The next frontier: using space as management strategy - an exploratory study
ISSN: 0888-045X
Article publication date: 12 June 2020
Issue publication date: 20 August 2020
Abstract
Purpose
More and more companies use physical space as a way to enhance creativity, create change and stimulate interaction. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how space affects this interrelationship and explores how space can support organizational strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative approach, this study explores three cases from an educational, a cultural and an industrial setting to illustrate how space can be used to support an organization’s policy and help its strategic intentions.
Findings
The findings demonstrate how space can be used to enhance organizational strategy and demonstrate how closely the creation of space can be related to the development of that strategy. Specifically, the study finds that the “’space-organizational strategy’ link has three uses: “Space as an organizational meeting place” in the University campus, (2) “Space as a network organization” in the culture and production center and (3) “Space as a cell organization” in the private manufacturing company.
Originality/value
The study will show that the design and operationalization of spaces can influence management and organizational strategy because space influences relations between people and that organizations can use space to support their strategic intentions seems to have been overlooked in the literature.
Keywords
Citation
Storvang, P. and Nguyen, B. (2020), "The next frontier: using space as management strategy - an exploratory study", The Bottom Line, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 217-229. https://doi.org/10.1108/BL-01-2020-0009
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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