camera and microphone issues, two involved eating and meeting management issues, and one dealt with work-from-home issues. These themes are discussed in relationship to media naturalness theory and meeting science. Because widespread use of videoconferencing will likely continue, we provide guidance for workplace policies/practices and suggest directions for future research.
In diesem Kapitel wird die große Bedeutung hochrangiger Meetings für das Gelingen der Matrix begründet. Hochrangige Meetings sind nicht zuletzt deshalb erforderlich, weil in matrixstrukturierten Unternehmen typischerweise stark ausgeprägte funktionsbereichs-, produktbereichs- und regionenübergreifende Interdependenzen vorliegen. Verschiedene Arten derartiger Meetings werden besprochen.
This article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO) presents a study on meetings, an important part of contemporary organizational life. What happens in meetings affects individual employee experiences, team processes, and organizational functioning. However, to date little is known regarding cross-cultural differences in meeting practices. This study leverages an organizational sample (N = 488) with a German and a Spanish site to compare how pre-meeting talk, meeting design, voice in meetings, and meeting follow-up actions differ across the two cultures. Hypotheses were derived from prior intercultural theory (i.e., the GLOBE study). Following Open Science principles, the study was pre-registered. Contrary to our expectations, we found no significant differences in meeting practices between monocultural German and Spanish workplace meetings. These findings suggest that cultural differences in workplace attitudes and work practices may be diminishing in an increasingly global workplace. We sketch implications for meeting science and cross-cultural research on business practices more broadly.
Extensive research and theory has focused on organizational innovation and the organizational factors that influence that innovation. Research on teams has highlighted a similar set of factors as important for team innovation. However, these literatures have not provided a clear picture of the key factors that influence the collaborative idea exchange processes that occur in teams and organizations. The literature on collaborative ideation has provides a useful theoretical and empirical basis for understanding these processes and the conditions required for optimizing creativity in group interactions. We provide the theoretical and empirical basis for a pragmatic approach to enhancing collaborative innovation processes in various organizational settings and highlight additional research needs and future directions.
Research on humor in organizations has rarely considered the social context in which humor occurs. One such social setting that most of us experience on a daily basis concerns the team context. Building on recent theorizing about the humor-performance link in teams, this study seeks to increase our understanding of the function and effects of humor in team interaction settings. We examined behavioral patterns of humor and laughter in real teams by videotaping and coding humor and laughter during 54 regular organizational team meetings. Performance ratings were obtained immediately following the team meetings as well as at a later time point from the teams' supervisors. At the behavioral unit level within the team interaction process, lag sequential analysis identified humor and laughter patterns occurring above chance (e.g., a joke followed by laughter, followed by another joke). Moreover, humor patterns triggered positive socioemotional communication, procedural structure, and new solutions. At the team level, humor patterns (but not humor or laughter alone) positively related to team performance, both immediately and 2 years later. Team-level job insecurity climate was identified as a boundary condition: In low job insecurity climate conditions, humor patterns were positively related to performance, whereas in high job insecurity climate conditions, humor patterns did not relate to team performance. The role of job insecurity as a boundary condition persisted at both time points. These findings underscore the importance of studying team interactions for understanding the role of humor in organizations and considering team-level boundary conditions over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
This study follows the idea that the key to understanding team meeting effectiveness lies in uncovering the microlevel interaction processes throughout the meeting. Ninety-two regular team meetings were videotaped. Interaction data were coded and evaluated with the act4teams coding scheme and INTERACT software. Team and organizational success variables were gathered via questionnaires and telephone interviews. The results support the central function of interaction processes as posited in the traditional input-process-output model. Teams that showed more functional interaction, such as problem-solving interaction and action planning, were significantly more satisfied with their meetings. Better meetings were associated with higher team productivity. Moreover, constructive meeting interaction processes were related to organizational success 2.5 years after the meeting. Dysfunctional communication, such as criticizing others or complaining, showed significant negative relationships with these outcomes. These negative effects were even more pronounced than the positive effects of functional team meeting interaction. The results suggest that team meeting processes shape both team and organizational outcomes. The critical meeting behaviors identified here provide hints for group researchers and practitioners alike who aim to improve meeting success.
Using an interruptions framework, this article proposes and tests a set of hypotheses concerning the relationship of meeting time demands with job attitudes and well-being (JAWB). Two Internet surveys were administered to employees who worked 35 hr or more per week. Study 1 examined prescheduled meetings attended in a typical week (N=676), whereas Study 2 investigated prescheduled meetings attended during the current day (N=304). As proposed, the relationship between meeting time demands and JAWB was moderated by task interdependence, meeting experience quality, and accomplishment striving. However, results were somewhat dependent on the time frame of a study and the operational definition used for meeting time demands. Furthermore, perceived meeting effectiveness was found to have a strong, direct relationship with JAWB.
Associate Professor, of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15919, 1001 NK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (Associate Professor, of Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 15919, 1001 NK Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: n.lehmann-willenbrock@uva.nl).
Rogelberg (Chancellor's Professor; Professor of Organizational Science, Psychology, and Management
- G Steven
Steven G. Rogelberg (Chancellor's Professor; Professor of Organizational Science, Psychology, and Management,
University of North Carolina-Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223.
Email: sgrogelb@uncc.edu).
Associate Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street
- Joseph A Allen
Joseph A. Allen (Associate Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, University of Nebraska at Omaha,
6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68182-0274. Email: JosephAllen@unomaha.edu).
Professor of Psychology, Davidson College
- E John
- Kello
John E. Kello (Professor of Psychology, Davidson College, Box 6968, Davidson, NC 28035.
blog/ fresh-look-number-effectiveness-cost-meetings-in-us. For sample studies on the effects of meetings on employee attitudes and wellbeing, see Allen
- J A Allen
- N Lehmann-Willenbrock
- S G Rogelberg
Allen, J. A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., &
Rogelberg, S. G. (2015). The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
For the prevalence of meetings in contemporary organizations and different purposes of meetings, see Van Vree,
W. (2011). Meetings: the frontline of civilization. The Sociological Review, 59, 241-262.
For statistics on the prevalence and effectiveness of
meetings in U.S. organizations, see http://blog.
lucidmeetings.com/blog/
fresh-look-number-effectiveness-cost-meetings-in-us.
For sample studies on the effects of meetings on
employee attitudes and wellbeing, see Allen, J. A., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2013). Manager-led group meetings: a context
for promoting employee engagement. Group & Organization
Management, 38, 534-569;
Meetings in Organizations: Do They Contribute to Stakeholder Value and Personal Meaning
- I S G Ravn
- L R Shanock
- C W Scott
Ravn, I. (2007). Meetings in Organizations: Do
They Contribute to Stakeholder Value and Personal
Meaning. Philadelphia, PA, USA: The Academy of
Management.
For meetings as an ROI opportunity, see Rogelberg, S. G.,
Shanock, L. R., & Scott, C. W. (2012). Wasted time and
money in meetings: Increasing return on investment. Small
Group Research, 43, 236-245.
For the origin of meeting science, see Schwartzman, H. B.
(1986). The meeting as a neglected social form in organizational studies. Research in Organizational Behavior, 8,
233-258.