"Not Another Meeting!" Are Meeting Time Demands Related to Employee Well-Being?

"Make it the done thing": an exploration of attitudes towards rest breaks, productivity and wellbeing while working from home

OBJECTIVE

Taking regular rest breaks while working positively impacts productivity and wellbeing. While home and hybrid working styles have become a popular choice for employees, the impact of, and perceptions towards, taking breaks while working at home is poorly understood. The current research aimed to explore attitudes towards taking rest breaks while working from home and capture levels of breaks taken, wellbeing and productivity in a sample of UK white-collar workers.

METHODS

A mixed method approach was applied where self-report data from an online survey were gathered from individuals (N = 140) from one organisation. Open-ended questions regarding attitudes and perceptions towards rest break behaviours were obtained. Further quantitative measures included the number of breaks taken while working from home, levels of productivity (measured by the Health and performance Presenteeism subscale) and mental wellbeing (measured by the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental wellbeing scale). Both quantitative and qualitative analysis approaches were applied.

RESULTS

Qualitative responses indicated two overarching themes (1) Personal and (2) Organisational sat above four further themes including Movement outside, Structure of home working, Home environment and Digital presence. Additionally, quantitative findings indicated that the number of breaks taken outside was associated with positive changes in wellbeing.

CONCLUSION

Employers could aim to support employees working from home in taking outside breaks through flexible working patterns, authentic leadership, and a change in company social norms around break behaviours. Such organisational changes could help to improve workforce productivity and wellbeing.

Virtual interdisciplinary collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic: pain and joy in an international joint university

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.

Making Every Meeting Count: A Qualitative Investigation of Multiteam Meeting Events and Their Role in Supporting Coordinated Cancer Care Delivery

PURPOSE

This research considers how cross-disciplinary cancer care meetings can facilitate coordination within the multiteam systems (MTSs) that provide inpatient hospital care. We conducted a series of interviews and observations with members of a single cancer care MTS to address the following research questions: (1) what are the key characteristics of MTS cancer care meetings (with regard to composition, focus, and structure)? and (2) how is cross-team coordination acknowledged and addressed during these meetings?

METHODS

In this single-site case study of a MTS operating to provide gynecologic oncology care within a teaching hospital, two types of meetings, called rounds and huddles, were held consistently. We used qualitative methods, including interviews with health care professional subject matter experts and 30 hours of observations of cancer care meetings, and analyzed the data in three stages of qualitative coding.

RESULTS

Our analyses resulted in a thematic framework detailing key processes, and subprocesses, identified as central to the activities of observed cancer care meetings. Key processes include information sharing, gaining clarity, strategizing, and pedagogy. Discussions and explanations of this framework showcase the ways in which MTS meetings can bolster cross-team coordination and facilitate MTS activities.

CONCLUSION

Inpatient cancer care meetings provide opportunities to facilitate MTS coordination in several ways, yet doing so does not come without challenges. Considering these results together with insights from meeting science and MTS research, this article concludes by putting forward practical recommendations for leveraging opportunities and overcoming challenges to use cancer care meetings as tools to support cross-team coordination.

Why Am I So Exhausted?: Exploring Meeting-to-Work Transition Time and Recovery From Virtual Meeting Fatigue

OBJECTIVE

Ineffective meetings have been well-documented as presenting considerable direct (eg, salary) and indirect costs (eg, employee burnout). We explore the idea that people need meeting recovery, or time to transition from meetings to their next task. Doing so may reduce employee burnout.

METHODS

We used a quantitative survey of working adults' last meeting to determine the relationship between meeting outcomes (satisfaction and effectiveness) and meeting recovery.

RESULTS

We found that meeting outcomes are related to meeting recovery and that relationship is moderated by the degree to which the meeting was relevant to the individual. Implications for theory and practice are discussed to provide concrete recommendations for researchers, managers, and consultants.

CONCLUSIONS

This study explores virtual meeting fatigue with a focus on meeting quality and explores the need for recovery after workplace meetings.

An organizational digital footprint for interruption management: a data-driven approach

Purpose

Interruptions are prevalent in knowledge work, and their negative consequences have driven research to find ways for interruption management. However, these means almost always leave the responsibility and burden of interruptions with individual knowledge workers. System-level approaches for interruption management, on the other hand, have the potential to reduce the burden on employees. This paper’s objective is to pave way for system-level interruption management by showing that data about factual characteristics of work can be used to identify interrupting situations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors provide a demonstration of using trace data from information and communications technology (ICT)-systems and machine learning to identify interrupting situations. They conduct a “simulation” of automated data collection by asking employees of two companies to provide information concerning situations and interruptions through weekly reports. They obtain information regarding four organizational elements: task, people, technology and structure, and employ classification trees to show that this data can be used to identify situations across which the level of interruptions differs.

Findings

The authors show that it is possible to identifying interrupting situations from trace data. During the eight-week observation period in Company A they identified seven and in Company B four different situations each having a different probability of occurrence of interruptions.

Originality/value

The authors extend employee-level interruption management to the system-level by using “task” as a bridging concept. Task is a core concept in both traditional interruption research and Leavitt's 1965 socio-technical model which allows us to connect other organizational elements (people, structure and technology) to interruptions.

Culture-driven scripts for meetings: An integrative theoretical lens for studying workplace meetings

The current research conceptualizes workplace meetings as socially embedded forms of organizing and proposes that cross-cultural comparisons of workplace meetings offer insights into differences in meeting structures and processes. This provides a deeper understanding of how meetings drive organizing in different cultural settings. Specifically, we build programmatic theory proposing cognitive and behavioral scripts as a promising theoretical lens through which to capture and integrate sociocultural influences on workplace meetings. We adapt Cramton et al.'s (2021) cultural coordination scripts formulation (consisting of the task setting, role structure, temporal structure, and cues) to develop an interpretive framework for workplace meeting processes that orients future research on cross-cultural meetings. We further integrate existing research on cross-cultural meeting differences to develop a generic prototype meeting script and two illustrative examples of culturally specific meeting scripts (for German and U.S.-American meetings) to demonstrate the practical usefulness and usability of this programmatic theory.

Plain Language Summary

Workplace meetings are used by organizations to maintain their overarching goals and purpose. They are an important, maybe the most important, tool through which members of the organization ensure its functioning and the pursuit of its purpose. The form of meetings and the processes involved in carrying out meetings are influenced by the cultural context(s) in which the meeting is held and the organization resides. Previous research has identified meeting characteristics and processes that differ across cultures. Comparisons of meeting structures and processes embedded in different cultural contexts can help researchers explore how variations in meeting characteristics contribute to organizing in organizations. This in turn allows researchers to better illuminate, explain, and guide the management of meetings to support their core goals and purpose. In the current paper, we propose a novel way of conceptualizing, capturing, and studying cross-cultural variations in meeting structures and processes, using the lens of cognitive and behavioral scripts. Scripts are cognitive structures that organize knowledge around how events typically unfold and provide prescriptions for the ways in which actors should interact over time to achieve coordinated action in a task situation. We employ Cramton et al.'s (2021) cultural coordination scripts formulation to create a definition of meeting scripts as well as prototype meeting scripts that can provide the foundation for future meetings research and for improved facilitation of cross-cultural meetings in organizations. Furthermore, we build an overarching, integrative theoretical framework for understanding cross-cultural meeting differences, which will guide future research endeavors into and theorizing about meetings in different cultural contexts.

The key features of workplace meetings: Conceptualizing the why, how, and what of meetings at work

Given the focal role that group and team meetings play in shaping employees’ work lives (and schedules), the scarcity of conceptual and empirical attention to the topic in extant organizational psychology research is a major oversight that stalls scientific understanding of organizational behavior more broadly. With the explosion of meetings in recent years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some even wonder why organizational psychology has not already figured out meetings from both a science and practice perspective. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the extant literature on the science of workplace meetings and sort the works by identifying the key features of the meeting phenomenon. The five key features of workplace meetings identified include Leading, Interacting, Managing Time, Engaging, and Relating. We couch these features within a larger framework of how meetings are the intersection of collaboration in organizations and indispensable to organizational success. Against this conceptual backdrop, we reviewed a total of 253 publications, noting opportunities for future research and discussing practical implications.

Plain Language Summary

Given the focal role that group and team meetings play in shaping employees’ work lives (and schedules), the scarcity of conceptual and empirical attention in extant organizational psychology research is a major oversight that stalls scientific understanding of organizational behavior more broadly. With the explosion of meetings that has occurred in recent years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some even wonder why organizational psychology has not already figured out meetings from both a science and practice perspective. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the science of workplace meetings by identifying the core features of the phenomenon and sorting the extant literature along these features. The five core features identified include leading, interacting, managing time, engaging, relating. We couch these features within a larger framework of how meetings are the intersection of collaboration in organizations and a major key to organizational success. Against this conceptual backdrop, we reviewed a total of 253 publications, noting opportunities for future research and discussing practical implications. We conclude our review with an overview of the special issue on workplace meetings, which is an overt attempt to launch research that will fill the theoretical and conceptual gap in the science of meetings.

Virtual meetings and wellbeing: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between virtual meeting participation and wellbeing. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that participation in more virtual meetings is associated with both negative and positive wellbeing indicators.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was sent to 3,530 employees across five Belgian universities in April 2020. Useful data from 814 respondents was collected and analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships.

Findings

The authors find support for their hypotheses, namely that participating in more virtual meetings is associated not only with negative wellbeing indicators (workload, stress and fatigue) but also with a positive wellbeing indicator, namely work influence.

Research limitations/implications

Given the unique work-from-home context during the pandemic, the generalizability of our findings may be limited. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the literature on Meeting Science and Virtual Work, as it is the first study to empirically relate virtual meetings to wellbeing indicators, including a positive one.

Practical implications

As virtual meetings and work-from-home are expected to remain prevalent, understanding wellbeing implications is of high managerial importance. Their findings can be useful for (HR) managers who develop flexible work policies for a post-pandemic world.

Social implications

The findings draw attention to the importance of maintaining a healthy balance between productivity and wellbeing in creating a sustainable work(-from-home) context.

Originality/value

The COVID-19 lockdown provided a unique opportunity to obtain insight on the relationship between virtual meetings and wellbeing at an unprecedented scale.

Virtual Work Meetings During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

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.

One-on-one meetings between managers and direct reports: A new opportunity for meeting science

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.

Plain Language Summary

Meeting science has flourished over the past two decades, with research and theory exploring best practices for leading and attending workplace meetings. However, a large portion of this research has focused on meetings of three or more people – despite the fact that meetings are often defined as a gathering between two or more people. Ignoring the one-on-one (1:1) meeting is a missed opportunity, as 1:1 meetings have a large presence in industry. It has been estimated that nearly half (47%) of all meetings are 1:1s, and these dyadic meetings often have unique purposes (e.g., performance appraisals) and involve different interactions (e.g., more interpersonal) outside of larger group meetings. Industry and practice have begun to explore these 1:1 meeting-especially meetings between managers and direct reports. For example, internal studies conducted at Microsoft and Cisco found that direct reports who had more frequent and effectively run 1:1 meetings with their managers were more engaged than their counterparts. While companies have seemingly acknowledged the importance of these meetings, research lags behind. Little empirical or theoretical investigations have explored 1:1 meetings. Yet, with the continued growth in the number of meetings worldwide, it is important to obtain empirical insights specific to 1:1 meetings. Doing so will help inform best practices when it comes to leading and attending 1:1 meetings. Thus, in this conceptual review of 1:1 meetings, we provide a future research agenda encouraging researchers (and practitioners) to investigate this unique (and important) meeting type – the one-on-one meeting between a manager and their direct report.

The meeting after the meeting: A conceptualization and process model

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.

Remote work video meetings: Workers’ emotional exhaustion and practices for greater well-being

Meeting science literature provides a foundation for understanding workplace meetings as a source of stress. However, a new form of worker stress, “Zoom fatigue,” quickly emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic when organizations rapidly adopted video meetings for remote work-from-home. We sought to understand workers’ perceptions about video meeting experiences and how they relate to their sense of emotional exhaustion. Additionally, we were curious about what workers might see as ways to make video meetings less tiring and more beneficial. These insights could inform practical solutions for leaders and organizations to reduce the stress and resulting emotional fatigue related to video meetings. This mixed-methods study, based on survey data collected in August 2020 from 345 workers at a cross-section of U.S.-headquartered organizations, provides evidence of worker experiences related to video meeting stress. The quantitative and qualitative results show that workers feel psychologically depleted by video meeting load, an excess of load needed to do their job, video meetings that are not beneficial to them, video meetings that conflict with the time and energy needed to perform their other job responsibilities and fulfill their home responsibilities, and the perceived necessity to surface act. The data show these factors relate to diminished well-being in the form of emotional exhaustion. Participants’ qualitative responses corroborate the results and suggest supportive practices related to planning and inclusion and supportive interaction that can ease video meeting exhaustion.

Business meetings in a postpandemic world: When and how to meet virtually

The COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020 forced businesses across the world to adopt virtual meetings. With many people working from home, software platforms like Zoom and Teams became ubiquitous, but their widespread use also revealed many weaknesses and limitations. While technologies for virtual meetings have existed for decades, these technologies have advanced significantly in recent years, and today range from audioconference facilities to telepresence rooms with high-resolution video and sophisticated virtual presence features. The available alternatives differ significantly in costs, complexity and capabilities, and choosing the most effective technology for each meeting setting is not always easy. This is important, since after the pandemic, virtual meetings will move from being a necessity brought on by the pandemic to being a widely accepted alternative to traditional face-to-face meetings. Consequently, the questions of when and how to meet virtually will become even more significant. In this article, we describe a decision-making framework for choosing when and how to meet virtually, based on matching the appropriate communication capabilities with various meeting objectives and taking into account meeting size and duration. The framework is based on extensive empirical research conducted in partnership with several major U.S. and European companies.

Videoconference Fatigue: A Conceptual Analysis

Videoconferencing (VC) is a type of online meeting that allows two or more participants from different locations to engage in live multi-directional audio-visual communication and collaboration (e.g., via screen sharing). The COVID-19 pandemic has induced a boom in both private and professional videoconferencing in the early 2020s that elicited controversial public and academic debates about its pros and cons. One main concern has been the phenomenon of videoconference fatigue. The aim of this conceptual review article is to contribute to the conceptual clarification of VC fatigue. We use the popular and succinct label "Zoom fatigue" interchangeably with the more generic label "videoconference fatigue" and define it as the experience of fatigue during and/or after a videoconference, regardless of the specific VC system used. We followed a structured eight-phase process of conceptual analysis that led to a conceptual model of VC fatigue with four key causal dimensions: (1) personal factors, (2) organizational factors, (3) technological factors, and (4) environmental factors. We present this 4D model describing the respective dimensions with their sub-dimensions based on theories, available evidence, and media coverage. The 4D-model is meant to help researchers advance empirical research on videoconference fatigue.

Active methodologies association with online learning fatigue among medical students

BACKGROUND

Due to the current scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing issues, distance learning was implemented in many medical schools. Educational institutions faced the challenge of continuing to promote teaching and learning while keeping teachers and students in their homes, aiming to reduce the spread of the virus. This change compromised the students' mental health, due to the degree of exhaustion or fatigue attributed to the involvement in videoconferences, called "zoom fatigue". Despite the importance of zoom fatigue for medical education, it can be observed that there have not been studies on the role of the online teaching and learning process through active methodologies in the genesis of this fatigue. We aimed to assess the association of the teaching method used and the prevalence of zoom fatigue.

METHODS

A cross-sectional, quantitative, analytical study was carried out in Medical Schools of Ceará, Brazil. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) teaching methodology is the only methodology used in the first semester and PBL together with traditional teaching, i.e., hybrid teaching, is used in the other ones. The Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue Scale (ZEF) was used, with the questions currently validated for Brazilian Portuguese. Chi-square tests were used to verify the statistical association between the measured variables and the teaching methodology.

RESULTS

The prevalence of zoom fatigue reached 56% in students using the hybrid model, versus 41% in those using the PBL methodology, with a statistically significant difference (p value = 0.027). The mean prevalence of overall zoom fatigue was 48%. Students using the hybrid methodology differed from PBL students by having a significantly higher frequency of feelings of wanting to be alone after a videoconference (16.9 vs. 7.1%, respectively) and needing time to be alone after a video conference (10.2 vs. 3.6%, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Considering that zoom fatigue may stay with us for years beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to know and provide instructions on how to reduce video conferencing fatigue. The present study suggests that the active participation of students and the number of activities are important factors to be considered.

A Conceptual Framework of How Meeting Mindsets Shape and Are Shaped by Leader–Follower Interactions in Meetings

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. Plain Language Summary Have you ever had the experience of entering a team meeting and quickly realizing that your idea of how the meeting conversation should be approached did not align with your boss's understanding of the meeting purpose? This is indeed a common experience in meetings between managers and their employees. While we understand much about the communication dynamics that occur in meetings, we know less about what motivates people to communicate in certain ways in meetings. In this conceptual paper, we classify people's understanding of meetings as being driven by one of three purposes: [1] to strategically position and promote themselves (which reflects a personal meeting mindset), [2] to shape collaborations and to ensure reciprocation (which reflects a relational meeting mindset), or [3] to strengthen the team identity and increase the willingness to go the extra mile for the team (which reflects a collective meeting mindset). Meeting mindsets shape how people enact their leader or follower role in meetings—that is, how a manager exhibits leadership and how employees react. However, managers’ and employees’ meeting mindsets may not necessarily match, which can trigger tensions and may ultimately change the way in which managers or employees define the meaning of meetings. Our research helps managers to comprehend the reasoning behind their own and other people's meeting behavior and may promote reflection on one's leadership approach, particularly in a team meeting context. It can also help employees to grasp the power they can have in terms of actively shaping their managers’ meeting mindsets.

What is the Purpose of this Meeting? The hidden meanings of the meeting announcement

This study examines the coincidence or discrepancy between the purpose of meetings stated in the organizer’s announcement and the purposes perceived by the participants. This analysis enriches and complexifies the view of meeting purposes in the literature. Based on structured questionnaire data from 1,946 respondents involved in 490 meetings conducted in the context of an international project, our analysis shows that the stated and perceived purposes of a meeting are not necessarily the same. In particular, a purpose expressed as a noun (e.g. Coordination) may be perceived by participants as various purposes expressed in verbs, that are strongly or weakly aligned with that noun (e.g. Socialize, Coordinate, Follow up or Persuade). This study establishes the need for a distinct line of research into the discrepancy between stated and perceived meeting purposes to understand meeting-related organizational dynamics, and it lays a basis for theorizing within that line of investigation by demonstrating an influence of the internal-external nature of meetings and the local culture. This study also highlights the core intermediation role of socialization for achieving the stated purposes of certain meeting types. Additionally, this study has immediate implications for organizing and managing meetings.

Effect of good meeting practices and interactional justice on online workplace informal learning in Korea

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contextual factors that facilitate informal workplace learning during the meeting process or after the meeting in the online context. This research utilized structural equation modeling technique and the target sample of this study was fulltime workers employed at various levels within a wide range of organizations. The results show that good meeting practice has a positive impact on external scanning among the three types of informal learning. Specifically, good meeting practice is not significantly related to learning with others and self-experimentation but is positively associated with external scanning. Interactional justice, which is comprised of interactional and informational justice, has a significant effect on learning with others and the self-experimentation learning type Neither interactional nor informational justice is significantly related to external scanning. Furthermore, the moderating effects of the relationship among good meeting practices, interactional justice and informal learning are based on demographic profiles, especially gender. The findings are distinctively different in terms of several hypotheses depending on gender.

Brokers Compensate for Leader–Member Exchange Differentiation

Abstract. Due to the relevance of innovations for organizational success, we investigated the impact of (relative) leader–member exchange (LMX) on individual- and team-level perceptions of the climate for innovation (PCI) as well as whether the presence of an individual with a high LMX relationship who plays a mediating role for individuals with lower LMX relationships during team meetings (i.e., a broker) moderates the effects of LMX differentiation. We conducted multilevel analyses of self-assessment and video data from 286 employees in 45 innovation teams. The results confirm the positive effect of (relative) LMX (RLMX) on PCI. The negative effect of LMX differentiation on PCI is not present in teams with a broker. Finally, individuals with high RLMX play a more central role in meetings than those with low RLMX.

Is Electronic Multitasking Always Viewed as a Counterproductive Meeting Behavior? Understanding the Nature of the Secondary Task

This project explored social evaluations of electronic multitasking during work meetings, including factors that may affect whether it is seen as a counterproductive meeting behavior. We used an experimental vignette design to test whether social evaluations (norm violating, agency, and communalism) of a hypothetical coworker's electronic multitasking differed by whether the secondary task was relevant to the meeting (Study 1; N = 274) or ambiguous (Study 2; N = 188). Observers evaluated task-irrelevant multitasking as more of a norm violation and less communal compared to task-relevant multitasking, and work-related tasks were evaluated as more agentic than nonwork-related tasks. Ambiguous tasks were also rated as more agentic than task-irrelevant multitasking. Taken together, our results show that the nature of the secondary task reduces negative perceptions of coworkers' electronic multitasking behavior during meetings. However, electronic multitasking for any purpose, even if relevant, was generally judged negatively consistent with expectations for a counterproductive meeting behavior.

Does sleep help or harm managers' perceived productivity? Trade-offs between affect and time as resources

Managers often do not get the recommended amount of sleep needed for proper functioning. Based on conservation of resources theory, we suggest that this is a result of sleep having both resource gains (improved affect) and losses (less time) that compete to determine managers' perceived productivity the next day. This trade-off may, in turn, determine the amount of investment in sleep the next night. In a diary study with hotel managers, we found support for sleep as resource loss. After nights with more sleep than usual, managers reported lower perceived productivity due to fewer hours spent at work. In fact, for every hour spent sleeping, managers reported working 31 min, 12 s less. Further, when perceived productivity is reduced managers withdraw and conserve their resources by getting more sleep the next night (12 min, 36 s longer for each scale point decrease in perceived productivity), consistent with loss spirals from conservation of resources theory. Exploratory analyses revealed that sleep has a curvilinear effect on affect, such that too little or too much sleep is not beneficial. Overall, our study demonstrates the often-ignored trade-offs of sleep in terms of affect and work time, which has downstream implications for managers' perceived productivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A comparison of business meeting practices in Germany and Spain

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.

If I Had Something to Add, I Would

Abstract. Most employees participate in workplace meetings, and their experiences in meetings can vary greatly, which can lead to positive or negative effects on both job attitudes and behavior. In this study, we examined the effect that a meeting attendee’s competence in the meeting topic had on their participation in the meeting and their perception of meeting effectiveness. Results indicated those with higher levels of competence in the meeting topic were more likely to participate and through participation found their meeting more effective; this relationship was stronger when employee dissent in the meetings was high. Leaders should ensure that those who are present in a meeting are competent in the topic of the meeting and encourage them to participate.

Group and Organizational Safety Norms Set the Stage for Good Post-Fall Huddles

We explored group and organizational safety norms as antecedents to meeting leader behaviors and achievement of desired outcomes in a special after-action review case-a post-fall huddle. A longitudinal survey design was used to investigate the relationship between organizational/group safety norms, huddle leader behavior, and huddle meeting effectiveness. The sample included healthcare workers in critical access hospitals (N = 206) who completed a baseline safety norm assessment and an assessment of post-fall huddle experiences three to six months later. Findings indicate that organizational and group safety norms relate to perceived huddle meeting effectiveness through appropriate huddle leader behavior in a partial mediated framework. In contrast to previous research showing after-action reviews predicting group and organizational safety norms, the longitudinal study presented here suggests that group and organizational safety norms set the stage for the enactment of post-fall huddles in an effective manner.

Planning and Leading Effective Meetings

Behavior analysts spend a great deal of time in meetings regardless of their specific professional role (e.g., academic, practice, administration), so effective meeting skills are important. Meetings can serve a variety of important purposes if they are planned and led well. However, many people are not explicitly taught how to plan or lead meetings effectively. The purpose of this paper is to describe the common purposes of meetings and to provide recommendations and tools for planning and leading effective meetings.

Do We Really Need Another Meeting? The Science of Workplace Meetings

Meetings are routine in organizations, but their value is often questioned by the employees who must sit through them daily. The science of meetings that has emerged as of late provides necessary direction toward improving meetings, but an evaluation of the current state of the science is much needed. In this review, we examine current directions for the psychological science of workplace meetings, with a focus on applying scientific findings about the activities that occur before, during, and after meetings that facilitate success. We conclude with concrete recommendations and a checklist for promoting good meetings, as well as some thoughts on the future of the science of workplace meetings.

The Impact of Premeeting Talk on Group Performance

Interactions that occur prior to a meeting constitute premeeting talk (PMT). Of the different PMT types, research suggests that small talk PMT is especially meaningful. In this study, meeting participants’ interactions both prior to and during the meeting were video recorded, coded into sense units, and classified by coding schemes. This study investigated the influence of small talk PMT on both perceived and objective group performances, as well as the potential for positive socioemotional and problem-focused statements to serve as mediators. The results supported the mediating influence of both types of statements for only perceived performance. Our results suggest that a group-level babble effect can take place in meetings, such that groups who engage in more extensive discussion tend to believe that they achieved high performance, but objective ratings do not support this belief. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations of the study, and future research opportunities are discussed.

Regulating emotions in response to power distance in meetings

Purpose

Meetings are a necessary part of work. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how power distance in meetings affects emotional labor, including whether leader-member exchange (LMX) serves as a moderator for this relationship. It is hypothesized that power distance in meetings would lead to higher levels of emotional labor in meeting attendees, and that higher levels of LMX would make this relationship even stronger.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used a panel sample of full-time working adults from a variety of industries who regularly attend meetings. Participants completed a survey with items related to power distance, emotional labor, and LMX. Hypotheses were tested using moderated regression.

Findings

Findings reveal that power distance between the meeting leader and attendees does relate positively to emotional labor, both surface and deep acting. In addition, LMX moderates this relationship for deep acting, but not for surface acting indicating that when high levels of both power distance and LMX exist, meeting attendees will engage in more deep acting.

Research limitations/implications

The results of this study suggest that meeting leaders influence the behavior of attendees through their perceived power and relationship with the attendees. The power distance measure and cross-sectional nature of the sampling strategy is a limitation that provides opportunities for future research.

Practical implications

The practical implications focus on meeting leaders, how they can help meeting attendees make meetings successful by expressing their true authentic emotions.

Originality/value

The current study is one of the first to focus on the power distance present in meetings related to emotional regulation through the social comparison theory. In addition, the current study investigates how LMX can serve as a moderator in this relationship.

How to hold an effective meeting

Meetings are a common occurrence in academic and medical life. However, most of these meetings will be under-productive and inefficient uses of time. In this article, we provide valuable tips on how best to plan a meeting and get the most out of the people in attendance. This includes how to assess whether a meeting is necessary and what form this meeting should take. In addition to this, guidance is divided into before, during, and after the meeting. This guide will provide structure to your meetings and improve the output you and your team gain from them.

Our love/hate relationship with meetings

Purpose

Employees at all organizational levels spend large portions of their work lives in meetings, many of which are not effective. Previous process-analytical research has identified counterproductive communication patterns to help explain why many meetings go wrong. This study aims to illustrate the ways in which counterproductive – and productive – meeting behaviors are related to individual work engagement and emotional exhaustion.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors built a new research-based survey tool for measuring counterproductive meeting behaviors. An online sample of working adults (N = 440) was recruited to test the factor structure of this new survey and to examine the relationships between both good and bad meeting behaviors and employee attitudes beyond the meeting context.

Findings

Using structural equation modeling, this study found that counterproductive meeting behaviors were linked to decreased employee engagement and increased emotional exhaustion, whereas good meeting behaviors were linked to increased engagement and decreased emotional exhaustion. These relationships were mediated via individual meeting satisfaction and perceived meeting effectiveness.

Research limitations/implications

The study findings provide a nuanced view of meeting outcomes by showing that the behaviors that people observe in their meetings connect not only to meeting satisfaction and effectiveness but also to important workplace attitudes (i.e. employee engagement and emotional exhaustion). In other words, managers and meeting leaders need to be mindful of behavior in meetings, seek ways to mitigate poor behavior and seek opportunities to reward and encourage citizenship behavior.

Originality/value

This study shows how good and bad meeting behaviors relate to employee perceptions of meeting effectiveness and individual job attitudes. The authors develop a science-based, practitioner-friendly new survey tool for observing counterproductive meeting behavior and offer a juxtaposition of good and bad meeting behaviors in a single model.

On Leading Meetings

Leading meetings represent a typically and frequently performed leadership task. This study investigated the relationship between the leadership style of supervisors and employees’ perception of meeting outcomes. Results showed that participants reported greater meeting satisfaction when their meeting leader was assessed as a considerate supervisor, with the relationship between considerate leadership style and meeting satisfaction being mediated by both relational- and task-oriented meeting procedures. The results, however, provide no support for initiating structure being associated with meeting effectiveness measures. More generally, the findings imply that leadership behavior is a crucial factor in explaining important meeting outcomes.

Does scheduling matter? When unscheduled decision making results in more effective meetings

Purpose

– Managers spend a great deal of time in meetings making decisions critical to organisational success, yet the design aspects of meetings remain largely understudied. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the potential impact of one critical design aspect of meetings – namely, whether a decision to be taken (or the meeting in general) was scheduled or not – on the use of distributed information, information elaboration, conflict, speed of decision making, and, ultimately, decision-making effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

– The research presented in this paper combines a literature review with empirical data obtained from questionnaires and direct observation of decision making meetings on organisational issues in a hospital. One meeting was scheduled, the other two were unscheduled. A second questionnaire was administered 12 months after the respective decision making meetings to explore and evaluate the efficiency of the decisions made and their implementation.

Findings

– This paper suggests that a scheduled meeting with a shared agenda of all decisions to be taken may induce decision makers to form opinions upfront at the meeting, with these opinions eventually serving as sources of conflict during group discussion. Because of the nature of the conflict generated, these meetings are more likely to run long and to not deliver the expected outcomes.

Originality/value

– The study contributes to the debate on group decision-making processes by examining the effect of meeting scheduling on information elaboration and conflict in real-world decision-making settings. Although robust evidence has supported the existence of relationships between information elaboration, conflict, and decision-making effectiveness, previous studies have mainly focused on the effects of these processes during scheduled meetings and experimental settings. The findings of the present study show the effect of meeting scheduling on decision-making effectiveness in real-world settings.

Would you please stop that!?

Purpose

– Meetings are ubiquitous in organizational life and are a great source of frustration and annoyance to many employees in the workplace, in part due to counterproductive meeting behaviors (CMBs). CMBs include engaging in irrelevant discussion, complaining about other attendees, arriving to the meeting late, and other similar, disruptive behaviors. Consistent with conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the potential resource draining effect of CMBs on two key workplace attitudes/behaviors, employee voice, and coworker trust.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors used Amazon’s MTurk service to recruit a sample of full-time working adults from a variety of industries who regularly attend meetings. Participants completed a survey with items relating to CMBs, trust, voice, and meeting load.

Findings

– The authors found that CMBs were indeed negatively related to both employee voice and coworker trust. Further, both of these relationships were even more negative for those who had fewer meetings (i.e. meeting load as a moderator).

Research limitations/implications

– The results of this study suggest that behavior in meetings may spill over and impact employees in other areas of their work life, perhaps harming other important work-related outcomes (e.g. performance). The cross-sectional nature of the sampling strategy is a limitation that provides opportunities for future research as discussed.

Practical implications

– The practical implications are rather straightforward and poignant. Managers and meetings leaders should seek ways to reduce CMBs and promote good meeting processes generally.

Originality/value

– The current study is the first to overtly investigate CMBs in workplace meetings and connect them to meaningful, non-meeting-related, outcomes. Further, the study shows the usefulness of conservation resources theory for explaining the dynamic processes that occur for meeting attendees.

Swim or Sink Together

This article investigates collective team identification and team member alignment (i.e., the existence of short- and long-term team goals and team-based reward structures) as moderators of the association between task and relationship conflicts. Being indicators of cooperative goal interdependence in teams, both moderators are hypothesized to mitigate the positive association between the two conflict types. Findings from 88 development teams confirm the moderating effect for collective team identification, but not for team member alignment. Moreover, the moderating role of collective team identification is found to be dependent on the level of task conflict: It is more effective in decoupling task and relationship conflicts at medium as compared with high or low levels of task conflict.

Linking pre-meeting communication to meeting effectiveness

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of communication that occurs just before workplace meetings (i.e. pre-meeting talk). The paper explores how four specific types of pre-meeting talk (small talk, work talk, meeting preparatory talk, and shop talk) impact participants’ experiences of meeting effectiveness. Moreover, the authors investigate the role of participants’ personality in the link between pre-meeting talk and perceived meeting effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were obtained using an online survey of working adults (n=252). Because pre-meeting talk has not been studied previously, a new survey measure of meeting talk was developed.

Findings

– Pre-meeting small talk was a significant predictor of meeting effectiveness, even while considering good meeting procedures. Extraversion was identified as a moderator in this context, such that the relationship between pre-meeting talk and perceived meeting effectiveness was stronger for less extraverted participants.

Research limitations/implications

– The findings provide the first empirical support for the ripple effect, in terms of meetings producing pre-meeting talk, and suggest that pre-meeting talk meaningfully impact employees’ meeting experiences and perceptions of meeting effectiveness. To address limitations inherent in the cross-section correlational design of the study, future research should experimentally test whether pre-meeting talk actually causes changes in meeting processes and outcomes.

Practical implications

– Managers should encourage their employees to arrive in time to participate in pre-meeting talk. Side conversations before a scheduled meeting starts can have beneficial effects for meeting outcomes and should be fostered.

Originality/value

– There is very limited research on the role of pre-meeting talk. The authors identify that small talk is a predictor of meeting effectiveness even after considering previously studied good meeting procedures.