{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.023416711016498136, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0010643959552953698, 'mean_word_length': 5.787003610108303, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Can Simulated Data be Comparable to Authentic Data?: A Comparative
 Analysis of Meeting Chairing Activities

Objectives: This paper examines an under-researched issue – the comparability between authentic and simulated data, both of which are commonly used in business and professional communication. By analysing face-to-face business meetings, this paper aims to investigate (1) whether the four meeting chairing activities are accomplished in similar or different ways in authentic and simulated meetings?, and (2) under what settings simulated data would be comparable to authentic data for business and professional communication research. Methods: The study employs a fine-grained discourse-analytic approach to examine and compare four meeting chairing/facilitation activities (i.e., meeting opening, agenda management, turn allocation, meeting closing) in two authentic and two simulated business meetings. Results: Analysis shows that simulated meetings display a considerable degree of similarities to authentic meetings in terms of communicative strategies used to open or close a meeting, to manage the meeting agenda, and to allocate speakership while differences are observed in the actual discourse used to accomplish these chairing activities. The observed differences can be attributed in terms of the participants’ orientations to the meetings’ contextual factors including the setting that a simulated meeting is embedded, the organizational roles that a meeting chair is playing, and the relationship among the meeting participants. Conclusion: Findings suggest that simulated data can be compatible for studying communicative patterns at macro-levels although it may not be suitable for researching business communication at a micro-level of interaction. We also provide implications of using simulated data for conducting research in business communication.