All papers

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Ib Ravn, Aarhus University (Graduate School of Education)

Abstract 
One may view meetings as occasions for the construction of social order (Berger and Luckman, 1966). Over decades and centuries (cf. van Vree, 1999), business, political and other meetings have sedimented norms, roles and institutions that render them highly ordered and ritualized. Yet, despite being so ordered and regulated by agendas, speakers’ lists, conventional turn taking, etc., meetings continue to frustrate meeting participants and fascinate observers by their multiple, apparent dysfunctions (e.g., Rogelberg et al., 2014; Geimer et al., 2015).

Empirical studies of meetings (Ravn, 2007; 2011) allow for the identification of three common types of meeting order or style, as well as a fourth, rarer and emerging type that may be contrasted with them. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Wilbert van Vree, University of Amsterdam (Interdisciplinary Studies)

Abstract 
Every meeting takes place in a physical environment, consisting of a room, table(s), chairs, technical installations, and so on. These things together constitute the physical conditions of a meeting and have an impact on the meeting participants and thus on the meeting process and results.

As a meeting expert I have often been asked by journalists what is the impact of a specific physical element on meetings. Curiously, the correlation between the diverse variables which shape the physical environment and meetings has not yet been the object of any thorough and systematic scientific examination, as far as I know. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

David Seidl, University of Zurich (Department of Business Administration)

Abstract 
Existing research suggests that established structures and routines are suspended during strategy workshops, enabling critical reflection and facilitating the emergence of new ideas. This paper extends this line of research by examining the specific mechanisms through which suspension in strategy workshop is achieved. Drawing on an in-depth, longitudinal case study of a series of strategy workshops within a firm, we show that suspension is actively created through distinctive practices. These suspension practices operate in two ways. First, they inhibit established practices and secondly they act to disrupt secondary practices that reinforce or defend the established practices. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Gunnar Wahlström, University of Gothenburg (Gothenburg Research Institute)

Abstract 
Recent financial crises has emphasized Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in banks. ERM is manifested by risk measurement, in mandatory regulation for banks, as in the near future Basel III, to be fully implemented in 2019. Risk measurement is in line with the idea of centralization as data and models are developed at headquarter making use of risk measurement to contradict the idea of decentralization. This article concentrates on the actual use of the regulation inside a decentralized bank by answer the question: What problems might a bank experience in their usage of Basel III? (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Malin Åkerström, Lund university (Dept. of Sociology)

Abstract 
Formal meetings are evens that are a peculiar mixture of sense and nonsense, of drama and dullness. For managers meetings may be an arena “where the action is”: situations to display competence and moral character. However, people may feel less involved, and meetings may be experienced as nonsense, as meaningless and worthless. A recurring theme in various studies is complaints about meetings, particularly regarding their frequency, their emptiness, and the forced attendance, taking time from what the employees consider their core tasks. In this paper I discuss how one may capture such experiences: in interviews by retold experiences or stories, in field observations by noticing side-talk, by side-involvement such as meeting scribbles or by using of smart phones or laptops during meetings, and in post-mortem accounts. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

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

Abstract 
Responding to Schwartzman’s (2015) call for a move away from the individual-centeredness of research on organizational meetings, this paper focuses on meetings collectively rather than as individual events (Duffy, 2016). Thus the study examines meetings collectively as an organizational phenomenon, rather than meetings as discrete objects across multiple organizations. The paper reflects on a bi-focal analysis of discourse data recorded in a longitudinal study of meetings in one organization. Initially grounded in a systemic process perspective (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2012, 2013) the data were analysed through a sensemaking lens (Weick, 1995), providing a ‘zoomed out’ perspective (Nicolini, 2009) on the agency of meetings collectively. (…) Read more

This paper belongs to of the Gothenburg Meeting Science Symposium

Brian Due, University of Copenhagen (Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics)

Abstract 
Good relations and effective communication patterns are crucial for high performance teams (Salas, Goodwin, & Burke, 2008). Much of this is accomplished at meetings in and through the detailed and sequential organization of actions in micro ecologies (Asmuß & Svennevig, 2009). The successful and unsuccessful interactions around meeting activity types like e.g. deciding, informing, and ideating are grounded in details in the situated multimodal encounters. In order to “fix” interactional issues, we have been working on developing a video-based interaction improvement method (Due & Lange, 2015; Due, Lange, & Trærup, forth.). (…) Read more

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