I'm only here for the donuts: stand-up meeting relevance's effects on work meaningfulness and motivation

Abstract

Purpose

Stand-up meetings have received attention for their functional effectiveness in the workplace, but they can also cause affective reactions among attendees. These reactions can affect workplace attitudes and alter the way that employees view and perform their work to the benefit or detriment of the organization.

Design/methodology/approach

Following the tenets of the job characteristics model (JCM), a study was conducted on relevant stand-up meetings' effects on beliefs about the meaningfulness of one's work and subsequent motivation. Further analysis explored the effects that meeting load (i.e. the number of meetings) has on the outcomes of meetings.

Findings

Consistent with hypotheses, stand-up meeting relevance has an indirect effect on work motivation through work meaningfulness. Meeting load moderates both the indirect effect, such that the effect is stronger at higher numbers of meetings, and the direct effect on work meaningfulness in the opposite direction, as the effect is strongest with fewer meetings.

Practical implications

Organizations should ensure that stand-up meetings are relevant to all attendees and hold the meetings at an appropriate regularity for the best outcomes.

Originality/value

This work examined the stand-up meeting. Most prior meetings research has focused on meetings as a whole or other subtypes and examine meeting relevance and contribution to employee motivation through the lens of JCM.

Citation

Lindquist, I.A., Allen, J.A. and Kramer, W.S. (2024), "I'm only here for the donuts: stand-up meeting relevance's effects on work meaningfulness and motivation", Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 483-499. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOEPP-12-2021-0343