ABSTRACT
In The meeting: Gatherings in organizations and communities, Helen Schwartzman (1989) argues that scholars ought to see the meeting as a phenomenon itself, a topic of research rather than a coincidental setting or context for research. “Meetings may be the form that generates and maintains the organization as an entity and one that also influences the work and goals of individuals and an organization or community in ways that may be totally unanticipated and unintended” (p. 86). By researching the form and function of meetings, Schwartzman argues, scholars can understand meetings as sense-making and culture-validating forms that can illuminate the social and cultural systems in which they are located.
