Dear OB list,
I apologize for the duplicate posting. I have now pasted the Call for
Research for the special issue of Small Group Research on meetings at work
below as I have received several emails noting that the attachment did not
go through.
Linda Shanock
Call for Papers
Special Issue of Small Group Research
“Meetings at Work: Advancing Theory and Practice”
Guest Editors
Cliff Scott
Linda Shanock
Steven Rogelberg
Organizational Science
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Small Group Research invites manuscripts for a special issue on work
meetings to be published in 2011. In addition to publishing work currently
under way or recently completed, our goal is to stimulate research on the
topic of work meetings. As such, this special issue features an extended
editorial timeline of one year that will allow authors to submit proposals
for research that will be completed during the timeline associated with
the special issue. Domains of interest are described below as well as some
suggestions for potential research projects we encourage authors to
consider pursuing.
Meeting activity in organizations is high and continues to rise in spite
of technological advances once expected to diminish the need for this
synchronous work. Regrettably, the time and energy employees spend in work
meetings is not matched by the amount of direct attention group and
organizational scholars have paid meeting phenomena. When meetings have
been studied, they have typically been analyzed as a context for the
exploration of some other topic (e.g., participation, decision making,
distributed work). Such research has generated important findings and
conclusions about general group processes, but very little of this work
was intended to aid understanding of meetings in and of themselves and
their impact on the lives of individuals, groups, and organizations.
Consequently, few discrete streams or programs of research on meetings
have been developed for the specific purpose of improving the theory and
practice of meetings.
We invite authors to submit research designed for the purpose of extending
or revising meeting theory and/or practice. Specifically, we seek
manuscripts that fit within one or more of the following broad topic
domains:
1) Antecedents and outcomes associated with meeting demands. For
example, what drives the use and overuse of meetings? How is meeting load
and use affected by cultural, leadership and contextual factors (e.g.,
competitive pressures)? How is meeting load and use related to individual,
team and organizational outcomes of interest?
2) Antecedents and outcomes of work meeting quality or work meeting
satisfaction. For example, what factors explain or predict employee
satisfaction with particular meeting formats? What can leaders do to
promote meeting quality? What are the overt and more subtle outcomes
associated with poor quality meetings?
3) The relationship between work meeting phenomena (e.g., behavior,
facilitation, technology, communication processes) and individual,
organizational and/or institutional processes that transcend the meeting
group. For example, how do meetings reflect organizational
cultures/climates and/or reify them? What role do meetings play in the
transformation of organizational or institutional cultures? What is the
relationship between perceived meeting qualities and desired employee
attitudes such as member engagement or perceived organizational support at
the organizational level of analysis? How do human resource management
and talent management systems tie into meeting behavior, practices,
individual accountability, etc.?
4) The significance or impact of informal social practices that occur
in work meetings (e.g., lateness, dissent, conversational maintenance
techniques, turn taking patterns, methods of eliciting or discouraging
participation) or formal work meeting characteristics (e.g., whether a
supervisor is present, whether an agenda is used, meeting type or
purpose). For example, what meeting characteristics or behaviors are most
associated with negative outcomes in the context of a given meeting type
(e.g., information sharing, decision making, etc.)? Are meeting agendas
more or less predictive of meeting satisfaction in decision making
meetings (versus staff/information sharing meetings)?
5) The relationship between work meeting content (e.g., meeting talk,
meeting discourse, discussion procedures, social practices) and other
group, organizational, and/or institutional phenomena. For example, how
does meeting communication contribute to the reproduction or
transformation of organizational structures and processes? How do
particular meeting facilitation practices encourage or inhibit learning?
What are the functions of premeeting talk in multicultural settings? How
do meeting contribute to the informal socialization and enculturation of
new employees? How do leader actions in meetings impact their overall
effectiveness?
Submissions may be empirical (quantitative or qualitative) or conceptual,
and we welcome work from a range of theoretical, methodological and
disciplinary perspectives. Conceptual papers should focus on advancing
work meeting theory or practice in a significant manner. Data presented in
empirical papers may concern work meetings that occur for a variety of
purposes (e.g., planning, decision making, information sharing and so on)
in a range of organizational and institutional settings (for profit,
nonprofit, small business, corporate, government and so on). Although it
is certainly not a requirement, the editors are particularly interested in
publishing manuscripts authored by interdisciplinary teams and/or those
that reflect inter-, multi-, or transdisciplinary perspectives.
Interested authors should submit concept proposals no longer than 750
words by December 1, 2009. Authors of accepted concept proposals must
submit complete manuscripts for consideration no later than September 1,
2010. Proposals may summarize studies that have already been conducted or
those that will be conducted in the future. Acceptance of a concept
proposal does not imply that submitted manuscripts will be published or
returned for revision.
Concept proposals should be submitted to SGR’s Manuscript Central website,
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sgr, where submitters will be required to
set up an account. Authors submitting manuscripts to the journal should
not simultaneously submit them to another journal, nor should they submit
manuscripts that have been published elsewhere in substantially similar
form or with substantially similar content. Authors in doubt about what
constitutes prior publication should consult one of the co-editors.
Submission of a manuscript implies commitment to publish in the journal.
SGR uses APA (5th edition) style and formatting.
We strongly encourage potential authors to contact us as any time to
discuss an idea or concept prior to any deadline. E-mail:
cliff.scott@uncc.edu