Willem Standaert
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Abstract
Telepresence is a technology that has emerged as a promising mode for conducting business meetings with distributed participants, since it enables an immersive lifelike experience. However, telepresence meetings are substantially more expensive than audio- and video-conferencing meetings. This paper examines the justification of using telepresence for meetings. Based on an extensive literature review, two research questions about the effectiveness of telepresence for achieving meeting objectives are formulated. These are then addressed in an empirical study consisting of two phases, conducted in a large multinational corporation in which telepresence is widely used. In Phase 1, a list of meeting objectives is compiled. In Phase 2, the effectiveness of telepresence is analyzed relative to audio-conferencing, video-conferencing, and face-to-face for these objectives, based on input from 392 meeting organizers. The results of the analysis indicate that although the effectiveness of telepresence is higher than the effectiveness of audio- and video-conferencing for several meeting objectives, it is not significantly different from the effectiveness of face-to-face for any objective.
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- An empirical study of the effectiveness of telepresence as a business meeting mode
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Reviews
Barrett Hazeltine
Telepresence is enhanced video conferencing, where participants from various locations see each other in life-size, voices seem to come from the speaker, lighting and furniture for each site are matched, and more is done to create the sense of actual presence. Telepresence fits into a technological sequence: audio conferencing, video sequencing, telepresence, and face-to-face. The question addressed is the comparative effectiveness of telepresence. One result of the research is that, for business meetings, telepresence is equally effective as face-to-face. The comparative effectiveness with audio and video conferencing depends on the objective of the meeting. Telepresence was more effective than either of the conferencing modes when the objectives were building trust, communicating positive or negative feelings, giving or receiving feedback, and clarifying a concept. For every objective, telepresence was never significantly worse than audio or video conferencing. The research was done at a large, global, US-based company. The first research phase selected pertinent meeting objectives by interviewing 39 senior managers. The second research phase surveyed 392 meeting organizers and 139 attendees, asking them about a recent meeting, objectives, and effectiveness. Data was also taken about meeting duration and number of attendees. The paper includes a thorough and valid statistical analysis of the data. The paper is clear but hardly succinct. It is somewhat surprising-but gratifying-to system designers that telepresence was considered as effective as face-to-face communication. Online Computing Reviews Service
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