Choosing Where To Work at Work - Towards A Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-Based Flexible Offices

Ergonomics
ISSN: 0014-0139 (Print) 1366-5847 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/terg20
Choosing Where to Work at Work – Towards a

Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-
based Flexible Offices
Christina Wohlers & Guido Hertel
To cite this article: Christina Wohlers & Guido Hertel (2016): Choosing Where to Work at
Work – Towards a Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-based Flexible Offices ,
Ergonomics, DOI: 10.1080/00140139.2016.1188220
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2016.1188220
Accepted author version posted online: 10

May 2016.
Published online: 10 May 2016.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 7
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=terg20
Download by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] Date: 19 May 2016, At: 04:37
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Journal: Ergonomics
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2016.1188220
Choosing Where to Work at Work –

Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 04:37 19 May 2016
Towards a Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-based Flexible Offices
Christina Wohlers & Guido Hertel
University of Muenster
Christina Wohlers, Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a
Digitized World”, University of Muenster, and Department of Organizational and Business
Psychology, University of Muenster; Guido Hertel, Department of Organizational and
Business Psychology, University of Muenster.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christina Wohlers,
University of Muenster, DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a
Digitized World”, Geiststraße 24-26, 48151 Muenster (Germany).
Email: christina.wohlers@uni-muenster.de, Phone: +49(0)2518322684
Postal address of all authors: Christina Wohlers, University of Muenster, DFG Research
Training Group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized World”, Geiststraße 24-26, 48151
Muenster, christina.wohlers@uni-muenster.de Phone: +49(0)2518322684; Guido Hertel,

2
University of Muenster, Department of Organizational and Business Psychology,
Fliednerstraße 21, 48149 Muenster, ghertel@uni-muenster.de, Phone: +49(0)2518334161
Acknowledgements: This research was supported by a grant from the German
Research Foundation to the research training group “Trust and Communication in a Digitized
World” (1712/1).
3
Abstract
Although there is a trend in today’s organizations to implement activity-based flexible
offices (A-FOs), only a few studies examine consequences of this new office type. Moreover,
the underlying mechanisms why A-FOs might lead to different consequences as compared to
cellular and open-plan offices are still unclear. This paper introduces a theoretical framework
explaining benefits and risks of A-FOs based on theories from work and organizational
psychology. After deriving working conditions specific for A-FOs (territoriality, autonomy,
privacy, proximity and visibility), differences in working conditions between A-FOs and
alternative office types are proposed. Further, we suggest how these differences in working
conditions might affect work-related consequences such as well-being, satisfaction,
motivation and performance on the individual, the team and the organizational level. Finally,
we consider task-related (e.g., task variety), person-related (e.g., personality) and
organizational (e.g., leadership) moderators. Based on this model, future research directions
as well as practical implications are discussed.
Keywords: activity-based flexible offices; new ways of working; flex-office;
theoretical framework; desk-sharing; office design
Practitioner Summary:
Activity-based flexible offices (A-FOs) are popular in today’s organizations. This

article presents a theoretical model explaining why and when working in an A-FO evokes
benefits and risks for individuals, teams and organizations. According to the model, A-FOs
are beneficial when management encourages employees to use the environment appropriately
and supports teams.
4
Choosing Where to Work at Work –
Towards a Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-based Flexible
Offices
Imagine starting your workday with a cup of hot cappuccino in a coffee lounge
discussing a new project idea with colleagues. After that, you take a creative break and play a
round of table-football before grabbing your laptop and heading to a silent workstation at the
office to do concentrated work. This flexible switching of working locations is part of the
ongoing trend many organizations are now following: Organizations are redesigning office
structures from cellular to non-cellular environments, and switch from fixed desks to non-
dedicated desks (labeled activity-based office concept, e.g., Appel-Meulenbroek, Groenen,
and Janssen 2011; or flex-office, e.g., Bodin Danielsson et al. 2014). In this paper, we use the
term activity-based flexible offices (A-FOs) because the most striking feature of this office
concept is that it provides different working locations that match the requirements of different
kinds of work activities. A-FOs are open office environments comprising a variety of
additional open, half-open and enclosed activity-related working locations without assigned
workstations. Organizations implementing A-FOs intend to respond to emerging work
requirements, often caused by the increasing emergence of knowledge work, by providing
space for both concentrated work and opportunities for conversation and collaboration (Bodin
Danielsson and Bodin 2008; Bodin Danielsson et al. 2014; Heerwagen et al. 2004). Several
advantages are obvious: Office space can be used more efficiently so that operating costs can
be reduced (Bodin Danielsson and Bodin 2008; van der Voordt 2004). Likewise,
organizations can react to organizational changes more easily, such that office space does not
need to be rearranged when employees enter or leave the organization, or when a team’s
composition changes (Davis, Leach, and Clegg 2011). On the other hand, however, A-FOs
5
change well-established work routines, such as having assigned desks, which might affect
employees’ well-being and performance.
Although the implementation of A-FOs is an ongoing trend, surprisingly few
empirical studies have examined A-FOs’ impact on employees’ health, satisfaction,
motivation and productivity. Furthermore, of the few empirical studies that are available, the
findings are contradictory. For instance, a cross-sectional study by Appel-Meulenbroek et al.
(2011), found that employees in a company that implemented A-FOs reported low levels of
productivity, health, and satisfaction. In contrast, a longitudinal pre-post design study by

Meijer, Frings-Dresen, and Sluiter (2009) revealed that A-FOs had no or limited effects on
fatigue and productivity in the short term but some positive effects on workers’ general health
in the long term. However, apart from these initial empirical data, the underlying
psychological mechanisms that might explain why and how A-FO specific features predict
employees’ well-being, attitudes and behavior are still unclear. In particular, to the best of our
knowledge, there is no published theoretical model on employees’ reactions to A-FOs and the
related working conditions. Although existing theoretical frameworks on office design (e.g.,
De Croon et al. 2005; Oldham, Cummings, and Zhou 1995) are successful in explaining the
unique effects of single office features (e.g., openness) on health, satisfaction and
performance, they are not able to fully explain the impact of the interplay of A-FO specific
features (e.g., openness and desk-sharing) on those work-related outcomes on the individual
and on the team level. This lack of theoretical modeling limits both scientific advances as
well as practical guidelines how to leverage the benefits of A-FOs, and how to minimize their
potential risks.
In the current paper, we present a theoretical model of psychological mechanisms that
might explain how A-FOs impact employees at work. We focus on working conditions
specific to A-FOs and compare these with working conditions of alternative office types,
6
such as cellular or open-plan offices. Relying on well-established theories from the field of
work and organizational psychology (e.g., theory of psychological ownership, social identity
theory, self-determination theory), we propose how these specific working conditions might
affect individuals, teams and organizations. In addition, we consider task-related, person-
related, and organizational factors that should qualify the relationships between A-FOs,
working conditions and their consequences on employees’ well-being, attitudes and
behaviors. We conclude by addressing future research directions as well as managerial
implications of our model.

Together, this paper contributes to and expands the literature on flexible office
concepts by introducing a theoretical model that specifies effects of A-FOs on employees’
well-being, attitudes, and job performance over both the short and long term for individuals,
teams and the entire organization. Moreover, we extend research on flexible office concepts
by considering and integrating different moderator variables reflecting task-related, person-
related, and organizational context conditions of A-FOs’ effects.
Towards a Model of Benefits and Risks of A-FOs
The prevalence of knowledge work in today’s organizations poses challenges for
office environments to optimally support employees. On the one hand, employees need
privacy to concentrate on complex tasks, while on the other hand, they also need
opportunities to communicate and interact with colleagues (Davenport 2013; Hua et al.
2010). Office environments are complex systems that can differ in their architecture (layout
and design) and in functional features (which work is supported, how work is organized),
both of which are relevant for concentration and communication at work (Bodin Danielsson
et al. 2014; Peponis et al. 2007). The architecture of cellular offices, where private, single
rooms are enclosed by walls, can support office work that is requires concentration and
distraction-free working (Bodin Danielsson and Bodin 2008; Seddigh et al. 2014). In
7
contrast, architectural features of open-plan offices (i.e., a common-use workspace without
interior walls and enclosures that is shared by a larger group of employees, in which
individual workstations are often arranged within the office environment in groups; e.g.,
Brennan, Chugh, and Kline 2002; Brookes and Kaplan 1972) ease communication among
colleagues (e.g., Allen and Gerstberger, 1973; Zahn, 1991), but limit possibilities for
concentration (e.g., Brookes and Kaplan 1972; Kaarlela-Tuomaala et al. 2009; Zahn 1991).
Hence, the main advantage of open-plan offices is that they increase opportunities for
interaction and communication. However, research indicates that also disadvantages come
along with open-plan offices, such as increased frequency of uncontrolled interactions (Kim
and de Dear 2013; Sundstrom, Burt, and Kamp 1980), increased noise (Smith-Jackson and
Klein 2009; Zalesny and Farace 1987) and loss of privacy (Brookes and Kaplan 1972;
Sundstrom, Burt, and Kamp 1980) which tend to result in reduced efficiency (Brookes and
Kaplan 1972) and dissatisfaction with work and workplace (Kim and de Dear 2013; Oldham
and Brass 1979). Office types that aim to support both concentration and communication are
described as combi-offices; these contain assigned workstations in either a single room or an
open-plan office. In addition, shared open and enclosed working locations are provided for
concentrated work, telephone calls, team work and informal as well as formal communication
activities (Bodin Danielsson 2007; De Been and Beijer 2014). However, combi-offices are
rather expensive for organizations due to rents and operating costs for individual office rooms
as well as group areas that are often unoccupied (van Meel 2011).
A-FOs provide an interesting alternative office type that resembles combi-offices in
their architectural features. Similar to De Been and Beijer (2014), we define A-FOs as office
environments with a main area in an open-plan layout. In addition to the main area where
most of the workstations are located, A-FOs provide open, half-open or enclosed common-
use activity-related working locations. Employees have no assigned workstations and are free
8
to choose a workstation that best supports their current activities (also referred to as desk-
sharing or hot-desking, Millward, Haslam, and Postmes 2007). For example, there are call
boxes for making telephone calls, more enclosed silent zones to allow for concentrated work
or project rooms for group activities (cf. De Been and Beijer 2014). Employees are expected
to clean their desk whenever they leave the workstation for an extended time so that it is
available to colleagues (clean desk policy). This use of desk-sharing enables A-FOs to be
dimensioned for < 70% of the workforce based on expected illness and work outside the
office (e.g., Duffy and Powell 1997). Consequently, A-FOs can reduce rent and operating
costs for office space, while simultaneously responding to demands and opportunities of
knowledge-based office work because they provide work environments for both,
concentrated work as well as communication possibilities. However, as the design of offices
impacts how individuals and teams experience their work (e.g., Laing et al. 1998; McElroy
and Morrow 2010), more specific knowledge is required on how exactly A-FOs’ features
affect perceptions, motivation, and behavior of employees.
In the next section, we theoretically derive and explain the working conditions and
perceptions of employees that are discussed in research on open-plan offices (e.g.,
Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn 2014; Elsbach and Pratt 2007) and point out how they are
affected by features of A-FOs. We further describe underlying mechanisms that might
explain how these working conditions are related to employees’ well-being, attitudes and
performance behavior. To develop our A-FO specific model, we first reviewed research on
activity-based flexible office types. We searched databases, namely PsycINFO, Web of
Science, Google and Google Scholar, using a range of keywords inspired by the review by
De Croon et al. (2005). The full list of keywords is as follows: “flexible office, flexible
working, activity-related workplace, activity-related work space, activity-based office,
activity-related office, non-territorial office, new office layout, new ways of working,
9
innovative work environments, innovative office, innovative workspace, innovative
workplace, multi-space concept, desk-sharing, work arrangements, office design, open-plan
office, open office, open space, landscaped office, office redesign. The databases include
specialty journals that focus on the effect of physical environments in organizations (e.g.,
Ergonomics, Environment and Behavior, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Journal of
Corporate Real Estate), architectural journals (e.g., Journal of Architectural and Planning
Research) as well as journals on organizational psychology and organizational science (e.g.,
Journal of Managerial Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational

Behavior, Organization Studies). Furthermore, we also used the forward and backward search
of Web of Science, hand-searched the journal’s table of contents and checked the reference
lists of previously identified relevant papers. Using these strategies, we attained more than a
thousand papers that, according to their abstracts, titles and/or keywords, appeared to focus
on A-FOs. In a second round, these papers were more thoroughly inspected to select those
papers that focus on office designs according to the key features of A-FOs (i.e. use of desk-
sharing in combination with activity-related working locations). This selection strategy
resulted in 30 papers that at least partially focused on A-FOs. Of these, five empirical papers
focused on the impact of A-FOs on work-related consequences, 11 papers empirically
compared the impact of different office types (including A-FOs) on various outcomes, four
papers reviewed literature on office design including A-FOs, four papers compared A-FOs to
other office designs but without a general theoretical background or empirical evidence, three
empirical papers solely focused on the impact of desk-sharing and three papers (two
empirical and one theoretical) focused on activity-related working locations. While the
scientific standard of these initial papers is mixed, they represent a good starting point. In the
next step, the information included in these initial papers was organized according to an
input, process, and output structure. The input was the A-FO with its defining features (open-
10
plan layout of the main work environment, open or enclosed activity-related working
locations, desk-sharing, and use of information and communication technology). According
to the identified literature, these features substantially impact a variety of working conditions
(territoriality, autonomy, privacy, proximity and visibility) that are positively or negatively
related to typical organizational outcomes on the short and long term (e.g., satisfaction,
motivation, performance). As a result, the gross framework of our model was built (i.e., A-
FO features - working conditions - short and long-term consequences). Moreover, we also
integrated research on related office types and features that show similarities to single
features of A-FOs (e.g., openness, desk-sharing) to explain effects and mediating processes of
A-FOs. For this, we mostly drew upon literature on office redesign (e.g., Kaarlela-Tuomaala
et al. 2009; McElroy and Morrow, 2010) and literature reviews that summarized literature on
office designs or employees’ reactions towards physical environments (e.g., Ashkanasy,
Ayoko, and Jehn, 2014; Elsbach and Pratt, 2007) as well as books on that topic (e.g., Duffy
and Powell, 1997). Hence, this theoretical model was built on collecting and synthesizing
information from the office design literature (including papers on A-FOs) that is relevant to
the A-FO context.
Overview of the Theoretical Model
Figure 1 illustrates our theoretical model on the effects of activity-based flexible
offices on short- and long-term work-related consequences for individuals, teams and the
organization (A-FO-M).
<Insert Figure 1 about here>
Overall, our model posits that the defining features of A-FOs (open-plan layout of
main work environment, open or enclosed activity-related working locations, desk-sharing,
use of information and communication technology) have a fundamental impact on working
conditions of employees, including territoriality, autonomy, privacy, proximity and visibility,

11
in contrast to working conditions in other office types such as cellular or open-plan offices.
This comparison standard is not included in the graphical depiction of the model (Fig. 1), as
the model is A-FO specific, but we do make these comparisons in the first set of propositions.
Because only a few studies have investigated A-FO features’ impact on working conditions,
we further relied on evidence from research on the impact of features of the related office
types (i.e., cellular and open-plan offices) to derive the assumed A-FO effects and mediating
processes. We focus on these particular working conditions (territoriality, autonomy, privacy,
proximity and visibility) as these, based on our and other reviews, turned out to be the most
commonly studied topics in office design research affecting psychological reactions towards
office design (Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn 2014; Elsbach & Pratt 2007) and that we
considered to be particularly affected by A-FO features as our model aims to explain specific
A-FO effects. The first set of propositions summarize our assumptions about how A-FOs’
specifically affect working conditions based on a comparison with the effect of features of
comparable office designs on working conditions. Then, building upon various theories from
work and organizational psychology (e.g., theory of psychological ownership, social identity
theory, and self-determination theory), we describe the relationship between these working
conditions and individuals’ and teams’ well-being as well as attitudinal and performance-
related outcomes over the short and long term. Afterwards, we offer a second set of
propositions that contrasts the expected effects with effects of alternative office types.
Finally, a mediation effect proposition is presented (see short-term reactions in the graphical
depiction of the model).
Working Conditions and Their Effects in A-FOs
Territoriality – Expressions of Territorial Feelings and Behaviors
Territoriality is defined as behavioral expressions of feelings of ownership towards
social or physical objects (Brown, Lawrence, and Robinson 2005; Brown 2009). In an office,
12
employees demonstrate their feelings of ownership by establishing physical and social
boundaries via personalization of office environments (Brown 2009; Pierce, Kostova, and
Dirks 2001). Employees personalize their work environments by decorating or modifying
their desks or office rooms to reflect their identity (Sundstrom and Sundstrom 1986).
In A-FOs, two features limit opportunities for expressing feelings of ownership. First,
having non-assigned desks limits possibilities to personalize the office environment. As
workplaces should always be interchangeable, employees cannot personalize and mark their
boundaries as they can in office types with assigned workstations (Elsbach 2003; Wells
2000). This is particularly the case when the use of physical markers, such as office décor or
pictures, is strictly forbidden by the organization. Second, individual private rooms, which by
themselves are a means to show ownership and identity (Konar et al. 1982), do not exist in
open-office environments, and thus also in A-FOs. As such, we derived the following
proposition comparing the experience of territoriality in A-FOs and alternative office
concepts:
Proposition 1: Compared to employees working in cellular and open-plan offices with
assigned workstations, employees in A-FOs, where the use of physical markers is
forbidden, experience lower levels of territoriality.
Expressions of territorial feelings and behaviors have been found to positively affect
well-being and attitudes of employees as well as relationships between employees (e.g.,
Brown et al. 2005; O’Driscoll 2006; Pierce et al. 2001). At the individual level,
demonstrating ownership via personalization helps to satisfy two important human needs: the
need for having a personal place and the need for establishing, maintaining and
communicating self-identity (i.e., showing status and distinctiveness; e.g., Brown et al. 2005;
Pierce, Jussila, and Cummings 2009; Sundstrom and Sundstrom 1986; Wells 2000). Since A-
FOs provide only limited possibilities to personalize and mark own territories in the work
13
environment (e.g., Gorgievski et al. 2010; Volker and van der Voordt 2005), we expect that
restricting these individual needs negatively affects employees’ well-being, job satisfaction
and motivation. This assumption is supported by need-satisfaction theories (e.g., self-
determination theory (SDT); Deci and Ryan 1985; Ryan and Deci 2000), which posit that
need satisfaction is a pre-cursor of work-related outcomes, including well-being, job
satisfaction and motivation. In contrast, threatened need satisfaction will undermine these
positive effects and instead have detrimental effects on work-related outcomes. However, to
fulfill these needs, employees might try to find new ways for regaining territories and
showing their personality, status and distinctiveness, such as marking a favorite workstation
or always selecting the same workstation. Indeed, empirical studies on desk-sharing support
this assumption (Brunia and Hartjes-Gosselink 2009; Elsbach 2003). Employees in non-
territorial work environments that threaten employees’ work-related identity by limiting
possibilities to show distinctiveness and personal ownership at work tend to develop new
strategies to display their workplace identity, such as using the same workstation every day
(seating preferences), using portable markers (e.g., putting a picture of one’s family on the
desk every day), or claiming space. These considerations lead to the following propositions
regarding how individuals respond to A-FO environments that limit territoriality:
Proposition 2a: Compared to employees working in cellular or open-plan offices,
employees working in A-FOs with limited territoriality experience lower levels of
well-being, job satisfaction and motivation.
Proposition 2b: The relationship between the features of A-FOs that affect
territoriality (e.g., desk-sharing) and employees’ experience of well-being, job
satisfaction and motivation is mediated by employees’ experience of limited
possibilities to express and feel ownership and communicate identity at work.

14
Proposition 2c: Over time, employees working in A-FOs develop new ways of
expressing territoriality.
Proposition 2d: Employees working in A-FOs who develop new ways of expressing
territoriality report higher levels of well-being, job satisfaction and motivation
compared to employees working in A-FOs who do not develop new ways of
expressing territoriality.
At the team level, territoriality plays a critical role for group identification, group
cohesion, and intra-group information sharing (e.g., Altman, Taylor, and Wheeler 1971).
Based on social identity theory (e.g., Ashforth and Mael 1989; Tajfel and Turner 1985; Tajfel
1982), individuals define themselves in the social environment based on perceived
similarities with members of their social categories in contrast to members of different social
categories. This categorization process creates a sense of belonging with a social category
(e.g., as a member of a team), and thus helps individuals identify with that category (Ashforth
and Mael 1989). Identification with a group has been linked to job satisfaction, high
motivation as well as to attitudes and behaviors that are critical for team effectiveness, such
as group cohesion, cooperation and social support (e.g., Kane, Argote, and Levine 2005). In
office environments with assigned workstations such as cellular or open-plan offices, there
are visible markers that help to define group membership and, thus, promote identification
with the group (Ashforth and Mael 1989; Brown and Wootton-Millward 1993). For instance,
desks or rooms can be configured in close proximity, such as in corridor systems, to ensure
proximity of team partners, thereby supporting identification processes. Hence, when team
partners are working in close proximity with co-located team partners most of the day, and
when they are spatially separated from members of other teams, their group identity becomes
more salient. As a consequence, employees should engage more strongly with their team
partners than with other organizational members (Fiol and O’Connor 2005; Millward et al.
15
2007; Riketta and Dick 2005). However, in A-FOs, visible spatial group boundaries are
removed and team partners are not necessarily co-located, meaning that identification with a
single team becomes more difficult in A-FOs compared to cellular and open-plan offices.
Consequently, employees may engage less strongly with their team partners. Thus, intra-team
processes, i.e., processes affecting the relationship between team partners, might be
negatively affected, resulting in lower levels of team cohesion, satisfaction with the team and
weaker team performance compared to employees working in cellular and open-plan offices
with assigned workstations. In line with this assumption, employees in a case study by Volker
and van der Voordt (2005) reported that A-FOs negatively impacted social cohesion of team
partners. However, regarding inter-team processes, i.e., processes affecting the relationship
between colleagues of different teams or departments, we expect A-FOs to have positive
effects. As the visible boundaries between teams are less salient and the co-location to other
organizational members (non-team colleagues or coworkers) is higher than in cellular and
open-plan offices, employees in A-FOs should engage more strongly with colleagues from
other teams. As a consequence, this might strengthen organizational identity as colleagues are
representatives of the organization. This shift in identification focus is illustrated in a study of
Millward et al. (2007) who investigated the impact of desk-sharing on identification
processes. The results of the study demonstrated that employees with assigned desks reported
to identify more strongly with their teams, whereas employees without assigned desks
reported to identify more strongly with the organization. The authors assigned this effect to a
change of communication frequencies. When employees communicated more frequently with
colleagues that were not members of their focal team(s) than with their own team partners,
non-team colleagues become more salient and team identity becomes less prominent. These
assumptions lead to the following propositions with respect to effects of territoriality at the
team level in A-FOs:

16
Proposition 3a (intra-team processes): Compared to team members working in
cellular or open-plan offices, team members working in A-FOs with a lack of visible
group boundaries experience lower levels of team satisfaction and report weaker team
performance.
Proposition 3b (inter-team processes): Compared to team members in cellular or
open-plan offices, team members in A-FOs with a lack of visible group boundaries
experience higher levels of organizational identification.
Proposition 3c: The impact of A-FOs’ features affecting visible group boundaries
(e.g., desk-sharing) on team members’ experienced levels of team satisfaction, team
performance and organizational identification is mediated by employees’ experience
of team identification and team cohesion.
Autonomy at Work – The Freedom to Decide When and Where to Work
In the context of flexible office concepts, autonomy at work predominantly refers to
employees’ control of time and place of working (e.g., Demerouti et al. 2014). One of the
most frequent reported goals by organizations for using A-FOs is to increase employees’
autonomy of work scheduling and choice of work environments (e.g., Volker and van der
Voordt 2005; Vos and van der Voordt 2001). By using desk-sharing as well as electronic
information and communication technology, employees in A-FOs have high flexibility
regarding where and when to work, not only outside but also within an office building.
Several activity-related working locations within the office building extend employees’
choices of where to work, enabling them to match task-related and/or person-related
requirements and needs (e.g., Appel-Meulenbroek et al. 2011; Bodin Danielsson et al. 2014).
In office types with dedicated workstations (i.e., cellular and open-plan offices), employees
usually have some autonomy in scheduling their work depending on the organization’s
policy, but they have low flexibility in their choice of work environments, as there are fewer
17
additional workstations available compared to in A-FOs. Yet, as employees in cellular and
open-plan office can sometimes exert autonomy over their work schedule and location
outside the office (depending on the organizations’ policy), they are usually not able to
choose between different working locations within the office building as employees in A-FOs
can do. Hence, A-FOs should offer employees the highest level of autonomy.
Thus, the following proposition compares the experience of autonomy in A-FOs and
in related office concepts:
Proposition 4: Compared to employees working in cellular or open-plan offices,

employees working in A-FOs, which offer flexibility in choosing a place to work both
outside the office building as well as inside the office building by providing a variety
of activity-related working locations, experience higher levels of autonomy.
According to self-determination theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan 1985; Ryan and Deci
2000), need for autonomy as the desire to experience of a sense of volition, freedom and
choice in one’s actions is one of three basic psychological needs of humans. Satisfying these
needs is essential because it is assumed to represent the underlying mechanism that
empowers and directs individuals’ behavior (e.g., Deci and Ryan 2000), thereby accounting
for a positive impact on well-being (e.g., Deci and Ryan 2008), job satisfaction (e.g., Ilardi et
al. 1993), work motivation (e.g., Gagné, Senécal, and Koestner 1997), and job performance
(e.g., Baard, Deci, and Ryan 2004). Thus, as A-FOs’ features are expected to provide
autonomy, we derive the following proposed effects for experienced autonomy as feeling
self-determined in A-FOs:
Proposition 5a: Compared to employees working in cellular or open-plan offices,
employees working in A-FOs, which provide autonomy, experience higher levels of
well-being, job satisfaction and motivation and report higher levels of job
performance.
18
Proposition 5b: The relationship between the features of A-FOs that affect autonomy
(e.g., desk-sharing, activity-related working locations, use of information and
communication technology) and employees’ experience of well-being, job
satisfaction, motivation and job performance is mediated by employees’ experience of
need satisfaction of their need for autonomy.
Privacy in the Workplace – Enabling Control over Acoustic Disturbances and Interruptions
Privacy can be distinguished into “architectural privacy” and “psychological

(experienced) privacy”, with the former positively influencing the latter (Oldham and
Rotchford 1983; Sundstrom et al. 1980). In an office environment, architectural privacy is
determined by physical features of the environment, e.g., the configuration of walls and
partitions that lead to the seclusion of employees. The highest level of architectural privacy is
associated with cellular offices that have doors and walls up to the ceiling; low levels of
architectural privacy are associated with open-plan offices due to a reduction of walls and
enclosures (Elsbach and Pratt 2007; Kaarlela-Tuomaala et al. 2009; Laurence, Fried, and
Slowik 2013). Architectural privacy helps employees control their visual exposure to others,
control their accessibility to others (and thus limit interruptions), and limit acoustic
disturbances (i.e., noise), which all contribute to the experience of high psychological privacy
(Elsbach and Pratt 2007; Maher and von Hippel 2005; Sundstrom et al. 1980). Thus,
perceived privacy can be conceptualized as a regulatory process by which employees
experience having control over work-related issues (c.f. Altman 1975). In contrast,
employees in open office environments often experience low levels of (architectural) privacy,
and complain about noise, interruptions and visual exposure to others (Bodin Danielsson and
Bodin 2009; Brand and Smith, 2005; Elsbach and Pratt, 2007; Kaarlela-Tuomaala et al.,
2009; Kim and de Dear, 2013; Smith-Jackson and Klein, 2009).

19
Given the similarity of A-FOs and open-plan offices with respect to openness of the
main work environment (i.e., low levels of architectural privacy), we assume similar privacy
effects in A-FOs. Thus, we expect employees to experience low levels of psychological
privacy, resulting in high levels of acoustic disturbances (i.e., noise), interruptions due to
unwanted interactions, and visual exposure to others. In line with this assumption, several
studies on A-FOs have revealed that employees complained about a lack of privacy and the
related consequences, such as dealing with noise and distractions (e.g., Gorgievski et al.
2010; van der Voordt and van Klooster 2008; Volker and van der Voordt 2005) when
switching from a cellular office to an A-FO. These considerations lead to the following
propositions about the experience of privacy in A-FOs:
Proposition 6a: Compared to employees working in cellular offices, employees in A-
FOs with low levels of architectural privacy experience lower levels of psychological
privacy.
Proposition 6b: Compared to employees working in open-plan offices, employees in
A-FOs with low levels of architectural privacy experience comparable levels of
psychological privacy.
Employees’ experiences of low levels of control over noise, interruptions,
disturbances and visual exposure to others are expected to negatively impact employees’
well-being, job satisfaction, motivation and job performance, as supported by previous
research on open-plan offices that provide low levels of psychological privacy (Banbury and
Berry 2005; Brennan, Chugh, and Kline 2002; Evans and Johnson 2000; Kim and de Dear
2013). The impact of perceived control over work-related issues can be explained using the
Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R, Bakker and Demerouti 2007; Demerouti et al. 2001).
According to the JD-R, job characteristics can be classified into two categories, job demands
and job resources. Job demands cover physical, psychological, social or organizational
20
aspects of the job that require high effort and are associated with physiological and or
psychological costs (Demerouti et al. 2001). Typical examples are workload and time
pressures. However, environment-related aspects such as noise, interruptions and demanding
interactions can also be considered as job demands (Bakker and Demerouti 2007). Job
resources are characterized as physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects that
are able to reduce job demands and their related negative effects. Beyond that, they can also
help employees achieve their goals and stimulate learning and development (Bakker, van
Veldhoven, and Xanthopoulou 2010). Accordingly, resources can impact work-related

consequences in two ways, either by reducing job demands or by uniquely impacting
outcomes. The JD-R model further postulates that two different processes play a role in the
development of strain or motivation/engagement that in turn impact organizational outcomes.
First, the model suggests that job demands impair employees’ health (health impairment
process) because they exhaust employees who spend physiological and psychological effort
dealing with the demands; in turn, they feel depleted and develop health problems. Second,
job resources can increase employees’ motivation (motivational process), which in turn
positively impacts motivation/engagement and, thus, performance-related outcomes. In
addition to the unique effects of job demands and job resources, the JD-R proposes that the
combination of job resources and job demands (depending upon the specific characteristics of
the job) also influences the development of strain and motivation. Specifically, the model
claims that job resources can buffer the (negative) impact of job demands on organizational
outcomes.
A vast amount of research has provided empirical support for the main assumptions of
the JD-R model, thus there is evidence for the two processes (Schaufeli and Bakker 2004),
for the unique impact of job demands and job resources (Bakker et al. 2010), and for the
buffer effect (interaction) of a variety of different job resources and job demands (Bakker et
21
al. 2007; Bakker et al. 2010) on important organizational outcomes. Hence, considering
privacy as a means to control work-related stressors (i.e., job resource), such as avoiding
visual exposure to others, accessibility to others and thus control interruptions and acoustic
disturbances (i.e., job demands), we expect A-FOs to negatively affect employees’ well-being
since the important job resource (privacy) is reduced while several job demands increase.
Employees have to spend their cognitive capabilities in dealing with distractions and
interruptions that go along with low experience of privacy (e.g., Kim and de Dear 2013;
Smith-Jackson and Klein 2009), although they on the other hand need these capabilities to
pursue their task goals. According to the JD-R model these interfering processes should
negatively affect well-being and motivation and in turn, job satisfaction as well as (cognitive)
performance due to feelings of strain and exhaustion, such as cognitive overload.
Yet, while A-FOs do have open work environments, they also provide resources for
employees to protect their psychological privacy when needed and thus experience another
kind of control. The freedom to choose a quiet working zone where interruptions and
distractions are prohibited enables employees to maintain control over acoustic disturbances
and interruptions, although there are low levels of architectural privacy within the main work
environment. In line with the JD-R model, strain should therefore be reduced in A-FOs as
compared to open-plan offices, resulting in higher levels of well-being. Further, these
resources can positively impact motivation and, thus, job satisfaction as well as job
performance.
This is supported by a study by Lee and Brand (2010), which demonstrates that when
employees can adjust features of their work environment they may feel a stronger sense of
personal control, which mitigates negative effects of distractions on work-related attitudes
and performance outcomes. Further, studies on A-FOs support our theoretical assumptions on
the effect of experienced privacy. While Bodin Danielsson and Bodin (2008) demonstrated
22
that employees in cellular and flex-offices (A-FOs) experienced higher levels of health and
job satisfaction compared to employees working in other office types, McElroy and Morrow
(2010) and De Been and Beijer (2014) demonstrated that A-FOs negatively affect distraction,
job satisfaction and performance in comparison to cellular offices. Whether positive or
negative effects of A-FOs’ features affecting privacy and its related consequences
predominate, could, according to a study by Appel-Meulenbroek et al. (2011), be largely due
to the use of office environments in their intended manner, i.e., choosing a task-supporting
environment (task-environment-fit; T-E fit), However, this is often not the case (Appel-
Meulenbroek et al. 2011; Blok et al. 2009). This task-environment fit can bee seen in close
analogy to need-supply fit of the person-evironment-fit theory (Caplan, 1987; Edwards et al.
2006; Kristof 1996). This theory suggests that when personal needs (in the analogy with an
A-FO, this would be the task’s needs) match with the environment, this results in beneficial
effects, such as well-being, job satisfaction, motivation and performance (e.g., Edwards,
Caplan, and Van Harrison 1998).
These assumptions lead to the following propositions regarding the effect of
experienced privacy in A-FOs:
Proposition 7a: Compared to employees working in open-plan offices, employees in
A-FOs, with low levels of privacy, experience comparable levels of well-being, job
satisfaction and motivation and report comparable levels of job performance.
Proposition 7b: Compared to employees working in cellular offices, employees in A-
FOs, with low levels of privacy, experience lower levels of well-being, job
satisfaction and motivation and report lower levels of job performance.
Proposition 7c: The relationship between A-FOs’ features affecting privacy (e.g.,
openness of main work environment) and employees’ experience of well-being, job

23
satisfaction, motivation, and job performance is mediated by employees’ feelings of
strain due to acoustic disturbances and distractions.
Proposition 7d: Employees’ use of workstations according to a task’s needs (T-E Fit)
moderates the relationship between A-FOs and work-related consequences such that
in A-FOs, high T-E Fit decreases negative effects of acoustic disturbances and
distractions on well-being, job satisfaction, motivation, and job performance.
Physical Proximity and Visibility of Employees – Increasing Communication Possibilities in

an Office Environment
Physical proximity describes the distance between employees in an office
environment. Besides the effects on team processes that have already been described in the
section on territoriality, physical proximity and visibility are of special interest in office
design as they have a considerable impact on communication frequency among employees
because they increase the ease of access and likelihood of encounters by chance (e.g.,
Brookes and Kaplan 1972; Kraut, Brennan, and Siegel 2002; Peponis et al. 2007). Along with
that, research on open-plan offices has demonstrated that employees working in the proximity
and in sight of their team partners reported to communicate more frequently with each other
compared to employees working in cellular offices (e.g., Allen and Gerstberger 1973; Zahn
1991). Employees’ workstations in office types with assigned workstations (i.e., cellular and
open-plan offices) are often arranged in close proximity to team partners. While in cellular
offices, team partners either share a room or their rooms are located in a row, employees’
workstations in open-plan offices are often grouped in clusters. In both types of offices, the
assigned workstations ensure that team partners work in close physical proximity. In addition,
open-plan offices provide better visibility of employees, as fewer partitions and enclosures
are present compared to cellular offices. In contrast, in A-FOs due to the existence of many
24
possibilities where to work within (and also outside the office) and the use of desk-sharing,
team partners can be spread all over the office building, as, they are working in different
working locations due to different tasks. Moreover, due to flexibility in time of working,
team partners can go to the office whenever they want. As a consequence, it is possible that
team partners may not see each other in the office. In addition, A-FOs don’t guarantee that
team partners can sit close to each other when they intend to because workplaces nearby
might be occupied by other workers, thus making it hard to find other team members since
they are spread all over the office building. However, the reduced proximity and visibility of
team partners should go along with an increase in proximity and visibility of non-team
colleagues, who see and sit next to each other more frequently in A-FOs as compared to
employees in other office types, due to the free choice of workstations and the openness of
the main work environment. Given that working in proximity and in sight of other employees
facilitates unplanned encounters and communication, we expect employees in A-FOs to
report more interaction and communication possibilities with non-team colleagues (inter-
team effects). Studies on A-FOs support this beneficial effect on communication and
interaction (e.g., Blok et al. 2009; Van der Voordt 2004; van der Voordt and van Klooster
2008; Volker and van der Voordt 2005). However, these studies did not differentiate between
inter- and intra-team effects. Yet, A-FOs should reduce the frequency of team partners’
interaction and communication compared to office environments with assigned workstations
as the fixed proximity between team partners is altered due to desk-sharing.
Thus, we propose the following assumptions comparing proximity and visibility and
their impact on communication possibilities in A-FOs and in alternative office types:
Proposition 8a: Compared to team members working in cellular or open-plan offices,
team members in A-FOs work in closer proximity and are more visible to non-team
25
colleagues, leading to more unplanned encounters and, thus, more communication
with non-team colleagues.
Proposition 8b: Compared to team members working in cellular open-plan offices,
team members in A-FOs work less closely with and are less visible to team partners,
leading to fewer unplanned encounters, poorer access, and, thus, fewer
communications with team partners.
Because physical proximity and visibility of employees affects communication

possibilities, fostering these conditions are important ways to stimulate and facilitate
information sharing within and also across teams (e.g., Brennan et al. 2002). Information
sharing is highly important for the performance of work groups, as it supports task
coordination (e.g., Mesmer-Magnus and Dechurch 2009) and fosters interpersonal trust (e.g.,
Colquitt, Scott, and LePine 2007; McAllister 1995). Adding to that, physical proximity itself
helps generate trust among team partners (Lewicki and Bunker 1995). Interpersonal trust is
particularly crucial for team performance when members of interdependent work groups have
to cope with situations characterized by high uncertainty (e.g., Jarvenpaa, Knoll, and Leidner
1998). Thus, given that A-FOs seem to reduce the proximity and visibility of team partners,
trust might become particularly important in A-FOs. Yet, trust may be difficult to develop in
A-FOs because, as physical proximity and visibility are reduced, the face-to-face
communication that provides cues about the trustworthiness of interaction partners (ability,
integrity and benevolence; e.g., Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman 1995) will also likely be less
frequent than in office environments that allow close proximity of team partners. Instead of
face-to-face communication, employees in A-FOs might use different ways of
communicating with their team partners, such as email or telephone, as these are easier to use
than to arrange a personal meeting or to search a team partner in the office building.
However, digital media are known to be less able to deliver social cues and social
26
information (e.g., Daft and Lengel 1984) and are therefore not always appropriate for sharing
important team-relevant information and for developing trust (e.g., Bos et al. 2002). In line
with this, research on the domain of virtual teams has yielded considerable evidence that
digital media are not able to replace the physical proximity of team partners. Studies revealed
that employees in distributed work settings shared less personal information and reported
lower interpersonal trust in team partners as compared to employees working in collocated
settings (e.g., Gilson et al. 2015; Martins et al. 2004). Accordingly, we expect employees in
A-FOs to experience low levels of trust in team partners as physical proximity is reduced. As
trust is strongly related to affective work-related outcomes, such as satisfaction (e.g., Costa
2003), as well as performance-related outcomes (e.g., Dirks and Ferrin 2002; Webber 2008),
we assume that employees working in A-FOs will report low levels of intra-team satisfaction
and team performance.
Despite these negative effects on intra-team processes, we expect A-FOs to positively
impact inter-team processes. As we have argued above, A-FOs should especially facilitate
interaction and communication among colleagues of different departments and teams,
encouraging knowledge exchange, trust development and possibly also collaborations across
teams. In addition, A-FOs offer not only additional areas for formal, work-related
communication, such as meeting rooms, but also informal areas such as table-football, which
should especially initiate spontaneous informal conversations between employees, thereby
helping them get to know each other better and, in turn, positively affecting trust, information
sharing and collaboration.
Together, these theoretical assumptions should lead to the following propositions
regarding the effect of proximity and visibility and their impact on communication frequency
in A-FOs on intra-team and inter-team processes:

27
Proposition 9a: Compared to team members working in cellular or open-plan offices,
team members in A-FOs experience less face-to-face communication with team
partners and more face-to-face communication with non-team colleagues.
Intra-team processes:
Proposition 9b: Compared to team members working in cellular or open-plan offices,
team members working in A-FOs which limit proximity and visibility of team
partners experience lower levels of team satisfaction and report weaker team
performance.
Proposition 9c: The relationship between the features of A-FOs that affect proximity
and visibility of team partners (e.g., openness of the main work environment and
desk-sharing) and team members’ experience of team satisfaction and team
performance is mediated by low levels of face-to-face communication and its negative
impact on information sharing and trust between team partners.
Inter-team processes:
Proposition 9d: Compared to team members working in cellular or open-plan offices,
team members working in A-FOs that provide proximity and visibility of non-team
colleagues report higher levels of collaborations with non-team colleagues.
Proposition 9e: The relationship between the features of A-FOs that affect proximity
and visibility of non-team colleagues (e.g., openness of main work environment and
desk-sharing) and levels of collaboration with non-team colleagues is mediated by
high levels of face-to-face communication among non-team colleagues and its
positive impact on information sharing and trust between non-team colleagues.
Potential Moderators of A-FO’s Impact on Working Conditions and Related Outcomes
There is a number of moderating factors that we expect to qualify the expected
relationships between A-FOs’ features with certain working conditions and the relationships
28
between working conditions and employees’ well-being, attitudes and behaviors. Thus, here
we point out possible task-related, person-related, and organizational moderators. The
following description of moderators is not meant to be exhaustive, but should rather illustrate
examples that might be considered by management and future research.
Task-related Moderators
The first group of moderators we introduce relate to characteristics of certain tasks.
For instance, task variety is assumed to moderate the effect of A-FO features, working
conditions and work-related consequences. In general, a medium level of task variety should
be optimal for employees working in A-FOs, as employees can take advantage of the
different working locations without having to switch their workstations too often during the
day. In contrast, employees who always work on the same kind of tasks (i.e., low task
variety) cannot take advantage of the flexibility in A-FOs, as they do not need different
working locations for their tasks. In fact, when task variety is low, A-FOs might be a stressor
rather than beneficial, as employees do not have their own workstations and thus need to look
for an appropriate workstation in the same work location every day. Thus, they have to deal
with the negative effects of reduced territoriality without any way to offset them, as would
occur in situations where the need for different work locations overshadows the need for
employee territoriality. On the other end of the spectrum, a high task variety implies that if
employees choose workstations according to each tasks’ requirements, they will switch
workstations several times per day. As switching workstations is time-intensive and
exhausting, employees with a high task variety might either experience a higher level of
strain compared to employees with an assigned workstation, or switch their workstation less
often than they should (according to task requirements), where both cases would negatively
influence well-being, job satisfaction and job performance. Together, we expect that task
variety moderates the relationship between A-FO features and working conditions (i.e.,
29
autonomy, territoriality and privacy) on work-related consequences (i.e., job satisfaction,
well-being and performance), such that the relationship is stronger and more negative for low
and high levels of the moderator than for a medium level of the moderator.
Another potential task-related moderator is task interdependence, which is the degree
to which team members depend on each other to carry out their work effectively (Wageman
2001). High task interdependence necessitates regular information sharing, coordination and
cooperation in order to complete the group task effectively. Given that A-FOs might
negatively impact information sharing within teams, we expect highly interdependent teams
to report a negative impact of A-FOs on team performance due to reduced sharing of task
relevant information and hindered coordination. However, it is also possible that high task
interdependence may foster information sharing and thus help teams overcome negative
effects of low levels of proximity and visibility (cf. literature on managing of virtual teams,
e.g., second author 2004).
Person-related Moderators
In addition to task-related moderators, individual characteristics of employees (e.g.,
personality, age, gender and individual needs) are another group of moderating factors. In
office design research, it has been discussed that individual characteristics may impact how
employees react towards their environment and thus influence the relationship between office
design and outcomes (Maher and von Hippel 2005; Oldham, Cummings, and Zhou 1995;
Seddigh 2015). The first person-related moderator that we consider is personality, which can
be best described by the Big Five personality traits (Costa and McCrae 1992; Goldberg
1990). Two of the Big Five dimensions, extraversion and agreeableness, appear to be most
relevant to employees’ reactions towards A-FOs. Extraversion represents the tendency to be
sociable, gregarious, assertive, communicative and active (Barrick and Mount 1991). It has
been shown that extraverts (in contrast to introverts) feel more comfortable and pleasant in
30
social situations where other people are present as they feel energized by interacting with
other people, while introverts prefer to go inwards and feel less pleasant with too much
interaction with others (e.g., McCrae and Costa 2008). As A-FOs provide more possibilities
for proximity and visibility and thus ease interaction and communication, it seems plausible
to expect that extroverts feel more comfortable in the office environment. In contrast,
introverts should feel more distracted and less comfortable. Moreover, it is possible that
introverts will more often seek for private working locations in order to protect themselves
from interaction with others. That way, they will not take advantage of the different working
locations and could benefit less from ease of communication opportunities. Together, we
expect extroverts to respond more pleasantly towards the architectural and functional
features, resulting in more favorable outcomes, while we expect introverts to react more
negatively towards the A-FO features, resulting in lower job and team satisfaction and well-
being.
Agreeableness refers to being tolerant, friendly, courteous, flexible and cooperative
(Barrick and Mount 1991). People high in agreeableness prefer cooperation rather than
conflict (LePine and Van Dyne 2001; McCrae and Costa 2008). Moreover, it has been shown
that people high in agreeableness often react selflessly and strive for common understanding
(Digman 1990). In A-FOs, where employees often work in a mainly open office environment
and thus can be easily disturbed and interrupted by colleagues, it could be useful to
occasionally be less tolerant, courteous and selfless. To prevent disturbances from others, it
might be helpful to signal personal needs to colleagues, such as not wanting to be disturbed.
However, as this is contradictory to traits of agreeable people, we assume that agreeable
people avoid these kinds of conflicts in order to be friendly and not rejecting colleagues.
Hence, we assume that more agreeable employees be more exposed to disturbances,
distractions and unwanted stimuli, which are negatively related to job satisfaction and
31
performance. In line with this, a recent study focusing on the interplay of personality traits
and office types on predicting performance outcomes (Seddigh 2015), revealed that
agreeableness seems to moderate the relationship between office types and distraction and job
satisfaction. Regarding flex-offices, i.e., A-FOs, employees high on agreeableness reported
higher levels on distraction and lower job satisfaction compared to less agreeable employees.
The authors concluded that more agreeable employees are less able to communicate their
needs to others (as they don’t feel comfortable with it), resulting in more exposure to
unwanted stimuli, such as noise and disturbances that might explain the higher distraction
levels and lower job satisfaction.
Another person-related moderator that we assume to be important in the context of A-
FOs is age. Age might affect how employees perceive and react towards the A-FO specific
working conditions, thereby influencing their effect on work-related outcomes. Although
many organizations introduce A-FOs in order to attract younger employees (van der Voordt
2004), research on age differences at work would propose that older employees can better
cope with A-FOs features and their corresponding working conditions. Numerous research
has addressed that age differently affects work outcomes (Ng and Feldman 2008), attitudes
and behaviors as well as how employees cope with stressful events (see second author in
press for a review; Johnson et al. 2013). More specifically, it was found that older workers
tend to possess higher self-regulation skills than younger workers (second author 2015a) and
use more active coping strategies (second author 2015b). As A-FOs can indeed be stressful
due to the openness of the main work environment and thus require employees to use
adequate comping strategies and self-regulation skills, it is plausible to expect that older
employees are better at dealing with A-FO features and their corresponding working
conditions as compared to younger colleagues. For instance, we expect that older workers are
more likely to switch their workstations when working in an inappropriate environment,

32
thereby creating a fit between a task’s needs and the environment, resulting in more favorable
attitudes, better well-being and better performance. In contrast, because younger workers
have less suitable coping skills, they might be more likely to resist switching their
workstations according to their task’s requirements, which in turn might negatively affect
well-being, job satisfaction, motivation and job performance. In addition, there is evidence
that older workers (compared to younger workers) more strongly prefer autonomy, as they
have already gained a minimum of expertise and occupational skills to see autonomy as a
benefit rather than a burden (second author in press). As a consequence, they should better
deal with autonomy in A-FOs, positively affecting work-related consequences. Last, recent
research revealed that age differently affects how employees react towards changes (Kunze,
Boehm, and Bruch 2013). Contrary to common stereotypes, this research has demonstrated
that younger as compared to older employees were more resistant to change under the
condition of low organizational tenure. However, these effects seemed to be mitigated under
the condition of high organizational tenure, as there was almost a zero relationship between
age and resistance to change. Given that switching to an A-FO changes routines at work, we
expect older employees to better handle these changes and report less resistance towards the
A-FO. Given these effects of age on dealing with A-FO specific working conditions, and
given the fact that employees’ reactions towards these working conditions have an impact on
work-related consequences, we assume that age moderates the relationship between A-FO
features and working conditions and their effect on work-related outcomes.
We also assume gender to influence how employees react towards limited
possibilities of expressing territoriality and privacy issues. Literature on territoriality has
reported gender differences in territorial behaviors (e.g., Smith 1981; Wells 2000). For
instance, Wells (2000) found that women personalize their workspaces more than men.
Likewise, results of a cross-cultural study investigating territorial behaviors in residence halls

33
also revealed that women display more personalization and claiming behavior than men
(Kaya and Weber 2003). Given that A-FOs limit possibilities of expressing territoriality, we
expect women to react more negatively towards this working condition. As territoriality
behaviors have been shown to considerably impact well-being and job satisfaction (e.g.,
Brown, Lawrence, and Robinson 2005), we expect that compared to men, women will be less
satisfied and report poorer well-being in A-FOs. Further, it has been found that women
complain more than men about noise disturbances in open-plan offices (Kaarlela-Tuomaala et
al. 2009). Given that we assume A-FOs to increase exposure to noise and other unwanted
stimuli due to the openness of the main work environment (as far as employees don’t seek for
a private working location), we expect women to react more negatively towards this working
condition, resulting in poorer well-being and less satisfaction. Thus, gender is expected to
moderate the relationship between A-FO features and work-related consequences, such that
the relationship will be more negatively for women than for men.
However, gender might also work in the other direction. Some studies have shown
that male workers as compared to female workers in A-FOs actually complain more about
desk-sharing and the limited possibilities to personalize the workstation (Volker and van der
Voordt 2005), and were more likely to take sick leave (Bodin Danielsson et al. 2014). In
order to explain these effects, the authors suggested that owning a personal workstation might
be more important for men’s’ well-being as compared to women, which could depend on a
higher need for status. Thus, different aspects of A-FOs might be affected differently by
gender as a moderating condition. Future studies are needed to shed further light on how
gender functions as a moderator.
Finally, we assume that individual needs, in particular employees’ need for routine
seeking, to be a moderator of the relationship between working conditions and outcomes.
Need for routine seeking, i.e., how individuals incorporate routines into their life, is a concept
34
originally derived from resistance to change literature. This concept is based on the
assumption that individuals differ in the extent to which they prefer low levels of stimulation
and novelty as well as giving up old habits (Oreg 2003). A number of studies have
demonstrated that people who prefer a defined and familiar framework report better job
performance within such a stable and structured framework, while people who prefer high
levels of stimulation and novelty are better performing outside the familiar framework
(Kirton 1980). As the A-FO context implies daily changing routines and habits due to the
switching of workstations, it is reasonable to expect that people who have a low need for
routine seeking are more likely to prefer the A-FO design. As a consequence, they might be
more likely to use the office concept in the intended manner. In contrast, we assume that
employees with a high need for routine seeking will dislike the A-FO concept and, in turn, try
to regain routines and structures in their daily working life by establishing seating
preferences. As a result, their task-environment fit will be low contributing to distractions and
feelings of strain, which negatively impacts well-being, job satisfaction and job performance.
Characteristics of the Organization
Finally, the expected relationships between A-FOs’ features and working conditions
and the relationships between working conditions and employees’ well-being, attitudes and
behaviors may also be qualified by organizational moderators, such as organizational culture,
leadership and special office design features. Organizational culture refers to the values and
norms that are shared by the members of the organization (Schein 1990). These values and
norms help give insight into organizational functioning and guide employees’ behavior
(Deshpande and Webster 1989).
Wallach (1983) conceptualized a useful typology of three culture dimensions that help
to understand and analyze organizational culture (Choi 2009). These three dimensions cluster
organizational culture into bureaucratic, innovative, and supportive culture. A bureaucratic

35
culture is described as hierarchical, has clear lines of responsibility and values authority
thinking. Moreover, work is strictly compartmentalized. An innovative culture is
characterized as results-oriented, risk-taking, creative, stimulating and driving. The
supportive culture values teamwork, collaboration and is people-oriented. Organizations with
a supportive culture often provide a friendly, trustful, fair and helpful atmosphere, giving
employees the feeling of being a member of a family (Erkutlu 2012).
A-FOs tend to reduce territoriality by disbanding single owned offices, which in
traditional office designs, have demonstrated status as employees of higher status, i.e.,
managers and supervisors, often have their own office (Konar et al. 1982). Yet, office
ownership as a status symbol is impossible in A-FOs. Moreover, as all employees
irrespective of their status have to share their desks, it is plausible that hierarchy can be less
demonstrated within the office environment. In line with this, researchers started to speculate
that hierarchy should be diminished through the introduction of A-FOs (e.g., van der Voordt
and van Meel 2000). Given this expected impact of A-FO features on hierarchy, we assume
that A-FOs are less suited for a bureaucratic culture, as this kind of culture is especially
characterized by hierarchy and authority thinking. In contrast, we assume that A-FOs are
more suited to an innovative and supportive cultures. A-FOs aim to foster communication
and provide, for example, creativity rooms to encourage innovative thinking. These facets are
associated with an innovative culture as well as a supportive culture that explicitly values
teamwork and collaboration. Moreover, we expect employees who work in organizations
with such cultures to be familiar with collaborating, to value and appreciate teamwork, and to
embrace innovation by, for example, trying new solutions or giving up old habits. As such,
these employees should already be used to the values and working styles that are imparted
with A-FOs. Overall, we assume that employees working in A-FOs of organizations with an
innovative or supportive culture will better cope with A-FOs features and the related working
36
conditions, resulting in more favorable attitudes and better well-being and performance than
employees working in an organization with a bureaucratic culture.
Another organizational aspect we consider is supervisors’ leadership behavior as
prescribed by the organizational culture, such as the amount that supervisors tend to trust
employees versus exert control over employees. Evidence indicated that supervisors show
different leadership behaviors in different office types (Bodin Danielsson, Wulff, and
Westerlund 2013), and that a leadership style’s success depends on the context. For example,
it has been demonstrated that transformational leadership has a stronger effect in virtual
teams than in face-to-face teams (Purvanova and Bono 2009). In line with this, it seems
plausible that for supervisors to be successful, they have to adopt their behavior to the
architectural and functional features of the different office types. In regard to A-FOs, we
expect the interplay of supervisors’ trust and control to be a critical component for
influencing how employees react towards the A-FO features and related working conditions.
We expect supervisors’ trust in employees to be critical for employees’ choice of
workstations and satisfaction at work. Supervisors have to rely on employees to do a good job
even when the employees work out of sight. Thus, in A-FOs supervisors cannot control
employees in the way they may have been used to in traditional offices and, in turn, have to
trust that their employees will not misuse their freedom of workstation choice. If supervisors
trust their employees and offer freedom in choosing where to work, we expect the outlined
positive effects from feeling self-determined and need-satisfaction, e.g., high levels of well-
being, job satisfaction, motivation and job performance. However, if supervisors’ trust in
employees is low, it is likely that they try to regain control by restricting employees’
autonomy, e.g., by using monitoring tools or instructing employees where to work. As a
consequence, the expected positive impact on well-being, job satisfaction, motivation and job
performance in A-FOs should diminish. Moreover, we expect even more detrimental effects
37
regarding these outcomes as an employee’s need for autonomy is restricted, as it has been
demonstrated for the effect of feeling monitored on well-being (e.g., Gilbreath and Benson
2004).
Finally, we expect special office design features, such as the size of the office
environment, desk-sharing ratio and the provision of technical devices to moderate the
relationship between A-FO features, working conditions and work-related consequences.
These design features are not standard features of A-FOs, but are add-ons or configuration
details which vary from organization to organization mainly depending on the organizations’
policy and management decisions. For example, the size of the office environment in
combination with the desk-sharing ratio, i.e., ratio of employees to workstations, may
substantially impact whether employees can find a workstation that fits their current needs.
When employees cannot choose a workstation that fits their needs, they will more likely feel
distracted and thus be less satisfied, report weaker well-being and have poorer performance.
That way, as outlined in the section on privacy, privacy concerns should be comparable to
those known from open-plan offices. In contrast, when a large variety of different working
locations is available, employees can always choose a workstation that fits their current task
needs, resulting in better and more favorable work-related consequences.
Further, the use of technical devices, such as an “office GPS1”, is expected to
facilitate finding team partners and colleagues within the environment and thus ensuring
communication of team partners, which should buffer the assumed negative impact on intra-
team outcomes. Specifically, we expect the use of an office GPS (i.e., tracking software that
provides information on where in the office the person of interest can be found; e.g., Jacobs
2014) to moderate the relationship between A-FO features, working conditions and team
outcomes. When organizations provide an office GPS, the negative relationship between A-
1
We thank one anonymous reviewer for mentioning this moderator.
38
FO features and intra-team outcomes is weaker, compared to when organizations do not offer
such a technical support.
Discussion
This theoretical contribution provides an initial model of A-FOs that explains why and
under which conditions working in an A-FO evokes benefits and risks at the individual, the
team and the organizational level. We focus on underlying psychological mechanisms that
relate working conditions to well-being, attitudinal and behavioral work-related outcomes. In
conclusion, we expect that in A-FOs the openness of the main work environment fosters
communication and interaction among colleagues, resulting in increased trusting relationships
to non-team colleagues and new collaborations (organizational level effects). Negative effects
of openness of work environments, such as noise and interruptions, may be buffered by
employees’ experiences of personal control on deciding where to work, choosing from
several (enclosed or open) activity-related working locations. However, as employees have
non-assigned workstations, they have limited abilities to demonstrate psychological
ownership within the office, negatively affecting well-being and job satisfaction at the
individual level. At the team level, low levels of territoriality may negatively affect team
identification, information sharing and trust within teams, resulting in low team satisfaction,
and performance. Several task-, person-, and organization-related moderators might qualify
the expected mechanisms provoking positive and negative effects of A-FOs by increasing the
likelihood that employees take advantage of the task-supporting working locations or by
ensuring communication within teams.
Future Research Directions
As a next step, research is needed that explores and examines the assumed underlying
mechanisms and their effect on well-being, attitudinal and performance-related outcomes at
each level. At this early stage, field studies that demonstrate the assumed relationships of our
39
model would be highly useful. Thereby, two approaches might provide especially fruitful
insights on the depicted mechanisms. First, studies are needed that compare employees
working in different office concepts to test the assumed effects of A-FOs in contrast to
cellular and open-plan offices. However, it should be noted that comparative studies are
difficult in practice, as they require that participants are comparable with respect to all other
processes of potential influence, such as tasks, organizational conditions, and team structures.
Thus, laboratory studies might be promising alternatives because they allow for higher
control and can focus on the mediating psychological mechanisms. However, disadvantages
of laboratory research include the relative meaninglessness of tasks and limited
generalizability due to artificial settings and student samples. Second, we crucially need
intervention research that investigates employees’ working conditions, relationships, attitudes
and performance-related behavior both before and after switching to an A-FO. In this context,
it would be highly useful to investigate both the switching from cellular offices to A-FOs and
from open-plan offices to A-FOs, as switching from an open-plan office to an A-FO might
yield different effects compared to switching from a cellular office to an A-FO. While
employees working in open-plan offices have to deal with low levels of privacy and their
related effects, switching to an A-FO might give employees the feeling of regaining
autonomy by extending their resources for coping with noise and interruptions. In contrast,
employees switching from a cellular office to an A-FO will first have to cope with their loss
of territory and openness of work environments, which will influence their attitudes and
behaviors in a negative way.
Moreover, two A-FO related topics that are of considerable interest according to our
model haven’t received much attention in research so far. These are A-FOs’ impact on intra-
and inter-team processes and the outlined moderators. As teamwork is an integral part of
today’s organizations, it is crucial to investigate how A-FOs influence team processes in

40
order to ensure highly effective teams. In addition, as the depicted moderators might increase
the likelihood of positive consequences of A-FOs, they are also of special interest to
managers and should be further investigated. Overall, a combination of these approaches will
be needed to verify our model as well as extend the underlying mechanisms and moderators
in order to advance our knowledge of A-FOs and their impact on employees. Furthermore, it
is noteworthy that this model can not only guide research on A-FOs, but it may also guide
future research on new emerging office types, as the model focuses on how single design
features as well as using them in combination affects working conditions and work-related
consequences.
Managerial Implications
In this paper, we pointed out that in order for A-FOs to be beneficial for
organizations, several issues need to be addressed. One of the most important issues seems to
be that employees need to learn to switch their workstations whenever needed. Yet, initial
studies of employees’ choice of workstations revealed that employees do not switch their
workstations as often as necessary to match task requirements (e.g., Appel-Meulenbroek et al.
2011; Hirst 2011). Indeed, employees’ choice of workstations is often determined by personal
preferences (e.g., siting close to a friend) instead of task requirements (e.g., sitting in a
communication zone although the employee needs to concentrate). If A-FOs are used in this
manner, they seem to provide no advantages over open-plan offices or are even worse, as
they limit employees’ possibilities for demonstrating ownership. In line with that, managers
need to understand and pay attention to the reasons for employees’ choice behavior. We have
argued that by choosing the same workstation in a non-territorial work environment,
employees might want to regain feelings of ownership and personal control to compensate for
a loss of territoriality. Thus, in order to make employees establish a good task-environment
fit, it seems helpful to provide employees new opportunities for personalizing their work
41
environment. For instance, organizations can offer personalized notebooks and smartphones,
or let employees participate in interior office design and decoration. That way, employees are
able to communicate their personality to others and develop feelings of ownership. Moreover,
research has already demonstrated that personalization is a powerful means to reduce the
negative effect of low levels of privacy on emotional exhaustion (Laurence, Fried, and
Slowik 2013).
Despite offering new ways for personalization, it is essential to train employees how
to choose the appropriate workstations for a specific task. Thereby it is important to consider
individual differences, such as personality. In training employees, it is crucial not to restrict
employees’ autonomy, as this in turn would have negative consequences for employees’
well-being and job satisfaction. Linked to this is the training of leaders. Leaders should learn
how to trust their employees in doing a good job, even though they are not necessarily
working in their line of sight. Otherwise, if leaders start to use control mechanisms, they
might undermine employees’ feelings of autonomy and personal control which is negatively
related to well-being, job satisfaction, motivation and job performance (e.g., Carayon 1993).
A third issue that needs to be considered is supporting intra-team work. Our
theoretical model demonstrates possible hindrances for teamwork, among them reduced
information sharing and trust among team partners, as visible group boundaries are removed
and team partners do not necessarily sit in close proximity. Management might want to
ensure regular meetings of team partners, such as fixed arranged face-to-face meetings of
team members on a weekly basis, for formal as well as informal communication. Moreover,
providing additional technical devices, such as an “office GPS” can help to ensure
communication within teams. Additionally, intra-team trainings and retreats are possible
ways to generate trust among team partners and foster team cohesion, as team partners spend
time together. Furthermore, assigning team zones for at least one day per week could be a
42
way to ensure communication and trust among team partners and thus effective teams in
organizations.
Finally, it should be noted that the A-FO might not be the best concept for each and
every task. For tasks that require high levels of inter-team communication and collaboration
(e.g., product development), A-FOs might be beneficial. In contrast, tasks that require high
levels of intra-team communication and collaboration might rather be conducted in traditional
office environments, such as combi-offices, or should be additionally supported by
management.
Final Conclusion
The current paper introduces a theoretical model that addresses how specific features of A-
FOs are related to working conditions which have considerable impact on underlying
psychological mechanisms that mainly account for benefits and risks associated with A-FOs
for individual employees, teams and entire organizations. In general, our model postulates
that A-FOs can combine advantages of common-use cellular and open-plan offices, such as
ensuring communication and concentration, while simultaneously avoiding their risks (i.e.,
strain, cognitive overload) under the premise that employees choose an appropriate working
location for their tasks. At the same time, possible hindrances may arise because of limited
possibilities for territoriality, which can affect individuals and teams. Finally, the model
identifies several task-, person-, and organization-related moderators that qualify the
relationships between the features of A-FOs, working conditions and related benefits and
risks of A-FOs. Together, we hope that our theoretical model provides a good basis for
research on the mechanisms and consequences of A-FOs and that the managerial implications
described will help managers avoid possible pitfalls of A-FOs while maximizing their
benefits.
43
Figure Captions
Figure 1. Overview of the Activity-based Flexible Office Model (A-FO-M). The model
proposes that A-FO specific features influence working conditions of employees that, in turn,
impact work-related consequences on the short and long term for individuals, teams, and the
organization. Further, a number of moderators is expected to qualify the assumed
relationships between A-FO features and working conditions as well as between working
conditions and consequences.

44
References
Allen, T. J., & Gerstberger, P. G. 1973. "A field experiment to improve communications in a
product engineering department: The nonterritorial office." Human Factors: The
Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 15(5): 487–498.
doi:10.1177/001872087301500505
Altman, I. 1975. The Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Territory,
and Crowding.
Altman, I., D. A. Taylor, and L. Wheeler. 1971. “Ecological Aspects of Group Behavior in
Social Isolation.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 1 (1): 76–100.
doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1971.tb00355.x.
Appel-Meulenbroek, R., Groenen, P., & Janssen, I. 2011. "An end-user's perspective on
activity-based office concepts." Journal of Corporate Real Estate 13(2): 122-135. doi:
10.1108/14630011111136830.
Ashforth, B. E., and F. Mael. 1989. “Social Identity Theory and the Organization.” Academy
of Management Review 14 (1). Academy of Management: 20–39.

doi:10.5465/AMR.1989.4278999.
Ashkanasy, N. M., O. B. Ayoko, and K. A. Jehn. 2014. “Understanding the Physical
Environment of Work and Employee Behavior: An Affective Events Perspective.”
Journal of Organizational Behavior 35 (8): 1169–1184. doi:10.1002/job.1973.
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. 2007. "The Job Demands‐Resources model: state of the art."
Journal of Managerial Psychology 22 (3): 309–328. doi:10.1108/02683940710733115
Bakker, A. B., Hakanen, J. J., Demerouti, E., and Xanthopoulou, D. 2007. "Job resources
boost work engagement, particularly when job demands are high." Journal of
Educational Psychology 99 (2): 274–284. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.99.2.274
Bakker, A. B., van Veldhoven, M., and Xanthopoulou, D. 2010. "Beyond the Demand-
Control Model." Journal of Personnel Psychology 9 (1): 3–16. doi:10.1027/1866-
5888/a000006
Banbury, S. P., and Berry, D. C. 2005. "Office noise and employee concentration: identifying
causes of disruption and potential improvements." Ergonomics 48 (1): 25–37.
doi:10.1080/00140130412331311390
Baard, P. P, E. L. Deci, and R. M. Ryan. 2004. “Intrinsic Need Satisfaction: A Motivational
Basis of Performance and Well-Being in Two Work Settings.” Journal of Applied Social
Psychology 34 (10): 2045–2068. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02690.x.
Barrick, M. R., and Mount, M. K. 1991. "The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job
Performance: a Meta-Analysis." Personnel Psychology 44 (1): 1–26.
doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00688.x
Blok, M., De Korte, E. M., Groenesteijn, L., Formanoy, M., and Vink, P. 2009. "The effects
of a task facilitating working environment on office space use, communication,
concentration, collaboration, privacy and distraction." In Proceedings of the 17th World
Congress on Ergonomics (IEA 2009), 9-14 August 2009, Beijing, China. International
Ergonomics Association.
Bodin Danielsson, C. B. 2007. “Office Experiences.” In Product Experience, edited by H.
Schifferstein and P. Hekkert. San Diego, CA: Elsevier Scientific.
Bodin Danielsson, C. B., and Bodin, L. 2008. "Office type in relation to health, well-being,
and job satisfaction among employees." Environment and Behavior 40(5): 636-668. doi:
10.1177/0013916507307459
Bodin Danielsson, C., and Bodin, L. 2009. "Differences in satisfaction with office
environment among employees in different office types." Journal of Architectural and
Planning Research 26 (3): 241–257.
45
Bodin Danielsson, C., Chungkham, H. S., Wulff, C., and Westerlund, H. 2014. "Office
design's impact on sick leave rates." Ergonomics 57(2): 139-147. doi:
0.1080/00140139.2013.871064
Bodin Danielsson, C., Wulff, C., & Westerlund, H. 2013. "Is perception of leadership
influenced by office environment?" Journal of Corporate Real Estate 15 (3/4): 194–212.
doi:10.1108/JCRE-03-2013-0008
Bos, N., J. Olson, D. Gergle, G. Olson, and Z. Wright. 2002. “Effects of Four Computer-
Mediated Communications Channels on Trust Development.” In Proceedings of the
SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Changing Our World,
Changing Ourselves - CHI ’02, 135. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press.
doi:10.1145/503376.503401.
Brand, J. L., & Smith, T. J. 2005. "Effects of reducing enclosure on perceptions of occupancy
quality, job satisfaction, and job performance in open-plan offices." Proceedings of the
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 49 (8): 818–820.
doi:10.1177/154193120504900806
Brennan, A., Chugh, J. S., & Kline, T. 2002. "Traditional versus open office design: A
longitudinal field study." Environment and Behavior 34(3): 279–299.
doi:10.1177/0013916502034003001
Brookes, M. J., & Kaplan, A. 1972. "The office environment: Space planning and affective
behavior." Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
14(5): 373–391. doi:10.1177/001872087201400502
Brown, G. 2009. “Claiming a Corner at Work: Measuring Employee Territoriality in Their
Workspaces.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (1): 44-52.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.05.004.
Brown, G., T. B. Lawrence, and S. L. Robinson. 2005. “Territoriality in Organizations.”
Academy of Management Review 30 (3): 577–594. doi:10.5465/AMR.2005.17293710.
Brown, R., and L. Wootton-Millward. 1993. “Perceptions of Group Homogeneity during
Group Formation and Change.” Social Cognition 11 (1): 126–149.
doi:10.1521/soco.1993.11.1.126.
Brunia, S., and A. Hartjes-Gosselink. 2009. “Personalization in Non-Territorial Offices: A
Study of a Human Need.” Journal of Corporate Real Estate 11 (3): 169–182.
doi:10.1108/14630010910985922.
Caplan, R. D. 1987. "Person-environment fit theory and organizations: commensurate
dimensions, time perspectives, and mechanisms." Journal of Vocational Behavior 31:
248–267. doi: 10.1016/0001-8791(87)90042-X
Carayon, P. 1993. “Effect of Electronic Performance Monitoring on Job Design and Worker
Stress: Review of the Literature and Conceptual Model.” Human Factors: The Journal
of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 35 (3): 385–395.
doi:10.1177/001872089303500301.
Choi, S. 2009. "The emergence of shared leadership from organizational dimensions of local
government." International Journal of Leadership Studies 5 (1): 94–114.
Colquitt, J., A., B. A. Scott, and J. A. LePine. 2007. “Trust, Trustworthiness, and Trust
Propensity: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Unique Relationships with Risk Taking and
Job Performance.” The Journal of Applied Psychology 92 (4): 909–927.
doi:10.1037/0021-9010.92.4.909.
Costa, P. T., and McCrae, R. R. 1992. "Four ways five factors are basic." Personality and
Individual Differences 13 (6): 653–665. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90236-I
Daft, R. L., and R. H. Lengel. 1984. “Information Richness. A New Approach to Managerial
Behavior and Organization Design.” In Research in Organizational Behavior, edited by
L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw, 191–233. Homewood: JAI Press.
46
Davenport, T. H. 2013. Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performances And Results
from Knowledge Workers. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Davis, M. C., D. J. Leach, and C. W. Clegg. 2011. “The Physical Environment of the Office:
Contemporary and Emerging Issues.” In International Review of Industrial and
Organizational Psychology, edited by Gerard P. Hodgkinson and J. Kevin Ford,
26:1993–2237. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781119992592.
De Been, I., and M. Beijer. 2014. “The Influence of Office Type on Satisfaction and
Perceived Productivity Support.” Journal of Facilities Management 12 (2): 142–157.
doi:10.1108/JFM-02-2013-0011.
De Croon, E. M., Sluiter, J. K., Kuijer, P. P. F. M., and Frings-Dresen, M. H. W. 2005. "The
effect of office concepts on worker health and performance: a systematic review of the
literature." Ergonomics 48(2): 119–34. doi:10.1080/00140130512331319409
Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan. 1985. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human
Behavior. New York: Plenum.
Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan. 2000. “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs
and the Self-Determination of Behavior.” Psychological Inquiry 11 (4): 227–268.

doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01.
Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan. 2008. “Self-Determination Theory: A Macrotheory of Human
Motivation, Development, and Health.” Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne
49 (3): 182–185. doi:10.1037/a0012801.
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., and Schaufeli, W. B. 2001. "The job demands-
resources model of burnout." Journal of Applied Psychology 86 (3): 499–512.
doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499
Demerouti, E., D. Derks, L.L. ten Brummelhuis, and A. B. Bakker. 2014. “New Ways of
Working: Impact on Working Conditions, Work-Family Balance, and Well-Being.” In
The Impact of ICT on Quality of Working Life, edited by C. Korunka and P. Hoonakker,
123–42. New York/Amsterdam: Springer Publisher.
Deshpande, R., and Webster, F. E. 1989. "Organizational Culture and Marketing: Defining
the Research Agenda." Journal of Marketing 53 (1): 3-15. doi:10.2307/1251521
Digman, J. M. 1990. "Personality structure: Emergence of the Five-Factor Model." Annual
Review of Psychology 41 (1): 417–440. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.41.020190.002221
Duffy, F., and K. Powell. 1997. The New Office. Conran Octopus.
Edwards, J. R., Cable, D. M., Williamson, I. O., Lambert, L. S., and Shipp, A. J. 2006. "The
phenomenology of fit: Linking the person and environment to the subjective experience
of person-environment fit." Journal of Applied Psychology 91(4): 802–827.
http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.802
Edwards, J. R., Caplan, R. D., and Van Harrison. 1998. "Person-environment fit theory". In
C. L. Cooper (Ed.), Theories of organizational stress (pp. 28–67). Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Elsbach, K. D. 2003. “Relating Physical Environment to Self-Categorizations: Identity Threat
and Affirmation in a Non-Territorial Office Space.” Administrative Science Quarterly
48 (4): 622. doi:10.2307/3556639.
Elsbach, K. D., and M. G. Pratt. 2007. “The Physical Environment in Organizations.” The
Academy of Management Annals 1 (1): 181–224. doi:10.1080/078559809.
Erkutlu, H. 2012. "The impact of organizational culture on the relationship between shared
leadership and team proactivity." Team Performance Management: An International
Journal 18 (1/2): 102–119. doi:10.1108/13527591211207734
Evans, G. W., and Johnson, D. 2000. "Stress and open-office noise." Journal of Applied
Psychology 85 (5): 779–783. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.85.5.779
Fiol, C. M., and E. J. O’Connor. 2005. “Identification in Face-to-Face, Hybrid, and Pure
47
Virtual Teams: Untangling the Contradictions.” Organization Science 16 (1): 19–32.

doi:10.1287/orsc.1040.0101.
Gagné, M, C. B. Senécal, and R Koestner. 1997. “Proximal Job Characteristics, Feelings of
Empowerment, and Intrinsic Motivation: A Multidimensional Model.” Journal of
Applied Social Psychology 27 (14): 1222–40. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb01803.x.
Gilbreath, B., and P. G. Benson. 2004. “The Contribution of Supervisor Behaviour to
Employee Psychological Well-Being.” Work & Stress 18 (3): 255–66.
doi:10.1080/02678370412331317499.
Gilson, L. L., Maynard, M. T., Jones Young, N. C., Vartiainen, M., and Hakonen, M. 2015.
"Virtual Teams Research: 10 Years, 10 Themes, and 10 Opportunities." Journal of
Management 41 (5): 1313–1337. doi:10.1177/0149206314559946
Goldberg, L. R. 1990. "An alternative “description of personality”: The Big-Five factor
structure." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59 (6): 1216–1229.
doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.6.1216
Gorgievski, M. J., van der Voordt, T. J., van Herpen, S. G., and van Akkeren, S. 2010. "After
the fire: new ways of working in an academic setting." Facilities 28(3/4): 206-224.
Heerwagen, J. H., K. Kampschroer, K. M. Powell, and V. Loftness. 2004. “Collaborative
Knowledge Work Environments.” Building Research & Information 32 (6): 510–28.
doi:10.1080/09613210412331313025.
Hirst, A. 2011. “Settlers, Vagrants and Mutual Indifference: Unintended Consequences of
Hot-Desking.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 24 (6): 767–788.
doi:10.1108/09534811111175742.
Hua, Y., V. Loftness, J. H. Heerwagen, and K. M. Powell. 2010. “Relationship between
Workplace Spatial Settings and Occupant Perceived Support for Collaboration.”
Environment and Behavior 43 (6): 807–826. doi:10.1177/0013916510364465.
Ilardi, B. C., D. L., T. Kasser, and R. M. Ryan. 1993. “Employee and Supervisor Ratings of
Motivation: Main Effects and Discrepancies Associated with Job Satisfaction and
Adjustment in a Factory Setting.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 23 (21): 1789–
1805. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01066.x.
Jacobs, S. 2014. "Startup lets offices know who just walked in." MIT Technology Review.
Retrieved March, 15, 2015, from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/528606/startup-
lets-offices-know-who-just-walked-in/.
Jarvenpaa, S. L, K. Knoll, and D. E. Leidner. 1998. “Is Anybody out There? Antecedents of
Trust in Global Virtual Teams.” Journal of Management Information Systems 4: 26–64.
Johnson, S. J., Holdsworth, L., Hoel, H., and Zapf, D. 2013. "Customer stressors in service
organizations: The impact of age on stress management and burnout." European Journal
of Work and Organizational Psychology 22 (3): 318–330.
doi:10.1080/1359432X.2013.772581
Kaarlela-Tuomaala, A., Helenius, R., Keskinen, E., & Hongisto, V. 2009. "Effects of acoustic
environment on work in private office rooms and open-plan offices - longitudinal study
during relocation." Ergonomics 52(11): 1423–44. doi:10.1080/00140130903154579
Kane, A. A., L. Argote, and J. M. Levine. 2005. “Knowledge Transfer between Groups via
Personnel Rotation: Effects of Social Identity and Knowledge Quality.” Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes 96 (1): 56–71.
doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2004.09.002.
Kaya, N., and Weber, M. J. 2003. "Territorial Behavior in Residence Halls: A Cross-Cultural
Study." Environment and Behavior 35 (3): 400–414.
doi:10.1177/0013916503035003005
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. 2013. "Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off
in open-plan offices." Journal of Environmental Psychology 36: 18–26.
48
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.06.007
Kirton, M. 1980. “Adaptors and Innovators in Organizations.” Human Relations 33 (4): 213–
24. doi:10.1177/001872678003300401.
Konar, E., E. Sundstrom, C. Brady, D. Mandel, and R. W. Rice. 1982. “Status Demarcation
in the Office.” Environment and Behavior 14 (5): 561–80.
doi:10.1177/0013916582145004.
Kraut, R. E, S. E Brennan, and J. Siegel. 2002. “Understanding Effects of Proximity on
Collaboration: Implications for Technologies to Support Remote Collaborative Work.”
In Distributed Work, edited by P. Hinds and S. Kiesler, 137–62. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Kristof, A. L. 1996. "Person-organization fit: An Integrative Review of its
conceptualizations, measurement, and implications." Personnel Psychology 49 (1): 1–
49. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1996.tb01790.x
Kunze, F., Boehm, S., and Bruch, H. 2013. "Age, resistance to change, and job performance."
Journal of Managerial Psychology 28 (7/8): 741–760. doi:10.1108/JMP-06-2013-0194
Laing, A., Francis Duffy, D. Jaunzens, and S. Wilis. 1998. New Environments for Working:
The Redesign of Offices and the Environmental Systems for New Ways of Working.
London: E and FN Spon.
Laurence, G. A., Y. Fried, and L. H. Slowik. 2013. “‘My Space’: A Moderated Mediation
Model of the Effect of Architectural and Experienced Privacy and Workspace
Personalization on Emotional Exhaustion at Work.” Journal of Environmental
Psychology 36: 144–152. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.07.011.
Lee, S. Y., and J. L. Brand. 2010. “Can Personal Control over the Physical Environment Ease
Distractions in Office Workplaces?” Ergonomics 53 (3): 324–335.
doi:10.1080/00140130903389019.
LePine, J. A., and Van Dyne, L. 2001. "Voice and cooperative behavior as contrasting forms
of contextual performance: Evidence of differential relationships with Big Five
personality characteristics and cognitive ability." Journal of Applied Psychology 86 (2):
326–336. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.2.326
Lewicki, R. J., and B. B. Bunker. 1995. “Developing and Maintaining Trust in Work
Relationships.” In Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, edited by
R. M. Kramer and T. R. Tyler. Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage.
Maher, A., and C. von Hippel. 2005. “Individual Differences in Employee Reactions to
Open-Plan Offices.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 25 (2): 219–229.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.05.002.
Mayer, R. C., J. H. Davis, and F. D. Schoorman. 1995. “An Integrative Model of
Organizational Trust.” Academy of Management Review 20 (3): 709–734.
doi:10.5465/AMR.1995.9508080335.
McAllister, D. J. 1995. “Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal
Cooperation in Organizations.” Academy of Management Journal 38 (1): 24–59.
doi:10.2307/256727.
Martins, L. L., Gilson, L. L., & Travis Maynard, M. 2004. "Virtual Teams: What Do We
Know and Where Do We Go From Here?" Journal of Management 30 (6): 805–835.
doi:10.1016/j.jm.2004.05.002
McCrae, R. R., and Costa, P. T. 2008. "Empirical and theoretical status of the five-factor
model of personality traits." In Sage handbook of personality theory and assessment (pp.
273–294).
McElroy, J. C., and P. C. Morrow. 2010. “Employee Reactions to Office Redesign: A
Naturally Occurring Quasi-Field Experiment in a Multi-Generational Setting.” Human
Relations 63 (5): 609–636. doi:10.1177/0018726709342932.
49
Meijer, E. M., Frings-Dresen, M. H., and Sluiter, J. K. 2009. "Effects of office innovation on
office workers' health and performance." Ergonomics 52 (9): 1027-1038.
Mesmer-Magnus, J. R, and L. Dechurch. 2009. “Information Sharing and Team Performance:
A Meta-Analysis.” The Journal of Applied Psychology 94 (2): 535–546.
doi:10.1037/a0013773.
Millward, L. J., S. A. Haslam, and T. Postmes. 2007. “Putting Employees in Their Place : The
Impact of Hot Desking on Organizational and Team Identification.” Organization
Science 18 (4): 547–59. doi:10.1287/orsc.1070.0265.
Ng, T. W. H., and Feldman, D. C. 2008. "The relationship of age to ten dimensions of job
performance." Journal of Applied Psychology 93 (2): 392–423. doi:10.1037/0021-
9010.93.2.392
O’Driscoll, M. P. 2006. “The Psychology of Ownership: Work Environment Structure,
Organizational Commitment, and Citizenship Behaviors.” Group & Organization
Management 31 (3): 388–416. doi:10.1177/1059601104273066.
Oldham, G. R., and Brass, D. J. 1979. "Employee reactions to an open plan office : A
naturally occurring quasi-experiment." Administrative Science Quarterly 24 (2): 267–

284.
Oldham, G. R, and N. L. Rotchford. 1983. “Relationships between Office Characteristics and
Employee Reactions: A Study of the Physical Environment.” Administrative Science
Quarterly 28 (4): 542–556.
Oldham, G. R., Cummings, A., and Zhou, J. 1995. "The spatial configuration of
organizations: A review of the literature and some new research directions." Research in
Personnel and Human Resources Management 13: 1–37.
Oreg, S. 2003. “Resistance to Change: Developing an Individual Differences Measure.”
Journal of Applied Psychology 88 (4): 680–93. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.680.
Peponis, J., Bafna, S., Bajaj, R., Bromberg, J., Congdon, C., Rashid, M., Warmels, S., Zhang,
Y. & Zimring, C. 2007. "Designing space to support knowledge work." Environment
and Behavior 39(6): 815-840.doi: 10.1177/0013916506297216
Pierce, J. L., T. Kostova, and K. T. Dirks. 2001. “Toward a Theory of Psychological
Ownership in Organizations.” Academy of Management Review 26 (2): 298–310.
doi:10.5465/AMR.2001.4378028.
Pierce, J. L., I. Jussila, and A. Cummings. 2009. “Psychological Ownership within the Job
Design Context: Revision of the Job Characteristics Model.” Journal of Organizational
Behavior 30 (4): 477–496. doi:10.1002/job.550.
Purvanova, R. K., and Bono, J. E. 2009. "Transformational leadership in context: Face-to-
face and virtual teams." The Leadership Quarterly 20 (3): 343–357.
doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.03.004
Riketta, M., and R. van Dick. 2005. “Foci of Attachment in Organizations: A Meta-Analytic
Comparison of the Strength and Correlates of Workgroup versus Organizational
Identification and Commitment.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 67 (3): 490–510.
doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2004.06.001.
Ryan, R. M., and E. L. Deci. 2000. “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of
Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.” American Psychologist 55
(1): 68–78. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68.
Schaufeli, W. B., and Bakker, A. B. 2004. "Job demands, job resources, and their relationship
with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study." Journal of Organizational
Behavior 25 (3): 293–315. doi:10.1002/job.248
Schein, E. H. 1990. "Organizational culture". American Psychologist 45 (2): 109–119.
Second author 2004 [blinded for review]
Second author 2015a [blinded for review]
50
Second author 2015b [blinded for review]

Second author in press [blinded for review]
Seddigh, A. 2015. Office type, performance and well-being: A study of how personality and
work tasks interact with contemporary office environments and ways of working.
Seddigh, A., Berntson, E., Danielson, C. B., & Westerlund, H. 2014. "Concentration
requirements modify the effect of office type on indicators of health and performance."
Journal of Environmental Psychology 38: 167-174. doi: 0.1016/j.jenvp.2014.01.009
Smith, H. W. 1981. "Territorial Spacing on a Beach Revisited: A Cross-National
Exploration." Social Psychology Quarterly 44 (2): 132–137.
Smith-Jackson, T. L., and Klein, K. W. 2009. "Open-plan offices: Task performance and
mental workload." Journal of Environmental Psychology 29(2): 279–289.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.09.002
Sundstrom, E., Burt, R. E., & Kamp, D. 1980. "Privacy at work: Architectural correlates of
job satisfaction and job performance." Academy of Management Journal 23(1): 101–
117. doi:10.2307/255498
Sundstrom, E., and M. G. Sundstrom. 1986. Workplaces: The Pschology of the Physical
Environment in Offices and Factories. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tajfel, H. 1982. “Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations.” Annual Review of Psychology
33 (1): 1–39. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245.
Tajfel, H., and J. C. Turner. 1985. “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior.” In
Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by S. Worchel and W. G. Austin, 2nd ed., 7–
24. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
van der Voordt, T. J. 2004. "Productivity and employee satisfaction in flexible workplaces."
Journal of Corporate Real Estate 6(2): 133-148. doi: 10.1108/14630010410812306
van der Voordt, T. J., and van der Klooster, W. 2008. Post-occupancy evaluation of a new
office concept in an educational setting. In CIB W70 International Conference in
Facilities Management, Herriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (pp. 16-18).
van der Voordt, T. J. M., and van Meel, J. 2000. "Lessons from Innovations." In D. G,
Krumm P, & de Jonge H (Eds.), Successful Corporate Real Estate Strategies. The
Netherlands: Arko Publishers.
Volker, L., and Van Der Voordt, D. J. M. 2005. "An integral tool for the diagnostic
evaluation of non-territorial offices." Designing Social Innovation, Planning, Building,
Evaluating. Göttingen: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.
Vos, P., and van der Voordt, T. 2001. Tomorrow’s offices through today’s eyes: Effects of
innovation in the working environment. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 4 (1): 48–65.
doi:10.1108/14630010210811778
Van Meel, J. 2011. “The Origins of New Ways of Working.” Facilities 29 (9/10): 357–367.
doi:10.1108/02632771111146297.
Wageman, R. 2001. "How leaders foster self-managing team effectiveness: Design choices
versus hands-on coaching." Organization Science 12 (5): 559-577.
doi:10.1287/orsc.12.5.559.10094
Wallach, E. J. 1983. "Individuals and Organizations: The Cultural Match." Training and
Development Journal 37 (2): 28–35.
Wells, M. M. 2000. “Office Clutter or Meaningful Personal Displays: The Role of Office
Personalization on Employee and Organizational Well-Being.” Journal of
Environmental Psychology 20 (3): 239–255. doi:10.1006/jevp.1999.0166.
Zahn, G. L. 1991. "Face-to-face communication in an office setting: The effects of position,
proximity, and exposure." Communication Research 18(6): 737–754.
doi:10.1177/009365091018006002
Zalesny, M., & Farace, R. 1987. "Traditional versus open offices: A comparison of
51
sociotechnical, social relations, and symbolic meaning perspectives." Academy of

Management Journal 30(2): 240–259.
A-FO Features Working Conditions Work-related Consequences
Short-term Long-term
(Psychological Reactions)
Individual Level
Openness of Main Ownership &

Work Territoriality Identity

Individual
Environment
Well-being
Self-determination Satisfaction
& Need Satisfaction Motivation
Flexible Use of Performance
Activity-related Autonomy
Work Locations Strain
Team/ Organizational Level
Desk-sharing Privacy Group Identity & Intrateam

Team Satisfaction
Cohesion Team Performance
Information & Information Sharing Interteam/

Proximity &
Communication Visibility Organizational
Technology Organizational
Interpersonal Trust Identification
Collaboration
Moderators
Task-related: e.g., Task Variety, Task Interdependence
Person-related: e.g., Personality, Age, Gender, Need for Routine Seeking
Organization-related: e.g., Organizational Culture, Leadership Style, Special Office Design Features

Choosing Where To Work at Work - Towards A Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-Based Flexible Offices

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Choosing Where To Work at Work - Towards A Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-Based Flexible Offices

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Choosing Where To Work at Work - Towards A Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-Based Flexible Offices

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ergonomics

ISSN: 0014-0139 (Print) 1366-5847 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/terg20

Choosing Where to Work at Work – Towards a

Christina Wohlers & Guido Hertel

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2016.1188220

Accepted author version posted online: 10

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

Choosing Where to Work at Work –

Towards a Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-based Flexible Offices

Christina Wohlers & Guido Hertel

Christina Wohlers, Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a

Digitized World”, University of Muenster, and Department of Organizational and Business

Psychology, University of Muenster; Guido Hertel, Department of Organizational and

Business Psychology, University of Muenster.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christina Wohlers,

University of Muenster, DFG Research Training Group “Trust and Communication in a

Digitized World”, Geiststraße 24-26, 48151 Muenster (Germany).

Email: christina.wohlers@uni-muenster.de, Phone: +49(0)2518322684

Muenster, christina.wohlers@uni-muenster.de Phone: +49(0)2518322684; Guido Hertel,

University of Muenster, Department of Organizational and Business Psychology,

Fliednerstraße 21, 48149 Muenster, ghertel@uni-muenster.de, Phone: +49(0)2518334161

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by a grant from the German

Although there is a trend in today’s organizations to implement activity-based flexible

conditions might affect work-related consequences such as well-being, satisfaction,

we consider task-related (e.g., task variety), person-related (e.g., personality) and

as well as practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: activity-based flexible offices; new ways of working; flex-office;

theoretical framework; desk-sharing; office design

Activity-based flexible offices (A-FOs) are popular in today’s organizations. This

Choosing Where to Work at Work –

Towards a Theoretical Model of Benefits and Risks of Activity-based Flexible

dedicated desks (labeled activity-based office concept, e.g., Appel-Meulenbroek, Groenen,

workstations. Organizations implementing A-FOs intend to respond to emerging work

requirements, often caused by the increasing emergence of knowledge work, by providing

employees’ well-being and performance.

Although the implementation of A-FOs is an ongoing trend, surprisingly few

empirical studies have examined A-FOs’ impact on employees’ health, satisfaction,

findings are contradictory. For instance, a cross-sectional study by Appel-Meulenbroek et al.

productivity, health, and satisfaction. In contrast, a longitudinal pre-post design study by

In the current paper, we present a theoretical model of psychological mechanisms that

affect individuals, teams and organizations. In addition, we consider task-related, person-

working conditions and their consequences on employees’ well-being, attitudes and

behaviors. We conclude by addressing future research directions as well as managerial

implications of our model.

concepts by introducing a theoretical model that specifies effects of A-FOs on employees’

by considering and integrating different moderator variables reflecting task-related, person-

related, and organizational context conditions of A-FOs’ effects.

Towards a Model of Benefits and Risks of A-FOs

The prevalence of knowledge work in today’s organizations poses challenges for

contrast, architectural features of open-plan offices (i.e., a common-use workspace without

described as combi-offices; these contain assigned workstations in either a single room or an

A-FOs provide an interesting alternative office type that resembles combi-offices in

concentrated work as well as communication possibilities. However, as the design of offices

affect perceptions, motivation, and behavior of employees.

perceptions of employees that are discussed in research on open-plan offices (e.g.,