Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify how employees feel about having more meetings and what can be done to improve employees' feelings about their work meetings.

Data were obtained from three samples of working adults. The first was a convenience sample recruited by undergraduate students (n=120), the second was a stratified random sample from a metropolitan area in the southern USA (n=126), and the third was an internet‐based panel sample (n=402). Constant comparative analysis of responses to open‐ended questions was used to investigate the overarching research questions.

It is found that employees enjoy meetings when they have a clear objective, and when important relevant information is shared. Consistent with conservation of resources theory, most employees are unhappy with meetings when they reduce their work‐related resources (e.g. meetings constrain their time, lack structure and are unproductive).

The data suggest that meetings appear to be both resource‐draining and resource‐supplying activities in the workplace. Researchers and managers should consider overtly asking about how people feel about meetings, as a means of identifying areas for future research inquiry and targets for improvement in the workplace generally.

The paper describes one of the few studies on meetings that ask the participants overtly what their feelings are regarding their workplace meetings. Additionally, the paper illustrates the usefulness of qualitative data analysis as a means for further understanding workplace activities viewing respondents as informants.

A new approach to meeting scheduling is proposed. The assumption is that neither open nor closed systems are usually appropriate concerning an organization’s employees meeting time. A latitude model is put forward in which employees’ personal preferences are important. People may accept computer systems based on this model as more adequate scheduling tools than previous attempts. A prototype implementation is described.

This research examined the effects of meeting leader behavior on organizational meetings. Two studies investigated whether leader behavior that satisfies the psychological needs of meeting attendees, leads to higher levels of meeting productivity and satisfaction. Study 1 used correlational methods, with regression- based mediation analysis, to assess whether satisfaction of attendee needs mediated the association between leader behavior and attendee ratings of actual meetings in a sample of 110 employees. Study 2 involved an analogue experiment with 158 employees to test the effects of leader behavior on ratings of hypothetical meeting scenarios. The studies provide correlational and experimental evidence for the positive impact of needs-focused behaviors, offering organizational leaders practical solutions for improving meetings.

Since at least the 1980s, the accounting profession has discussed and written about the gap between academics and the practice of accounting. More recently, accounting academics have joined the call for increased faculty engagement with the accounting profession. As a result, the 2018 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) Eligibility Procedures and Standards for Accounting Accreditation include “Engagement” as a significant pillar of the new standards. The objective is to challenge accounting department faculty to engage more intentionally with accounting practitioners. Accounting Advisory Councils might represent an important opportunity to achieve such engagement. The authors conducted a survey to gain an understanding of advisory councils and how they might address the concerns of the accounting profession for more interaction and collaboration between the academy and the profession. It is encouraging that 96% of our AACSB accounting accredited respondents indicated that they have a functioning Accounting Advisory Council and that they believe the Council is very valuable in support of the department’s mission. In addition, the accounting department leaders reported a very high level of engagement with council members outside regular meetings. The survey results of this chapter provide additional insights on organization, membership, and engagement regarding Accounting Advisory Councils.

One of the most valued management skills is the ability to function effectively in such small group decision‐making settings as meetings. Nevertheless, studies admit that little is definitely known about what makes meetings effective, so that meeting leaders often have to operate on assumptions or conflicting evidence even as they recognize that the move toward team‐based organizations has created a special need for meeting facilitation skills. Presents techniques for running meetings based on the results of experience gained working as a meeting consultant at the international headquarters of an insurance corporation in the northeastern USA (referred to as Alifo). Covers a 12‐month period during which 58 managers, supervisors, and executives participated in a meeting analysis survey, attended training sessions, and evaluated meeting simulations. Based, in addition, on meeting observations, minutes, and transcripts, communication reports, and interviews with company managers, several conclusions were reached about the meeting process, leadership behaviors, and group participation at Alifo.

Novel ideas emerge from conversational interaction dynamics in meetings that are organizational practices of interaction. Drawing from meeting science with a focus on multiparty talk in meetings as communicative events, we refer to interaction dynamics as sequences of verbal statements. We explore patterns of verbal statements in idea generation processes in an explorative, inductive field study of ministerial think tank meetings. These are recurring agile meetings with interactive, free-flowing communication. By utilizing the validated, fine-grained act4teams coding scheme, we differentiate between task-related, procedural, and socio-emotional statements made in these meetings. Our findings show that the interactions within agile meetings are characterized by intensified turn-taking, overlapping speech, and joint heightened involvement. By means of lag sequential analysis, we find that novel ideas emerge from interaction cycles of task and socio-emotional statements. Among the latter, active listening expressed by “mm” or “yeah” is of particular importance for triggering novel ideas. As such, we reveal the micro-level emergence of novel ideas in conversational interaction by highlighting the facilitative function of active listening.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relative importance of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) based features and services at conference centers and underlying dimensions which could impact their selection by meeting planners. Further, it tests the relationship between types of meeting planners and their perceived importance of ICT‐based features.

A total of 17 ICT‐based features and services were identified through extensive literature content analysis. Meeting planners were asked to rate the importance of each item when they select a conference center. Factor analysis was then performed to identify underlying dimension of the items and ANOVA was used to test any difference of perceived importance by the type of meeting planners.

Meeting planners consider “availability of technical support”, “high‐speed internet”, “wireless connectivity”, and ”e‐mail station” as important features/service when they select a conference center. However, they show significant lack of knowledge in terms related to network infrastructure that are used in meeting venue marketing materials. The results show that there is no significant difference in their perceived importance of ICT‐based feature/service by the type of meeting planner.

This study provides meaningful new dimensions of important ICT‐based features and services in site selection by both researchers and meeting facility professionals. In addition, this study compared three types of meeting planners including rarely studied corporate and government meeting planners regarding their perceived importance of ICT‐based features and services in their site selection.

In this paper the concept of knowledge production is used as a framework to study Dutch corporate universities. Knowledge production serves not simply as a desirable aim of corporate universities, as the concept also offers guidelines for the design of corporate universities. The purpose is to clarify the extent to which corporate universities fulfil this aim of knowledge production and the way they produce new knowledge.

From different theoretical perspectives 11 design characteristics have been extracted that help corporate universities to be knowledge‐productive. Two empirical studies were carried out to find out to what extent corporate universities meet those features required for knowledge production. The first study implies an exploration of opinions of key actors within 12 Dutch corporate universities, in which data were gathered through interviews and analysis of documents. The second study can be characterised as a case study of a concrete training practice within one corporate university. Data were gathered by interviews, evaluative questionnaires, and observation.

Results reveal that knowledge production is viewed as important, but that concrete measures to stimulate it are often absent. Moreover, corporate universities need to pay more attention to the working environment of their employees in order to achieve their own goals.

Analysing the corporate university from the perspective of knowledge production may stimulate corporate universities to rethink their own goals as well as their position within the organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the development of definitional standards for research information as a wicked problem. A central solution strategy for such problems, increasing transparency by argumentation visualisation, is being evaluated.

Qualitative formal content analysis is used in order to examine whether the process of definition standardisation in the project can be characterised as a wicked problem. Action Research is used to assess the effect of argumentation visualisation in the project.

The results of the content analysis confirm the interpretation of the standardisation process as a wicked problem. The implementation of argumentation visualisation shows to increase the meetings’ focus and effectiveness.

The relationship between information exchange, transparency and acceptance of the development result should be addressed in future empirical analyses. Visualisation solutions require further development in order to accommodate needs of the stakeholders.

Argumentation visualisation is of high value for finding a consensus for definitional standards and should be considered for managing and exchanging information.

Applying solution strategies from design research on wicked problems to large-scale standardisation efforts opens up new possibilities for not only handling such projects but also providing new avenues of research for both the design and research information communities.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how staff contributes to the operations of an adult drug court and, more critically, how staff produces client failure. Previous drug court researchers often attribute outcomes to the characteristics or the behaviors of the clients or to the program design, not to the actions of the staff.

Methodology – This study is based on extensive field research in three drug courts over a 4-year period. We observed both public and less public drug court events from the court event to staff meetings.

Findings – The key finding is that staff produces program failures. Within the policies and procedures of their programs, using their professional belief systems, and in interaction with a range of others to manage the demands of their position, staff produces the outcomes.

Limitations – As with other ethnographies, the generalizability of the exact processes may be limited. The core finding that the staff actively creates outcome decisions is a fundamental process that we believe occurs in any drug court or, more widely, problem-solving courts.

Implications – The practical implications of this research are in the illustrations of how staff matter, which we hope will spur others into examinations of staff actions.

Originality – Previous research ignores staff or treats them as mere extension program policies. The in-depth examination of staff behavior provides a unique and valuable examination of how much is lost by ignoring the staff judgments, perceptions, and actions.