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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Unusual business or business as usual: An investigation of meeting support requirements in multilateral diplomacy

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Abstract The concept of supporting meetings at the same time and at the same place with computers raises the problem of how salient features of group behaviors are understood in meetings. In this paper we critically examine some aspects of meeting behaviors. We point out that the idea of small, cohesive business teams is not necessarily a valid starting point in thinking of all meeting support. In particular, beliefs that relate to user aspects, group features such as composition, structure and protocols, and task characteristics such as nature, importance, and goals in meetings may need deliberation in many group decision support systems (GDSS) interventions. To demonstrate the credibility of our analysis we investigate meeting behaviors typical in multilateral diplomacy and show that few, if any, of the widely held beliefs of meeting behaviors are valid in this context. Moreover, such behaviors are not uncommon or peculiar only to diplomatic arenas. Similar behaviors can be identified in any meeting environment where participants do not share the same social worlds, have conflicting values and interests, do not follow the same social habits and meeting protocols, act through a “representative” mandate, are changeable, and do not agree on issues at stake in the meeting process. Our analysis points out, however, that developing meeting support for such ‘fuzzy’ environments is not needless or unrealistic. The support functionality of a fuzzy GDSS must be simple and focus on central aspects of the meeting process (issues) which in our case revolves around text management and display. Moreover, sufficient attention must be paid to the physical meeting environment that must reflect the social structures and protocols.