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16 - Networks in Meetings

How Do People connect?

from Capturing and Understanding Dynamics and Processes of the Meeting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2015

By
Nils C. Sauer ,
Annika L. Meinecke  and
Simone Kauffeld
Edited by
Joseph A. Allen ,
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock  and
Steven G. Rogelberg
Joseph A. Allen
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Omaha
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock
Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Steven G. Rogelberg
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
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Summary

Abstract

Meetings are not static events, but instead are dynamic in nature. The course of the meeting is affected by participants' responses to one another. In this chapter, we argue that these responses among meeting participants can be understood as ties in an interaction network. This network perspective to meeting interaction allows us to focus on the relationships and connections between meeting participants who are embedded in a web of interrelations. Social network analysis helps us systematically uncover these connections. By applying social network analysis to meeting interaction, we take into account the relational nature of social interaction and use a structural perspective to meeting interaction. In this chapter, we introduce the central principles of the network perspective and explain how meetings can be conceptualized as social networks. Next, we focus on typical social network measures and explore how these network measures can be applied to meeting interaction. We further provide a detailed example to showcase how social network analysis can be applied to real team meeting data. We close this chapter by discussing the benefits and challenges of using social network analysis in team meetings.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science , pp. 357 - 380
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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