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Meetings with colleagues are an essential activity in workplace collaboration. The iterative nature of collaborative work demands spaces that team members can access quickly and easily. Creating suitable meeting spaces will become more critical if the hybrid work model continues and the workplace environment becomes the hub for face-to-face collaborative time, learning and training. Workspace and fit-out is expensive so it is crucial that the investment in meeting spaces supports employees’ collaboration activities.

This paper presents a case study of a corporate organisation undertaken in New Zealand to investigate how employees from two business units use their workspace to collaborate within their own team and across other teams in their organisation. The study uses ethnographic techniques, including participant observation and in-depth face-to-face interviews.

The findings show that the frequency and nature of small group work in collaboration was underestimated in the initial planning of the new workspace. Although participants found the design and fit-out of the formal meeting rooms supportive of collaborative work, the meeting rooms were in high demand, and it was difficult to find a room at short notice. The breakout spaces were confusing because they lacked key design attributes identified by the participants as conducive to small group work. Design shortfalls together with fit-out features perceived as supportive of collaborative work are identified.

The research reports on employees’ perceptions and experiences across two functionally diverse business units, reflecting their different needs and concerns.

This paper aims to illustrate, by means of a content analysis of 278 weekly School Meeting minutes, the ways in which student voice is actualized in one democratic free school in Germany.

This paper uses a qualitative content analysis methodology of 278 weekly School Meetings minutes.

This paper uses Fielding’s (2012) patterns of partnership typology to illustrate what counts as student voice and participation in a democratic free school.

Limitations included being reliant on translations of German texts, some missing minutes from the entire set, the lack of a single author for the minutes (and thus degree of detail differs) and the fact that the School Meeting minutes make reference to other meetings for various sub-committees for which no minutes exist, and thus, findings on the degree of student voice may be limited. And because this is a study of one school, generalizability may be difficult. Future research into these sub-committee meetings would prove helpful as well as content analyses of other democratic free schools’ meeting minutes.

This study can help people more deeply understand what goes on in democratic free schools and what student voice and participation can mean within this context.

Imagine yourself trying to: — keep an eye on time — listen to a long and confusing but relevant contribution — bring somebody into the discussion whom you believe has an important point to make — stop a “side meeting” that’s just developed all at the same time, and whilst being observed by a number of your colleagues. This is what we expect of someone who is running a meeting. No wonder most people find it difficult to do and, in turn, no wonder many managers take a dim view of the effectiveness of meetings. (The ones they attend, of course, not the ones they run themselves!)

The Worldwide Web has recently emerged as a highly effective technology to permit individuals to exchange and share information from around the globe. This paper investigates the applicability of the Web‐based technology to the support of team meetings in Korean corporations. We first examine key cultural characteristics of Korean enterprises as they relate to the way the firms conduct team meetings, and discuss a few design issues in the context of the characteristics. We argue that the organizational culture of Korean firms calls for a merger of text‐based electronic meeting support with video conferencing capability if meetings are to be productive. Ultimately, we envision an integrated team support system that meets the needs of Korean firms for collaborative tasks regardless of the time and location dimensions.

Meetings called/attended by US business people in the course of their duties are examined in the light of: time spent, productiveness or otherwise, theoretical and actual productiveness, functional group differences, comparison of male and female attitudes, comparative weakness of finance groups in achieving productive meetings, the need for training to inculcate meeting skills, the cost in wasted money of ineffective meetings, the correlation between managing meetings and personal advancement/self‐perception, the need for subordinates, not just managers, to learn meeting skills. The implications of these factors are seen to be that meetings are important to any organisation; managed effectively, they increase productivity and, managed poorly, they cost American business a fortune.

Executives in the Caribbean are spending more time planning and attending meetings now than they did five years ago. They will continue to spend a great deal of time in meetings five years from now. Yet, in the spring of 1995, our survey of managers in the Caribbean found that approximately 35 per cent of the time spent in meetings is unproductive.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper concentrates on the meeting design characteristic of meeting size in order to uncover how this impacts employee engagement and task performance within an organization. The results revealed that meetings viewed by employees as being effective does boost their engagement level at work. Furthermore small meeting sizes consisting of well-chosen participants transpired to be the most effective format for yielding improved end-of-the-day task performance in the participants. Managers are therefore advised to seek feedback on the relevance of their meeting invitations, and carefully consider who is likely to add value to a meeting.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Organizational communication must not be directed towards individuals alone, but must be carried out effectively with groups – formal and informal – which exist in the organization. Groups have characteristics in and of themselves; some are composites of the characteristics of the individuals who make up the group, and some are unique to the group and may not be represented by anyone within the group. Communication with groups often takes place in meetings. Therefore, organizational communication directed towards groups and transmitted within team meetings deserves study and attention. Deals with the following three aspects of groups: nature of groups; advantages and disadvantages of groups; and applied group communication, i.e. meetings.

Meetings are not a magic elixir! Some meetings are worthwhile. Some meetings are a waste of time. Some meetings should never have been held. Employs humour and wit to show how meetings often resemble a dramatic performing art with a predetermined cast of ten stereotypical characters. Finishes with an explanation of five common myths about meetings which often lead to using 100lb of energy to produce three ounces of results.

Summarizes the findings of a survey dealing with business meeting practices in giant Korean corporations. Describes both meeting practices in very large Korean firms and also top Korean executives′ feelings about those meetings. Korean executives consider adequate preparation, clearly‐set objectives, agreement on follow‐up actions, and starting on time as the most important elements for a successful meeting. However, these elements are not being implemented adequately. Business meeting practices in Korea have room for improvement, both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. There is also a huge disparity between the perception of the need for training in meetings management and the implementation of such training. Executive development programmes in Korea should certainly include far more training in meetings management.