EXPECTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY USE DURING MEETINGS 1 Expectations of technology use during meetings: An experimental test of manager policy, device-use, and task-acknowledgement Cameron W. Piercy1 Greta R. Underhill1 Author information: 1Department of Communication Studies, University of Kansas, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66044, +1-785-864-5989 Corresponding author, Cameron W. Piercy, Ph.D.,
[email protected] Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank Drs. Norah Dunbar, Joann Keyton, and the two anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback on this manuscript. Thank you to Drs. Michael Ault and Kathryn Lookadoo for assisting with the manipulation vignettes. This manuscript was supported by the University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Mini Retreat Grant and start-up funding. EXPECTATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY USE DURING MEETINGS 2 Abstract In organizational meetings mobile media are commonly used to hold multiple simultaneous conversations (i.e., multicommunication). This experiment uses video vignettes to test how manager policy (no policy, pro-technology, anti-technology), device-use (notepad, laptop, cell phone) and task-acknowledgement (no task-acknowledgement, task-acknowledgement) affect perceptions of meeting multicommunication behavior. U.S. workers (N = 243) who worked at least 30 hours per week and attended at least one weekly meeting rated relevant outcomes: expectancy violation, communicator evaluation, perceived competence, and meeting effectiveness. Results reveal manager policy and device-use both affect multicommunication perceptions with mobile phones generating the highest expectancy violation and lowest evaluation of the communicator and meeting effectiveness. Surprisingly, there was no effect for task-acknowledgment; however, a match between manager policy and task-acknowledgement affected evaluations.