Meetings constitute an important context for understanding organizational behavior and employee attitudes. Employees spend ever-increasing time in meetings and often complain about their meetings. In contrast, we explore the positive side of meetings and argue that satisfying meetings can empower rather than deplete individual employees. We gathered time-lagged data from an online sample of working adults in the U.S. As hypothesized, meeting satisfaction predicted employee empowerment, and information availability partially mediated this effect. Moreover, we found that these effects were stronger when employees participated in more meetings: Meeting demands moderated the link between meeting satisfaction and information availability as well as the positive, indirect effect of meeting satisfaction (through information availability) on psychological empowerment. Our findings underscore the relevance of workplace meetings for managing and promoting positive employee attitudes. We discuss implications for meeting science and the value of satisfying meetings as a managerial tool for promoting empowerment.

Purpose-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. Design/methodology/approach-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 internetbased panel sample (n = 402). Constant comparative analysis of responses to open-ended questions was used to investigate the overarching research questions. Findings-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). Practical implications-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. Originality/value-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.

No abstract

No abstract