Turns Out We Know Some Stuff: Introducing Meeting Science
When I tell people I’m pursuing a doctorate focused on meeting science, I usually get one of two reactions:
A confused pause followed by: “Wait… meeting science is a thing?”
A wave of relief and urgency: “Oh thank goodness. Please fix meetings.”
Both reactions are fair. Until recently, I didn’t know this field existed either. But yes—meeting science is real. It’s relatively young in academic terms, but it’s a growing field of research. And here’s the encouraging part: we actually know more about what makes meetings work (and not work) than most people realize.
Where Does Meeting Science Come From?
For decades, meetings were regarded as a peripheral topic—just one of many tools organizations used to get work done. Scholars tended to focus on broader constructs like leadership effectiveness, decision-making processes or team performance. Meetings, when mentioned at all, were often treated as a secondary mechanism rather than a central object of study. They weren’t considered something worth studying on their own.
Then came Helen Schwartzman, a cultural anthropologist.
In 1989, Schwartzman published her landmark book, The Meeting: Gatherings in Organizations and Communities. Her argument was both simple and profound: Meetings aren’t just a tool used within organizational life—they are where organizational life happens. Meetings are where culture is enacted, where power dynamics play out and where real work either gets done or falls apart.1
Her work essentially planted the flag for meeting science as a field worthy of its own attention. It kicked off a slow but steady wave of scholars asking: “What’s actually happening inside the meeting room?”
The Formalization of the Field
By 2015, the field had matured enough to earn its own giant textbook: The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science.
At its core, meeting science is the interdisciplinary study of meetings: why they happen, how they happen, what makes them effective (or not) and what impact they have on people and organizations. It sits at the intersection of organizational psychology, communication studies, management research and group dynamics. It applies what we know about human behavior in groups to the specific, high-stakes, often-overlooked context of workplace meetings.
The first chapter of the Handbook makes a strong case for evidence-based meeting practices, arguing that organizations can—and should—apply meeting science findings to improve meeting outcomes, boost employee engagement and support organizational effectiveness.
The authors outline the typical questions that meeting science tackles, such as:
Why do organizations rely so heavily on meetings?
What actually happens inside meeting rooms?
What makes a meeting effective?
What are the emotional, cognitive and behavioral experiences of participants?
How do meetings influence individual well-being and organizational outcomes?
Most importantly: How can we make meetings better?2
Key Insights from Meeting Science (So Far)
If you’re wondering whether this research is just academic navel-gazing, don’t worry. There are some clear, actionable takeaways that have emerged over the past few decades:
Bad meetings aren’t just annoying—they’re costly. Poorly designed meetings waste time, drain energy and contribute to employee burnout and turnover. Studies show strong links between meeting dissatisfaction and overall job dissatisfaction.3
Good meeting design improves outcomes. Elements like clear agendas, effective facilitation, appropriate meeting size and time management all significantly increase engagement and satisfaction.4
The way people behave during meetings matters. A lot. Functional, task-focused behaviors like summarizing, clarifying, problem solving and action planning boost satisfaction and long-term performance. Counterproductive behaviors like complaining and veering off-topic tank both.5
Psychological safety and inclusive participation are essential. When people feel safe to speak up and share their thoughts—and when people feel like those thoughts are being heard and valued—they engage more actively and productively. Studies by Constantinides et al.6 and Hosseinkashi et al.7 link inclusiveness directly to perceived meeting effectiveness.
The root causes of bad meetings aren’t unique to your team or company. They’re universal. They’ve been studied. And—most importantly—they’re fixable.
Why This Matters for You (and for gatherwise)
Here’s the thing: “Better meetings” isn’t some mysterious art. It’s a design problem.
Meeting science gives us evidence-based clues about what works and what doesn’t. But for too long, the research has been tucked away in academic journals, locked behind paywalls or buried in dense PDFs.
At gatherwise, we’re working to change that. Our mission is to translate these research-backed insights into actionable tools and practices that help teams design and run better meetings—bringing meeting science out of Academia Land and into your everyday working life.
What’s Next: From Science to Solutions
This post was your “Wait, there’s a whole field of meeting science?!” moment. In our next installment, we’ll dive into what the research says about why meetings go bad—and what makes them better. We’ll unpack key design characteristics that predict success (or failure) and offer practical tips you can use immediately.
Meet you back here soon,
-E
Schwartzman, H. (1989). The Meeting: Gatherings in Organizations and Communities. Plenum Press.
Allen, J. A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., & Rogelberg, S. G. (Eds.). (2015). The Cambridge handbook of meeting science. Cambridge University Press.
Geimer, J. L., Leach, D. J., DeSimone, J. A., Rogelberg, S. G., & Warr, P. B. (2015). Meetings at work: Perceived effectiveness and recommended improvements. Journal of Business Research, 68(9).
Leach, D. J., Rogelberg, S. G., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2009). Perceived Meeting Effectiveness: The Role of Design Characteristics. Journal of Business and Psychology, 24(1), 65–76.
Kauffeld, S., & Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2012). Meetings Matter: Effects of Team Meetings on Team and Organizational Success. Small Group Research, 43(2), 130-158.
Constantinides, M., Hosseinkashi, Y., Pool, J., Cutler, R., & Madan, C. (2021). Meeting inclusiveness: Definition and measurement. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW1), 1–29.
Hosseinkashi, Y., Tankelevitch, L., Pool, J., Cutler, R., & Madan, C. (2024). Meeting Effectiveness and Inclusiveness: Large-scale measurement, identification of key features, and prediction in real-world remote meetings. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 8(CSCW1), 1–39.