Virtual Meeting Platforms for Online Activities during Covid-19: An Empirical Evidence

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically altered the nature of communication worldwide and across contexts by mainstreaming Virtual Meeting Platforms (VMPs). Even though VMPs existed for more than a decade, the pandemic has accelerated their prevalence in academia and businesses. This paper goes beyond the usual debate on effectiveness of an in-person versus a VMP facilitated online interaction to propose that the effectiveness of VMPs will vary even with the type of online activity. Drawing on the extant literature and deploying a sample of 100 experts from academia and industry, the authors identified five generic components of group interaction, and empirically estimated the relative effectiveness of VMPs in facilitating five common online activities including classes, meetings, interviews.