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This study aims to examine if and how an activity-based work environment affects employee workspace satisfaction – an attitude linked to important employee outcomes. By comparing perceptions before and after implementation, the research draws attention to factors that may help explain the impact of an activity-based work environment. Specifically, prior attitudes toward activity-based work environments and gender are tested.

The present study uses a longitudinal design to explore how implementing an activity-based work environment impacts employees’ workspace satisfaction (e.g. privacy, air quality, lighting, temperature, etc.). A sample of 100 employees in a government organization implementing an activity-based working environment was investigated using a longitudinal design, with employees being surveyed thrice – once before and twice after implementation.

The results indicate that when workspace satisfaction is impacted by implementing an activity-based work environment, this effect seems primarily based on employees’ prior attitude toward such work environments. In addition, employee gender emerges as a potentially important factor in workspace satisfaction, though not exclusive to the activity-based work environment.

Using a longitudinal approach – which allows for observing potential changes over time – and robust statistical methods, this study supports the importance of employees’ initial attitude toward an activity-based work environment concerning workspace satisfaction. This finding has practical implications for organizations and advances the understanding of why an activity-based work environment may positively affect workspace satisfaction for some employees while negatively affecting others.

The purpose of this paper was to extend the current knowledge on the impacts of activity-based workplaces (ABWs) on productivity in knowledge work. It offers more background information that is needed to properly evaluate ABWs’ suitability for different organisations. In the results section, ABWs are compared to the cellular and open-plan office types.

This study was conducted using a survey method with 5,841 respondents. The data were collected between 2015 and 2019 from 32 public-sector organisations.

The findings of this paper reveal that ABWs offer clear advantages over the other office types but requires careful design and well-implemented solutions. The superiority between ABWs and cellular offices also depends on workers’ profiles and needs and is not for everyone.

For practitioners, this paper offers valuable information to compare the three office types: ABW, cellular and open-plan. It also highlights the importance of careful planning and good implementation, which are both essential to making the ABW environment productive for employees. Finally, this paper clearly provides evidence that ABWs and open-plan offices differ in their facilities and productivity.

This paper included a unique and large sample with open variables, which are fairly rare in ABW-related papers. It also provides evidence that ABWs, when implemented correctly, seem to be an excellent option for some work profiles.

Challenged by the effects of organisational flexibility and high corporate real estate (CRE) costs, organisations increasingly seek flexibility and operational efficiency in their physical office layouts. This paper examines and compares how the existing organisational culture of organisations changed with the introduction of activity-based working (ABW) from the perspectives of organisations and their employees.

The research focused on large organisations that had introduced ABW during the period of 2012–2019 and their employees. Two surveys were implemented with the management of organisations and employees. In-depth interviews with the management were also undertaken. The research focused on three different industry sectors in Australia – financial, IT and public. The competing value framework was used to measure the dimensions of organisational culture.

Findings identify major finance, internal business, learning and growth and staff and client-oriented motives affecting organisations’ decisions to introduce ABW. Findings illustrate that the nature of workplace design has a considerable impact on organisations’ culture and can be used to leverage and change it. However, a noticeable discrepancy between the perceptions of the organisation and employees in the public and private sectors was identified, where public sector employees felt that standardised procedures still governed their actions even in ABW.

This research highlights that workplace designs directly influence the culture of organisations. It emphasises the importance of an in-depth examination of the behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of organisations and their employees to obtain a better understanding of how they perceive and interact in ABW layouts.

The new ways of working (NWW), a contemporary work environment with temporal and spatial flexibilities, has become an enforced reality after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted workplaces. However, the understanding of how it impacts employee well-being perceptions is limited. Hence, the current study aims to examine how the NWW facets, namely, time- and location-independent work, management of output, access to organizational knowledge and flexibility in working relations relate to employees' life satisfaction, mediated by psychological capital.

A cross-sectional survey was designed to collect data from 459 Indian knowledge workers. Model fit and the hypothesized relationships were tested using IBM SPSS 25, AMOS and PROCESS Macro.

All four NWW facets positively relate to psychological capital, which in turn associates with life satisfaction. Except for the facet “management of output”, the other three facets associate positively with life satisfaction before accounting for the mediator. Indirect effects of all four facets on life satisfaction via psychological capital were established. Overall, the findings establish the important mediating role of psychological capital in relating the NWW facets with life satisfaction.

By examining the previously unexplored relationships between NWW, psychological capital and life satisfaction, this study provides novel insights into the role of personal resources in maximizing the beneficial effects of the NWW practices and is highly relevant in the current context where organizations are trying to identify coping mechanisms that help employees adapt to workplace transformations.

Digitalization and flexibility of workplaces as aspects of new ways of working are associated both positively and negatively with employees’ well-being. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship are not clear yet. We present work intensity as a link between new ways of working and psychological well-being. Furthermore, we address two job resources to alter this association: autonomy and boundary control.

Overall, 1,099 employees of a public administration organization participated in the survey and answered a web-based questionnaire. The organization was in the transition to new ways of working including the introduction of a digital filing system and remote work.

The results of regression analyses provided evidence that flexibility and dissolution of boundaries were positively related to work intensity, which in turn was associated with emotional exhaustion and work engagement. Thus, new ways of working were negatively associated with psychological well-being, mediated by work intensity. Further analyses revealed that the job resources of autonomy and boundary control moderated the relationship between flexibility respectively dissolution of boundaries with work intensity. Thus, these job resources acted as buffering factors and mitigated the association of new ways of working with work intensity.

The results indicated that work intensity could be perceived as a conceptual bridge between new ways of working and psychological well-being providing a promising target variable for the deployment of job resources to preserve employees’ well-being.

In today’s rapidly evolving work landscape, the design of office spaces is a crucial concern for organizations. Companies are redefining offices as collaboration hubs to entice employees back to in-person work. However, the understanding of how employees choose their workspaces, especially for collaborative activities, and how this should inform office design is lacking. Workers’ collaborative activity patterns can help better understand workspace choice behavior (WCB). In two studies, this paper aims to explore which characteristics of collaborative activities to consider when reshaping offices.

Data collected in a cross-sectional study design at a research institution (n = 285) and a university (n = 352) were used for confirmatory factor analyses and regression analysis.

The first study shows that collaborative activities can be classified into three distinct types: coordinative activities (planned and formal), deep collaboration (planned and complex) and spontaneous communication (informal and short encounters). The second study revalidates this classification and reveals patterns impacting WCB. Frequency and location preference of spontaneous communication and work environment satisfaction are strong predictors of on-site work. Personal characteristics like gender, age, managerial position or commute time are less consequential than assumed.

The results pinpoint guidelines for office designers and leaders in shaping effective workspaces and policies.

This paper provides new insights into classifying collaborative activities and personal characteristics, activity characteristics and environmental factors influencing WCB.

This paper aims to identify aspects of how work-life interaction has changed in the post-pandemic situations and propose strategies of the security concept for living-working patterns in the post-pandemic interior as future disease prevention.

We conducted a systematic literature search and review to select previous research systematically and relate concepts by coding the data and synthesising the data critically. The systematic literature search and review considered 90 papers (35 were studied).

The findings identify three strategies: hybrid activity patterns, new layout for hybrid and changing behaviour and culture. Each strategy demonstrates the connection between the hybrid living-working interior spaces in the post-pandemic period and security-pandemic variables. The results on security design factors focused on interior control, detection and deterrence; connection to nature creates a safer environment to prevent further variables; and hybrid activity requires more elements to govern users' behaviour and culture.

Limitations of this study are as follows: excluded papers that are not written in English/Bahasa or do not have gold/green open access; some aspects were not discussed (such as social distancing); the articles included in this review are up to April 2023 (and there is the possibility of recent papers). Future studies can be developed to update building certification for post-pandemic interiors or research with psychological, social equity or family vitality issues.

The study offers strategies and the holistic relationship between the post-pandemic concept and security-pandemic design variables within the built environment, especially in the users' culture and behaviour context.

Work-from-home (WFH) has gained popularity over the past years. This study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis to systematically review and synthesize scholarly literature on the complex interplay between WFH, employee well-being and performance.

The study incorporates analysis of the bibliometric including performance analysis, content analysis and scientific mapping that is applied to 497 Scopus papers. VOSviewer software was used to evaluate the data.

This study posits an imbalance between the count of documents and the citations earned by each author. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health was regarded as a leading journal with maximum citations and publications. The highest count of publications came from most Asian countries such as India, China, Indonesia and Japan. The investigation indicated that the writers with the maximum citations were predominantly the authors of the majorly cited papers. Further, the text mining through co-occurrence of keyword analysis generated five clusters and cocited references revealed three themes.

The current research might benefit both research groups as well as human resource professionals since it also reveals the research necessity and gaps in the WFH domain.

This research delves into unexplored facets of WFH beyond traditional studies over the past decade by examining remote work arrangements in today’s economy, revealing previously unnoticed dynamics affecting employee well-being and performance. This innovative viewpoint enhances the literature and provides an empirical foundation for strategic organizational decision-making and future study.

Exoskeletons are moving into industries with the potential to reduce muscle strains and prevent occupational injuries. Although exoskeletons have been designed and tested in laboratory settings, rare empirical studies of their application in construction have been reported. Therefore, the purpose of this study is on in a real-life setting testing the applicability of adopting exoskeletons in the construction industry.

A feasibility study of exoskeletons in construction is conducted by testing a passive exoskeleton, designed for shoulder support. Five bricklayers tested in a two-month period the exoskeleton, each wearing it for a three-day period while carrying out normal work activities. Test data in terms of interviews were collected and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

The application of exoskeletons in construction revealed several limitations, where the two primary ones are the exoskeleton is not designed while considering the tasks of a bricklayer causing several challenges and the exoskeleton only supports a single upward motion while limiting other movements and even counteracted when a downward movement was necessary.

The identified challenges could easily have been revealed by coupling the design and testing of exoskeletons to actual application. Thus, the design approach needs to be reversed. Instead of designing an exoskeleton to support a specific body part or motion and then identifying where it is applicable, it should target specific industries and focus on the actual work and movements and the necessary support. As part of the change, the design metrics should be reevaluated to reflect the work to support.

Drawing on the leader–member exchange (LMX) theory, we examine the role of empowering leadership in employee organizational commitment and the organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, we examine if these relationships are explained by factors such as follower trust in the leader and leader authenticity.

We draw on survey data from 153 individuals serving the hospitality industry sector. The data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results show that trust in a leader positively mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and organizational citizenship behavior as well as organizational commitment. We also find a direct association between empowering leadership and the two organizational outcomes. However, we do not find evidence of the moderating role of leader authenticity in empowering leadership and trust in leader–leader relationship.

This paper brings to light the significance of empowering leadership, especially for hospitality workers who often operate in stressful and deeply hierarchical organizational environments. Our study findings provide a pathway for how supervisors should follow an empowering form of leadership annculcate trust in employees for better organizational outcomes. The findings indicate significant theoretical and practical implications and offer recommendations for future research.