Unpacking the meeting load paradox: impacts on engagement and burnout across work arrangements

Standaert, Willem; Ulm, Maren; Castro, Katherine; Allen, Joseph

doi:10.1108/MRR-05-2024-0315

Download

Article (Scientific journals)

Unpacking the meeting load paradox: impacts on engagement and burnout across work arrangements

Standaert, Willem; Ulm, Maren; Castro, Katherine et al.

2025 • In Management Research Review, 48 (6), p. 940-965

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2268/329629

DOI
10.1108/MRR-05-2024-0315

Files (1)Send to Details Statistics Bibliography Similar publications

Files

Full Text

draft_Proof_hi.pdf

Author postprint (445.01 kB)

Download

All documents in ORBi are protected by a user license.

Send to

RIS BibTex APA Chicago Permalink X Linkedin

Details

Keywords :

Workplace meetings; Virtual meetings; Meeting load; Hybrid work; Employee well-being; Employee engagement; Burnout; Conservation of resources theory

Abstract :

[en] Purpose-This paper aims to explore how workplace meetings, work arrangements and their interactions relate to employee engagement and burnout. Design/methodology/approach-This paper draws from the conservation of resources theory to hypothesize the relationships between the antecedent and outcome variables. To test the hypotheses, this study analyzes a structural equation model based on panel survey data from 1,137 respondents. Findings-This study finds that meeting load is positively related to burnout, but not to engagement in general. Also, relative to the hybrid work arrangement, engagement is lower in the in-person only arrangement and burnout is higher in the remote-only arrangement. As to the interaction effects, meeting load in the on-site work arrangement situation relates positively to both engagement and burnout. Practical implications-The findings provide valuable insight for practitioners in an increasingly complex and competitive environment, as they can be factored into debates around policies for meetings and work arrangements. Originality/value-The COVID-19 pandemic created a seismic shift in the way people work: it released an avalanche of workplace meetings; it normalized hybrid work arrangements; and it heightened attention on work outcomes. This study lies at the intersection of these three important trends.

Disciplines :

General management, entrepreneurship & organizational theory

Author, co-author :

Standaert, Willem ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège : UER > UER Management : Marketing and Strategy

Ulm, Maren ; Université de Liège - ULiège > HEC Liège Research

Castro, Katherine

Allen, Joseph

Language :

English

Title :

Unpacking the meeting load paradox: impacts on engagement and burnout across work arrangements

Publication date :

2025

Journal title :

Management Research Review

ISSN :

2040-8277

eISSN :

2040-8269

Publisher :

Emerald Group Publishing, United Kingdom

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

940-965

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Available on ORBi :

since 21 March 2025

Statistics

Number of views

174 (6 by ULiège)

Number of downloads

124 (2 by ULiège)

More statistics

Scopus citations^®

Scopus citations^®
without self-citations

OpenCitations

OpenAlex citations

Bibliography

Abelsen, S.N., Vatne, S., Mikalef, P. and Choudrie, J. (2023), “Digital working during the COVID-19 pandemic: how task-technology fit improves work performance and lessens feelings of loneliness”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 36 No. 5.
Adisa, T.A., Ogbonnaya, C. and Adekoya, O.D. (2023), “Remote working and employee engagement: a qualitative study of British workers during the pandemic”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 36 No. 5,
Aguinis, H., Villamor, I. and Ramani, R.S. (2021), “MTurk research: review and recommendations”, Journal of Management, Vol. 47 No. 4, pp. 823-837, doi: 10.1177/0149206320969787.
Allen, J.A. and Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2023), “The key features of workplace meetings: conceptualizing the why, how, and what of meetings at work”, Organizational Psychology Review, Vol. 13 No. 4, doi: 10.1177/20413866221129231.
Allen, J.A. and Rogelberg, S.G. (2013), “Manager-led group meetings: a context for promoting employee engagement”, Group and Organization Management, Vol. 38 No. 5, pp. 543-569, doi: 10.1177/1059601113503040.
Allen, T.D., Golden, T.D. and Shockley, K.M. (2015), “How effective is telecommuting? Assessing the status of our scientific findings”, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 40-68, doi: 10.1177/1529100615593273.
Allen, J.A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. and Landowski, N. (2014), “Linking pre-meeting communication to meeting effectiveness”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 29 No. 8, pp. 1064-1081, doi: 10.1108/JMP-09-2012-0265.
Allen, J.A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. and Sands, S.J. (2016), “Meetings as a positive boost? How and when meeting satisfaction impacts employee empowerment”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 69 No. 10, pp. 4340-4347, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.04.011.
Allen, J.A., Beck, T., W. Scott, C. and Rogelberg, S. (2014), “Understanding workplace meetings”, Management Research Review, Vol. 37 No. 9, pp. 791-814.
Allen, J.A., Thiese, M.S., Eden, E. and Knowles, S.E. (2022), “Why am I so exhausted? Exploring meeting-to-work transition time and recovery from virtual meeting fatigue”, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 64 No. 12, pp. 1053-1058.
Allen, J.A., Sands, S.J., Mueller, S.L., Frear, K.A., Mudd, M. and Rogelberg, S.G. (2012), “Employees’ feelings about more meetings: an overt analysis and recommendations for improving meetings”, Management Research Review, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 405-418, doi: 10.1108/01409171211222331.
Bailenson, J.N. (2021), “Nonverbal overload: a theoretical argument for the causes of zoom fatigue”, Technology, Mind, and Behavior, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1037/tmb0000030.
Bailey, D.E. and Kurland, N.B. (2002), “A review of telework research: findings, new directions, and lessons for the study of modern work”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 383-400, doi: 10.1002/job.144.
Becker, W.J., Belkin, L.Y., Tuskey, S.E. and Conroy, S.A. (2022), “Surviving remotely: how job control and loneliness during a forced shift to remote work impacted employee work behaviors and well-being”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 61 No. 4, pp. 449-464, doi: 10.1002/hrm.22102.
Bennett, A.A., Campion, E.D., Keeler, K.R. and Keener, S.K. (2021), “Videoconference fatigue? Exploring changes in fatigue after videoconference meetings during COVID-19”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 106 No. 3, pp. 330-344, doi: 10.1037/apl0000906.
Bergmann, R., Rintel, S., Baym, N., Sarkar, A., Borowiec, D., Wong, P. and Sellen, A. (2022), “Meeting (the) pandemic: videoconferencing fatigue and evolving tensions of sociality in enterprise video meetings during COVID-19”, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Springer, Netherlands, doi: 10.1007/s10606-022-09451-6.
Biron, M. and Van Veldhoven, M. (2016), “When control becomes a liability rather than an asset: comparing home and office days among part-time teleworkers”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 37 No. 8, pp. 1317-1337, doi: 10.1002/job.
Blanchard, A.L. (2021), “The effects of COVID-19 on virtual working within online groups”, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 290-296.
Blanchard, A.L. and McBride, A. (2020), “Putting the ‘group’ in group meetings: entitativity in face-to-face and online meetings”, Managing Meetings in Organizations, Vol. 20, pp. 71-92.
Blanchard, A.L., McBride, A.G. and Allen, J.A. (2022), “Perceiving meetings as groups: how entitativity links meeting characteristics to meeting success”, Psychology of Leaders and Leadership, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 90-113.
Bloom, N., Han, R. and Liang, J. (2022), “How hybrid working from home works out”, NBER Working Paper, p. 30292.
Cao, H., Lee, C.J., Iqbal, S., Czerwinski, M., Wong, P., Rintel, S., Hecht, B., (2021), “Large scale analysis of multitasking behavior during remote meetings”, CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, doi: 10.1145/3411764.3445243.
Chin, W.W. (1998), “The partial least squares approach for structural equation modelling”, in Marcoulides, G.A. (Ed.), Modern Methods for Business Research, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
Curran, P.G. (2016), “Methods for the detection of carelessly invalid responses in survey data”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 66, pp. 4-19, doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.07.006.
Daft, R. and Lengel, R. (1986), “Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design”, Management Science, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 554-571.
Elliott, B., Subramanian, S. and Kupp, H. (2022), “Declare ‘calendar bankruptcy’ to move beyond meeting-driven culture”, MIT Sloan Management Review Blog.
Felstead, A. and Henseke, G. (2017), “Assessing the growth of remote working and its consequences for effort, well-being and work-life balance”, New Technology, Work and Employment, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 195-212, doi: 10.1111/ntwe.12097.
Flood, P.C., Turner, T., Ramamoorthy, N. and Pearson, J. (2001), “Causes and consequences of psychological contracts among knowledge workers in the high technology and financial services industries”, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 1152-1165, doi: 10.1080/09585190110068368.
Fosslien, L. and West, M. (2020), “How to combat zoom fatigue”, Harvard Business Review Digital Articles.
Fuchs, C. and Reichel, A. (2023), “Effective communication for relational coordination in remote work: how job characteristics and HR practices shape user–technology interactions”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 62 No. 4, pp. 1-18, doi: 10.1002/hrm.22161.
Gibbs, M., Mengel, F. and Siemroth, C. (2021), “Work from home and productivity: evidence from personnel and analytics data on IT professionals”, IZA Discussion Papers.
Golden, T.D. (2006), “Avoiding depletion in virtual work: telework and the intervening impact of work exhaustion on commitment and turnover intentions”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 176-187, doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2006.02.003.
Golden, T.D. and Veiga, J.F. (2005), “The impact of extent of telecommuting on job satisfaction: resolving inconsistent findings”, Journal of Management, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 301-318, doi: 10.1177/0149206304271768.
Golden, T.D., Veiga, J.F. and Dino, R.N. (2008), “The impact of professional isolation on teleworker job performance and turnover intentions: does time spent teleworking, interacting face-to-face, or having access to communication-enhancing technology matter?”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 93 No. 6, pp. 1412-1421, doi: 10.1037/a0012722.
Golden, T.D., Veiga, J.F. and Simsek, Z. (2006), “Telecommuting’s differential impact on work–family conflict: is there no place like home?”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 91 No. 6, pp. 1340-1350, doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1340.
Hacker, J., Vom Brocke, J., Handali, J., Otto, M. and Schneider, J. (2020), “Virtually in this together–how web-conferencing systems enabled a new virtual togetherness during the COVID-19 crisis”, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 29 No. 5, pp. 563-584, doi: 10.1080/0960085X.2020.1814680.
Haider, M. and Anwar, A.I. (2022), “The prevalence of telework under covid-19 in Canada”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 196-223, doi: 10.1108/ITP-08-2021-0585.
Halbesleben, J.R.B. (2006), “Sources of social support and burnout: a meta-analytic test of the conservation of resources model”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 91 No. 5, pp. 1134-1145, doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.1134.
Halbesleben, J.R.B. and Wheeler, A.R. (2008), “The relative roles of engagement and embeddedness in predicting job performance and intention to leave”, Work and Stress, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 242-256, doi: 10.1080/02678370802383962.
Halbesleben, J.R.B., Neveu, J.-P., Paustian-Underdahl, S.C. and Westman, M. (2014), “Getting to the ‘COR’: understanding the role of resources in conservation of resources theory”, Journal of Management, Vol. 40 No. 5, pp. 1334-1364, doi: 10.1177/0149206314527130.
Hobfoll, S.E. (1989), “Conservation of resources: a new attempt at conceptualizing stress”, American Psychologist, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 513-524, doi: 10.1109/NETWKS.2008.4763690.
Hobfoll, S.E. (2001), “The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the stress process: advancing conservation of resources theory”, Applied Psychology, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 337-421, doi: 10.1111/1464-0597.00062.
Hobfoll, S.E. and Freedy, J. (1993), “Conservation of resources: a general stress theory applied to burnout”, in Schaufeli, W.B., Maslach, C. and Marek, T. (Eds), Professional Burnout: Recent Developments in Theory and Research, 1st ed.Taylor and Francis, Washington, DC DC, pp. 115-129.
Johnson, B.J. and Mabry, J.B. (2022), “Remote work video meetings: workers’ emotional exhaustion and practices for greater well-being”, German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift Für Personalforschung, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 380-408, doi: 10.1177/23970022221094532.
Kock, N. (2021), “Harman’s single factor test in PLS-SEM: checking for common method bias”, Data Analysis Perspectives Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 1-16.
Kock, F., Berbekova, A. and Assaf, A.G. (2021), “Understanding and managing the threat of common method bias: detection, prevention and control”, Tourism Management, Vol. 86, p. 104330, doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2021.104330.
Kokshagina, O. and Schneider, S. (2022), “The digital workplace: navigating in a jungle of paradoxical tensions”, California Management Review, Vol. 65 No. 2, pp. 1-27, doi: 10.1177/00081256221137720.
Laker, B., Pereira, V., Budhwar, P. and Malik, A. (2022), “The surprising impact of meeting-free days”, MIT Sloan Management Review Blog.
Lapointe, É., Vandenberghe, C. and Panaccio, A. (2011), “Organizational commitment, organization-based self-esteem, emotional exhaustion and turnover: a conservation of resources perspective”, Human Relations, Vol. 64 No. 12, pp. 1609-1631, doi: 10.1177/0018726711424229.
Lee, J.Y., Rocco, T.S. and Shuck, B. (2020), “What is a resource: toward a taxonomy of resources for employee engagement”, Human Resource Development Review, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 5-38, doi: 10.1177/1534484319853100.
Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Allen, J.A. and Belyeu, D. (2016), “Our love/hate relationship with meetings: relating good and bad meeting behaviors to meeting outcomes, engagement, and exhaustion”, Management Research Review, Vol. 39 No. 10, pp. 1293-1312, doi: 10.1108/MRR-08-2015-0195.
Luong, A. and Rogelberg, S.G. (2005), “Meetings and more meetings: the relationship between meeting load and the daily well-being of employees”, Group Dynamics, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 58-67, doi: 10.1037/1089-2699.9.1.58.
Maslach, C. and Jackson, S.E. (1981), “The measurement of experienced burnout”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 99-113, doi: 10.1002/job.4030020205.
Michaels, C.E. and Spector, P.E. (1982), “Causes of employee turnover: a test of the Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, and Meglino model”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 67 No. 1, pp. 53-59, doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.67.1.53.
Microsoft Research (2021), “Microsoft new future of work 2021”.
Newman, A., Eva, N., Bindl, U.K. and Stoverink, A.C. (2022), “Organizational and vocational behavior in times of crisis: a review of empirical work undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic and introduction to the special issue”, Applied Psychology, Vol. 71 No. 3, pp. 743-764, doi: 10.1111/apps.12409.
Nyquist, E., Allen, J., Erks, R. (2018), “When the boss came to the meeting…: hierarchical distance and emotional labor in workplace meetings”, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Vol. 70 No. 3, pp. 207-226.
O’Neill, T. A. and Allen, N.J. (2012), “Team meeting attitudes: conceptualization and investigation of a new construct”, Small Group Research, Vol. 43 No. 2, pp. 186-210, doi: 10.1177/1046496411426485.
Price, J.L. and Bluedorn, A.C. (1980), “Test of a causal model of turnover from organizations”, in Dunkerley, D. and Salaman, G. (Eds), International Yearbook of Organization Studies, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 217-236.
Pyöriä, P. (2005), “The concept of knowledge work revisited”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 116-127, doi: 10.1108/13673270510602818.
Reed, K.M. and Allen, J.A. (2021), Suddenly Virtual: Making Remote Meetings Work, Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Reed, K.M. and Allen, J.A. (2022), Suddenly Hybrid: Managing the Modern Meeting, Wiley, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Riedl, R. (2022), “On the stress potential of videoconferencing: definition and root causes of zoom fatigue”, Electronic Markets, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 153-177, doi: 10.1007/s12525-021-00501-3.
Riforgiate, S.E., Howes, S.S. and Simmons, M.J. (2022), “The impact of daily emotional labor on health and Well-Being”, Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 391-417, doi: 10.1177/08933189211041352.
Rogelberg, S.G. and Kreamer, L. (2019), “The case for more silence in meetings”, Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, available at: https://hbr.org/2019/06/the-case-for-more-silence-in-meetings
Rogelberg, S.G., Scott, C. and Kello, J. (2007), “The science and fiction of meetings”, MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 18-21.
Rogelberg, S.G., Allen, J.A., Shanock, L.W., Scott, C. and Shuffler, M. (2010), “Employee satisfaction with meetings: a contemporary facet of job satisfaction”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 49 No. 2, pp. 149-172, doi: 10.1002/hrm.20339.
Rogelberg, S.G., Scott, C.W., Agypt, B., Williams, J., Kello, J.E., McCausland, T. and Olien, J.L. (2014), “Lateness to meetings: examination of an unexplored temporal phenomenon”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 323-341, doi: 10.1080/1359432X.2012.745988.
Romney, A.C., Allen, J.A. and Heydarifard, Z. (2024), “Meeting load paradox: balancing the benefits and burdens of work meetings”, Business Horizons, Vol. 68 No. 1, doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2023.10.002.
Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2001), “On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being”, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 52 No. 1, pp. 141-166.
Saks, A.M. (2006), “Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 21 No. 7, pp. 600-619, doi: 10.1108/02683940610690169.
Schaufeli, W.B. and Bakker, A.B. (2004), “Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi-sample study”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 293-315.
Schaufeli, W.B., Bakker, A.B. and Salanova, M. (2003), “Utrecht work engagement scale-9”, Educational and Psychological Measurement.
Schaufeli, W.B., Salanova, M., Bakker, A.B. and Alez-Rom, V.G. (2002), “The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach”, Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 71-92.
Schwartzman, H.B. (1989), The Meeting: Gatherings in Organizations and Communities, Springer, New York.
Scott, C., Allen, J.A., Rogelberg, S.G. and Kello, A. (2015), “Five theoretical lenses for conceptualizing the role of meetings in organizational life”, in Allen, J.A., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. and Rogelberg, S.G. (Eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 20-46.
Shanock, L.R., Allen, J.A., Dunn, A.M., Baran, B.E., Scott, C.W. and Rogelberg, S.G. (2013), “Less acting, more doing: how surface acting relates to perceived meeting effectiveness and other employee outcomes”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 86 No. 4, pp. 457-476, doi: 10.1111/joop.12037.
Shockley, K.M., Clark, M.A., Dodd, H. and King, E.B. (2021a), “Work-family strategies during COVID-19: examining gender dynamics among dual-earner couples with young children”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 106 No. 1, pp. 15-28.
Shockley, K.M., Gabriel, A.S., Robertson, D., Rosen, C.C., Chawla, N., Ganster, M.L. and Ezerins, M.E. (2021b), “The fatiguing effects of camera use in virtual meetings: a within-person field experiment”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 106 No. 8, pp. 1137-1155, doi: 10.1037/apl0000948.
Srivastava, S.C., Chandra, S. and Shirish, A. (2015), “Technostress creators and job outcomes: theorising the moderating in fluence of personality traits”, Information Systems Journal, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 355-401, doi: 10.1111/isj.12067.
Standaert, W. and Thunus, S. (2022), “Virtual meetings during the pandemic: boon or bane for gender inequality”, European Conference on Information Systems.
Standaert, W., Muylle, S. and Basu, A. (2016), “An empirical study of the effectiveness of telepresence as a business meeting mode”, Information Technology and Management, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 323-339.
Standaert, W., Muylle, S. and Basu, A. (2022), “Business meetings in a post-pandemic world: when and how to meet virtually?”, Business Horizons, Vol. 65 No. 3, pp. 267-275.
Standaert, W., Thunus, S. and Schoenaers, F. (2023), “Virtual meetings and wellbeing: insights from the COVID-19 pandemic”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 1766-1789.
Thunus, S. (2023), “Meeting in brackets – how mental health policy travels through meetings”, Evidence and Policy.
Tong, Y., Yang, X. and Teo, H.H. (2013), “Spontaneous virtual teams: improving organizational performance through information and communication technology”, Business Horizons, Vol. 56 No. 3, pp. 361-375, doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2013.01.003.
Tyran, C., Dennis, A., Vogel, D. and Nunamaker, J.F. (1992), “The application of electronic meeting technology to support strategic management”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 313-334.
Woo, D.J., Endacott, C.G. and Myers, K.K. (2023), “Navigating water cooler talks without the water cooler: uncertainty and information seeking during remote socialization”, Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 251-280, doi: 10.1177/08933189221105916.
Wright, T.A. and Cropanzano, R. (1998), “Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 83 No. 3, pp. 486-493, doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.83.3.486.
Zamani, E.D. and Spanaki, K. (2023), “Affective temporal experiences and new work modalities: the role of information and communication technologies”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 154, p. 113311, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113311.