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Occupiers of offices in Birmingham are faced with four main problem areas: organisation evolution; location; new working practices; and availability of office supply. This paper is based on a comprehensive survey of office occupiers within Birmingham’s office core. It focuses specifically on the implementation of new working practices, information technology and management techniques. Emphasis is placed on the resultant effect for occupier demand. Development of new office buildings has proved to be most successful within the city centre especially following the popularity of the Brindley Place development located outside the traditional CBD. The paper shows that, although, the demand for large floorplated buildings is strong, occupiers are seeking specifications which reflect their organisation’s structure and which also have the ability to utilise future IT systems. As a consequence of the limited supply within the city core, occupiers have often opted to take refurbished space in more secondary locations which attempt to meet their immediate needs. However, does the widespread use of IT still provide an advantage in business and does its use require the most modern and largest buildings in the CBD? The results of this research reveal insight into the views of office occupiers which could be valuable for commercial office developers and investors.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how the relationship between employees’ workspace satisfaction and their respective perceptions of workspace support to labour productivity interacts with two emotional experiences as follows: workspace attachment and job stress.

Web-based surveys conducted before and after a company’s short-distance relocation. Study 1 concerned 66 employees and was conducted a few weeks before the relocation. Study 2 concerned 84 employees and was conducted six months after the relocation. Ordinary least squares regression, moderation and mediation analysis were performed.

After the relocation, the employees experienced greater job stress, less workspace satisfaction, and they felt less attached to their workspaces. However, the evaluations of workspace support to labour productivity did not change. Contrary to expectations, employees’ workspace satisfaction is not related to their evaluation of this workspace as supporting labour productivity. Instead, this relationship is moderated by job stress. The hypothesis that workspace attachment mediates the relationship between workspace satisfaction and respective evaluation of this workspace as supporting labour productivity was not verified.

Corporate real estate managers and any manager leading short-distance relocation projects should consider incorporating change management in the projects to maintain employees’ positive attitudes and emotional bonds with their workspace.

This research improves the knowledge of how employees perceive the workspace as supporting their work duties.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence effective workplace designs for knowledge workers.

During spring 2016, the employees in a large institution for research and higher education, a large consultancy company and a medium-sized consultancy company (in total 4367 employees) in Norway received invitations to participate in an anonymous online survey about workplaces and facilities. In all, 1,670 employees answered the survey (38.2 per cent response rate). The data have been analyzed with IBM SPSS version 23, among others through use of exploratory factor analysis and two-way ANOVA.

Most respondents at the institution for research and higher education have cell offices. Most respondents in the two consultancy companies have open and flexible offices. This paper indicate the respondents’ preferences or perception of their workstation and the workplace’s fit for their tasks is affected both by the respondents’ type of office and how much time they spend at their workstation during the week. There are also possible age or generation effects.

One methodical weakness in the present paper is that two-way ANOVA has been applied on survey data. Experiments are usually arranged to provide almost equal numbers of observations in each category. This is usually not possible with survey data. However, despite this weakness, the present paper provides several findings that challenge some of the workplace research’s taken for givens.

The present paper indicates that facility managers and others responsible for office and workplace design are advised to take the employees’ tasks and work patterns into consideration when designing workplaces and providing offices and workstations to their end-users. The present paper also indicates that employees require different kinds of support facilities and services depending on what kind of offices and workplaces they have.

This is a large N empirical study among knowledge workers in three organizations, one public administration and two private enterprises. The present paper indicate that provision of offices and workstations with supporting facilities should be differentiated according to the end-users’ work tasks and work patterns.

This paper aims to develop and psychometrically assess an individual’s perception of their work unit’s psychological sense of community (PSOCw) scale. This new scale is designed to capture the unique characteristics of a contemporary work unit that might include current practices such as hot-desking and workers located in physically separate locations.

This paper develops and then psychometrically accesses a new scale designed to better capture the psychological sense of community in a contemporary work unit.

The managerial implications for the PSOCw scale that is a psychometrically sound measure of work engagement, civility and collegiality in a work unit allow managers to audit a work unit based on these three dimensions and then take corrective actions to enhance the work unit’s sense of community.

The present study adapts previous work on PSOCw to a contemporary work environment where members of a work unit are often in physically separate locations and largely connect virtually.

Digital and information technologies (IT) are becoming silently pervasive in old-fashioned real estate markets. This paper focuses on three important avenues for the diffusion of IT in commercial real estate: online brokerage and sales, the commoditization of space and Fintech in mortgage and equity funding. We describe the main new markets and products created by this IT revolution. The focus is on the pioneering US market, with some attention devoted to the specific firms and institutions taking these innovations into the mainstream. We also carefully analyze the economic underpinnings from which the new technologies can expect to generate cash flows, thus becoming viable—or not. Finally, we discuss their likely impact on established players in the commercial real estate arena.

In this paper, the author chooses to focus on three separate arenas where the IT revolution—sometimes referred to as Proptech, as applied to real estate—is having discernible impacts: sales and brokerage, space commoditization and online finance platforms. The author invites the reader to think seriously about the economic fundamentals that may—or may not—sustain new business models in Proptech. Real estate economists and investors alike need to be critical of new business models, especially when they are being aggressively marketed by their promoters. Trying to avoid any hype, the author provides thoughts about the likely impact of the innovations on their markets, guided by economic and finance theory, and previous experience.

The author evaluates the evolution of commercial real estate brokerage. While innovations will, no doubt, have an impact on the ways in which we buy and lease commercial properties, the lessons from the housing market should make us skeptical about the possibility of the new technologies dramatically facilitating disintermediation in this market. In fact, new oligopolies seem to be emerging with regard to market data provision.

Proptech will change some aspects of the real estate industry, but not others!

As change pervades the property industry, only a relatively few research pieces are illustrating or—more importantly—providing insights about the likely economic and financial impacts of IT penetration. Similarly, only a few papers have so far addressed the economic viability of the alternative business models of tech startups targeting real estate markets and transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to use an affordance approach to understand how university faculty use and value their workspace and respond to proposed spatial changes.

A mixed method survey was given to faculty in the college of engineering at a large public American university. Data were analyzed using an affordance lens.

The analysis indicates that the majority of engineering faculty highly value private offices and appears resistant to non-traditional workspace arrangements.

The authors performed the analysis with a relatively small sample (n=46).

University administrators need to communicate with faculty and take their opinions on spatial changes seriously. Changes to space may affect STEM faculty retention.

This paper could affect the quality of work life for university faculty.

The paper provide needed research on how faculty use and value their workspace while discussing the implications of alternative workspaces within the academy. Theoretically, the authors contribute to ongoing research on relationship between material and social aspects of organizational spaces.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The adoption of mobile and flexible working is revolutionizing the relationships between organizations and their employees but not everyone is content to embrace the changes.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Examines the origins of the office building and its broader economic and cultural significance. Discusses how the new information superhighway may affect the future of the office building. Asks whether this information “revolution” can provide an economic, cultural and socially‐acceptable alternative to the office. IT will change the way people work and, as a result, their spacial requirements. In this context it is claimed that organizations must examine their property requirements as a matter of urgency. Considers what advice property professionals should be giving to property purchasers, developers and investors. Concludes that office buildings are likely to continue to play a key role in the UK′s economy due to their importance as a source of tax revenue and emphasizes their social importance as a logical and convenient setting for individuals to interact.

This paper investigates the strategic processes surrounding the development, in accounting firms, of office (re)design projects and their overarching objectives.

The authors’ investigation relies on a series of interviews with individuals from different accounting firms involved in the decision process related to office (re)design projects. A triangular template made up of strategy, space and time informs the analysis, which the authors complement by relying on a strategy-as-practice integrated framework.

The authors found that accounting firm office (re)design projects are characterized by a strategic spatial agenda that aims to define and create present organizational time, in ways that embed a particular vision of the future. The analysis brings to light the interrelationships between strategy practitioners, strategy practices and strategic work through which the future is actualized. Office design processes involve not only the physical transformation of office space; they also promote a prominent agenda to modify, in the long run, office members' minds. Hence, office (re)design processes may be conceived of as a significant device in the socialization of accounting practitioners.

This study underscores that spatial strategizing constitutes a major device through which the future is brought into the present. As such, the analysis provides insights not only into the processes through which space transformations take place, but also into their underlying agenda. The latter promotes the advent, in present time, of the organic office of the future.

This analysis brings to the fore a concrete illustration of how the strategy-space-time triangle operates in organizational life. The authors underline the key role played by strategists in charge of designing the office of the future.

This study extends the burgeoning literature whose analytical gaze is informed by the strategy, space, and time triangle.

This study aims to critically evaluate the COVID-19 and future post-COVID-19 impacts on office design, location and functioning with respect to government and community occupational health and safety expectations. It aims to assess how office efficiency and cost control agendas intersect with corporate social accountability.

Theoretically informed by governmentality and social accountability through action, it thematically examines research literature and Web-based professional and business reports. It undertakes a timely analysis of historical office trends and emerging practice discourse during the COVID-19 global pandemic's early phase.

COVID-19 has induced a transition to teleworking, impending office design and configuration reversals and office working protocol re-engineering. Management strategies reflect prioritisation choices between occupational health and safety versus financial returns. Beyond formal accountability reports, office management strategy and rationales will become physically observable and accountable to office staff and other parties.

Future research must determine the balance of office change strategies employed and their evident focus on occupational health and safety or cost control and financial returns. Further investigation can reveal the relationship between formal reporting and observed activities.

Organisations face strategic decisions concerning both their balancing of employee and public health and safety against capital expenditure and operation cost commitments to COVID-19 transmission prevention. They also face strategic accountability decisions as to the visibility and correspondence between their observable actions and their formal social responsibility reporting.

Organisations have continued scientific management office cost reduction strategies under the guise of innovative office designs. This historic trend will be tested by a pandemic, which calls for control of its spread, including radical changes to the office at potentially significant cost.

This paper presents one of few office studies in the accounting research literature, recognising it as central to contemporary organisational functioning and revealing the office cost control tradition as a challenge for employee and community health and safety.