‘Towards a Sociology of Organizational Space’

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to, and extend, the emergent Sociology of organizational space. It engages critically with labour process approaches, which position space within a control-resistance paradigm, suggesting that the conceptualization of space embedded within these accounts is limited and limiting. Drawing on insights from cultural geography the paper uses a new empirical study to show the ways that spatial meanings and spatial practices in the micro-spaces of office life are constructed through diverse experiences, memories and identities operating at a range of spatial scales.

O Organizar da Estética Espacial: Uma História Táctil da Praça dos Leões

“…A autora sugere que um reposicionamento de nossas suposições convencionais acerca da materialidade nos ajudará a reconhecer o múltiplo, o emergente, reunindo conjuntos sócio-materiais correspondentes e implicando no organizar das práticas. Halford (2004) discutiu sobre a emergente abordagem de uma sociologia dos espaços organizacionais que se baseia em insights da geografia cultural para discutir as formas de compreender as práticas espaciais em micro-espaços da vida organizada. Estas formas são construídas através de diversas experiências, memórias e identidades, tendo como lócus de operação diferentes escalas espaciais.…”

An Intelligent Hot-Desking Model Based on Occupancy Sensor Data and Its Potential for Social Impact

“…However, such schemes have had mixed success [11]. Literature's criticisms on that can be categorised into three key aspects: (a) Ineffective management applying slow and inconsistent methods of distributing desks that can often even lead to misunderstandings about whether or not a desk if free [12], (b) Loss of working synergies which actually consists of the loss of collaboration and exchange of ideas due to not placing staff working on similar projects in close proximity, and (c) cultural and behavioural barriers which could include but not limited to the personalisation of an office (which is mostly lost in Hot-Desking environments) that could make the individual more comfortable and therefore more productive [13]. None of these parameters should look insignificant since even small variations (for example 1% decrease) in productivity have significant impact on even the smallest scales [14].…”

‘Leader, you first’: The everyday production of hierarchical space in a Chinese bureaucracy

“…Importantly, research suggests that users' subjective experiences of space, whether symbolic or aesthetic, can be very different from the ways space is intended in design. Users approach space through their life histories, cultural heritages, social classes, and professional and gender backgrounds; thus, organizational space remains open to multiple interpretations and experiences (Cairns et al, 2003;Daskalaki et al, 2008;Dober and Strannegård, 2004;Ford and Harding, 2004;Halford, 2004;Kociatkiewicz and Kostera, 1999;Rusted, 1990;Yanow, 1995Yanow, , 1998. Monologues (Van Marrewijk, 2010), visual images (Warren, 2008) and circulated stories (Halford and Leonard, 2006) are important means through which users explore and express their spatial experiences.…”

“…Another study finds how the power relations embodied in university buildings which laid out to specify professor-student hierarchy was 'made partial, ambiguous and contingent by the walking bodies of students' (Hurdley, 2010: 59). To contest managerially introduced 'hot-desking' strategies, employees restored workplace communities by sticking to their habitual desks and putting passwords on adjacent computer stations (Halford, 2004;Warren, 2005). Sometimes, designed spatial features were altered so radically in everyday uses that they left visible traces of power confrontation (Wasserman and Frenkel 2011).…”

“…This is because organizational space is constantly produced through the everyday ways it is used and lived within (Beyes and Steyaert, 2012;Wapshott and Marlett, 2012). The ways of occupying space, experiencing it and using it can reconfigure spatial power relations in often surprising ways which were not intended by the designers (Halford, 2004;Hurdley, 2010;Tyler and Cohen, 2010). Much of this literature focuses on the ways quotidian actions can under-mine or resist dominant power relations.…”