The importance of meeting in decision making : the relationship of meeting duration and quality decision making / Daud Sanusi and Farena Mohd Hazmir

Long meeting duration has become major problems in many organizations. Due to this, the quality of decision making in meetings tend to be affected thus raised the question of whether meeting duration affect the quality of decision making. The study examines the relationship of meeting duration and the quality of decision making. A set of 170 questionnaires randomly distributed in eight government departments and government link companies. In the questionnaire, the respondents were asked about their profiles, meetings background and also their meetings experiences. Surprisingly, the extent of the relationship between meeting duration and decision making quality was positively weak. This study also reveals that, the ideal meeting duration seems to be 1 to 2 hours, while longer duration of meetings caused most respondents to he distracted, especially loss of focus. There is also a telling difference between the preferred meeting duration between the positions of the respondents; where the executives prefer to have 1 to 2 hours or meetings while the non executives prefer to have more than 3 hours of meetings. An unexpected result was found in which there was a strong positive relationship between the elements of quality decision making (Appropriate Frame, Creative Doable Alternatives, Meaningful Reliable Information, Clear Values and Trade-offs, Logically Correct Reasoning and Commitment to Action). However, this study does not provide adequate evidence of how meeting duration affects the quality of decision making.