The Dynamics of Organizational Proximity

Abstract

The proximity among people in an organization is known to exert considerable influence on a variety of organizational outcomes such as performance, stress, and job satisfaction. Early research on proximity in organizations studied pairs of people in job locations that were at fixed distances (e.g., keypunch operators at their work stations). This research procedure ignores three critical features of organizational life. First, people are simultaneously proximate to everyone else in their organization. Second, this proximity changes throughout the day as people move about the organization. Finally, the opportunity and obligation for communication that people perceive by being physically close to others is often more important than the actual physical distance. The present paper develops a definition of organizational proximity that accounts for these previous limitations. Specifically, organizational proximity is defined as two or more people being in the same location where there is both the opportunity and psychological obligation for face-to-face communication. This measure, when aggregated across all people in an organization, provides a single value of how concentrated people are in the various locations of the firm. Further, given the proper data collection techniques, it reveals the degree to which organizational proximity changes throughout the workday and workweek. On the basis of this definition, research was conducted which examined the organizational proximity among employees in a research and development firm for each 15-minute interval of a typical workweek. Two major findings were obtained. First, the level of organizational proximity changed considerably during the course of a typical day, with peaks during the late morning and early afternoon and valleys during the early morning, lunch, and late afternoon hours. Second, the pattern was highly consistent from day-to-day. This consistency permitted the development of a model which enables accurate prediction of the level of organizational density for any time period during any day of the workweek. There are several rather interesting managerial implications in these results. First, they support Peters and Waterman's (Peters, T. J., R. H. Waterman. 1982. Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. Harper & Row, New York, 3--26, 119--155, 200--234.) recent recommendation of "management by wandering around," since that technique maximizes a manager's proximity to employees. Second, the results suggest managerial and electronic alternatives to traditional forms of communication such as face-to-face meetings and phonecalls. Third, they imply alternative strategies for managing the daily fluctuations in availability of people and communication that result from differences and changes in organizational proximity.organizational proximity

Explaining the Diffusion of Web-Based Communication Technology among Congressional Offices: A Natural Experiment using State Delegations

“…Co-location or spatial proximity itself will not lead to an increased communication-they are just prerequisites for higher exposure, more frequent informal occasions where people meet in the hallways or other social areas within office buildings. These meetings in turn increase the probability of informal communication regarding successful technology practices (Allen, 1978;Festinger, 1950;Kraut, Egido, and et al, 1990;Monge, Rothman, and et al, 1985;Rice and Aydin, 1991;Zahn, 1991). Walker's (1969) classic study of the diffusion of innovations among the American states shows that diffusion tends to occur more regularly among adjacent states, which he took to proxy for more regular communication among state-level policy activists (see also Mintrom, 1997).…”

Work Groups and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization.

“…Rather, as noted above, geographically distributed members had a more difficult time with various group processes, such as informal communication with one another (Allen, 1977;Conrath, 1973;Monge, Rothman, Eisenberg, Miller, & Kirste, 1985). Therefore, a prediction regarding the direct impact of geographic distribution on performance is not made.…”

The Impact of Cultural Diversity on the Academic Performance: A Study on Turkish Universities

“…For this reason, academicians with different abilities, skills, experience and knowledge should work together in a cohesive team (McFadyen, Semadeni, & Cannella, 2009). It is believed that the performance will increase through the internal and external sharing of information within the groups with diversities (Monge, Rothman, Eisenberg, Miller, & Kirste, 1985). Daft (2003:440) examines the diversity in the form of a binary distinction as "base dimensions" and "secondary dimensions".…”