All papers

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

John Kello, Davidson College (Psychology)

Abstract 
The rapidly growing area of meetings research often acknowledges that meetings may serve a wide range of purposes, and that “no two meetings are alike”. Yet the research commonly focuses on a meeting-relevant topic (e.g., leader-behavior, temporal issues, surface acting among participants) with the implicit assumption that it is meaningful to talk about “meetings in general”, as a single, unified type of event.
In reality, a week in the life of a typical employee in a typical organization might yield a range of very different experiences which do indeed have important common denominators (a group of attendees, a designated leader, the expectation (at least the hope) that meaningful action will follow the meeting, to name a few), but which differ substantially in other ways. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Frank Nullmeier, University of Bremen (SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy)
Tanja Pritzlaff-Scheele, University of Bremen (SOCIUM)

Abstract 
In political science, collective decision-making is identified as the core objective of politics. Moreover, the face-to-face meeting is identified as the key element when it comes to processes of political decision-making. Therefore, data collection in studies on decision-making processes often focuses on data from actual political meetings, especially on audio-visual material. However, apart from the difficulties of getting access to these meetings and a permit to videotape them, there are other downsides to the use of video data from real political meetings: Often times, the quality of the data suffers from the fact that too many things are going on in a room at once. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Pierre Wettergren, CCGEurope (Chalmers Industrial Technology)

Abstract 
This case study is based on a risk assessment work conducted in a Swedish governmental organisation. This organisation had at the time 5’500 employees and a yearly revenue of 25 billion Swedish kronor. The risk assessment was performed by Clever Collaboration Group, experts in virtually supported work flows mainly using GDSS. In this Study a comparison was made by the traditional way of working with the possibilities that virtually supported workshops and work flows ads.
Our findings show that the total calendar time from initiation to delivered and approved Risk Assessment Report changed from 95 days to 32 days (time), the quality improved from 40% accuracy and completeness to 97% (Quality), and the total cost including travels and cost of staff and consultants decreased from €175´000 to €31’000 (Economy of Effort). (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Patrik Hall, Malmö University (Dept of Global political studies)
Erika Anderson Cederholm

Abstract 
In this paper we focus on the specific meeting form of inter-organizational events as a mode of organizing and performing a policy. The organizational context of our study is the collaboration between academia, industry and the public sector which is often referred to as the triple helix model or an innovation system. More specifically, our case is the establishment of a regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. One of its key activities is an annual meeting on the topic of innovation – Skåne Innovation Week. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh (Sociology)

Abstract 
We have good ways to study what happens in meetings, but few ways to notice or understand what does not happen. This is a problem for research on meetings since their direction can be significantly shaped by implicit collective understandings of what is appropriate or plausible to consider. This paper draws on a three year ethnographic study of meetings by 60+ new and emerging activist groups in Pittsburgh that traced both what groups considered in their discussions, and what they could have considered (based on prior meetings or discussions in similar activist groups) but did not. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Martin Duffy, Dublin Institute of Technology (College of Business)
Brendan O’Rourke

Abstract 
An ethnographic approach was used to record the live proceedings of 63 meetings, and informed theory development on the agency of meetings collectively in an organizational setting (Duffy, 2016). Engagement as a participant observer (Pacanowsky, 1988) in a single organization, over an eighteen month period, enabled collection of discourse data from the meetings of distinct organizational groups. While meetings were originally intended as a research resource, reflection while recording the data occasioned a change in focus, moving from the meetings’ content to the meetings themselves as the research topic. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Johanna Leinius, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”)

Abstract 
In this paper, I argue that when studying meetings between differently positioned political and social actors, the historically entrenched power relations that shape both the context of the meeting and the subjectivities of those that meet must be considered. I use the results of my doctoral thesis, in which I analyze two inter-movement encounters in Peru that aim to link indigenous, feminist, popular, and afro-Latin social movements, to show how the encounter of different social worlds at meetings can be studied through ethnographically based committed research. (…) Read more