Let's get this meeting started: Meeting lateness and actual meeting outcomes

• Author: Steven G. Rogelberg,Joseph A. Allen,Nale Lehmann‐Willenbrock
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2276
• Date: 01 October 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Let's get this meeting started: Meeting lateness and actual

meeting outcomes

Joseph A. Allen

1

|Nale Lehmann‐Willenbrock

2

|Steven G. Rogelberg

3

1

Department of Psychology, University of

Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

2

Industrial/Organizational Psychology,

University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

3

Organizational Science, University of North

Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North

Carolina, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Joseph A. Allen, Department of Psychology,

University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge

St, Omaha, Nebraska 68182, U.S.A.

Email: josephallen@unomaha.edu

Summary

Meeting lateness is pervasive and potentially highly consequential for individuals, groups, and

organizations. In Study 1, we first examined base rates of lateness to meetings in an employee

sample and found that meeting lateness is negatively related to both meeting satisfaction and

effectiveness. We then conducted 2 lab studies to better understand the nature of this negative

relationship between meeting lateness and meeting outcomes. In Study 2, we manipulated meet-

ing lateness using a confederate and showed that participants' anticipated meeting satisfaction

and effectiveness were significantly lower when meetings started late. In Study 3, participants

holding actual group meetings were randomly and blindly assigned to either a 10 min late,

5 min late, or a control condition (n= 16 groups in each condition). We found significant differ-

ences concerning participants' perceived meeting satisfaction and meeting effectiveness, as well

as objective group performance outcomes (number, quality, and feasibility of ideas produced in

the meeting). We also identified differences in negative socioemotional group interaction behav-

iors depending on meeting lateness. In concert, our findings establish meeting lateness as an

important organizational phenomenon and provide important conceptual and empirical implica-

tions for meeting research and practice.

KEYWORDS

group performance,group processes, lateness, meetings,meeting satisfaction

1|INTRODUCTION

In most organizational settings, wasting time is generally deemed

counterproductive and unacceptable. Widely used concepts such as

just‐in‐time production, lean manufacturing, continuous improvement

processes, and Kaizen are aimed at streamlining workflow, increasing

efficiency and productivity, and saving time (e.g., Imai, 2012; Liker &

Franz, 2011; Marks & Mirvis, 2011). However, in the case of meetings,

wasted time seems to be an accepted norm, especially when it comes

to meeting lateness (Rogelberg et al., 2014). Namely, lateness to

meetings appears common and rarely sanctioned in organizational

settings. Yet, despite the growing scientific literature on workplace

meetings and their effects on employee attitudes, behaviors, and

organizational outcomes (e.g., Kauffeld & Lehmann‐Willenbrock,

2012; Lehmann‐Willenbrock, Allen, & Belyeu, 2016; Rogelberg, Leach,

Warr, & Burnfield, 2006), meeting lateness has received little atten-

tion to date, though it may have a number of detrimental effects on

individual attendees as well as the social interaction dynamics in

meetings.

A previous exploratory study showed that personal definitions of

meeting lateness were mostly, but not exclusively, temporally based,

with the majority of the survey participants considering someone late

if that person arrived 5 to 10 min after the scheduled beginning of

the meeting (Rogelberg et al., 2014). In a second study, the authors

found that personal meeting lateness behavior was negatively corre-

lated with meeting satisfaction, suggesting some attitudinal underpin-

nings of lateness to meetings. Furthermore, when others were late,

individual employees reported feeling frustrated, concerned, dis-

tracted, or in the very least felt uncertain as to why the others did

not show up on time (Rogelberg et al., 2014). Similarly, Mroz and Allen

(2017) found that individuals have strong reactions to others when

they arrive late to a scheduled meeting. Specifically, individuals indi-

cated that they were angrier and sought ways to punish late meeting

attendees when the reason for arriving late was within the late

person's control. These earlier findings suggest adverse individual out-

comes of meeting lateness, which may include both affective and cog-

nitive components. Moreover, given the negative individual reactions

to others' lateness as indicated by these two earlier studies, we might

Received: 11 March 2016 Revised: 7 February 2018 Accepted: 11 February 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2276

1008 Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2018;39:1008–1021.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job