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University faculty, researchers and graduate students are increasingly working out of hotdesks, nonterritorial workspaces available on a “first come first served” basis and cleared of all work and personal possessions at the end of every work session. The aim of this study of the hotdesking experiences of doctoral students in a US public university facility is to identify the themes and coping behaviors associated with hotdesking and examine their implications for campus workspace design and policymaking.

This study uses multiple methods – direct and participant observation of flex workspaces in the study site, semi-structured interviews of doctoral students hotdesking in the study site and archival research of public institutional data.

Study participants work early or late to secure suitable hotdesks, perform important tasks in locations other than the study site, incur co-working space and home office costs, etc. to cope with the themes of uncertainty, lack of control and lack of workspace continuity associated with hotdesking. Workspace reservation systems, storage lockers and workspaces for diverse tasks can improve the on-campus hotdesking experience. Off-campus support such as financial support for setting up and maintaining a home office, subscription to co-working spaces, etc. can facilitate productivity and foster a sense of connection in hotdesk users.

This study contributes evidence that hotdesking doctoral students operate in a hybrid work environment composed of on- and off-campus locations. This study provides original insight that hotdesk users need on- and off-campus workspace support to experience productivity, connection and well-being in a hybrid campus work environment.

The purpose of this study is to understand how unassigned workspaces translate into an effective workplace. This is achieved by examining employees and their understanding of how unassigned workspaces impact their engagement, satisfaction and desire to stay with their workplace.

Two workplaces designed on the strategy of 100% unassigned workspaces are analyzed as case studies to understand this phenomenon. Mixed methodology, primarily qualitative method with a survey nested within is used for this study. Grounded theory, one of the strategies of qualitative research methodology is applied as a method for analyzing the data. The study is aimed to reveal the participants' perspectives and interpretations of their actions and physical environment on effectiveness in relation to the unassigned work environment.

The information afforded the development of an overarching theoretical scheme for integrating spatial categories and describing the employees' experiences of their work environment from the various perspectives. The research reveals that unassigned and flexible spatial attributes contribute positively to employee satisfaction, engagement and retention. However, some of the goals surrounding the culture of trust and autonomy such as privacy, personalization and lack of control are compromised in these environments.

The insights obtained from this study will provide designers, architects, facility planners and managers a new design tool to aid in making the unassigned workspaces model more effective.

This study bridges the gap while documenting how unassigned workspaces translate into an effective workplace for the employees to be productive, engaged and satisfied.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether activity-based workspaces (ABWs) are able to solve the privacy-communication trade-off known from fixed-desk offices. In fixed-desk offices, employees work in private or open-plan offices (or in combi-offices) with fixed workstations, which support either privacy or communication, respectively. However, both dimensions are essential to effective employee performance, which creates the dilemma known as the privacy-communication trade-off. In activity-based workspaces, flexible workstations and the availability of different spaces may solve this dilemma, but clear empirical evidence on the matter is unavailable.

To address this knowledge gap, the authors surveyed knowledge workers (N = 363) at a medium-sized German company at three time points (T1–T3) over a one-year period during the company’s move from a fixed-desk combi-office (a combination of private and open-plan offices with fixed workplaces) to an ABW. Using a quantitative survey, the authors evaluated the employees’ perceived privacy and perceived communication in the old (T1) and the new work environments (T2 and T3).

The longitudinal study revealed a significant increase in employees’ perceived privacy and perceived communication in the ABW. These increases remained stable in the long term, which implies that ABWs have a lasting positive impact on employees.

As the privacy and communication dimensions were previously considered mutually exclusive in a single workplace, the results confirm that ABWs can balance privacy and communication, providing optimal conditions for enhanced employee performance.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an applicable solution to help organizations to solve the problem of participation vs privacy in office buildings.

A theoretical model is proposed based on research claims that employees' participation motivated by three issues simultaneously is likely to shape the ideal overall participation map in office layouts. These are organizational, physical planning, and personal characteristics issues. The model was applied to a case study and results were compared with employees' reaction.

Once the model was applied, results revealed misallocation of 63 per cent of staff in their workspaces. Results support employees' reaction towards their dissatisfaction with the level of participation vs privacy they possess in their workspaces.

Each organization could have a different participation map due to variations in organizational and personal characteristics issues. Further research is needed to understand relationships among the three incorporated issues.

The proposed model could be easily applied and would provide organizations with ideal office layouts that would support productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the triadic relationship between project workspace (i.e. spatial context), project type and project manager’s leadership style. It develops the concept of leadership construct (i.e. mental models of leadership to predispose the way leadership is performed) to explain related preferences for workspace and behaviors.

A combination of phenomenological inquiry on preferred workspaces in different project types is combined with a conceptual study on related leadership styles in these settings.

Four different leadership constructs are identified, which are conditioned by workspace and project type: one-on-one, virtual, interactive and mixed leadership. Also, four leadership patterns are identified, and these are related to open office and virtual office settings in product, service, software development and infrastructure construction projects.

The results show the interaction of workspace, project type and leadership styles, which extends existing leadership theory and provides more granularity in determining appropriate leadership styles for project managers.

Practitioners benefit from a more conscious selection of appropriate leadership styles, which positively impacts project results.

By linking workspace, project type and leadership styles, the study is the first of its kind and a novel contribution to theory in project leadership.

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 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.

There is shortage of global research on asset management (AM) by various central governments. This paper aims at reducing this gap.

This general review is based on literature, published government documents, agendas of specialized membership organizations (considered through the qualitative thematic analysis) and the authors’ experiences in advising governments on AM in 30 countries. The study focuses on three topics of recurrent interest among governments and AM experts: drivers of change and response trends; organizational models and attributes of good governance at public AM organizations. It also discusses whether the examined practices conform with New Public Management (NPM).

The paper identifies five key international drivers of change: austerity measures; an increased focus on performance management; changes in political and ideological agendas; technology and business operations changes; and the environmental sustainability agenda. It analyses response trends to these drivers, both positive and negative. Five dimensions of organizational settings that are important for AM are identified, demonstrating the great diversity of practices. The paper outlines governance elements specific to government AM and illustrates related challenges. It also shows that while current AM typically conforms with NPM, there are notable deviations, such as low corporatization and recentralization of AM.

This paper is a broad review; in-depth study of specific aspects is left for further research.

The paper introduces new empirical knowledge about AM approaches at central governments into research discourse, with a broad thematic coverage not achieved before; contributes to the discussion of some hot underexplored topics; hypothesizes why current AM practices deviate from NPM doctrines; and provides unique insights for AM practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of environmental factors in open-plan offices with the same characteristics but with different workstation partition heights (1.10, 1.40 and 1.65 m) on perceptual evaluations of office employees.

In this research, the effects of environmental factors on employees’ perceptual evaluations in open-plan offices at the Gölbaşı Region of Ankara were measured with a detailed questionnaire. The research data were obtained from 81 employees who agreed to fill out the questionnaire and who use open-plan offices.

It was found that the office environments with 1.65 m workstation partition heights were more favorably assessed for each of the items of planning and of privacy that form the dependent variables compared to the office environments with 1.10  and 1.40 m partition heights. On the other hand, the office environments with the 1.10 and 1.40 m partition heights were more favorable for lighting items than the 1.65 m partition height office environments. In addition, young employees had a more positive tendency toward the perceptions of environmental factors, including different workstation partition heights in open-plan offices, compared to older employees.

Results of this research provide a fundamental contribution for the impact of various partition heights that have substantial implications on the perceptions of open-plan office environments. At this point, as open-plan offices have important effects on the quality of employees’ work experiences, the influence of various partition heights on the performance of employees should be emphasized in future studies. The diversity of performance (reading comprehension, calculation, design, drawing, etc.) will be an important decision.

The significant contribution of this research is that it provides valid data and makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge in open-plan office design.

The study aims to provide insight on the relationship between a newly implemented workplace concept, its intentions, the actual use and ultimately its ability to function as a strategic tool. By addressing the intended and unintended consequences of planned spatial arrangements, the interest lies in studying underlying factors affecting the concepts’ ability to function as a strategic tool.

The case study builds on semi-structured interviews and observational studies from a larger Norwegian organisation that recently implemented an activity-based workplace concept. Concept descriptions and architectural drawings have also been important sources to study how the concept was interpreted and used by different groups.

Taking a socio-material perspective, the findings illustrate that spatial aspects and different concept structures, together with issues such as employee mobility and time spent in the office, different work processes, management style and departmental cultures influenced the way the activity-based workplace concept was perceived and taken into use.

The findings indicate that social and cultural aspects may play a more significant role in the adaptation process than previously emphasised. The article further provides knowledge on how organisations, in planning and implementation of such concepts, may address the right issues to overcome challenges and achieve the higher strategic ends.