Meeting in the Global Workplace: Air Travel, Telepresence and the Body

Abstract

In the highly connected and globalised corporate workplace, face-to-face communication is persisting and expanding, despite significant advances and investments in telecommunication. Drawing on interviews with 34 employees from an Australian company trying to reduce air travel associated with business meetings, this paper reveals how telepresence facilitates distinctly different practices of meeting and collaborating to those enabled by face-to-face encounters. The analysis draws attention to the essential role of the body in the practices of virtual and in-person business meetings. During in-person meetings the body’s physical presence conveys meanings of respect and value, provides sensorial competency and gestures, and enables physical mobility as it carries people between and within different material environments. The paper concludes by identifying some possibilities for telepresence meetings to replicate and replace in-person meetings as a normal and effective way of collaborating in the global workplace.

Key Words:

• Air travel
• Business meetings
• Telepresence
• Face-to-face communication
• Body
• Co-presence
• Telecommunication

Acknowledgements

A version of this paper was originally presented at the 2013 Asia Pacific Science Technology and Society Network Conference in Singapore. The author is grateful to her colleagues Professor Ralph Horne, Shae Hunter and Helaine Stanley for their collaboration on this project, and to Dr Cecily Maller and Professor Gay Hawkins who provided feedback on earlier drafts. The author also thanks the three anonymous referees for their constructive feedback, the anonymous Australian company who funded the research and the interviewees who shared their fascinating insights.

Notes

1. Despite the significant emergence and use of virtual communication technologies for business, a Harvard Business Review (2009, 1) survey of 2300 subscribers found that ‘travel to meet in person with key customers, partners and employees remains essential for selling new business as well as building long-term relationships’. The review found that 79% of respondents viewed in-person meetings as the most effective way to meet clients and sell business, and 89% agreed that face-to-face meetings are essential for ‘sealing the deal’.

2. Due to confidentiality requirements, further information about this company cannot be disclosed.