Donatella De Paoli and Arja Ropo
The purpose of this paper is to explore the current trend of designing workspaces to foster creativity. The paper brings forth themes that seem to be connected with the so-calledā¦
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the current trend of designing workspaces to foster creativity. The paper brings forth themes that seem to be connected with the so-called ācreative workspacesā. The paper discusses how the findings relate to recent theory and research. Finally, the paper develops propositions to further elaborate the issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts an inductive and social constructionist approach. In all, 40 internet pictures of workspaces claimed to be creative among a broad range of industries and companies which were analyzed through an aesthetic lens and compared to what theory and research about organizational creativity and space inform us.
Findings
The designs of ācreative workspacesā follow a rather standardized and deterministic assumption of what kind of spaces are considered to produce creativity: open offices, happy, playful communities of close-knit teams and spatial arrangements that resemble home, symbols and memories, sports, technology and nature. This view of creativity and workspaces remains a management fad unless a more balanced approach to the issue is assumed.
Research limitations/implications
The sample is not to be representative and the findings generalizable as such, but to bring forth the phenomenon. This exploratory and inductive approach calls for a systematic study to prove the propositions in a more controlled research setting and with a bigger sample.
Practical implications
The paper makes a few suggestions of what companies should pay attention to when building workspaces to improve organizational creativity ā and to overcome the fad.
Social implications
The proposed end-user perspective may ultimately save costs, if people can voice their needs on the space arrangements from the beginning and throughout the building process, not only after the spaces are fully complete, as is typically the case.
Originality/value
The paper provides a critical view on the trend of building work spaces to purposefully enhance organizational creativity. It brings forth themes that are connected to creativity and workspace designs and suggests that more nuances are involved in the issue.
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Anne Live Vaagaasar, Ralf MĆ¼ller and Donatella De Paoli
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the triadic relationship between project workspace (i.e. spatial context), project type and project managerās leadership style. Itā¦
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the triadic relationship between project workspace (i.e. spatial context), project type and project managerās leadership style. It develops the concept of leadership construct (i.e. mental models of leadership to predispose the way leadership is performed) to explain related preferences for workspace and behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of phenomenological inquiry on preferred workspaces in different project types is combined with a conceptual study on related leadership styles in these settings.
Findings
Four different leadership constructs are identified, which are conditioned by workspace and project type: one-on-one, virtual, interactive and mixed leadership. Also, four leadership patterns are identified, and these are related to open office and virtual office settings in product, service, software development and infrastructure construction projects.
Research limitations/implications
The results show the interaction of workspace, project type and leadership styles, which extends existing leadership theory and provides more granularity in determining appropriate leadership styles for project managers.
Practical implications
Practitioners benefit from a more conscious selection of appropriate leadership styles, which positively impacts project results.
Originality/value
By linking workspace, project type and leadership styles, the study is the first of its kind and a novel contribution to theory in project leadership.
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Donatella De Paoli, Arja Ropo and Erika Sauer
This chapter is about physicality in virtual space, where one generally does not expect to find any physicality according to research and literature. Here, working in virtualā¦
Abstract
This chapter is about physicality in virtual space, where one generally does not expect to find any physicality according to research and literature. Here, working in virtual space includes interactions and cooperation through the mail, internet, Skype and video-conferencing. The authors use their own experience of collaborating and leading in a virtual project team. Their own personal accounts, impressions and insights reveal a story of organizational cooperation where physicality matters for developing relations and leadership in virtual space. The piece reveals how an aesthetic consciousness of self and others intensifies in virtual communication, especially in relation to the senses of seeing and listening. For instance, the authors describe perception of the self is possible on SKYPE in a way that is not possible in face-to-face meetings (allowing one to realize if one is not dressed āproperlyā). They argue it is important to identify the physical ādigital selfā and realize the challenges of being fit to operate across time zones, having personal and public boundaries blurred, as well as the heightened sensitivity to imagine what is left out in a virtual relationship. The examples illustrate what kind of sensuous cues become central in virtual communication. The chapter brings forth the need to sensitize to the physicality and to develop skills to perceive and act on it.
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Donatella De Paoli and Arja Ropo
The purpose of this paper is to explore hybrid work spaces, combining open-plan, team-based offices with virtual work and leadership, in relation to the main leadership and teamā¦
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore hybrid work spaces, combining open-plan, team-based offices with virtual work and leadership, in relation to the main leadership and team challenges virtual project environments encounter.
Design/methodology/approach
In a review of virtual team literature, virtuality is defined and its main challenges to project leadership are identified. Based on the literature, several semi-structured interviews with project team managers within telecom and IT-consultancy were conducted. Using an exploratory approach, the authors introduce some new leadership concepts and functional benefits of open-plan offices important for virtual project environments.
Findings
The findings suggest that project managers encounter several new kinds of challenges while leading virtual projects. Co-location of the project team during certain stages in open-plan, team-based offices may meet some of these challenges. The authors claim that spatial arrangements and their embodied subjective experiences make an impact on the effectiveness of virtual project teams.
Research limitations/implications
This paper develops new conceptual thinking of how office facilities may contribute to productive virtual project teams. Further empirical studies in other settings are needed to generate generalizable findings.
Practical implications
The paper discusses and provides arguments for real estate and facility managers, as well as project and team leaders, for the importance of open-plan offices for virtual project teams.
Originality/value
The paper combines and benefits from different discussions on workspaces, virtual team and leadership. Furthermore, the paper introduces the notion of spatial leadership beyond the mainstream leader-centric approach to point out the importance of physical workspace of virtual teams and how the workspaces can perform leadership functions.
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Donatella De Paoli, Kirsten Arge and Siri Hunnes Blakstad
The purpose of this paper is to examine what organisational and management practices used in connection with open space flexible offices create business value. It seeks toā¦
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine what organisational and management practices used in connection with open space flexible offices create business value. It seeks to identify what consequences this may have for successful real estate practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper utilises an inductive case study approach. The international telecom company Telenor has implemented open space flexible offices from top to bottom amongst their 35,000 employees. The case description and analysis is based on secondary data, user evaluations and 20 interviews with middle- and top-level managers across levels and functional departments.
Findings
The case of Telenor reveals that leadership and organizing issues are important, together with work modes and communication technology, for a productive use of work place design. The paper highlights specifically how the open, transparent, flexible office solution creates business value when used with centralised and standardised organisational management systems and a participative, informal leadership culture.
Research limitations/implications
The study is based on one case, so the findings need to be tested across a representative sample of companies.
Practical implications
Managers need to take both organisational and management issues into consideration when implementing new office space design. This challenges also the existing real estate strategies to include the organisational and management issues in their planning.
Originality/value
The originality and value of the paper lies in the analysis and findings of the Telenor case introducing organizational and management perspectives to real estate issues.
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Rune Bjerke, Nicholas Ind and Donatella De Paoli
This paper sets out to explore the impact of aesthetics on employee satisfaction and motivation.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to explore the impact of aesthetics on employee satisfaction and motivation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on organisational aesthetics and organisational culture theory and interviews with employees at Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor ā a significant investor in art, design and architecture.
Findings
There are potential connections between artifacts (as an expression of organisational culture) and employee satisfaction, identity, mood, creativity and motivation. Aesthetics seems to be particularly important to employees working with the business segment because of the faceātoāface interaction between employees and customers. It appears that the āvisual Telenorā influences employees' identification with the organisation.
Practical implications
When organisations invest in art, design and architecture, they need to be active in engaging employees with its meaning and relevance. If employees are not engaged, the aesthetic environment will not stimulate creativity or influence job satisfaction and motivation.
Originality/value
The findings of this paper have enabled the creation of a matrix with four different categories defined by the degree of financial investments in art, design and architecture and the extent of investments in activities engaging employees. A conceptual model is proposed that identifies possible connections between aesthetics and employee performance.
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Donna Ladkin and Steven S. Taylor
Although within the leadership literature there is a body of research concerning the physical attributes of leaders, close examination reveals that much of it offers a ratherā¦
Abstract
Although within the leadership literature there is a body of research concerning the physical attributes of leaders, close examination reveals that much of it offers a rather surface level of analysis. A number of studies, for example, attempt to correlate leadersā height with their success, and attempts have been made to identify a relationship between leadersā performance and their attractiveness. In this book, a range of scholars from differing perspectives delve below the apparent level of physicality to highlight its paradoxically āinvisibleā aspects including: the impact of gesture, the way in which the physical is intrinsically interwoven with the social and the contradictory nature of bodily taboos. The book shows how each of these aspects plays an important role in the creation and maintenance of leadership relationships.
This chapter introduces three tussles we and our authors have faced in navigating this territory. Firstly, we have worked hard to find forms of writing which āpoint towardsā the experience of physicality. Realising that written language can never ābeā that experience (just as Magritte demonstrates with his painting, āCeci nāest pas une pipeā that the reproduction of the pipe is not the pipe itself) we have encouraged authors to contribute first-person accounts, in-depth case studies focused on individuals and even activities which involve the reader in order to evoke a sense of the physical. Secondly, we have endeavoured to distinguish the āinside-outā phenomenon of āembodimentā from the āoutside-inā occurrence of āphysicalityā. Finally, our authors have worked to reveal the mutual entanglement of social and material worlds, such that paradoxically, the physical reveals itself to be āin flowā and continually in a process of ābecomingā. After describing how we have sought to resolve these challenges, a taster from each chapter is offered. The chapter concludes by reasserting the importance of recognising the physical nature of the connection at the heart of human relationships experienced as leadership.