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Videoconferencing More Confusing for
Decision Makers than Face-to-Face Meetings
Study in INFORMS journal Management Science
HANOVER, MD, October 28, 2008 – Although
videoconferencing has become a billion-dollar substitute for
flying business people to meetings, it leaves distant
participants less likely to make sound judgments about
speakers being viewed over a screen, according to a study
published in a journal of the Institute for Operations
Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
“Videoconferencing in the Field: A Heuristic Processing
Model” is by Carlos Ferran of Pennsylvania State University
Great Valley and Stephanie Watts of Boston University. It
appears in vol. 54, number 9 of the INFORMS flagship journal
Management Science.
The researchers find that attendees of videoconferences
must work harder to interpret information delivered during a
conference than they would if they attended face-to-face.
A field study of medical professionals reveals
differences in information processing: participants
attending a seminar via videoconference are more influenced
by the likeability of the speaker than by the quality of the
arguments presented, whereas the opposite pattern is true
for participants attending in person.
“Important business decisions may suffer if
videoconferencing is used to make them without adjusting the
process to take its differences into account,” says Prof.
Ferran.
Professors Ferran and Watts offer guidelines for
understanding when videoconferencing is most appropriate and
for improving the design of videoconferencing equipment:
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Videoconferencing may not be appropriate for decision
making when some stakeholders are present face-to-face
and others attend via video, because these two groups
are likely to process information differently.
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Videoconferencing equipment may be improved by the
addition of features that reduce cognitive workload,
such as support for turn taking, audio localization, and
personal distance location.
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Videoconference presenters can use heuristic cues to
increase the influence of their message.
The research was conducted in a medical setting. (The
name of the medical organization was not released by the
researchers).
Medical professionals were surveyed as they attended 1 of
19 different live interactive seminars, either face-to-face
or via videoconference. The seminars spanned a 12-week
period, comprising part of the teaching activities of an
urban healthcare consortium. Each interactive one-hour
seminar was delivered live by a different physician in a
large auditorium, followed by questions and answers. These
seminars were simultaneously broadcasted via videoconference
to a number of smaller sites. Both face-to-face and remote
attendees could ask questions. Attendees were primarily
residents, attendings, and local physicians specializing in
pediatrics, psychiatry, or orthopedics.
About INFORMS
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international
scientific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel
Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to
help improve decision-making, management, and operations.
Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and
academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as
airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military,
financial engineering, and telecommunications. The INFORMS
website is www.informs.org.
More information about operations research is at
www.scienceofbetter.org.
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