Methodological considerations in the open-plan office paradox: A systematic literature review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Several recent reports conclude that open-plan offices negatively impact workers across a variety of outcome measures. This contrasts to a corporate trend to move from cellular to open-plan layouts, often justified by the same outcomes. Two explanations for this paradox are proposed: (1) the results are more complicated than critical reports suggest, and (2) methodological biases make open-plan layouts look more negative than they are. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the proposed explanations using a systematic literature review. METHODS: Google Scholar was used to find original research on the relationship between office openness and worker outcomes. 89 articles were coded for the variables and methods they used, and conclusions about the relationship between layout and outcomes were evaluated. RESULTS: The proposed explanations were partly supported. The relationship between layout openness and worker outcomes depends on the variables considered and the methods used, and a small subset of methods was used far more often than others. That said, more research is needed to evaluate impact of open-plan offices on worker outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between office openness and worker outcomes varies widely depending on how it is measured. Several promising areas for future research may help clarify this relationship.

Balancing privacy and communication in activity-based workspaces: a longitudinal study

“…For example, Pullen (2014) showed that older employees prefer closed spaces for their work and consequently have a higher need for privacy. However, according to Bennis et al (2022), younger employees are more affected by workplace layout than are their older colleagues. Regarding gender as an extraneous variable, the literature is divided.…”

“…This, in turn, can lead to increased employee exhaustion and even burnout (Appel-Meulenbroek et al, 2020). At the same time, many studies have reported a positive relationship between ABWs and privacy (Blok et al, 2012;Keeling et al, 2015;Kim et al, 2016;Engelen et al, 2019;Bennis et al, 2022), principally in relation to spatial layout and ways of working. Regarding spatial layout, there is evidence that while the removal of physical partitions reduces privacy (Ashkanasy et al, 2014), closed rooms offer a stronger sense of privacy than open workspaces (Kim et al, 2016).…”

“…The decline in manufacturing jobs and the related increase in knowledge-based work has prompted companies to experiment with different forms of PWEs to optimize employee support (Suckley and Nicholson, 2018) and thus enhance performance (Blok et al , 2012). The existing literature argues that privacy (Jahncke et al , 2013; Kim and de Dear, 2013) and communication (De Croon et al , 2005; Haapakangas et al , 2019; Bennis et al , 2022) are key prerequisites for high employee performance.…”

“…Moreover, demographic and individual aspects play an important role in ABWs. Bennis et al (2022) found that the relationship between the work environment and employee performance may be partially influenced by individual differences among employees. In fact, some studies identified in Bennis et al ’s (2022) systematic literature review indicate that the relationship between ABWs and employee output is significantly impacted by employees’ demographic characteristics, such as age and gender, job type and status.…”

Office design, telework from home, and self-certified sickness absence: A cross-sectional study of main and moderating effects in a nationally representative sample

“…This development has mainly been technology-driven (1), financially motivated (2), and accelerated by COVID-19 measures (3), rather than based on scientific knowledge about advantages and disadvantages of different concepts. One reason for this lack of knowledge translation is that research is lagging behind on how these differ-ent ways of organizing office work influence employee health and well-being (2,(4)(5)(6)(7). While office work is changing along several dimensions, such as office design (eg, private versus open-plan offices), office use (eg, fixed versus shared seating), and office location (eg, at work versus at home) (1), most research have been limited to studying office design in isolation (4).…”