Abstract
The changing nature of work, through emergence of different types of jobs (e.g., gig economy) and changes in the locations of and the types of places in which people work, is reshaping ideas about what a workspace is. Despite these changes, workspaces continue to be meaningful to employees. We develop a model using affordances and sense of place theory to describe how spaces become meaningful workspaces that are central to the employee’s experience in and with their organizations. We explain how employees’ attitudes toward and bonds with their workspaces help meet important needs and underlie turnover, group conflict, and innovation. We argue that space is overlooked as a core part of an employee’s experience in and connection to an organization and discuss implications for the design of workspaces including traditional and new work arrangements such as traditional offices, home offices, coworking spaces, and non-office workspaces. Data analyzed as part of the model development process includes some 40 interviews with employees across three organizations, each interviewed at two time points - the first interview shortly after a move to a new workspace and a follow up interview some six months later. Results of these interviews shed light on the process of meaning making in workspaces.
Presenters
Greg LaurenceProfessor of Management, Management and Marketing - School of Management, University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Workspace Design, Organizational Behavior, Sense of Place, Workplace Environments
