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The meeting after the meeting: A conceptualization and process model

May 2022
Organizational Psychology Review

DOI:10.1177/20413866221097409

Authors:

Annika Luisa Meinecke

University of Hamburg

Lisa Handke

Freie Universität Berlin

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.

Affect-based process model of the meeting after the meeting.

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The meeting after the meeting:

A conceptualization and process

model

Annika L. Meinecke

University of Hamburg, Germany

Lisa Handke

Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Abstract

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 knowl-

edge of the MATM relies primarily on practitioner observations, and conceptual work that inte-

grates 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 organ-

izational 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

Paper received 6 April 2021. Received revised February 8, 2022. Accepted April 11, 2022

Corresponding author:

Annika L. Meinecke, University of Hamburg, Department of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20147

Hamburg, Germany.

Email: annika.luisa.meinecke@uni-hamburg.de

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Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use,

reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as speciﬁed

on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Special Issue: The Science of Workplace Meetings: Integrating Findings,

Building New Theoretical Angles, and Embracing Cross-Disciplinary Research

Organizational Psychology Review

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DOI: 10.1177/20413866221097409

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conditions at the episodic level are outlined, highlighting that meetings should be seen as inter-

connected, sequential events.

Keywords

informal meetings, formal meetings, communication, sensemaking

Workplace meetings are such ubiquitous com-

munication events in modern organizations

that they shape the day-to-day realities of

employees and management. As a result,

they have received increased scholarly atten-

tion in recent years (e.g., Mroz et al., 2018).

As communication can vary in its degree of

formality (i.e., the extent of prespeciﬁcation,

conventionality, and rule-boundedness; Kraut

et al., 1990), meetings can take on both

formal as well as informal forms.

However,

the existing body of research largely focusses

on meetings as discrete formal events (cf.

Duffy & O‘Rourke, 2015), reﬂecting an

overall “tendency to focus on highly visible

formal interaction (e.g., strategy meetings,

management brieﬁngs, public events, presen-

tations by senior company ﬁgures, etc.) and

to assume that this is where the important

work is done”(Oswick & Richards, 2004,

p. 114). As a result, meeting research seems

to almost categorically rule out unscheduled

and more informal meetings and has thus

largely isolated itself from the broader litera-

ture on informal communication in organiza-

tions (Kello & Allen, 2020; for an exception,

see Holmes & Stubbe, 2015).

This is unfortunate, as informal interactions

appear instrumental to understanding those

aspects of organizations that cannot be fully

controlled (Stohl, 1995). For instance, by allow-

ing individuals to enact roles outside of their

formally occupied position within the group or

organization, informal communication appears

particularly relevant in the face of novel and

uncertain events (e.g., Argote, 1982; Hartman

& Johnson, 1990). While the formal organiza-

tion is recorded in organization charts and

establishes clear lines of communication, “the

informal organization consists of spontaneous,

emergent patterns that result from individuals’

discretionary choices”(Kurland & Pelled,

2000, p. 427; see also Stohl, 1995). By examin-

ing these informal communication events, new

possibilities arise for describing coordination

in groups and organizations (Boden, 1994;

Mishra, 1990).

It is also surprising from a practical perspec-

tive that meeting research has paid so little

attention to the role of informal meetings, as

organizations appear to increasingly focus on

promoting informal conversations in the work-

place to gain momentum in collaboration

(Coradi et al., 2015; Stryker & Santoro, 2012;

Tuncer & Licoppe, 2018). This becomes par-

ticularly apparent in modern ofﬁce architecture.

Open ﬂoor plans and multifunctional ofﬁce

areas have gradually replaced a dreary ofﬁce

architecture (think cubicles and long dark hall-

ways), which reinforces the organizational hier-

archy instead of breaking it. While informal

exchanges used to be limited to the small ofﬁce

kitchen or watercooler (i.e., watercooler talk;

Blithe, 2014; Waring & Bishop, 2010), large

ofﬁce spaces today are purposely complemented

by meeting areas that invite rather than stiﬂe

casual exchange among employees. That is,

modern workspaces for the new way of work

are specially designed to enable interaction

between employees to facilitate informal exchange,

knowledge transfer, and spontaneous innova-

tions (Lindsay, 2014; Waber et al., 2014).

The result of this gap in the extant meeting

literature is not only that we currently pay

such little attention to important interactions

that take place outside of formal meetings but

2Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

also that we treat meetings as discrete and iso-

lated events (for rare exceptions, see

Jarzabkowski & Seidl, 2008; Laapotti &

Mikkola, 2019). Speciﬁcally, as highlighted

by Duffy and O‘Rourke (2015), “an often

neglected aspect of meetings [is] the way in

which meetings relate to each other as collective

rather than isolated episodes of interaction”

(p. 223). By focusing on formal meetings

alone, we lack an understanding of the relation-

ships that unfold between meetings and shape

the larger organizational structure. For instance,

meeting participants frequently make references

to both past and upcoming meetings (i.e., retro-

spective sensemaking and prehensive sense-

making, Duffy & O‘Rourke, 2015; see also

Weick, 1995). This combination of retrospec-

tion and preview shows that meetings have

ties to what has happened as well as implica-

tions for future meeting interactions. That is,

what happens between meetings is important

not only to make sense of preceding meetings

but also to explain what may happen in meet-

ings that follow. The temporal focus on meet-

ings and their succession in time is thus

essential for seeing meetings as the complex

phenomena they are rather than as simple

tools for management and coordination.

Accordingly, we need to advance an under-

standing of the informal and unscheduled events

that surround formal meetings and explain how

these evolve and relate to other workplace phe-

nomena. Speciﬁcally, formal meetings may not

be able to fully serve all the important task- and

relationship-focused purposes (e.g., sharing infor-

mation, making decisions, managing conﬂict, e.g.,

Allen et al., 2014; Holmes & Marra, 2004; Mroz

et al., 2018) that they are intended to, meaning

that participants may leave a formal meeting

with some degree of ambiguity that warrants

further discussion. This state of ambiguity can

lead to what we call the meeting after the

meeting (MATM). Although no ofﬁcial numbers

exist, based on practitioner observations, the

MATM can be described as a fairly common

communication event in modern organizations

(Fishburne, 2014; Lauby, 2015; Sudakow,

2017). Outside of managerial control, the

MATM might be just as important (or even

more important) to group and organizational func-

tioning than the formal meeting that precedes it.

Yet, research on this particular meeting phenom-

enon is scarce and practitioners’perspectives on

the MATM differ. We argue that is time to

expand the focus of meeting science to include

the MATM. Consequently, with this article, we

offer a ﬁrst attempt to conceptualize the MATM

and the role it plays in the overall group and

organizational context.

The current article offers two major contri-

butions. First, we contribute to the literature

on workplace meetings and speciﬁcally the

role of informal meetings by presenting a

detailed conceptualization of the MATM. By

providing the narrative that explains how one

meeting is tied to the next, the MATM

enables us to shift from the dominant perspec-

tive that considers meetings as isolated, inde-

pendent events to a more holistic view of

meetings as they unfold over time. Second,

we outline an affect-based process model con-

taining antecedents and boundary conditions

of the MATM at the episodic level. We

thereby provide clear starting points for future

research directed at understanding meetings as

sequential and interconnected events within

the broader group and organizational context.

We begin by deﬁning the MATM and its key

characteristics, including the key purpose it

serves. In a next step, we map out the factors

that determine the MATM. We conclude with

theoretical implications for meeting research

and practical ideas for dealing with the

MATM from a managerial perspective.

Conceptualizing the meeting

after the meeting

Broadly speaking, nearly all prior meeting deﬁni-

tions have in common that they deﬁne meetings

in terms of purposeful and work-related interac-

tions between individuals (see e.g., Boden,

1994; Rogelberg et al., 2006; Schwartzman,

1989). Accordingly, as a meeting after a

Meinecke and Handke 3

meeting, the MATM refers to interactions that

focus, whether directly or more indirectly, on

workplace business. Importantly, the business

that is dealt with during a MATM may not neces-

sarily be in line with ofﬁcial workplace goals (see

also the literature on counterproductive and

uncivil meeting behaviors, e.g., Allen et al.,

2015b; Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2016;

Odermatt et al., 2018). We therefore acknow-

ledge that the MATM may sometimes even

upset group or organizational goals and thus spe-

ciﬁc decisions made in the meeting preceding the

MATM. Moreover, it should be noted that the

business discussed during a MATM may not

necessarily be task oriented. Instead, the

MATM can also revolve around the personal

relationships of the meeting participants, includ-

ing evaluative talk about absent coworkers

(Hallett et al., 2009).

To guide this article, we deﬁne the MATM

as an unscheduled, informal, and conﬁdential

communication event that arises as a conse-

quence of a previous formal meeting and is

initiated by a subset of the participants who

attended the original meeting. In what

follows, we provide a detailed conceptualiza-

tion of the MATM. To this end, we ﬁrst

outline the key features of the MATM with

regards to when it takes place, where it takes

place, how it takes place, why it takes place,

and who is involved. We then discuss the

boundaries of the MATM by distinguishing it

from other, similar constructs.

Deﬁning features of the meeting after the

meeting

When does it take place?. The MATM is a nat-

urally occurring, informal unscheduled conver-

sational event that follows a previous formal

meeting. As an unscheduled and informal

meeting, the MATM is not arranged in

advance (in terms of time, place, and meeting

attendees), does not follow an agenda, and

does not rely on an appointed chair who

structures the interaction by controlling the

conversational ﬂoor, especially concerning

turn-taking and topic progression. Regarding

the MATM, it is precisely this unscheduled

nature (i.e., the meeting is born out of the

situation) that is central to understanding the

MATM. Since the MATM emerges as a

consequence of a previous formal meeting, the

meeting is considered an episodic phenomenon.

However, the MATM cannot be classiﬁed as a

purely spontaneous event in the classic sense,

as the term usually implies that something

arises without a discernible external stimulus

(Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Rather, the MATM

has a direct relation to the formal meeting that

precedes it and is driven by speciﬁc events

during that meeting. Likewise, we do not clas-

sify the MATM as a purely opportunistic

event (e.g., when two colleagues meet by

chance at the coffee machine or in the elevator

and make small talk; cf. Waber et al., 2014);

instead, we assume that it is deliberately

sought out.

In terms of timing, the MATM does not

necessarily have to immediately follow the

formal meeting. That is, we locate the meeting

from an event-time perspective. Whereas clock-

time refers to seconds, minutes, hours, dates,

etc. that are conventionally used to compart-

mentalize everyday life and organizational

functioning, event-time refers to the ordering

and sequencing of activities (including meet-

ings) arising from their inherent relationships

rather than their mere chronological sequencing

according to clock-time (Avnet & Sellier,

2011). This means that although the meeting

is located after the formal meeting, it can be

delayed up to a few days—the important thing

is that it serves the purpose of making sense

of this speciﬁc formal meeting (see the section

on “why does it take place?”for more on this

purpose). This view is in line with previous

ﬁndings on the effects of voice in meetings

and subsequent affective reactions. Utilizing a

diary design, Starzyk et al. (2018) showed that

employees’evaluative judgment of their behav-

ior during a particular meeting often extends

into the next day, as evaluation processes

require some degree of cognitive appraisal,

4Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

integration of information, and memory con-

solidation (Judge et al., 2014). In sum, we

assume that cross-meeting connectivity is pri-

marily a result of the overlapping or shared

content of the meetings and a retrospective

view of the meeting events in the original

meeting rather than pure temporal proximity.

Where does it take place?. The meeting takes

place in the context of work and can take

place in a number of different places. Building

on previous ﬁndings on informal workplace

encounters (Fayard & Weeks, 2007; Holmes

& Stubbe, 2015; Mills, 2010), likely spaces

may include small-group discussions in the

cafeteria, tearoom, hallway, or even the photo-

copier room. Moreover, the MATM can also

take the form of a more private interaction

that occurs behind closed doors in employees’

ofﬁces. In line with current deﬁnitions of meet-

ings (e.g., Allen et al., 2015a), we also explicitly

include virtual interaction spaces despite

research on the speciﬁcs of virtual meeting

interactions requiring development, particularly

the familiarity of interaction via digital media

(Blithe, 2014). Compared with classic formal

meetings, which have rather high visibility in

organizations, the MATM takes place more

often in secret and in a conﬁdential atmosphere

(see also Dores Cruz et al., 2021).

How does it take place?. Because of the informal

nature of the MATM, communication in the

MATM is rich and more interactive (Kraut

et al., 1990). In informal meetings, the manage-

ment of talk approximates more naturally occur-

ring conversational turn-taking, which means

turns are self-initiated and result from the natural

ﬂow of conversation (Asmuß & Svennevig,

2009). Contributions by the meeting participants

thus build on each other in that they are logically

connected to prior contributions (Holmes &

Stubbe, 2015). Moreover, informal communica-

tion is less dictated by the formal roles and func-

tions participants have within the group or

organization (Johnson et al., 1994). Accordingly,

the MATM allows participants to share their

knowledge in a safe, conﬁdential, and less hier-

archical setting and, if necessary, contribute

thoughts and opinions they did not feel comfort-

able sharing in the original formal meeting (see

also Morrison, 2014).

Why does it take place?. As mentioned above,

even though unscheduled and informal, the

MATM is a meeting, meaning that it takes

placeforaspeciﬁc reason related to group and/

or organizational functioning. Drawing from

affective events theory (Weiss & Beal, 2005;

Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), we argue that the

formal meeting preceding the MATM acts as

an affect-generating event, which can result in

both negative and positive affective reactions to

the meeting. Previous research has repeatedly

shown that formal meetings have affective sig-

niﬁcance in that they directly relate to employ-

ees’emotion regulation in the form of surface

acting (Shanock et al., 2013; Shumski Thomas

et al., 2018), changes in group affect throughout

a meeting (Lei & Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2015),

and more ﬁne-grained expressions of humor and

laughter during the meeting (Kangasharju &

Nikko, 2009; Lehmann-Willenbrock & Allen,

2014; Rogerson-Revell, 2007). Accordingly,

formal meetings serve as affective events, and

the appraisal of these affective events may have

a long-term impact on employees’attitudes and

behaviors far beyond the direct meeting context

(Rogelberg et al., 2010; Starzyk et al., 2018).

Simply put, participants react emotionally to

things that happen in meetings, evaluating this

reaction helps participants draw meaning from

the meeting, which will then inﬂuence how

meeting participants will act in the future.

In reviewing the formal meeting preceding

it, the MATM thus essentially offers partici-

pants the opportunity to make sense of their

meeting interactions in retrospect (see Duffy

&O‘Rourke, 2015; Scott et al., 2015).

Sensemaking is a dynamic process, triggered

by unexpected or novel events that require

some form of explanation. This explanation,

in turn is inﬂuenced—directly or indirectly—

through one’s social context (Maitlis &

Meinecke and Handke 5

Christianson, 2014; see also Maitlis, 2005;

Weick, 1995). Applied to the meeting context,

the MATM thus provides a context where indi-

viduals collectively develop explanations for

events that took place in the preceding formal

meeting. However, it is not the events in the

formal meeting alone, but the affective reac-

tions towards these that fuel participants’

desire to engage in sensemaking (see Maitlis

et al., 2013). Accordingly, the MATM provides

a space where participants make sense of affect-

ive reactions that were triggered by the preced-

ing formal meeting, helping them to regain

control over the situation and adjust future

behavior.

For instance, the meeting leader may unex-

pectedly have cut a meeting short, resulting in

negative affective responses for most of the

other participants. During the MATM that

follows, the remaining meeting participants

may jointly develop a narrative that links their

negative affective response to the overall

sense of not being valued enough by the

meeting leader. By virtue of this narrative, the

participants of the MATM will likely alter

their behavior in subsequent formal meetings,

such as by offering less constructive comments

or possibly even by showing counterproductive

meeting behavior (e.g., coming late to meetings,

engaging in side talk). Through its primary sen-

semaking purpose, the MATM serves two

further, secondary purposes. First, it enables

participants to regain control over their affective

reactions following the formal meeting by

voicing their (dis)approval and providing emo-

tional support to each other (Alicke et al., 1992;

Kowalski, 1996; Nils & Rimé, 2012). Even just

the possibility of voicing problems and con-

cerns within a safe space may help participants

regulate their affective response. For instance,

employees who show problem-focused voice

during meetings (i.e., express concerns about

inefﬁciencies and poor performance; Morrison,

2011) have been shown to experience less nega-

tive affect later on (Starzyk et al., 2018). Second,

the MATM may also serve an important group

regulatory function in that it establishes

subsequent behavioral norms within the

group. In this sense, the MATM is “akindof

informal policing device”(Foster, 2004,

p. 86), such that if meeting participants

assume that others will speak negatively

about them after the formal meeting, this can

potentially discourage norm-violating behav-

ior. For example, if a colleague goes into a

formal meeting completely unprepared and

cannot answer certain questions about the

status of the joint project, the MATM follow-

ing this meeting could lead to the reinforce-

ment of group norms. Of course, these

evaluations about others do not always have

to be negative (see Brady et al., 2017), and

the MATM can also serve to reinforce group

norms through sharing favorable views about

the meeting leader or other colleagues. For

example, the meeting leader might be praised

for having run a particularly productive

meeting or a colleague might get recognition

for a great presentation, thereby setting the

standard for future formal meetings. Finally,

the establishment of behavioral norms does

not have to occur solely through evaluations

of people but can also result from a task-

focused MATM that aims at a common under-

standing of the group’s goals, roles, and tasks.

Who is involved?. Following the deﬁnition of a

meeting by Rogelberg et al. (2006), the

MATM consists of two or more people. In

describing the MATM, the minimum number

of participants is less important than the

maximum number of participants. To distin-

guish the MATM as a separate meeting from

the previous meeting, the same people must

not participate. Due to its unscheduled nature

and a potential focus on delicate topics (e.g.,

gossip about the meeting leader), the MATM

is always smaller than the original meeting

from which it was born. If the MATM had an

identical constellation of participants, it would

be a mere continuation of the original meeting.

Another important aspect of the MATM is

the relationship between the meeting partici-

pants. Since the meeting is not planned, it

6Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

emerges from the situation through mutual and

often implicit agreement. This presupposes a

certain degree of familiarity among the

meeting participants. Therefore, the MATM

has been described as a context “where people

share their opinions with trusted others”

(Dores Cruz et al., 2021, p. 13). Drawing on

the gossip literature, this can also be referred

to as a context of congeniality (Foster, 2004),

meaning that the participants share a common

interest and a certain level of concern for the

MATM.

Differentiation from similar constructs

To provide conceptual clarity, the following

section distinguishes the MATM from nomo-

logically similar phenomena already established

in the literature (Podsakoff et al., 2016).

Speciﬁcally, we outline how the MATM stands

in relation to post-meeting small talk or chit-chat

(Methot et al., 2020), debrieﬁng meetings (Allen

et al., 2018b; Tannenbaum & Cerasoli, 2012),

and gossip (Brady et al., 2017). An overview

based on four relevant characteristics is provided

in Table 1. The characteristics we use for com-

parison refer to structural features of the different

forms of communication and their main purposes.

Post-Meeting small talk. Small talk in organiza-

tions is generally deﬁned as “short, superﬁcial,

or trivial communication that does not convey

information core to task completion”

(Malinowski, 1972/1923, as cited in Methot

et al., 2020, p. 3). It is a common activity in orga-

nizations and occurs in a wide variety of situa-

tions. Whereas initial research has already

speciﬁcally addressed the role of pre-meeting

small talk (Mirivel & Tracy, 2005; Yoerger

et al., 2015), post-meeting small talk has been

largely neglected. Building on the general role

and importance of small talk, we can assume

that post-meeting small talk promotes friendly

interactions and helps individuals to transition

between roles and activities (Ashforth et al.,

2000). For instance, Methot et al. (2020)

described “individuals may engage in small talk

to psychologically disengage from a meeting

and transition into their lunch break”(p. 10).

This disengagement function of small talk

highlights that post-meeting small talk is most

likely not related to the speciﬁc agenda items

that were discussed but focuses on private or

social topics (e.g., plans for the weekend,

sports). Yet, as noted frequently in ethnographic

work, it is quite difﬁcult in practice to draw a

clear line between different forms of workplace

talk (Holmes, 2000; Miriviel & Tracy, 2005).

The boundaries between formal meeting talk

and post-meeting small talk are likely to be

ﬂuid, ultimately suggesting that formal meetings

should not be viewed as a completely isolated

communication event (Duffy & O‘Rourke,

2015).

A key difference between post-meeting small

talk and the MATM is that small talk can be seen

as a ritualized behavior that takes place after

every meeting, whereas the MATM is not a

regular event. Further, although both forms of

communication can be classiﬁed as informal,

small talk is usually shorter in duration. The

most striking difference is reﬂected in the

name, namely that the MATM is a meeting

(and is recognized as such by its participants,

see Schwartzman, 1989), and post-meeting

small talk is not. That is, while the MATM

refers to work-related interactions related to the

functioning of the group or organization (as per

deﬁnition of a meeting, e.g., Boden, 1994;

Rogelberg et al., 2006; Schwartzman, 1989),

post-meeting small talk neither has to be work-

related nor does it occur for reasons other than

wanting to be friendly or polite. As a result, post-

meeting small talk is not necessarily related to

events that occurred during the formal meeting

preceding it, nor does it have to carry any spe-

ciﬁc consequences for future meetings. The

MATM, however, is triggered by affective reac-

tions and focuses speciﬁcally on topics of the

previous meeting or interpersonal relationships

of the participants.

Debriefs. Debriefs are a particular type of

meeting “in which teams discuss, interpret, and

Meinecke and Handke 7

learn from recent events during which they colla-

borated”(Allen et al., 2018b, p. 504). Debriefs

were originally used in the form of after-action

reviews in the military and subsequently trans-

ferred to other high-responsibility teams (e.g.,

health care, aviation). However, meta-analytical

ﬁndings have shown that this form of team learn-

ing activity is also suitable for teams outside

high-responsibility environments (Tannenbaum

& Cerasoli, 2012). Debriefs follow a formal

structure, often accompanied by an established

protocol, and are typically facilitated by a

meeting chair. This can be the team leader, but

also a team member, external coach, or

instructor. Originally, debriefs were used

mainly on an ad hoc basis after a critical event,

but now, debriefs are often used independently

from critical performance episodes (Allen et al.,

2018b). The main purpose of debriefs is their

diagnostic nature and related developmental

intent. This means that debriefs are used to

look back together on team events, reﬂect on spe-

ciﬁc positive and negative team behaviors, and

identify clear starting points for further

collaboration.

Debriefs differ from MATM primarily

because of their formal nature. Debriefs are ofﬁ-

cial meetings that are highly structured, whereas

the MATM is informal and not documented in

ofﬁcial records. Moreover, debriefs have a

very clear objective: they promote learning

within the team. While the MATM also contri-

butes to sensemaking, it is much more diverse

as the triggers that lead to the MATM arise

from the situation (as described in the following

section).

Gossip. Broadly deﬁned, gossip refers to “the

exchange of information about absent third

parties”(Foster, 2004, p. 81) and is usually con-

ceived of as evaluative (Brady et al., 2017).

Despite its bad reputation (often equated with

malicious talk), gossip can be considered as a

behavior which is instrumental to social func-

tioning (e.g., Beersma & Van Kleef, 2012).

Accordingly, individuals are assumed to

Table 1. Comparison of characteristics of the meeting after the meeting, post-meeting small talk, debriefs,

and gossip.

Characteristic MATM

Post-meeting small

talk Debrieﬁng meeting Gossip

Frequency Event-based;

nonscheduled

Ubiquitous, highly

prevalent

Event-based; not

regularly

scheduled

Ubiquitous,

moderately

prevalent

Structure Informal Informal, but

ritualistic

interaction

Formal; frequently

follows

established

protocols

Informal

Facilitation Nonfacilitated or

emerging

meeting chair

Nonfacilitated, natural

conversation

Typically facilitated

by a formal

meeting chair

Nonfacilitated, natural

conversation

Main Purpose To make sense of

affective

reactions

following the

formal meeting

To maintain friendly

relationships with

coworkers

To achieve

transitions

between activities

and roles (i.e., to

transition out of

the meetings)

To serve

developmental

learning and

efﬁciency

through

reﬂection

Information gathering

and validation, social

enjoyment, exerting

negative inﬂuence,

group protection, or

emotion venting

Note. MATM =meeting after the meeting.

8Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

gossip for ﬁve main reasons tied to their social

role (Beersma & Van Kleef, 2012; Dores Cruz

et al., 2019): 1) To gather and validate informa-

tion (e.g., acquiring new information about the

gossip target or making sure whether other

group members share one’s opinion of said

target); 2) for social enjoyment (e.g., entertain-

ing oneself and others); 3) to exert negative

inﬂuence (e.g., to convince other group

members of one’s negative opinion of the

target); 4) to protect and regulate the group

through maintaining group norms (e.g., to

establish how group members are allowed to

behave); and 5) to vent pent-up emotions, that

is, the urge to share emotionally evocative

experiences.

As opposed to post-meeting small talk and

debriefs, gossip is not a construct that is dis-

tinctly different to the MATM. In fact, gossip

is a behavior which is likely to occur during

the MATM, speciﬁcallyintermsofitsgroup

regulatory function. However, gossip can occur

in many other situations other than during a

MATM, and importantly, the MATM is not

only characterized by gossip. That is, even if

the MATM is strongly relationship-oriented

and includes evaluations about other meeting

participants’behaviors during the formal

meeting, this does not necessarily mean that

these other participants are absent from the

meeting (as per deﬁnition of gossip). For

instance, one may be annoyed and confused by

the fact that one’s colleagues engaged in side

talk during the meeting but did not dare to

voice this anger until the meeting leader left

the room. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the

MATM can also serve task-focused purposes,

such as by constituting a space for participants

to develop a common understanding of their

goals, roles, and tasks and it thus not restricted

to evaluations about people.

Finally, another important distinction is that

gossip is not just event-based and can thus

occur at any time, irrespective of a formal

meeting. Through its function of information

gathering and validation, gossip may form a

part of the sensemaking process (e.g., by learning

about the other participants’opinion of the

formal meeting leader’s behavior) but its

content may just as well pertain to people and

events that are completely unrelated to the

formal meeting. Accordingly, as opposed to the

MATM, gossip does not serve the primary

purpose of explaining individuals’affective reac-

tions towards an event (i.e., the formal meeting).

The MATM: An affect-based

process model

To determine how the MATM ultimately ﬁts

into the larger meeting science literature,

several antecedents and boundary conditions

must be investigated. The affect-based process

model that we present in the following (see

Figure 1) describes the factors contributing

towards the occurrence of the MATM.

Considering that not all formal meetings will

necessarily elicit a subsequent MATM, we

focus on those aspects that determine whether

the formal meeting a) is associated with novel

or unexpected events that require explanation

(i.e., sensemaking); and b) elicits the necessary

affective reactions that fuel sensemaking (see

Maitlis et al., 2013). Accordingly, even

though the occurrence of the MATM is likely

a multilevel phenomenon with factors at indi-

vidual, group, and organizational levels that

more generally inﬂuence sensemaking tenden-

cies or environmental uncertainty, we focus on

the immediate factors that trigger the occur-

rence of the MATM.

Speciﬁcally, we argue that the triggers for

the MATM will ﬁrst and foremost be situated

in the formal meeting proceeding the MATM,

which requires an episodic view of the two

meeting events. As described earlier, we

assume the MATM can be understood as a sen-

semaking process fueled by an affective reac-

tion to the previous meeting. This affect is

essential to understanding the daily experiences

and behaviors of employees in organizations

(for reviews, see Barsade & Knight, 2015;

Brief & Weiss, 2002; Zapf et al., 2021).

Meinecke and Handke 9

In a recently published taxonomy of affect-

ive work events (Ohly & Schmitt, 2015), meet-

ings were frequently cited as pivotal work

events that lead to a change in employees’

experiences and feelings. Although prior

research and articles in practitioner journals

have mostly focused on the negative aspects

of meetings, Ohly and Schmitt’sﬁndings (2015)

highlight that meetings function as both negative

work events (e.g., “endless discussion at the

meeting without satisfying results”,p.24)and

positive work events (e.g., “attended a funny

meeting with good atmosphere. We laughed a

lot”, p. 27). This ambivalence is also reﬂected in

the so-called love/hate relationship with meetings

(Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2016).

The MATM can then be seen as an affect-

based response to the formal meeting that helps

meeting participants manage their emotions and

make sense of their meeting experiences.

Moreover, through sharing one’s interpretation

of an affective reaction (e.g., that one feels

angry because of the incessant side talk by other

participants of the formal meeting or that one is

proud to have been praisedbythemeeting

leader for the excellent presentation given

during the formal meeting), the MATM can

help participants to regain control over their

social environment and obtain emotional support

from others (see e.g., Jolly & Chang, 2021). In

the case that the formal meeting is experienced

as a positively toned event, the MATM can

serve to give space to these positive emotions

and share favorable impressions from the

meeting with others, which is in line with previous

research showing that positive affect is associated

with higher levels of interpersonal communication

and collegial interactions (Cunningham, 1988;

McGrath et al., 2017). In the case that the

formal meeting is perceived as a negatively

tonedevent,theMATMcanbeusedtovent

these negative emotions. Negative work events

have been shown to be predictors of counterpro-

ductive work behaviors that help regulate emo-

tions, reduce stress, and regain control (e.g.,

Matta et al., 2014; Penney & Spector, 2005).

In sum, we argue that the occurrence of the

MATM is triggered by participants’affective

Figure 1. Affect-based process model of the meeting after the meeting.

10 Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

reactions towards speciﬁc (uncertain, novel)

events that took place during the preceding

formal meeting. From this perspective, the

MATM constitutes a crucial link between series

of formal meetings, explaining how events that

occurred in one meeting trigger behaviors in sub-

sequent meetings and thereby how meeting beha-

viors solidify or evolve over time. However, not

all events that occur during the formal meeting

are unexpected or novel, nor will they necessarily

provoke affective reactions. Accordingly, not all

formal meetings trigger a subsequent sensemak-

ing process, and thus the occurrence of a

MATM. Speciﬁcally, we argue that a range of

situational factors moderate the relationship

between a formal meeting and the occurrence of

the MATM (see Figure 1).

Situational factors

While the situational factors we propose in

Figure 1 and elaborate on in this section may

not be exhaustive, they reﬂect key factors that

inﬂuence meeting structure and climate.

Speciﬁcally, we argue that meeting structure

and climate are pivotal to understanding both

how meeting events may necessitate sensemak-

ing and why they provoke affective reactions

(thereby triggering the occurrence of the

MATM), as these situational factors determine

the degree to which participants are free to

voice their ideas, concerns, and evaluations

during the formal meeting.

Meeting design characteristics. In reviewing the

existing meeting science landscape, initial

attempts have been made to summarize

evidence-based recommendations for meeting

design characteristics that contribute towards

successful meetings (Lehmann-Willenbrock

et al., 2018; Mroz et al., 2018). Meeting

design can encompass physical (e.g., lighting,

room temperature), temporal (e.g., meeting

length, promptness of meeting start and end),

procedural (e.g., using an agenda, taking

minutes), and attendee (e.g., inviting only

those participants who have expertise relevant

to the meeting, having a meeting facilitator)

characteristics that can inﬂuence meeting satis-

faction and effectiveness (Cohen et al., 2011;

Leach et al., 2009; Odermatt et al., 2015). It

seems likely that a poorly designed meeting

would provoke the occurrence of a MATM.

First, it gives room for unexpected events to

take place. For instance, without a set agenda,

topics may be raised that team members could

not sufﬁciently prepare for in advance. Next,

it is a breeding ground for negative affective

responses. This may range from annoyance at

other meeting participants engaging in long

monologues that fail to move the meeting

forward (because there is no agenda and no

one to facilitate the meeting) to frustration for

having to wait around for team members who

are late to the meeting (see also Allen et al.,

2018a).

Meeting leadership style. Likewise, meeting

leadership may play an important role in the

appraisal of meeting events. Meetings regularly

center on discussions, problem-solving, and

decision-making that require input from all

meeting attendees (Mroz et al., 2018).

Whether all meeting participants can contribute

their views depends largely on the meeting

leader’s behavior and actions (e.g., Allen &

Rogelberg, 2013). Various studies have, there-

fore, focused on the role of the meeting leader

and the resulting symmetries and asymmetries

in meeting interactions (for an overview, see

Mroz et al., 2020). For instance, even though

controlling the conversational ﬂoor (e.g., by

assigning speaker turns and regulating topic

progression) can contribute to more efﬁciency

(Asmuß & Svennevig, 2009), it can also

prevent people from expressing their opinions

freely. Accordingly, research suggests that

effective leaders take care not to overstructure

their meetings (Van der Haar et al., 2017) and

that it may be more important for leaders to

show consideration during meetings (e.g., by

identifying and addressing meeting attendees’

concerns) than to initiate structure (Odermatt

et al., 2017). As a result, meeting leadership is

Meinecke and Handke 11

likely to inﬂuence the occurrence of a MATM,

such that high levels of initiating structure

(without corresponding levels of consideration)

result in unanswered questions and pent-up

emotions, the combination of which triggers

subsequent sensemaking processes. The affect-

ive reactions towards a formal meeting high in

initiating structure and low in consideration

may be both negative as well as positive, for

instance because team members want to praise

other members or share humorous anecdotes

but did not ﬁnd the time to do this during the

formal meeting.

Meeting psychological safety. Beyond the meeting

leader, we argue that the general microclimate

that is created during formal meetings will

relate to the occurrence of a MATM. A decisive

factor here is likely to be psychological safety,

which describes people’s“perceptions of the

consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a

particular context”(Edmondson & Lei, 2014,

p. 24). Psychological safety is central to indivi-

duals contributing ideas and actions and specif-

ically addressing critical issues (Edmondson &

Lei, 2014). In the context of formal meetings,

the construct of meeting psychological safety

(Shumski Thomas et al., 2018) is based on the

views of individual meeting participants regard-

ing their perceptions of the climate in the

meeting (e.g., “The people in my last meeting

were able to bring up problems and tough

issues.”). Shumski Thomas et al.’s (2018)

research shows that surface-level acting (i.e.,

suppressing undesired emotions and faking

expected—mostly positive, afﬁliative—emotional

displays) during meetings is related to lower

levels of psychological safety. Accordingly, a

lack of meeting psychological safety suggests a

meeting climate where participants feel that they

cannot authentically voice questions, doubts, or

emotions, which would likely lead to unresolved

issues cueing up over the course of the formal

meeting. Uncertain or novel events during

formal meetings low in psychological safety will

thus provoke negative affective reactions (e.g.,

fear), thereby increasing the occurrence of the

MATM, such that views and concerns are infor-

mally shared after the formal meeting with a

select group of participants.

Meeting type. Finally, it could well be the case

that the MATM occurs more frequently after

certain types of formal meetings than others.

Most of the existing meeting research refers to

the generic staff meeting, which is characterized

by participants knowing each other well, the

meeting taking place regularly in this constella-

tion, and participants reviewing recent events

and updating each other (Kello & Allen,

2020). Such meetings can be seen as routine

events (similar to e.g., shift change meetings),

which will require little subsequent explana-

tions (i.e., sensemaking) in comparison to

other meeting types (e.g., project team meet-

ings). Moreover, affective events theory

(Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) suggests that the

intensity of an affective reaction generated by

a sensemaking trigger depends on how import-

ant that event is to personal goals (see also

Maitlis et al., 2013). Accordingly, meetings

that are less important to the participants’per-

sonal goals (e.g., committee meetings where

an individuals’involvement is usually only

temporary) may trigger less intense (positive

or negative) affective reactions than others and

are thus less likely to lead to the occurrence of

a MATM.

Discussion

The overarching aim of this article was to drive

research on the MATM by providing (1) a

detailed conceptualization of the MATM, and

(2) an affect-based process model that describes

the occurrence of the MATM and which may

serve to guide future research on the MATM

and, more generally, on meetings as a sequen-

tial phenomenon.

Theoretical implications

This article contributes to recent theorizing on

meetings in several key ways and is intended

12 Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

to offer a starting point for empirical research on

the MATM. First, a core contribution of this

paper is to introduce the MATM into organiza-

tional psychology and management research.

That is, we call attention to the study of this

rather pervasive informal communication

event, discriminate the MATM from similar

forms of communication in the workplace

(namely, post-meeting small talk, debrieﬁng

meetings, and gossip), and position the

MATM as an event worthy of investigative

focus. Of particular importance here is the pro-

cessual view of meetings (i.e., the link between

the formal meeting and the informal MATM).

We thereby urge future researchers adopt a per-

spective that sees meetings as series of intercon-

nected events that jointly shape employees’

experiences at work (Duffy & O‘Rourke,

2015), rather than continuing to treat them as

isolated discrete events. More speciﬁcally, we

suggest that further research on the MATM

can provide important insights into how struc-

ture unfolds outside formal control.

Second, this article advances research on

workplace meetings by illuminating the condi-

tions that contribute to the emergence of the

MATM. Speciﬁcally, the affect-based process

model that we presented contextualizes the

MATM in time and describes which factors

inherent in the formal meeting may spark a

MATM. By virtue of this episodic perspective,

the model highlights the complex nature of the

MATM and offers explanations for why the

MATM is more prevalent in some situations

than others. We thus encourage future research-

ers to use this model as a guiding framework for

further investigations on meetings as a sequen-

tial phenomenon.

Third and ﬁnally, the conceptualization

developed in this article provides a theoretical

framework to understand the various outcome

implications that might result from the

MATM. Building on the affect-based process

view of the MATM, the primary purpose of

the MATM is for participants to make sense

of their affective reactions towards the preced-

ing formal meetings. Through this process of

sensemaking, participants can reduce ambiguity

and create order (Weick, 1995; see also Scott

et al., 2015). Further, the conceptual work of

this article points to the potential of the

MATM for regulating both individual affect

as well as intragroup relations. That is,

meeting participants can use the MATM to

lend and seek emotional support, strengthen

friendships, and create more cooperative inter-

action patterns (see also Barsade & Knight,

2015). However, the effects of emotion

sharing, particularly in the form of emotion

venting, can also likely be critical, namely

when meeting participants use the MATM to

regain control by undermining decisions made

in the formal meeting or attempting to reinforce

group norms through gossip (Beersma & Van

Kleef, 2012).

Practical implications

Based on the conceptual work presented in this

article, we derive some initial recommendations

for dealing with the MATM from a more prac-

tical side. From a managerial perspective, the

MATM probably does not meet expectations

or hopes placed on proper meeting behavior,

and thus is likely to be perceived as a form of

organizational misconduct. Although managers

will probably discourage these gatherings—

especially those meetings that are more nega-

tively toned—they cannot be completely pre-

vented and are an essential part of the

informal organization (Stohl, 1995). Thus,

rather than viewing the MATM as something

unwanted that should best be discouraged or

silenced, the MATM can be a valuable

warning sign for managers. Because of its infor-

mal nature and potential focus on delicate

topics, the MATM reﬂects important issues

with leadership and group dynamics. If attended

to, managers can use the MATM to indirectly

gain important insights into their employees’

everyday experiences at work. By developing

a sensitivity for these post-meeting interactions,

managers can make an effort to understand their

employees’perspectives.

Meinecke and Handke 13

Furthermore, understanding the MATM also

means understanding that meeting discourse is

context-dependent. Based on work concerning

workplace gossip, we know that information

raised in one context can have a different

meaning in another depending on the people

involved in the conversation and the conﬁdenti-

ality of the meeting (Hafen, 2004; Mills, 2010).

Thus, an incident that was discussed purely as

information in a formal meeting can turn into

agossipy conversation in the MATM.

Awareness of how meeting talk travels

between formal and informal meetings can

help managers understand how meetings

impact interpersonal dynamics and ultimately

the structure that emerges from meetings. In

short, meetings should not be viewed as

events that take place in a social vacuum. A sys-

temic view of meetings that emphasizes inter-

connectivity (e.g., by recognizing the role of

the MATM as a link between formal meetings)

is more helpful in making sense of the potential

disorder that follows from meetings (Duffy &

O‘Rourke, 2015; Schwartzman, 2015).

Avenues for future research

Our discussion of the MATM provides a point

of reference for a range of future research

endeavors. Based on anecdotal observations

and reports in the management literature

(Fishburne, 2014; Lauby, 2015; Sudakow,

2017), it can be assumed that there is no one

MATM in terms of the topics discussed and

the focus of the meeting. Instead, the MATM

could take on various forms and thus be

related to a range of different both functional

as well as dysfunctional outcomes. Future

research could thus be directed at developing

a typology of the MATM. For instance, as an

affect-laden event, the formal meeting preced-

ing the MATM can result in both positive and

negative affective responses, meaning that the

MATM itself could be discerned in terms of

its positive vs. negative affective valence.

Second, the MATM can revolve more or less

strongly around tasks or around interpersonal

relationships, meaning that one MATM may

differ from another in terms of a task vs. a

relationship focus (following the established

classiﬁcation in related research areas, see

e.g., Bales, 1950; Jehn, 1995). Potential cross-

classiﬁcations of these differences in valence

and focus could lead to different archetypes of

the MATM which could guide both research

and practice in terms of determining the

outcome implications of a particular type of

the MATM.

A further aspect warranting future research is

the role of the MATM as a link between formal

meetings and thus a change of perspective that

regards meetings as a series of interconnected

events that unfold their meaning and effect

over time. Next to theoretical considerations

that deal with the evolution of meeting struc-

tures, roles, and behaviors over sequences of

formal meetings and MATMs, we would

encourage empirical research on meetings that

draw on longitudinal measurement designs.

This would enable researchers to analyze the

extent to which certain behaviors occur, but

also emotions depend on prior meetings as

well as the explanatory function of the

MATM in predicting behaviors and emotions

in successive meetings. Moreover, the episodic

perspective on meetings we take in this article

would call for the application of non-linear ana-

lytical procedures, such as lag-sequential or

recurrent quantiﬁcation analysis (for an applica-

tion of these procedures to meeting data, see

e.g., Lehmann-Willenbrock et al., 2013;

Meinecke et al., 2020). These approaches

would enable researchers to investigate, for

instance, the likelihood of MATM occurrence

as a function of meeting type or patterns of

emotional reactions over a series of formal

meetings and MATMs.

Finally, it would be interesting to speciﬁcally

investigate the role and occurrence of the

MATM in virtual contexts. Virtual collabor-

ation is generally associated with higher levels

of ambiguity than face-to-face interaction,

given there are fewer (or even no) observational

opportunities and thus less information on other

14 Organizational Psychology Review 0(0)

team members’work environments, actions,

thoughts, and feelings (e.g., Handke et al.,

2022; McLarnon et al., 2019). Accordingly,

virtual collaboration likely requires more sense-

making processes, yet at the same time, it provides

less opportunities for informal, unscheduled con-

versations (Lechner & Tobias Mortlock, 2021;

Webster & Staples, 2006). Initiating a MATM

after a formal virtual meeting would involve dif-

ferent strategies than in a face-to-face context,

where meeting participants share the same phys-

ical space and may just remain in the meeting

room or catch up in the hallway. In a virtual

MATM, participants would thus likely adopt

strategies such as starting a parallel “meeting”

through the chat function offered in most video-

conference platforms or on other instant messa-

ging channels or waiting for the meeting leader

to leave the virtual meeting room ﬁrst. At this

stage, qualitative research may be particularly

suited to uncover the different ways in which

virtual team members may organize MATMs

and how this relates to team functioning.

Conclusion

To conclude, the MATM is an unscheduled,

informal, and conﬁdential communication

event that has the potential to create new struc-

tures in everyday organizational life. Empirical

research is now needed to test the relationships

postulated in the corresponding affect-based

process model as well as to develop typologies

based on the current conceptualization of the

MATM. In doing so, we can develop a richer

understanding of the MATM regarding its dif-

ferent forms and effects.

Declaration of Conﬂicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conﬂicts of inter-

est with respect to the research, authorship, and/or

publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no ﬁnancial support for the

research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Annika L. Meinecke https://orcid.org/0000-0001-

7551-563X

Notes

1. We acknowledge that researchers from different

ﬁelds have deﬁned formal/informal communica-

tion in different ways. It would be beyond the

scope of the current article to provide a detailed

synopsis of previous deﬁnitions (cf. Shepherd

et al., 2006). What is important in this context

and for this article is that communication can be

planned and unplanned (as described, e.g., in

Schwartzman’s typology) and, at the same time,

can be more or less formal (as taken up, e.g., in

Boden’s work on meetings). That is, informal

communication can occur even in a scheduled,

planned meeting, especially if there is no predeter-

mined meeting chair to guide the conversation.

2. It is open at this point whether people from

outside who did not participate in the original

formal meeting can be brought in. To not overload

any theorizing for the time being, we assume that

the MATM consists of a subgroup of those parti-

cipants who attended the original meeting.

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Author biographies

Annika L. Meinecke, PhD, is a postdoctoral

research associate at the Department of

Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the

University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research

interests include organizational meetings, leader-

follower dynamics, and workplace gossip.

Lisa Handke, PhD, is a postdoctoral research

associate at the Division of Social,

Organizational, and Economic Psychology at

Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Her research

focuses on virtual teamwork, telecommuting,

and work design.

Meinecke and Handke 21

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Article

Nov 2020

Emotion work, the management of feelings and emotional displays in response to emotion work requirements, can have both positive and negative effects on well-being and performance. Adopting a work psychology perspective and drawing on work stress and work design literatures, we outline an expanded model of emotion work, regarding emotion work requirements as job characteristics and as part of broader task requirements. The challenge-hindrance stressors framework helps explain positive effects of emotion work in terms of professional role fulfillment. We emphasize the importance of negative events and negative emotions for outcomes of surface acting conditions, and we highlight the often-neglected role of automatic emotion regulation in emotion work. Research on culture suggests that existing results are mostly valid for Western cultures. Practical and research implications refer to a stronger emphasis on conditions at work in general, including stressors and resources, which together determine the meaning of emotion work conditions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 8 is January 21, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Office Chit-Chat as a Social Ritual: The Uplifting Yet Distracting Effects of Daily Small Talk at Work

Article

Jun 2020
ACAD MANAGE J

Small talk—short, superficial, or trivial communication not core to task completion—is normative and ubiquitous in organizational life. Although small talk comprises up to one-third of adults’ speech, its effects in the workplace have been largely discounted. Yet, emerging research suggests small talk may have important consequences for employees. Integrating theories of interaction rituals and micro-role transitions, we explore how and why seemingly inconsequential conversations during the workday generate meaningful effects on employees’ experiences. In a sample of employed adults recruited from a Northeast US University’s alumni database and LinkedIn (n = 151), we used an experience sampling method (ESM) to capture within-individual variation in small talk over a three-week period. Given that we are the first to examine small talk as an episodic phenomenon, we also conducted a scale validation of our daily small talk measure with Masters students from a University in the Northeastern US (n = 73) and two samples of employed adults registered with Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 180 and n = 202). Using multilevel path analysis, our results showed that, on one hand, small talk enhanced employees’ daily positive social emotions at work, which translated into heightened organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and greater well-being at the end of the workday; on the other hand, small talk disrupted employees’ ability to cognitively engage in their work, which compromised their OCB. Our results also showed higher levels of trait-level self-monitoring mitigated the negative effects of small talk on work engagement. Combined, results suggest that the polite, ritualistic, and formulaic nature of small talk is often uplifting yet also distracting.

Formal Leadership in Workplace Meetings

Chapter

Mar 2020

The Staff Meeting … And Beyond … *

Chapter

Mar 2020

Capturing non-linear temporally embedded processes in organizations using recurrence quantification analysis

Article

Sep 2019

Despite the growing consensus that the majority of psychological phenomena at work are temporally embedded and highly dynamic, existing research is often based on simplified theoretical and methodological models, which take limited account of process dynamics and especially non-linear growth trajectories. In this paper, we highlight the potentials of using recurrence quantifications analysis (RQA) and an extension of RQA – cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) – for researching process dynamics in organizations. (C)RQA is a powerful technique that can be used to both visualize and quantify time-series data such as repeated measurements of psychological states or sequentially coded dyadic and team interactions. To illustrate the manifold opportunities of (C)RQA, we present three application examples focusing on individuals as systems, dyads as systems, and teams as systems. Specifically, we highlight how (C)RQA can be applied to individual diary data, to leader-follower communication dynamics observed during annual appraisal interviews, and to high-density coded team interactions observed during organizational meetings. We discuss the strengths and limitations of (C)RQA and provide recommendations for researchers interested in using the method.

Problem Talk in Management Group Meetings

Article

Jul 2019
SMALL GR RES

This naturalistic study focuses on problem talk (PT) in hospital management group meetings. The study aims to understand how PT constitutes the hospital organization through the different uses of PT within the meetings, and, therefore, to understand the organizing role of these meetings. The communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) perspective forms the theoretical background of the research. The results of the qualitative analysis show that PT comprises many intertwined tasks that aim to perform the meetings, enhance problem solving, and maintain the relational level of group life. Thus, PT is much more than merely solving problems. In PT, problems are discussed from the viewpoints of the group and the organization. Meetings as an institution and as a nonhuman agent affect organizing because they influence both the group’s communication and organizational processes. Future research on groups should develop the use of the CCO concept of nonhuman agency.