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Several studies have recently documented projects of organizational transformation and modernization which, commonly clustered under the umbrella term “New Ways of Working” (NWoW), simultaneously entail material, technological, cultural and managerial dimensions. Academic contributions, however, have paid little attention to the mechanisms allowing such projects to progressively become legitimized in organizational discourses and practices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinctive features of the legitimation process underlying the implementation of NWoW projects.

This paper relies on a longitudinal, three-year analysis of a large insurance company. Data were collected through qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews (48), periods of observation (3 months) and document analysis (78).

The paper develops a grounded and integrative framework of legitimation processes underlying “NWoW” change projects. The framework emphasizes four decisive operations of translation in “NWoW” design and implementation: translating material constraints into strategic opportunities; translating strategic opportunities into a quantitative business plan supported by the top management; translating compelling discourses around “NWoW” into an organizational machinery; and translating a transformation project into discourses of unequivocal success, conveyed by legitimate spokespeople within and beyond the organization.

Besides contributing to the understanding of a managerial fashion, which has received little academic attention so far, the paper also offers an original integrative framework to account for legitimation processes that combines two theoretical approaches – the sociology of translation and research on institutionalist work.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and evaluate methods for analysing the impacts of work environment changes. New working practices and work environments present the potential to improve both the productivity and the wellbeing of knowledge workers, and more widely, the performance of organisations and the wider society. The flexibility offered by information and communication technology has influenced changes in the physical environment where activity-based offices are becoming the standard. Research offers some evidence on the impacts of work environment changes, but studies examining methods that could be useful in capturing the overall impacts and how to measure them are lacking.

This paper concludes research of the last five years and includes data from several organisations. The paper presents and empirically demonstrates the application of three complementary ways to analyse the impacts of knowledge work redesigns. The methods include: interview framework for modelling the potential of new ways of working (NWoW); questionnaire tool for measuring the subjective knowledge work performance in the NWoW context; and multidimensional performance measurement for measuring the performance impacts at the organisational level.

This paper presents a framework for identifying the productivity potential and measuring the impacts of work environment changes. The paper introduces the empirical examples of three different methods for analysing the impacts of NWoW and discusses the usefulness and challenges of the methods. The results also support the idea of a measurement process and confirm that it suits NWoW context.

The three methods explored in this study can be used in organisations for planning and measuring work environment changes. The paper presents a comprehensive approach to work environment which could help managers to identify and improve the critical points of knowledge work.

Changes in the work environment are huge for knowledge workers, but it is still unclear whether their effects on performance are negative or positive. The value of this paper is that it applies traditional measurement methods to NWoW contexts, and analyses how these could be used in research and management.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the working of the PACT calculation model, a tool to determine office space dimensions. New ways of working (NWoW) seem to have become a fixed value in facility management (FM) practice in The Netherlands today. Stimulated by new technological possibilities, companies are rethinking their office environments to make workplaces more flexible and their use “activity related”. However, this requires a different approach to quantify the needed space and determine the types of workplaces to fit organizations’ processes. The PLaces and ACTivities (PACT) calculation model allows (facility) managers to gain an insight in the number and type of spaces needed, modulated by different scenarios and fitting to the organization and its work processes.

This article mainly aims to present the PACT model: an office space calculation tool. A case study is presented and calculated to compare an actual work environment of an organization to the PACT calculated results. As input for the model, data were used that were available before the work environment changes in 2007. Additionally, one scenario of a different workplace use is calculated which helped to visualize the accuracy and validity of the model.

When comparing the post hoc PACT calculated space to the real-life work environment, the number of calculated workplaces and the ratio to the number of employees do not seem to differ strongly. However, substantially less meeting space is calculated by the model, and some elements might require more testing to verify it completely. The scenario calculation shows that the model output changes to adapt to a more flexible work process.

Even though calculation and simulation models for office space are available, the described model puts together many different elements to provide a more holistic calculation. Elements like, for instance, absence, activities and occupational choices are combined.

While more and more organizations commit to transformation projects with the aim of redesigning simultaneously their workspaces, work organization, and technologies, the design process supporting such projects remains largely understudied. This paper examines the political tensions that occur when such processes unfold as well as their implications for project management. By doing so, the paper counterbalances the prescriptive and normative literature on “New Ways of Working” which largely overlooks the political complexity of such projects.

The paper is based on a qualitative study of a triple design process in a media company. Data collection mainly consists of a nine-month process of non-participant observation of weekly meetings held by the strategic group in charge of the project. Semi-structured interviews with members of the executive committee have also been conducted.

The analysis illustrates how space, organization and technology are gradually designed and structured. Four interconnected and often concealed mechanisms that support triple design processes are identified: political tensions, unexpected twists, conflicting temporalities and arbitration measures.

The originality of the paper lies in breaking down the concept of design in three separate objects – organization, space and technology – and examining how these objects were conjointly problematized by an organization in transformation, whereas existing studies often investigate organization design, space design or technology design in isolation.

The purpose of this study is to find out the future workforce’s work values and, based on them, to examine the work environment Generation Z are looking for in the situation of job search. Moreover, this study aims to provide ideas for organizations on how to transform the work environment for the post-COVID-19 era to attract and retain employees, especially the members of Generation Z.

The research design is based on the theory development method. Data were generated and collected from 28 focus groups and a survey (n = 773). First, initial coding was done with an affinity diagram, followed by the intermediate coding phase, when the authors compared the codings’ results and selected the core data. Finally, the advanced coding resulted in a work value model, which presents Generation Z’s core work value categories.

The paper presents a work value theory for Generation Z, which reflects their expectations of the physical work environment and the flexible work arrangements among the work values. To prepare for the post-COVID-19 era, this study suggests organizations applying hybrid working models.

Based on impacts and expected transformations in office work in the post-COVID-19 era, the paper calls attention to the critical management issues concerning Generation Z’s preferences and expectations.

The findings propose a broader work value theory approach that highlights the work environment’s convenience features and integrates values that support the employees’ desired lifestyle and well-being.

The recent COVID-19 emergency has brought to light issues connected to physical work environment, particularly to offices and to its impact on service employees’ internal responses, behaviors and outcomes. As the topic is characterized by fragmented theoretical approaches as well as a lack in consolidated empirical research, this study aims at providing a clear understanding of the main – as well as the most recent – issues debated in academic literature today.

The study is a systematic literature review. Specifically, 124 papers, retrieved by Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost research databases, are here systematically analyzed.

The main findings are connected to the prevalence of studies investigating employees’ satisfaction and productivity as main outcomes, the increasing attention by academics to new workplace designs, characterized by peculiar attributes such as flexibility and nonterritoriality, and finally, the lower interest in nonoffice working environments.

The review sheds light on the current knowledge of the relation between physical work environment and service employees to identify the main issues debated in academic literature and make suggestions for further research. First, the need to explore aspects of the physical work environment and employees’ outcomes that have not been adequately studied. Second, the relevance to investigate the above relation in public sector. Moreover, the importance of careful planning of the physical and virtual work environment in the context of the COVID-19 emergency.

The purpose of this study is to explore which factors may explain the high or low percentages of satisfied employees in offices with shared activity-based workplaces.

The paper compares data on employee satisfaction from two cases with remarkably high satisfaction scores and two cases with significantly lower satisfaction scores (total N = 930), all of the same organisation. These cases were selected from a database with employee responses to a standardised questionnaire in 52 flexible work environments. In the four case studies, also group interviews were conducted.

Overall, there are large differences in employee satisfaction between cases with, at first sight, a similar activity-based office concept. The main differences between the best and worst cases regard employee satisfaction with the interior design, level of openness, subdivision of space, number and diversity of work places and accessibility of the building. Employee satisfaction shows to be influenced by many physical characteristics of the work environment and by the implementation process. Satisfaction with the organisation may have an impact as well.

Almost all cases regard Dutch organisations. Due to the lack of quantitative scales to define the physical characteristics of the work environment, the study is mainly descriptive and explorative and does not include advanced multivariate statistical analyses.

The data revealed clear critical success factors including a supportive spatial layout to facilitate communication and concentration, attractive architectural design, ergonomic furniture, appropriate storage facilities and coping with psychological and physical needs, such as privacy, thermal comfort, daylight and view. Critical process factors are the commitment of managers, a balance between a top-down and a bottom-up approach and clear instructions on how to use activity-based workplaces.

The study connects descriptive research with inductive reasoning to explore why employees may be satisfied or dissatisfied with flex offices. It is based on a combination of quantitative survey data from 52 cases and a closer look at two best cases and two worst cases based on qualitative data from interviews and personal observations. The study has high practical value due to the integral approach that incorporates many items of the physical environment and context factors like the implementation process.