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The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration

Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into ‘open’, transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on how human interaction patterns c...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bernstein, Ethan S., Turban, Stephen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6030579/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29967303
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239
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author Bernstein, Ethan S.
Turban, Stephen
author_facet Bernstein, Ethan S.
Turban, Stephen
author_sort Bernstein, Ethan S.
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description Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into ‘open’, transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on how human interaction patterns change as a result of these architectural changes. In two intervention-based field studies of corporate headquarters transitioning to more open office spaces, we empirically examined—using digital data from advanced wearable devices and from electronic communication servers—the effect of open office architectures on employees' face-to-face, email and instant messaging (IM) interaction patterns. Contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction. In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over email and IM. This is the first study to empirically measure both face-to-face and electronic interaction before and after the adoption of open office architecture. The results inform our understanding of the impact on human behaviour of workspaces that trend towards fewer spatial boundaries. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Interdisciplinary approaches for uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour’.
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spelling pubmed-60305792018-07-05 The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration Bernstein, Ethan S. Turban, Stephen Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Organizations’ pursuit of increased workplace collaboration has led managers to transform traditional office spaces into ‘open’, transparency-enhancing architectures with fewer walls, doors and other spatial boundaries, yet there is scant direct empirical research on how human interaction patterns change as a result of these architectural changes. In two intervention-based field studies of corporate headquarters transitioning to more open office spaces, we empirically examined—using digital data from advanced wearable devices and from electronic communication servers—the effect of open office architectures on employees' face-to-face, email and instant messaging (IM) interaction patterns. Contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction. In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over email and IM. This is the first study to empirically measure both face-to-face and electronic interaction before and after the adoption of open office architecture. The results inform our understanding of the impact on human behaviour of workspaces that trend towards fewer spatial boundaries. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Interdisciplinary approaches for uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour’. The Royal Society 2018-08-19 2018-07-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6030579/ /pubmed/29967303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Bernstein, Ethan S.
Turban, Stephen
The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title_full The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title_fullStr The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title_full_unstemmed The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title_short The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
title_sort impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6030579/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29967303
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239
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