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This paper aims to propose a theoretical framework for workplace research based on sociomateriality. Sociomateriality is a theory to explain the effects of social practice and materiality in an organization. Workplace studies in facility management (FM) can adopt this theory to understand the complex relationships between physical work environments and human factors.

Review of sociomateriality was conducted to understand the connection to existing workplace studies in FM. This study addresses the components of the workplace through the sociomateriality perspective.

The main focuses in sociomateriality theory are materiality and social practice. For workplace concepts specifically in FM, workplaces and their components are a material agency, and work and workers are a social practice agency. By considering both materiality and sociality in workplace environments, researchers can understand office dynamics and interrelationships. Lastly, two statistical analysis methods are suggested to analyze the framework: structural equation modeling and multilevel analysis.

To understand the human–environment relationship, it is essential to consider both materiality and social practice perspectives simultaneously. The proposed framework can be a foundation to explain the complex interactions between the physical environment and human factors of workers in individual organizations.

This study aims to investigate the performance of open-plan office layouts and to identify occupants’ concerns in existing open-plan office layouts.

Workplace activity questionnaire (WAQ) was administered in the form of an online survey in March 2019, as part of a design briefing process for the expansion of the office facilities located in Bangalore, India, for a Fortune 100 software technology company. A total of 4,810 questionnaires were distributed and 3,877 responses were received (80.6% response rate). After that, 849 incomplete responses were eliminated from the analysis, resulting in a final sample size of 3,028. The questionnaire included 11 key activities conducted by the office workers and established the gap between the workers’ perceived importance and support from their existing facilities using a five-point Likert scale.

The findings of this study provide strong evidence that different physical environments influence the satisfaction of occupants. An improvement of the facilities, especially by enabling areas for quiet working, should be prioritized in relation to the other activities surveyed. Also, office workers perceived significantly different support levels for quiet working depending on their department, while there was no significant difference between the workers of different buildings.

Individual demographic information was not collected because of the possibility of personal identification. There was also a lack of objective environmental measures, such as temperature and noise level. Thus, the quality of indoor environments was unknown. In this study, some respondents mentioned dissatisfaction with indoor environmental quality, including noise, temperature and air quality in their comments.

In the programming stage of a workplace design process, the WAQ survey tool has value because it renders important insight into the perception of a live workplace, which can then be used to determine priorities for a design effort. It clearly identifies the areas to focus on, ask questions about and develop improvements. Validating its reliability will enhance its credibility and confidence in its use. In addition, the large sample size provides statistical advantages in the data analysis, providing a higher likelihood to find a true positive of the findings of the study. Also, having a relatively high response rate provides an advantage of mitigating the risk of having non-response bias in the analysis.

This study investigates the relationships between the built environments of learning commons and user productivity, such as collaborative and individual work productivity and overall environmental satisfaction.

A case study was conducted in a learning commons building at a higher education campus in the USA. The data collection and analysis were conducted with the survey responses of satisfaction with indoor environments and perceived productivity as well as the objective indoor environmental quality (IEQ) measurements. Statistical analysis was performed, including descriptive analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), regression analysis and ANOVA test.

The study presents that satisfaction with noise level is positively associated with individual productivity. The results imply that the spatial properties of open-plan commons, such as visibility and accessibility, are associated with space users' interactions and collaborative productivity. Overall satisfaction is in a positive relationship with lighting satisfaction, study supporting artifacts and furniture configuration. The results of this study reveal the importance of meeting the standards in IEQ factors on individual productivity and the spatial features preferred by space users that facilitate tasks and activities.

The mixed-method approach, including subjective and objective data collection of IEQ, is rarely utilized to show the relationships with perceived productivity. This study investigates a unique building design feature such as step seats in relation to space use and perceived productivity. The findings inform library leadership about environmental characteristics related to the user experience in learning commons, a new format of academic libraries.

This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.

This study conducted a survey targeting workers in the USA recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 1,651 responses were collected and 648 responses were used for the analysis.

The perceived work-life balance improved during the pandemic compared to before, while the balance of physical boundaries between the workplace and home decreased. Workplace flexibility, environmental conditions of home offices and organizational supports are positively associated with productivity, satisfaction with working from home and work-life balance during the pandemic.

While the strict traditional view of “showing” up in the office from Monday through Friday is likely on the decline, the hybrid workplace with flexibility can be introduced as some activities are not significantly affected by the work location, either at home-based or corporate offices. The results of this study also highlight the importance of organizations to support productivity and satisfaction in the corporate office as well as home. With the industry collaboration, future research of relatively large sample sizes and study sites, investigating workers’ needs and adapted patterns of use in home-based and corporate offices, will help corporate real estate managers make decisions and provide some level of standardization of spatial efficiency and configurations of corporate offices as well as essential supports for home offices.

The pandemic-enforced working-from-home practices awaken the interdependence between corporate and home environments, how works are done and consequently, the role of the physical workplace. This study built a more in-depth understanding of how workers who were able to continue working from home during COVID-19 changed or not changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.

Gut microbial changes are associated with diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes and may be influenced by diet patterns. Thus, this paper aims to investigate the effects of alcohol, sodium chloride (NaCl) and dietary restriction on the composition of the gut microflora.

Five-week-old male C57BL/6N mice were orally administered by gavage with ethanol (ET; 4 g/kg), 200 µL of 6% NaCl (NC), or equivalent volumes of phosphate-buffered saline (ET-control and NC-control) every two days for 10 weeks. The mice were also orally administered by gavage with the recommended diet (RD-control; 3 g per mouse per day), or with 40% (RD-40) or 60% restricted level (RD-60). DNA samples obtained from mice ceca were sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq Sequencing system; raw data were analyzed using BIOiPLUG software.

This study shows that high ethanol and NaCl consumption, and diet restriction can change the composition of the intestinal microflora, especially Akkermansia muciniphila in ET (p = 0.0050) and NT (p = 0.0366) groups. In addition, the ratio of Bacteriodetes/Firmicutes and the diversity of microflora were generally reduced (p = 0.0487-0.4929).

These results raise the possibility of a relationship between diet patterns, change of intestinal microbiome and disease, which must be further evaluated.

This paper investigates the internal factors driving public-private partnership (PPP) adoption for water services in South Korea and Singapore.

This study utilizes a comparative cross-national case study of PPPs in the area of water services by focusing on the similarities and differences between the two countries.

The findings show that while South Korea has employed the PPP model mostly to expand and modernize their sewage systems, Singapore has used PPPs to build and operate desalination facilities that produce potable water through the treatment and filtration of wastewater. The study also demonstrates that fiscal stress and political incentives stemming from socio-economic pressures are the respective critical factors in South Korea and Singapore’s execution of PPP-driven water infrastructure.

Through exploring why and how PPPs have been adopted in the specific context, this paper might be helpful to enhance our understanding of the variations and common factors in the policy adoption process within the Asian context.

This study aims to explore how educational leaders in South Korea adopted equity mindsets and how they organized changes to support students' deeper learning during COVID-19.

The authors developed a comprehensive framework of Equity Leadership for Deeper Learning, by revising the existing model of Darling-Hammond and Darling-Hammond (2022) and synthesizing equity leadership literature. Drawing upon this framework, this study analyzed data collected from individual interviews and a focus group with school and district administrators in the K-12 Korean education system.

The participants prioritized an equity stance of their leadership by critically understanding socio-political conditions, challenging unjust policies, and envisioning the big picture of equity-centered education. This led them to operationalize equity leadership in practice and create a more inclusive and supportive environment for student-centered deeper learning. District leaders established well-resourced systems by creating/developing instructional resources and making policies more useful. School leaders promoted quality teaching by strengthening access, developing student-centered curricula, and establishing individualized programs for more equitable deeper learning.

This study builds on scholarship of deeper learning and equity leadership by adding evidence from Korean educational leaders during COVID-19. First, the findings highlight the significance of leaders' equity mindsets in creating a safe and inclusive environment for deeper learning. This study further suggests that sharing an equity stance as a collective norm at the system level, spanning across districts and schools is important, which is instrumental to scale up innovation and reform initiatives. Second, this research also extends comparative, culturally informed perspectives to understand educational leadership. Most contemporary leadership theories originated from and are informed by Western and English-speaking contexts despite being widely applied to other contexts across the culture. This study's analysis underscores the importance of contextualizing leadership practices within the socio-historical contexts that influence how education systems are established and operate.

Leaders' adopting equity mindsets, utilizing bureaucratic resources in creative ways and implementing a school-wide quality curriculum are crucial to supporting students' deeper learning. District leaders can leverage existing vertical and horizontal networks to effectively communicate with teachers and local communities to establish well-recourced systems. As deeper learning is timeless and requires high levels of student engagement, school leaders' efforts to establish school-wide curricula is critical to facilitate deeper learning for students.

The study provides a nuanced understanding of how equity focused leaders responded to difficulties caused by the pandemic and strategized to support students' deeper learning. Existing studies tend to prioritize teacher effects on student learning, positing leadership effects as secondary or indirect. Alternatively, the authors argue that, without leadership supporting an inclusive environment, resourceful systems and student-centered school culture, deeper learning cannot be fully achieved in equitable ways.

This study aims to examine how auditors respond to the revelation of clients’ corporate fraud.

This study uses an ordinary least squares estimation to examine how audit fees and audit turnover change after the revelation of corporate fraud.

After a client discloses fraudulent activities, average audit fees significantly increase due to an increase in audit hours, rather than in audit premiums. Both new and continuing auditors increase audit hours for fraud firms, but only new auditors charge higher audit fees for the increased effort. In addition, when auditors are designated by regulators following the revelation of fraud, audit fees and premiums increase, but audit hours do not. Finally, auditor turnover becomes more frequent after the revelation of fraud. Overall, the findings suggest that auditors update their assessment of audit risks after fraud revelation and, thus, adjust their audit pricing and client acceptance decisions.

The study provides regulators and audit practitioners with insights into how to audit contract characteristics and regulatory intervention (auditor designations) affect auditors’ response to increased audit risks.

The study contributes to the auditing literature and practice by providing evidence on how auditors respond to the revelation of fraudulent activities and how their response depends on their ability to determine audit fees. Moreover, we provide novel evidence that audit contracting characteristics and regulatory requirements result in different responses of auditors toward changes in audit risks.

The purpose of this paper is to understand Korean women’s lived experience with career chance given the unique cultural traditions.

This study adopted a basic qualitative research design. The data from semi-structured person-to-person, in-depth interviews were analyzed using a constant comparative method.

The findings revealed that the participants dealt with their career chance events to maintain harmony. Their experienced chance events were scattered over a period of time, but as a whole, these events became meaningful for their career development. The lessons learned through their experiences transformed their priorities in career decisions and life values.

This study yielded insightful theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, this study identified the key elements of career chance events and interactions among these experiences, which can be further developed for future theory building.

From a practical perspective, this study sheds light on career education and counseling programs for adult women in an educational setting. In an organizational setting, this study recommends creating an employee career development culture where women employees are encouraged to take advantage of unpredicted career chance experiences.

This study provides culturally unique contributions to the body of literature on career chance events experienced by Korean women, which may not be adequately accounted for in most existing theories driven by western individualistic ideas of careers.