Edited by: Kum Fai Yuen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Reviewed by: Yi Xiao, Zhejiang University, China; Ruobin Gao, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
This article was submitted to Marine Affairs and Policy, a section of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Regional fisheries meetings that support the management of Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) capture fisheries are usually held face-to-face and in-person. In 2020, the travel and gathering bans due to the global COVID-19 pandemic meant that these meetings were held “virtually,” primarily via videoconferencing. But can virtual meetings perform the same functions and deliver the same management outcomes as face-to-face meetings? This study is an initial investigation of the experiences, perceptions and attitudes of WCPO region government participants in a number of virtual regional fisheries meetings in 2020. Results indicate a strong preference for face-to-face regional meetings, with the perception that virtual meetings performed comparatively poorly at supporting a number of key meeting processes and outcomes. However, one-quarter to one-third of study participants consistently found no difference between format performance for many meeting processes and outcomes. Virtual formats were considered more appropriate for smaller and non-regional meetings, and allowed for greater staff attendance at meetings as well as cost and time savings for some, but not all, participants. Study participants believe that virtual regional meetings will be more common in the region in the future, despite nearly half indicating that virtual meeting are not a good fit for the region generally. Many of these experiences and perceptions are consistent with organizational behavior, communications media, and information systems literature. Some results appear unique to the region’s socially and culturally diverse Pacific island countries and territories, which are relative newcomers to the global information and communication technology “revolution.” A greater use of virtual regional fisheries meetings in the future requires meeting hosts and facilitators to carefully consider the potential impacts of virtual meetings on effective communication and inclusive participation in WCPO regional fisheries management and other governance outcomes.
Marine capture fisheries are an important socio-economic resource for countries and territories across the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) region (
These regular communications between states and territories (and other interested parties, e.g., non-government organizations) often occur as formal meetings. Meetings are used to accomplish a common set of task-based and relational outcomes through a series of action steps, here referred to as processes, that are set within a time-bound agenda (
More than 40
Despite the resourcing, logistical, and environmental (e.g., waste, travel carbon emissions) challenges of organizing and attending face-to-face international fisheries meetings, no demand to explore other modes of meeting, e.g., “virtually” at a distance using information and communication technologies (ICT) like computers, mobile phones, the internet, and/or audio/videoconferencing systems, has ever been clearly articulated in a fisheries context. This lack of articulated demand for alternate, distanced meeting formats contrasts with other sectors where international gatherings are also part of routine operational practice, e.g., corporate business and academia (
The emergence of the global COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 and the attendant international travel and physical gathering bans meant that RFBs and their constituent governments had to adjust to organizing, hosting and participating in shorter, virtual “e-meetings,” notably through computer-mediated, online videoconferencing platforms like
Participants are one of the most influential interpreters of meeting performance. Information systems (IS) technology use and acceptance research suggests that a meeting participant’s early impressions of virtual RFMs will be influenced by their experiences of how well, and how easily, they are able to perform anticipated meeting tasks and reach expected outcomes using computer-mediated meeting technologies (
This uniquely interdisciplinary study draws on IS, media communications, and organizational behavior literature to better understand the practical potential for using virtual formats for RFMs in the WCPO region into the future. This is achieved through the investigation and appraisal of the initial experiences and attitudes of key participants in a number of virtual regional fisheries meetings in 2020.
This study asks:
How do meeting participants rate the performance of virtual meetings compared to face-to-face formats in terms of supporting key meeting resourcing, processes and outcomes?
What are participant perceptions about the appropriateness and fit of virtual meetings for supporting fisheries management in the region?
What do these experiences and attitudes reveal about the possible future role of virtual meeting formats in WCPO fisheries management contexts?
This study adds value to the marine policy and fisheries management literature by being the first evidence-based study to investigate the initial experiences and attitudes of key virtual RFM participants and to consider what challenges and opportunities these early perceptions may present for computer and video-enabled meeting formats in such a context into the future. It is also the first study to connect IS, media communications, organizational behavior and marine resources management literatures together to generate new analytic insights. In doing so, this study provides valuable insights that are of relevance to regional fisheries management processes and outcomes in a post pandemic era. Finally, this study also establishes a starting point for future research into the under-studied area of ICT’s role in fisheries management.
This manuscript is organized as follows: the next section briefly reviews relevant literature, which guides this research inquiry. This is followed by a description of the study methods, which include a questionnaire scoped to include professional staff from PICTs, Australia, and New Zealand who participate in WCPO RFMs. Questionnaire results are then presented and discussed in relation to the above literature. Finally, the implications of this study’s findings are appraised in terms of the potential role virtual meetings may have in the region in the future.
Virtual RFMs involve people communicating and relating at a distance using information and communication technologies. IS and organizational behavior research establish that human responses to using newly introduced technologies are a critical influencer of technology acceptance and adoption (or resistance) behaviors in a professional environment (
Unifying IS theory points to a number of common factors that influence acceptance and use of technology (
The switch from face-to-face to videoconferencing-based RFMs in 2020 represents a significant change to how communications media were used to support the delivery of WCPO RFM processes and outcomes. Years of experience in attending face-to-face RFMs, as well as publicly available online meeting agendas, identify broad categories of procedural communication tasks and related outcomes that are a common feature of RFMs. In this regard, a given RFM may include some or all of the following communication tasks: sharing and receiving information and knowledge, making group decisions (often by consensus), advocating for organizational interests, negotiating written text, negotiating measures and policies, and resolving conflicts. Common outputs from these communication tasks include negotiated written texts, measures and policies as well as strategic plans. These outputs directly affect the way WCPO fisheries are conserved and managed and how national and regional organizations support this management. Less tangible key outcomes include institutional strengthening through relational interactions, inclusive representation in decision-making, and conflict resolution.
Formative media communications research suggests that the choice of communication media can affect how well information messages are conveyed between sender and recipient, clearly understood, and interactively responded to
Conventional communications theory suggests there should be little difference between using videoconferencing and face-to-face speech to communicate effectively (
However, other research finds that communicating via videoconferencing can create “unnatural” lags and interruptions in the transmission and comprehension of messages, thus reducing ease of understanding and interpretation and increasing cognitive processing time (
This study focuses on annually held, regional fisheries meetings convened by regional fishery bodies in the WCPO area RFBs. In order to control the number of meetings explicitly included in the survey instrument described below, the principal focus of inquiry was scoped to major tuna meetings as well as to the one regional-level coastal fisheries meeting. This scope includes plenaries, medium-to-large intersessional committees and working groups of dozens to hundreds of participants. It excludes
Data were collected using an online questionnaire developed in
Study group sampling was purposive and criterion-based. In order to be included within the questionnaire sample group, potential study participants must have attended one or more face-to-face regional fisheries meetings on a national delegation in 2018 and/or 2019
Using this approach, 120 total participants from 22
The online questionnaire used mostly 5-point scale-based questions to keep survey completion time down. This format also intended to encourage a greater response rate from a group of “time-poor” people. Question elements were developed using the authors’ own experience in attending RFMs and informed by concepts from the information systems, organizational behavior, and media communications literature described above. Questions were then refined for clarity and flow during a short pilot phase. Questions asked about:
Recent meeting participation history;
Comparative face-to-face and virtual meeting experiences with respect to a range of processes, outcomes, and organizational resource use;
Levels of agreement with statements around personal and team performance, preferences, and format fit-for-purpose; and
Levels of agreement with statements about future virtual meeting use.
The questionnaire uses “virtual meeting” as a proxy term for any distanced, ICT-mediated meeting format. However, most virtual WCPO RFMs took place via videoconferencing (including functionalities like audio-only, chat boxes and break-out groups) in 2020, so it’s likely this was a common conception of the term. The questionnaire also uses the term “face-to-face” to refer to in-person communication.
All data were collected, analyzed, and stored securely in accordance with university ethics approvals.
A total of 32 people representing 14 countries or territories responded to the questionnaire. Eight of these respondents did not meet the criteria for participation and were excluded from analysis, i.e., they did not participate in face-to-face meetings in 2018 and/or 2019 (seven) or did not finish the survey (one). The remaining 24 respondents from 13 countries or territories represent a survey response rate of 20%, which is consistent with average response rate for “mail-out” questionnaires identified by
Questionnaire respondent demographics, by percentage:
The survey explored a number of aspects of meeting processes and outcome performance. These included; (a) how the meeting formats support them as participants, (b) how the formats support meeting processes in general, and (c) how they support key meeting outcomes.
When asked to rate which of the two meeting formats respondents felt best supported them as meeting participants, face-to-face formats were the clear preference over virtual for supporting all six investigated processes (
Responses (n = 24) to How would you rate the meeting formats (face-to-face or virtual) at supporting you in the following meeting processes?
Face-to-face formats were also clearly preferred for supporting most, but not all, of the investigated general meeting processes (
Responses (
Face-to-face meeting formats were again a clear preference when it came to rating meeting formats at supporting a selection of key meeting outcomes (
Responses (
Responses (
Participants reported using more organizational resources for face-to-face meetings (
Responses (
An overwhelming 92% of respondents said they preferred face-to-face meetings, while 8% (which included PICT respondents) said they did
Responses (
In terms of attitudes around virtual meeting appropriateness and fit-for-purpose, 62% felt that fisheries meetings need to be held face-to-face in order to be effective, while 17% disagreed with this sentiment and 21% were neutral (
Responses (
The majority of respondents expressed an overall preference for face-to-face meetings (
Responses (
The majority perception was that face-to-face meetings were the preferred format to support nearly all investigated meeting processes and outcomes. This suggests that the relatively small differences in information richness between videoconferencing and face-to-face communication may make a big difference to the experiences of key meeting participants in the WCPO RFM context. The procedural way that virtual RFMs were planned and held may have also contributed to negative perceptions of virtual meetings, particularly with respect to meeting outcomes. Beyond the accomplishment of formal meeting tasks, the benefits of meeting in person to build and maintain personal and professional relationships may also contribute to a the preference for meeting face-to-face (
Questionnaire response trends indicate that key participants feel virtual formats are performing poorly at supporting the sharing, receiving, and understanding of information and at facilitating clear communication in meetings. Many of the meetings included within the study scope could be characterized as having a complicated communication environment with a high degree of ambiguity in exchanged messages and a need for rapid and continuous message feedback. These messages may represent multiple, competing political positions in a management strategy discussion or a competitive negotiation of measures or policy. There may also be more ambiguous “diplomatic nuance” used in verbal communication than in “normal” speech.
Many RFMs can also be characterized as having a high degree of participatory asymmetry, with different languages, cultures, and geo-political power structures existing between the meeting participants in a principally Western and English-language meeting environment. Cultural and language differences have been shown to affect communication effectiveness and knowledge sharing in international business and management environments (
This level of situational complexity, combined with the newness of using videoconferencing to undertake such complex and ambiguous communication tasks, suggests that the richest possible media (i.e., face-to-face) generally provides the best chance at supporting effective communication and outcome satisfaction in a WCPO RFM environment. This study may have also identified another example of where the transmission and comprehension “lags” of videoconferencing can reduce ease of understanding and interpretation (
Nearly half of respondents perceived a lack of fit for virtual meeting formats in the region more generally (i.e., beyond their specific use for fisheries meetings), which may represent an expression of social or cultural preferences for physical, face-to-face meetings in the WCPO context, see, e.g.,
Findings also suggest that virtual RFMs are also not performing well at supporting key outcomes related to decision confidence, trust between participants, and opportunities to be heard. Differences in the planning, length, and composition of virtual RFM agendas compared to equivalent past face-to-face meetings, and the absence of relationship-building informal side events or impromptu meetings normally associated with face-to-face meetings may have influenced these results. Issues of trust (e.g., interpersonal, technology, service provision, facilitation) are a key researchable issue in the “e-business” literature (
Despite rating the performance of virtual RFMs quite poorly overall, study results and observations from attending a selection of virtual RFMs in 2020 suggest that there may be some benefits to meeting virtually for specific regional purposes, as well as for smaller and non-regional meetings.
Organizational cost results indicate that virtual meetings may be beneficial where meetings need to keep to a tight schedule and where financial, time, and human resources costs may represent a significant barrier to inclusive meeting participation. More staff were allocated to attend virtual meetings, presumably because it was easier and cheaper to attend. This could have delegation representation and junior delegate training benefits, particularly for the PICT delegations that are often three people or less in size. However, results also indicate that the organizational costs of meeting virtually are perceived as significant for a small number of meeting participants. With the region’s “ICT revolution” beginning only relatively recently (
Results also suggest that virtual meeting formats may have an accepted role in supporting smaller and non-regional meetings. Smaller meetings with fewer people may have a shorter agenda with fewer or less complex and ambiguous communication tasks to accomplish within a given timeframe. It may be perceived as less necessary to meet in person for smaller meetings, which may be considered less formal, and individual participants may have more robust interpersonal relationships if these meetings, and their participants, are recurring.
While analyzing specific meetings is outside the scope of this article, a preliminary analysis of more disaggregated results, meeting participant feedback to regional organizations (
As highlighted in previous sections, there was a strong preference expressed for face-to-face meetings in study results, although respondents also reported that face-to-face meetings are more costly in terms of most organizational resource use. The preference for face-to-face meetings is especially clear for some interrogated processes and outcomes, with only a small percentage of “no difference” or neutral responses, e.g., making consensus based decisions, facilitating breakout sessions/side meetings, communicating with the desired frequency, and creating an environment of trust.
However, a consistent 25–33% of respondents perceived no difference between either meeting format for many other process and outcome performance and organizational resource use questions, with the highest “no difference” ratings being for “time spent preparing” (38%) and “time spent in follow up activities” (48%). This same result exists in neutral responses to the appropriateness and fit of virtual meetings, and did not appear to differ between PICTs as a group or Australia/New Zealand respondents. While this “no difference” trend may represent a numeric minority, each response represents a key voice in the responsible management of WCPO regional fisheries that may be feeling marginalized by current meeting practices. Moreover, most study respondents are from developing SIDS whose special requirements in fisheries conservation and management are legally recognized (see section “Introduction”).
This “no difference” trend may variously reflect: a genuine neutral sentiment; a negative sentiment toward both formats; or, a generally positive sentiment toward virtual formats as an additional means of fisheries management communication. Neutral and positive interpretations suggest that virtual meetings are slightly more “palatable” than they otherwise appear in the results. More negative interpretations suggest that 29–33% of respondents, most of whom are from PICTs, feel like they cannot communicate clearly, receive information, understand what is being discussed, overcome language barriers, or see a diversity of interests fairly represented in outcomes in
This highlights that still more work may need to be done by meeting organizers and facilitators to better understand the barriers to participation in WCPO regional fisheries management meeting processes more generally and to explore whether operational changes could, and should, be made to meeting processes in order to improve participant perceptions of communication effectiveness and representation.
Face-to-face meetings will continue to play a dominant role in WCPO fisheries management in a post-pandemic world if sentiments expressed in study results inspire future action about meeting format choice. Study respondents expect that regional-level virtual meetings will be more common in the future, but a near-equal percentage were also of the view that virtual formats are inappropriate for regional-scale fisheries meetings. This disparity in sentiment suggests that respondents anticipated “business as usual” was not likely to return in 2021, and foresaw that additional virtual meetings would need to be held in order to address meeting agenda items postponed in 2020. However, respondents, as technology users, could also be perceiving a lack of agency around how decisions relating to virtual meeting technology adoption and implementation are made by meeting organizers (i.e., typically RFBs) (
Cost savings are a key driver of decisions around meeting format preference in the organizational literature (
As the pandemic continues into 2021 and possibly beyond, it will be important to monitor sentiments to determine whether the initial negative perspectives identified by this study change over time as participants become more familiar with communicating virtually and as meeting organizers and facilitators refine the technical and procedural ways in which they support such meetings. It also remains to be seen whether wider social, cultural and political factors help drive a rapid return to face-to-face meetings in the region as soon as practicable.
The switch to primarily videoconferencing-based WCPO RFMs in early 2020 provided a unique opportunity to better understand the potential for using this virtual meeting format in a new working environment. While technical dimensions (e.g., telecommunications infrastructure and communication systems design) play an important role in the successful long-term adoption of technology interventions, it is the human users, through their experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and actions, who ultimately decide what role these interventions will play in a given environment. This study provides insights into some of the early sentiments of key actors in WCPO regional fisheries conservation and management as they use virtual meetings for the first time in a new context. In doing so, it highlights the importance of considering ICT use as a researchable issue in fisheries management, particularly when developing countries are involved.
Study responses indicate that videoconferencing-based meetings currently struggle to accommodate many of the complex human interactions needed for some key meeting participants to feel like they are effectively engaging in meeting processes and contributing to the delivery of satisfactory outcomes. Going forward, technology adoption and acceptance literature suggests that this study’s identification of a largely negative perception of virtual meeting performance, combined with the potential influence of wider social and cultural attitudes about the value of meeting in person, will negatively affect how video-conferencing is accepted and adopted for use in regional WCPO fisheries meeting contexts in a post-pandemic world. Moreover, unlike other sectors where international gatherings are common operational practice, the higher organizational costs of meeting in person do not currently appear to be increasing the appeal of meeting virtually. However, there is also an apparent openness to communicating virtually for smaller and non-regional meetings, and meeting virtually may have organizational cost benefits for some PICTs. This suggests that cautious opportunities may exist to diversify the ways in which States meet and communicate about WCPO fisheries conservation and management issues in the future.
However, before these opportunities can be best realized more research must be done into how to create a better fit between the expectations of fisheries meeting participants and the ability of virtual meeting formats, like videoconferencing, to meet these expectations. This may include working with meeting hosts, facilitators, and participants to identify procedural ways of improving the inclusivity of participation in the planning stage of virtual meetings, particularly while this meeting approach is still developing and evolving. It may also require a re-examination of how pre, during, and post-meeting activities are designed, including a more critical consideration of the ways different ICT like videoconferencing, email, website-based document repositories, and electronic document sharing applications can either support or limit the effectiveness of key communication tasks and relationship-building opportunities in context. This is turn may require a more systematic identification of meetings that may be better suited to virtual formats – i.e., where participant relationships are pre-existing and strong, and where effective communication requires reaching few, or no, meeting outcomes that are distributive, highly political, and of significant national consequence. Finally, moving beyond meeting expectations, it may also require identifying individual PICT capacity development needs and targeted development assistance strategies like improved telecommunications infrastructure and ICT use skills and training.
This study provides a starting point for this future research by raising awareness of the importance of better understanding the human dimension of communications technology interventions in marine resource management and policy environments and by providing an initial appraisal of some of the early challenges and opportunities in one regional fisheries management context.
The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because raw data are accessible only to named research team members under the conditions of the ethics application. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to AM,
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the UOW and ISLHD Social Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
BC: conceptualization, methodology, data curation and investigation, formal analysis, and writing – original draft. BC, AM, and MV: writing – review and editing. AM and MV: research supervisor. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We would like to acknowledge the generosity and goodwill of this study’s research participants, who volunteered their time to make this research possible. We would also like to thank pilot survey participants for their time and helpful feedback in the survey design. Thanks are owed to Eleanor McNeill for her assistance with the preparation of the figures. We would also like to acknowledge funding support from the University of Wollongong. The first author also acknowledges support from the Nippon Foundation Nereus Program, now the Ocean Nexus Center at the University of Washington Earth Lab.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at:
This is a conservative “back-of-the-envelope” estimate of semi-formal to formal, medium-to-large, annual meetings about fisheries management, and conservation issues.
Regional fisheries bodies (RFBs) are intergovernmental fisheries organizations or committees. Some RFBs have an advisory function, e.g., Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), while some have the power to establish conservation and management measures and are more commonly referred to as RFMOs, e.g., Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). The RFB concept was originally established under the FAO Constitution but many RFBs are not formally established under this legal framework in practice.
For comprehensive examples of “interests” as they relate to advocacy for shared concerns and influence in policy in WCPO tuna fisheries, see
In recognition of the cost burden of participating in international meetings, RFBs/RFMOs and aid donors often subsidize developing countries to attend meetings, see, e.g., WCPFC Financial regulations 3.5:
The rationale for scoping meeting attendance to the past 2 years was to create some controls around the recall of meeting experiences (i.e., participants were more likely to remember the same meetings, with a similar degree of clarity).
For a list of all states and territories contacted, see
There is evidence that these opportunities are already occurring: a series of five meetings were facilitated virtually by the Pacific Community (SPC) and other regional partners in early 2021 to discuss strategies and supports for scaling community-based fisheries management around the region (see