Applied Innovation and Knowledge Management in Organizations

1.1.1.1 Introduction

After a general introduction in this first section, this chapter introduces innovative office designs and its effects, and consequently, a short literature review on office design and well-being. After that, the research questions of this research project are formulated and the research design is explained.

According to DeJoy & Wilson (2003, p. 34), employee well-being represents the physical, psychological and emotional aspects of employee health. Research on employee well-being is well documented in organizational studies. However, comprehensive understanding, conceptual clarification and the definition of employee well-being remain largely unclear and unresolved. The ←11 | 12→term “well-being” can be defined as a state of being comfortable, healthy, and happy. In this regard, employee well-being implies the physical, psychological and emotional health, comfort and happiness of employees (Pradhan & Hati, 2019, p. 3). Further research on employee well-being states that the term consists of six aspects including a manageable workload, personal control, support by colleagues and supervisors, positive job relationships, a clear role and certain control of involvement in organizational change (Jain, Giga & Cooper, 2009, p. 258). Pradhan and Hati (2019) define “well-being” from the human side in comparison to the aspects and prerequisites that are related to the employee well-being. The latter can lead to a human well-being as a consequence in Jain, Giga and Cooper’s (2009) study. It can be said that both definitions are linked to each other and both studies recognize that employee well-being influences organizational outcome such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover. For example, Samad (2015) conducted a study among 193 employees at an Australian university and found a significant relationship between well-being and job satisfaction. Moreover the study found that there is a negative relation between well-being and turnover as well (Samad, 2015, p. 44).

Keyes, Shmotkin and Ryff (2002) present a different stream of analysis on the term well-being. Their research organizes the field of well-being into two broad traditions: one dealing with happiness, and one dealing with human potential.

According to research by Bakker and Demerouti (2018), employees reported about their job demands, resources and well-being in which a relation with individual performance was found. The study states that employees can react sensitive and undermine themselves by creating more job demands. On the other hand, employees can be proactive and optimize their own job demands and resources. It seems that this bottom-up perspective complements the existing top-down approaches. In addition to this, keeping in mind the active role of the relevant stakeholders, i. e. employer and staff, the question rises how various stakeholders interact. Therefore, it is crucial that researchers identify the different factors that influence employee well-being (Bakker & Demerouti, 2018, pp. 5–15).

Job resources have been found to influence commitment and well-being, especially the contribution of individual and team-level resources in the motivational processes. Beyond the supply of job-level resources, organizational- and team-level resources are key motivational developments. These developments support an explanation of how levels of commitment and well-being can be increased. Additional resources, such as job involvement, and organizational and team factors, such as vision clarity and psychological safety, can be assessed ←12 | 13→for either a direct or indirect impact on job resources and engagement (Albrecht, 2012, p. 853).

Simultaneously, these aspects affect individuals by complex means. There is not a general consensus on the best aspects of employee well-being. Yet, many types of employee well-being affect the organization, either positively or negatively. Many theories and research focus on physical health, mental health, job satisfaction, motive, morale, stress, organization commitment, and climate (Grawitch, Gottschalk & Munz, 2006, p. 134).

Seligman’s theory describes five characteristics of well-being (Seligman, 2012). Positive emotions include feelings such as happiness, pleasure, and comfort. Within this characteristic, positive emotions serve as a marker for personal well-being. Frederickson (1998) proposes that positive emotions produce personal prosperity and are worth to manage. According to her Broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions like happiness can enhance awareness and lead to new ideas and actions (Fredrickson, 1998). The factor engagement refers to being interested and engaged in a particular activity, organization, or purpose. Additionally, Kahn (1990) defines that engagement is the willingness of employees to invest in their work roles (Kahn, 1990), physically and emotionally. The element of relationships includes feelings of being integrated in society or a community. Moreover, feelings of being cared by loved ones and being satisfied with one’s social network belong to this category/aspect. Many experiences of individuals revolve around other individuals. Therefore, support from social relationships has been connected to a decrease in depression, increase of physical health, and lower mortality rates. Research has proven that there is evidence that social relationships are beneficial for health, absenteeism, and self-management (Tay, Tan, Diener & Gonzalez, 2012). The characteristic of meaning is to have sense of purpose and direction in life and feeling connected to something larger than the individual. Individuals who claim to be happy and satisfied with their live often state that their lives are more meaningful. Nevertheless, a meaningful life is not naturally a happy life (Baumeister et al., 2013). Accomplishment as the fifth element indicates making progress to the individuals’ goals or objectives. By achieving these goals or objectives, one can gain external recognition and an internal sense of accomplishment. The term accomplishment can be understood in a subjective way, in this sense it can be affected by individual ambition, drive, and personal characteristics. For example, an individual who raises a child might consider life as successful, while the other defines success as earning a promotion to become a manager (Seligman, 2012).←13 | 14→

The activity-based flexible office (A-FO) is realized at many non-profit organizations on global scale. The concept of A-FO has the goal to improve usage of office space, increase performance, and decreases costs of facilities. The concept aims to provide various workspaces that fit work activities and environmental preferences of employees. In addition to this, the A-FO might offer several benefits. The concept aims to stimulate interaction, to increase employee productivity and satisfaction, to attract and to bind staff, to reduce the environmental footprint, and to obtain a positive image among internal stakeholders and often also to reduce employers costs. The A-FO concept is also named as new offices, flexible offices, flex offices or non-territorial offices (Babapour & Rolfö, 2019, p. 18).

There exist also radically innovative and creative forms of working: For example, Rudokas et al. (2020) propose the forest-office administrative movement (FO-AM) that allows staff to move from sitting to walking while working in created or adapted forest areas. This futuristic approach is based on the idea of a heritage that aims to connect between the past and future. Not only the connection between the past and future is important, merging together nature and culture, biology and technology as well. Furthermore, the FO-AM concept aims to ensure quality of life and employee well-being for all ages, promotes sustainable organizational growth, employment, and favourable work conditions (Rudokas et al., 2020, p. 45). Sustainability is seen here as a concept that allows to exploit material resources in order to satisfy the needs of the present generation without reducing the chances of future generations to do so.

Oseland, Catchlove and Miller (2013) proposed the concept of living offices where ergonomics plays an important role. Their concept includes a shift in tools, management and places that improves creativity, productivity, connectivity, and ergonomics in the workplace. For example, employees who want to chat might seek a semi-private area that enables them to do so. Whilst other individuals want to show and tell contents, they might look for a meeting space in which tables, seats, and technology support employees with the ability to share digital content (Catchlove & Miller, 2013, p. 201).

1.1.1.3 Effects of office designs

In previous research many valuable conclusions are drawn with regards to the effects of interior office design. However, minimal attention is paid to the difference between successful and unsuccessful cases. According to Brunia, de Been and van der Voordt (2016), organizations that consider implementing new ways ←14 | 15→of working in activity-based work (ABW) settings can benefit from other organizational experiences that already carried out activity-based work. On the other hand, the unsuccessful offices are mainly characterized by failure factors from ABWs. Therefore, it is expected that once pre- and post-evaluations are taken into account by the heads of departments, an increase of employee well-being will be the result. ABWs and A-FO are expected to be successful due to certain design or process characteristics (Brunia, de Been & van der Voordt, 2016, p. 33).

Ching and Binggeli (2018) state that there should be a fit of the form of sustainable of interior space and the own body dimensions. For example, this can be a static form in which one sits in a chair or in a dynamic form. The dynamic form contributes to human movement in terms of walking up a stairway, move through the rooms and halls of a building. It appears that space which encourages or discourages movements has a positive influence on employee well-being. Another advantage, besides the positive influence on well-being, is that physical activity has been shown to stimulate psychological activity. Furthermore the design of sustainable workspaces for different functions has both a positive physical and psychological impact on employees (Ching & Binggeli, 2018, pp. 45–55).

Summing up, open-plan offices (A-FO) and activity-based offices (ABW) have become more popular in the recent years. The reasons behind the implementation of these new office concepts are not only employee-oriented but they also serve the goal of decreasing costs, saving space and increasing flexibility in office use (Rolfö, Eklund & Jahncke, 2017, p. 645).