Participation in Virtual Meetings: Using the “Chat” as a Mechanism to Elevate Attendee Voices

A key component of team performance is participation among group members. One widespread organizational function that provides a stage for participation is the workplace meeting. With the shift to remote work, roughly half of all meetings are now conducted virtually (Cisco, 2022). In this new context, meeting participation is mediated through technology – which presents new challenges and opportunities for meeting leaders and attendees. One encouraging opportunity that can elevate meeting participation is the use of written chat during virtual meetings. Text-based chat offers a second avenue of participation during a meeting, where attendees can synchronously contribute to the conversation through writing, in a manner that typically does not disrupt the verbal discussion. The current study leverages research and theory on (a) individual differences (i.e., status characteristics theory), (b) employee perceptions of psychological safety and (c) work group participation in a virtual context to explore potential antecedents of engaging in chat during virtual meetings. Results suggest women and those high in job level participate in the meeting chat more frequently than their counterparts. We find perceptions of psychological safety moderate the relationship between job level and chat participation. Employees low in job level who have high perceptions of psychological safety participate in chat more frequently compared to their counterparts who report low perceptions of psychological safety. Results contribute to our understanding of written communication in virtual meetings, unpacking the individual differences in chat participation in a technology-mediated space. Further, our findings enhance our understanding of psychological safety; and how creating a psychologically safe environment can influence one’s method of participation in virtual meetings.