Part of the problem I think is a bit like the externality problem in economics. The person who calls the meeting spends his own time to attend, but is also spe

Part of the problem I think is a bit like the externality problem in economics. The person who calls the meeting spends his own time to attend, but is also spending all the time of the attendees. This can even happen across departments, for example, when HR has a mandatory meeting for this or that, HR's budget should be charged for the time of the attendees, and the money distributed to their departments. The may be worth the cost, but it should be justified as a budget request. Suppose HR asks the software development team to come by and write them some new payroll software. HR would be charged for that time. Why should it be any different when the software dev team is asked to attend a meeting in order to satisfy any other goal of HR?