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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the activity-based workspace (ABW) on employee belonging. Place attachment theory (PAT) is used as a proxy to understand and measure the belongingness of employees to their physical workplaces.

A case study of a bank’s newly retrofitted ABW office is conducted, providing fresh perspectives on the effect of ABW on employee belonging. A questionnaire survey was used to understand employee belongingness. Surveys are conducted with employees of the bank (n = 100) who experienced the transition from the conventional open-plan office with designated seats to an ABW, to understand and compare the change in employee belonging after the transition, by studying the level of belonging achieved in the space before and after.

The results showed that there was a positive sense of belongingness amongst employees working in the ABW space, as per the PAT framework and an increased sense of belongingness compared with the previous conventional open-plan office. However, ABWs were found to also have a negative effect on employees’ sense of control and security.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs indicates that a feeling of belonging is fundamental to humans. The need for belonging is also applicable in the workplaces of today’s progressive corporate organisations, where there is increased pressure and incentive to appeal to and retain talent. This research was conducted in response to the huge growth in interest in activity-based working across the corporate real estate community. As there has been no prior research done in the area of the emotional need for belongingness in ABW.

This paper aims to explore, which characteristics of activity-based offices are related to the position of workers on the burnout – engagement continuum.

Literature review and an online survey amongst knowledge workers in the Netherlands, which provided data of 184 respondents from 14 organisations. The data has been analysed by descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses, factor analyses and path analysis, to test the conceptual model.

Five physical work environment constructs were identified of which three showed to have significant relations with employees’ position on one of the three dimensions of the burnout – engagement continuum. Distraction has a direct and indirect (through overload) negative relation with the individual strain (meaning increased exhaustion). Office comfort has indirect positive relations (through recognition and appreciation) with the interpersonal strain (meaning increased involvement). The possibility for teleworking has an indirect positive relation (through control) on the self-evaluation strain (meaning increased efficacy).

The findings show that in the design and management of a healthy physical work environment, corporate real estate managers and human resource managers should particularly pay attention to lowering distraction, providing comfortable workplaces and considering the option of teleworking to some extent.

This paper provides new insights into the impact of distinct activity-based workplace characteristics on workers’ position on the burnout – engagement continuum.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of teachers’ expectations on their experiences and satisfaction response dregarding the introduction of activity-based workplaces (ABWs) in a Dutch university of applied sciences.

The first author executed a three-year at-home ethnographic study as senior lecturer at the university in which the research was executed.

Teachers have will expectations, should expectations and want expectations that relate to the stages before, during and after the introduction of ABWs. Unmet should and will expectations negatively affect want expectations and not only influence teachers’ affective commitment to their work but also generate dissatisfaction and even anger toward the organization, showing the importance of monitoring all three types of expectations.

Users evaluate their expectations against their experiences which can lead to the formation of (dis)satisfaction regarding the introduction of ABWs. To explain the satisfaction response, research should consider expectations and experiences.

Discrepancies between users’ expectations and experiences lead to dissatisfaction with ABWs. Involving users and aiming to capture their expectations in the design support professionals predicting satisfaction and preventing the organization from costly re-refurbishments.

Exploring users' expectations creates an understanding of users' everyday processes and underlying values which can improve the fit between users and building and reduce costs. Reducing accommodation costs benefits society, as more money can be spent on education.

This paper integrates Lefebvre’s spatial theory and Oliver’s disconfirmation theory to study the influence of expectations on users’ experiences and describes the process before, during and after introducing ABWs.

The aim of the current interview study was to investigate how the university staff and their immediate managers perceived the academic work environment after a transition to activity-based workplaces (ABW).

Interviews were conducted with 11 university lecturers/researchers and 12 academic middle managers, that is, heads of departments or units in a Swedish university.

The qualitative content analysis revealed four central themes indicating how the academic environment had been affected: challenges related to decision-making and implementation of ABW, interpersonal relations and communication, consequences for academic identity and issues related to the physical work environment.

The non-purposive sampling of participants coming from a single university is a limitation of the current study. More studies are needed to deepen the knowledge and to further corroborate the transferability of the findings.

The savings the universities expect to achieve in terms of reduced costs for premises, when introducing ABW, may lead to other kinds of costs, such as jeopardizing employee performance, comfort and well-being. It is therefore important that the academic staff is empowered and involved during the planning and implementation process of new offices.

The study contributes new knowledge concerning implementation of ABW and its consequences for the academic work environment.

The activity‐based office concept of the modern office is set to increase productivity through the stimulation of interaction and communication while retaining employee satisfaction and reducing the accommodation costs. Although some research has gone into understanding the added value, there is still a need for sound data on the relationship between office design, its intentions and the actual use after implementation. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

An evaluative study on the effectiveness of activity‐based office concepts was carried out to gain more insight in their use. The study included relevant literature on workplace design, combined with an observation and a survey of 182 end‐users from four different service organizations in The Netherlands.

The findings from these case studies underline some known benefits and disadvantages of activity‐based office concepts, and provide insight in the importance of several physical, social and mental aspects of the office environment in employee choice behavior. This study shows that the office concept is not always used as intended what could result in a loss in productivity, illness and dissatisfaction. People's personal preferences seem to have a bigger effect on the use of certain types of workplaces than some workstation facilities, although ergonomics and IT equipment and systems are expected to be satisfactory everywhere. Misusage of the concept is often the consequence of critical design (process) failures.

The originality of this research lies in the combination of studying the program of requirements, a questionnaire and most of all the observation in a quiet period, providing new information on choice behavior.

This paper aims to propose a theoretical framework for workplace research based on sociomateriality. Sociomateriality is a theory to explain the effects of social practice and materiality in an organization. Workplace studies in facility management (FM) can adopt this theory to understand the complex relationships between physical work environments and human factors.

Review of sociomateriality was conducted to understand the connection to existing workplace studies in FM. This study addresses the components of the workplace through the sociomateriality perspective.

The main focuses in sociomateriality theory are materiality and social practice. For workplace concepts specifically in FM, workplaces and their components are a material agency, and work and workers are a social practice agency. By considering both materiality and sociality in workplace environments, researchers can understand office dynamics and interrelationships. Lastly, two statistical analysis methods are suggested to analyze the framework: structural equation modeling and multilevel analysis.

To understand the human–environment relationship, it is essential to consider both materiality and social practice perspectives simultaneously. The proposed framework can be a foundation to explain the complex interactions between the physical environment and human factors of workers in individual organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to map and describe the activities taking place in the academic workplace. It considers whether academic work is something completely different from traditional knowledge work and identifies differences and similarities between the two.

The data was collected through in-depth interviews with thirteen academics from different disciplines at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology within a case study approach. A document analysis of the university’s disciplines was carried out in advance of the interviews.

Four important similarities between knowledge work and academic work and three distinctive features of academic work were identified. Balancing the need for interaction and concentration is most important for both knowledge work and academic work, and the most prominent differences are the academics’ constant alternation between supervision, teaching, concentration work and administrative tasks, as well as some academics’ close links to practice. Academic work is not completely different from knowledge work, and learning from experiences from other sectors can be valuable when designing workplaces for academic staff. It is necessary to understand the activities taking place in the academic workplace and at the same time plan for future flexibility.

This study contributes to the research on workplace design for academic staff to better understand the characteristics and variations of academic work and differences in academic cultures and traditions. This will contribute to a better understanding of how workplace design, work processes, technology and how the institution is organised can support the university’s visions and goals.

This paper aims to investigate how facilities management (FM) and corporate real estate management (CREM) can add value to organisations by contributing to improved productivity of knowledge workers, and to explore interrelationships between productivity, employee satisfaction and other value parameters.

This is a literature research of possible contributions of FM and CREM to improved labour productivity in relation to five activity areas of FM/CREM (portfolio management, project management, space and workplace management, property management and service management) and a first exploration of interrelationships between productivity and other value parameters.

The findings indicate that FM and CREM most directly can contribute to productivity by space and workplace management that supports different types of work and organisational activities. Portfolio and project management can mostly contribute by providing appropriate locations, adjacency relations between different parts of the organisation and supporting process flow and logistics. Property management can contribute to productivity by ensuring business continuity and comfortable indoor climate. Service management can contribute by relieving staff from trivial tasks by efficient services and by providing exiting experiences. Productivity shows to be mainly positively related to satisfaction; insights into interrelationships with other value parameters are still limited.

The results can be used to obtain a deeper understanding of how FM and CREM can add value to organisations by contributing to improved labour productivity. Practitioners can find inspiration on how to contribute to labour productivity and additional benefits within specific activity areas of FM and CREM. The exploration of interrelationships between productivity and other values can be used as input to a future research agenda.

The paper adds new insights to the growing body of knowledge about how FM/CREM can contribute to increased labour productivity and how other value parameters may be interrelated with productivity.

This paper aims to categorize the typologies of co-working spaces and describe their main characteristics.

The aim is reached by means of analyzing 15 co-working spaces located in the capital area of Finland. The data used consist of interviews, websites, event presentations and brochures.

As a result, six co-working space typologies were identified: public offices, third places, collaboration hubs, co-working hotels, incubators and shared studios. The categorization was made by using two axes: business model (for profit and non-profit) and level of user access (public, semi-private and private).

The results provide a viewpoint on how co-working spaces can be categorized.

In practise, the results can be applied by all stakeholders who are working with alternative workplace solutions to respond to the needs of new ways of working, especially via workplace services for multi-locational and flexible working, including facilities managers, corporate real estate executives and designers.

This research builds on the previous academic literature on co-working spaces by making the phenomena more explicit for researchers and practitioners who are facing the challenges of developing new alternative workplace offerings.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research investigating the relationship between physical activity and workplace design. In particular, the paper explores the social–ecological context of a new workplace building. This paper seeks to understand why better physical activity outcomes for the staff were not observed in the new building despite influence from a staff wellness committee during design; achieving success against existing best-practice indicators; and staff reporting increased feelings of wellness, energy and satisfaction with the new building.

Three design aspects are taken as a focus from within an opportunistic pre-/post-physical activity study of an organisation as they move from a building they occupied for 30 years into a new purpose-designed building. This study was conducted through mixed methods, incorporating ethnographic, architectural and quantitative means.

The social, spatial and personal context is important for understanding participant workplace-based physical activity. Despite the health and well-being goals and 5 Star Green Star outcomes of the new building, participants were sedentary for a substantive part of their workday in both buildings.

A well-designed environment can support staff feeling healthier, but the 5 Star Green Star rating does not implicitly ensure a healthier, activity-promoting environment. Facilities managers and designers can act to provide physically active paths as the most straightforward circulation option in workplaces.

The originality of this study lies in the opportunity to conduct a pre-/post-study of physical activity where the organisation, workforce and type of work are constant and where the variable is the building design, spatial configuration and location. The methods used in this study draw from both health promotion and architectural research practices.