While all meetings have an officially scripted agenda, their tacit agenda is power. Meetings establish who is in charge. When someone calls a meeting, he or she is asserting authority over those who are called on to attend. Meetings are exclusive and closed. In most corporations, who gets invited to a meeting—and who does not—sends a signal about who’s “in the loop”. Meetings are a form of social grooming inside organizations. Meetings impose vertical authority. They establish status hierarchies. [...] When power is diffused and distributed more democratically, meetings are no longer necessary. But corporations are not democracies.

Matthew Fraser – Enterprise 2.0: Wiki While You Work