Search results

Meetings with colleagues are an essential activity in workplace collaboration. The iterative nature of collaborative work demands spaces that team members can access quickly and easily. Creating suitable meeting spaces will become more critical if the hybrid work model continues and the workplace environment becomes the hub for face-to-face collaborative time, learning and training. Workspace and fit-out is expensive so it is crucial that the investment in meeting spaces supports employees’ collaboration activities.

This paper presents a case study of a corporate organisation undertaken in New Zealand to investigate how employees from two business units use their workspace to collaborate within their own team and across other teams in their organisation. The study uses ethnographic techniques, including participant observation and in-depth face-to-face interviews.

The findings show that the frequency and nature of small group work in collaboration was underestimated in the initial planning of the new workspace. Although participants found the design and fit-out of the formal meeting rooms supportive of collaborative work, the meeting rooms were in high demand, and it was difficult to find a room at short notice. The breakout spaces were confusing because they lacked key design attributes identified by the participants as conducive to small group work. Design shortfalls together with fit-out features perceived as supportive of collaborative work are identified.

The research reports on employees’ perceptions and experiences across two functionally diverse business units, reflecting their different needs and concerns.

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.

With the technological innovation dominating higher education, the university libraries, as physical spaces, continue to play a crucial role in connecting students with knowledge. The emergence of the “Learning Commons” serves as a catalyst in the design of library spaces, renewing libraries’ roles and missions and making them popular to Millennials for new reasons. This study aims to record Greek librarians' views on the current situation in Greek academic libraries regarding physical space design, services provided and the existence of the “Learning Commons” model characteristics.

This study was conducted through an online survey structured questionnaire (closed-ended, five-point Likert scale, multiple-choice and statements questions). This study population comprised librarians working in 37 academic institutions and colleges. The collected data were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The research questions were answered using variables creation and the tests, t-test, ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis. The groups of questions were tested for their reliability using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

In total, 186 librarians responded to this study. The responses revealed that participants were willing and ready to accept and support a different approach to academic library physical spaces use, according to the shared learning spaces model. However, this requires changes in the organization's vision, further growth and evolution. Although recently most Greek academic libraries have made significant progress in developing their services to function as information and digital hubs, they do not function as learning collaborative hubs, since the “Learning Commons” model is not reflected in their buildings.

The creation of new academic libraries according to the “common” model is a rapidly evolving issue that affects Greek libraries. This paper highlights the characteristics of libraries that should be adopted in the modern era, the new roles of academic librarians and the importance of an appropriate design of the physical space to achieve optimal learning outcomes. At the same time, this paper is one of the few that illustrates librarians', and not users', perceptions of these changes. This paper is a good research example, and the methodology for measuring this type of context could be used by other future research approaches in other countries.

Since its creation in 2005, YouTube has become a site for significant community building, as the platform and its affordances encourage active audiences. One creator in the YouTube wellness space is Abbey Sharp, a registered dietitian who reviews ‘What I Eat in a Day’ videos of popular YouTube creators. Sharp’s videos follow the traditional ‘reaction video’ format; she’s positioned as both viewer and consumer, providing commentary on dietary choices and wellness claims. The author investigates Sharp’s role in the spread of wellness misinformation through a life narrative lens as she participates in the wellness community while actively combatting misinformation. Sharp utilises trends and platform affordances to act against health and wellness misinformation. Sharp’s reaction video format creates a collaborative space, where the original creator is taken out of the context of their video and edited into a space where they are critiqued through the lens of a ‘professional’ other. The author argues that Sharp’s health professional status (and reach of over 570,000 subscribers) provides legitimacy to her critique and consequently alters how wellness narratives on YouTube are consumed.

The purpose of this systematic literature review is to catalog, explore and disseminate knowledge developed related to the affordances, constraints and collaborative practices of e-mentoring in order to offer recommendations for mentoring programs.

After identifying studies utilizing inclusion and exclusion criteria and a variety of relevant databases, chosen studies were organized into three categories based on e-mentoring practices.

Results reflect chat-room-based e-mentoring and e-mentoring with a video component both to have various affordances and collaborative features. These forms of e-mentoring can potentially be relevant to new teachers’ needs, may promote community and are disconnected from mentees’ school systems. A third form of e-mentoring, virtual reality e-mentoring, however, has the potential for accessibility issues and lack of relevancy to the mentoring process.

Chat-room-based e-mentoring and e-mentoring with a video component may benefit new teachers who do not have access to in-person mentors. However, these forms of e-mentoring may necessitate a component that ensures mentors and mentees alike remain consistently engaged in the e-mentoring process.

In this paper we ask: “What are the opportunities and challenges that creative methods pose in terms of conducting research processes with indigenous peoples impacted by emergencies and disasters?” To do that, we critically examine the creative and collaborative methodological approaches applied in the research project, Moving with Risk: Forced Displacement and Vulnerability in Colombia. This project sought to understand the trajectories of risk of families who were forcibly displaced as a result of the armed conflict in Colombia and resettled in areas at risk of disaster.

This article is intentionally written from the perspective of the researchers’ positionality. In doing so, we embrace writing that is situated and embodied in the researcher’s experiences and positionalities. This reflexive writing allows us to question the methodological experience of the research project we are analysing and, at the same time, ourselves, “the researchers” be questioned by it.

In this paper, we show how creative methods and participatory research can foster awareness and become the basis for inclusive and reciprocal research processes with indigenous communities in disaster studies. Specifically, we show that the use of creative methods helped us recognise that agency needs to be framed in collective spaces with the indigenous women we were working with and in relation to their livelihoods needs. We argue that finding spaces to conduct collaborative research and recognize agency is inextricably related to how the researchers reflect on their positionality.

This article contributes to critical perspectives in Disaster Studies and to an overall understanding of the role that creative methodologies play in research processes with people affected by disasters. It provides a novel perspective on the opportunities and challenges of applying arts-based methods in disaster risk studies with indigenous communities in Latin America.

Social virtual reality (SVR) has emerged as a solution for the facilitation of remote and distributed teamwork, promising to overcome challenges faced in virtual 2D communication channels. The purpose of this study is to systematically review empirical articles dealing with the application of SVR with head-mounted displays (HMDs) in teams.

This study reviewed 40 empirical papers on teamwork that address the application of SVR using HMD in teams. The authors present results from the extracted data and identify themes that indicate the current state of research in this field.

Based on data obtained from the journal articles, the authors identified three themes underlying current research. They are features and applications of SVR technology, collaboration dynamics and team performance in SVR and educational and professional training and learning. The results show that SVR enhances team collaboration and collaborative learning.

SVR can aid in improving teamwork and team outcomes. In its current stage, SVR is complementary to 2D technology and not likely to replace traditional tools. Findings suggest that the technology is promising for collaboration and learning in organisations, especially in collaborative design tasks and simulations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies to look at research emerging from the nascent area of SVR and summarise the current state of research. This study provides managerial implications and identifies future research areas for SVR in teamwork and learning.

As exponential technologies continue to transform business models rapidly, there is a growing focus on metaverse research within the tourism industry. Despite the significant findings, the practical discussion of high-cost and resource-demanding space tourism within the metaverse platform is still abstract. This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of virtual space tourism and consumer motivations inspired by the intrinsic principles of the sharing economy business model and the metaverse platforms.

By gathering primary data through questionnaires from individuals interested in virtual space tourism and using the 530 valid responses, this study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) along with the status quo bias theory (SQB) to better comprehend travelers’ motivations for engaging with the metaverse in space tourism.

The study confirms UTAUT2’s effectiveness in predicting travelers’ adoption behavior. Specifically, factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, price value and facilitating conditions significantly impact attitudes and behavioral intentions toward adopting the metaverse for space tourism. Furthermore, skepticism significantly moderates the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intentions.

This study is one of the first to empirically explore the motivations for using metaverse capabilities in the context of space tourism. In line with recent calls for more research on advancing UN sustainable development goals through the metaverse platform, this research discusses findings based on eight shared attributes in both sharing economies and the metaverse platforms that offer the potential for sustainable, socialized and affordable access to space tourism. In addition to the managerial implications, this study outlines future research directions, drawing on insights from the sharing economy’s success in the tourism industry.

Coworking spaces represent a new, rapidly emerging phenomenon. Available empirical literature is sparse and mostly focused on structural elements, whereas the organizational and behavioral dynamics are still largely understudied. This study aims to explore the idea that coworking users’ proactivity (more specifically, job crafting behaviors) plays a key role in positively influencing creative performance, and that such a relationship is better understood by examining both the mediating role of work meaningfulness and the moderating role of knowledge sharing.

This study is based on survey data from a relevant sample of users in Italian coworking spaces. A mediated-moderated analysis is used.

The “approach” job crafting behaviors have a significant influence on creative performance, via work meaningfulness, whereas this is not true for “avoidance” job crafting behaviors. Knowledge sharing plays a significant moderating role in the former relationship.

The theoretical, practical and social implications discussed help to further the discourse surrounding the relationships between job crafting, creative performance and coworking spaces. This unique work setting enables a variety of value appropriation pathways to be promoted and supported. As such, coworking spaces are also “laboratories” where the future of work organization can be better understood.

This study contributes to the existing coworking spaces literature as it is one of the very few that sheds light on users’ behaviors, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first one to consider job crafting as a relevant variable. It also contributes to the current job crafting literature by helping to clarify why available studies have yielded mixed results in examining the relationship between job crafting and creative performance.

This study assessed the technology readiness of library commons in selected universities in Ghana from the perspectives of both clients and service providers.

A sample survey research design was used to carry out the study, and the study consisted of quantitative and qualitative approaches. The data were collected from 157 of the 430 commons’ users and six library directors/commons librarians, using a questionnaire and an interview schedule respectively. The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential analysis with SPSS Ver. 22, and structural equation modelling with AMOS Ver. 23.

The study found significant relationships between the availability of learning resources and users' experience, use and satisfaction with the commons. Additionally, there were significant relationships between the readiness of the commons, users' perceptions and their satisfaction levels. The library/commons managers identified key preparedness issues, including inadequate planning and poor space allocation. Furthermore, the study revealed negative feelings among library/commons managers, such as insecurity, resistance and low confidence.

The academic libraries in Ghana should evaluate their commons following the findings of this study, and use other readiness implementation tools to identify and address the gaps in their implementation of the commons.

This study was based on the opinions of the users and operators of the commons and focused primarily on technology-related factors. However, it is essential to evaluate other readiness factors, such as change and services, and institutional factors, using frameworks such as Hess and Ostrom’s (2005) Institutional Development Framework, to provide complementary results that can guide better implementation of the commons and improve the quality of services.