Effects of control over office workspace on perceptions of the work environment and work outcomes

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Abstract

Increasingly, workplaces must support rapid technology development and implementation, dynamic organizational changes, and concomitant employee needs for balancing privacy, collaboration and other work processes. Open plan offices have been positioned as providing at least partial solutions to many of these historic and contemporary challenges. However, many problems with open offices have been documented, such as noise, lack of privacy and other distractions; yet enclosed, private offices hamper communication, teamwork and flexible use of space as well. In an effort to elucidate workers’ perceptions of some of these trade-offs, this study examined the effects of distractions, flexible use of workspace and personal control over the work environment on perceived job performance, job satisfaction, group cohesiveness, and inclinations to work alone or in an enclosed space and their interrelationships. The proposed path model was tested by LISREL 8.54. All fit indices for the model remained within acceptable levels. The results showed that more personal control over the physical workspace (e.g., adjustment) and easy access to meeting places led to higher perceived group cohesiveness and job satisfaction. Contrary to expectation, the results indicated that distractions may have little influence on self-rated performance.

Introduction

Most of its relevant constituencies anticipate that the workplace will continue to change rapidly (Challenger, 2000), with technology developments, innovative communication methods, virtual reality, e-market improvements, and alternative work patterns all playing a role. To accommodate these rapid changes while maintaining or improving outcomes, organizations have increasingly turned to some version of work teams (e.g., cross-functional teams; self-managing work groups; see DeMatteo, Eby, & Sundstrom, 1998); thus, employees’ ability to work within team environments has been emphasized (Terricone & Luca, 2002). To ensure that the work environment supports these new styles of working, flexible workplaces are often recommended (Becker, 2002). Open workplaces have been seen as providing this needed flexibility since they offer interpersonal access and ease of communication compared to fully enclosed private offices, yet this approach may still be considered too rigid (Hedge, 1982). Moreover, researchers have also reported problems with open offices from the perspective of occupants such as noise, lack of privacy and other distractions (Evans & Johnson, 2000; Sundstrom, Bell, Busby, & Asmus, 1996).

In an effort to alleviate these problems with open offices while still facilitating better communication and collaboration, alternative office concepts that provide flexibility in terms of freedom to choose the time and place for working—both within and outside the office—have been explored (Oldham, 1988; Olson, 2001). However, due to some disadvantages of these and other reactions to the limitations of open offices, their allowing flexible use of workspace has been emphasized more recently. Becker (2002) argued that by exploiting workplace flexibility, organizations may enhance organizational effectiveness. In an effort to elucidate the specific ways that flexible, open work environments might more readily respond to contemporary organizational challenges and opportunities, Moleski and Lang (1982) suggested that user needs be redefined to recognize the importance of “freedom of choice” in personal behavioral patterns. Additionally, Becker (1991) emphasized the idea of personal control as a critical unanswered question related to workplace issues. He decried the lack of research on such topics as the types of environmental control employees actually want or need, employee involvement in the process of planning and designing their workplace, and the effects of control—both actual and perceived—on performance.

Given the potential importance of personal control issues in the success of office environments (defined in terms of organizational outcomes), this study examined how perceived individual control and flexible use of space may influence individual and work group outcomes. More specifically, this study sought to develop a path model specifying the multiple relationships among several latent factors related to the physical-environment features of offices along with individual and group level outcomes; in order to test these multiple relationships simultaneously, Structural Equation Modeling was used.

Section snippets

Literature review

Much of the research literature addressing office environments has focused on either subjective assessments of physical components or attributes and how these affect employee satisfaction and performance (Larsen, Adams, Deal, Kweon, & Tyler, 1998; Sundstrom, Town, Rice, Osborn, & Brill, 1994), or they have involved pre-post occupancy evaluations of office renovations, or moves, adds and changes (Oldham, 1988; Spreckelmeyer, 1993; Zalesny & Farace, 1987). However, the available empirical

Method

Participants were from five different organizations, with N's ranging from 7 to 143. The questionnaires were collected in a variety of ways, including physical distribution of hard copies, on-line broadcasting of a Word document containing the survey form, and via an on-line link for computer-mediated survey participation. The data used in this research were collected prior to facility renovations or relocations. Participants worked at a Midwest auto supplier, a Northeast General Services

Results

Each variable of interest was uniformly distributed with the following exceptions: Perceived performance (quality of work and quantity of work), job satisfaction indicators, and inclination to work in an enclosed space were all positively skewed, while one of the control variables—perceived ability to adjust, re-arrange and reorganize one's work area as needed—was negatively skewed.

Discussion

Seven of the ten paths related to specific hypotheses and all of the proposed path directions except one reached statistical significance; along with the acceptable fit indices, these results seem to provide support for the proposed model. In spite of the suggestive implications from these results regarding at least limited causal inference, such interpretation still requires much caution for a number of reasons. The hypotheses tested were based on the proposed structural model, and each path

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