The impact of status and audio conferencing technology on business meetings

This field study examining the effects of organizational status and multimedia audio communications technology on communication patterns in business meetings confirms that high status group members verbally dominate discussions and have more control over the flow of the proceedings. However, it reveals a new and surprising finding: multimedia communications technology can in fact exaggerate status constraints in contrast to findings that there is no effect or an equalizing effect on status inequalities of text-based conferencing technology. It appears that in audio conferences, the lack of non-verbal cues that can aid turn-taking combined with (1) the participants ' knowledge of the group's status hierarchy and (2) the tendency to compare oneself unfavourably to those of higher status, makes it more difficult for lower status individuals to contribute verbally to discussions than in face-to-face interactions. Such status constraints may have both positive and negative impacts on group communication effectiveness, these and implications for the design and implementation of multimedia communications technology are discussed. (C) 2001 Academic Press.