A Comparison of Online and Face-to-Face Consensus-building Processes

Abstract

The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the opportunities of online meetings. In this study, we analyzed and modeled the consensus-building process in online and face-to-face meetings. As a result, we successfully constructed a model for the consensus-building process and visualized the structural changes using Bayesian network. This showed the possibility of discussing various consensus-building processes quantitatively. Furthermore, we compared the consensus-building process in the online case and in the face-to-face case using time to reach consensus, number of words per unit of time, and percentage of statements by participants. The findings suggest that in online meetings, the amount of statements per unit time may increase because the information that cannot be supplemented by non-verbal information is supplemented by words. In addition, it is easier to determine the participant who would lead the discussion in face-to-face meetings, while in online meetings, the participants tended to speak simultaneously.