e-Business and Workplace Redesign

Paul Jackson, Reima Suomi, Paul Jackson, Reima Suomi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9780415248884
• eBook ISBN: 9781134535675
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

As the growth in teleworking, 'virtual teams' and 'virtual enterprises' has shown, the economic landscape is increasingly characterized by an ability to work across spatial and organisational boundaries. Only with this redesign of working methods and business processes can the promise of the digital age be delivered. This book draws upon an international, multidisciplinary team of editors and contributors, and presents the most recent academic research on the subject.

1 Introduction: eBusiness issues and workplace design

Paul Jackson

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once remarked: ‘We shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us.’ It is an aphorism that workplace designers have been slow to heed. However, as managers, architects and others wake up to the contribution office design makes to an effective work environment, they are also presented with a host of new possibilities in the way work is organised. The key development has been the use of advanced information technologies (IT)—particularly those based around the Internet— to support innovations in business processes and customer services. Added to this has been a growth in corporate call centres, as well as mobile communications (which themselves are increasingly ‘Web-enabled’). The result has been a rise in new forms of organisational collaboration, combined with greater spatial flexibility in work and customer interactions.

As discussions of ‘eBusiness’ demonstrate, there is more to these developments than just IT (see, for example, Tapscott et al. 2000; Kalakota and Robinson 2000). Appropriate organisational structures are essential if the new business concepts built upon the technology are to flourish. But this brings its own challenges, not least the need to adapt organisational cultures and ways of working. While the present volume seeks to bring these issues together, it also argues that a further set of problematics be drawn into the frame: the design and use of the workplace.

Debates elsewhere, most notably on ‘telework’, have long called for a more systemic treatment of IT-enabled change, particularly the need to build bridges with architecture and facilities management (for instance, Jackson and van der Wielen 1998; Robertson 1999). This is not simply because changes brought about by remote and mobile working tend to reduce, as well as modify, the demands made on office environments; it also reflects the importance of good workplace design to organisational effectiveness.

The key issue here is captured by Becker and Steele’s (1995) notion of organisational ‘ecology’—the idea that the dynamics of a workplace are strongly influenced by the way it is designed and managed:

(Workplace) size, shape, layout, furnishings, and equipment shape our work lives, at the same time our behaviours, attitudes, and values shape the nature of that designed environment, how it is used and the meanings we attach to it. The ecology of the organisation is an often invisible but nonetheless strong force shaping how people work with each other and how well the organisation performs, especially when conditions demand flexibility and quick responses to new demands.

(Becker and Steele 1995: X)

Concerted attention to these issues has been frustrated by a typical fragmentation in decision-making on workplace design. This concerns a lack of dialogue not only between users and expert groups, but also between experts themselves (e.g. architects, interior designers, information systems planners). As Leaman and Borden point out, the under-performance that results can be explained by the way workers’ behaviour and degrees of freedom are ‘systematically reduced by decisions over which they themselves have no control’ (Leaman and Borden 1993: 16). A more participative approach to design is common in areas such as information system development. However, the present volume is concerned with the broader set of stakeholders that influence the design and use of workplaces.

Such an approach has been advocated by writers such as Becker and Steele (1995), Duffy (1997), Robertson (1999) and Horgen et al. (1999). All share the view that a greater integration of stakeholder perspectives and expertise is needed if workplaces are to support the needs and preferences of users, while also improving business performance and making better use of resources. The present volume raises these issues in the context of emerging eBusiness practices. It recognises that in embracing Internet technologies, considerable reengineering, and even network redesign, may be needed (Tapscott et al. 2000, Chapter 2 in this volume by MacCalman and Anderson). This in turn may demand new working methods and business relationships (such as cross-functional teams and enterprise alliances).

The nature of eBusiness changes also presents managers with new location options. In addition, much of the work done may be carried out beyond conventional office settings, as employees operate in nomadic and teleworking modes. Team collaborations may take place ‘virtually’—IT being used to support interaction across organisational and spatial boundaries. Competitive pressures and shortage of space may also mean renewed efforts to minimise expenditure on office buildings and facilities while simultaneously enhancing their effectiveness and creativity.

This is a tall challenge. The scale and speed of change is difficult enough without the added complexity of a thoroughgoing treatment of workplace redesign issues. Without such an approach, however, organisations may simply be storing up new problems as they resolve old ones. If nothing else,

they will fail to maximise the technological, architectural and human resources available to them. Such an approach challenges professional boundaries. It calls for theoretically informed architects, able to anticipate business developments and changes in the nature of work. It demands a fusion of facilities management and IT support to allow for more rounded responses to employees’ needs, providing them with connectivity and workstation space wherever and whenever they choose to work.

The challenge of work redesign in the eBusiness era is well set out by Francis Duffy, former President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in his account of the ‘New Office’:

Managing change must involve simultaneously rethinking the use of human resources, reinventing the ways in which information technology should be used, and redesigning the work environment. And it must be recognised that the ways in which office buildings are procured and managed are as important in determining the quality of the working environment as the physical structures and their interiors.

(Duffy 1997: 10)

The chapters that follow provide insights into the dimensions and points of contact on this topic. The chapters are split into four main parts. In Part 1 of the book, ‘eBusiness structures and processes’, chapters by James McCalman and Craig Anderson, and by Lisa Harris, address the demands made by eBusiness for new forms of intra and inter-organisational collaboration, and for a redesign of office space and information support. Part 2, ‘Workplace architecture and design’, with chapters by Cristina Caramelo Gomes, Ghassan Aouad and Marcus Ormerod, and by Martin van der Linden, examines the need for rethinking architectural approaches to building design, particularly the importance of linking the design and management of buildings to the imperatives of IT-supported organisational change and the requirement for more socially and ecologically sustainable ways of working.

In Part 3, ‘The design and introduction of new methods of work’, frameworks are presented which illustrate the need for more systematic and culturally sensitive approaches to the introduction of new methods of work. Chapters are presented here by Diana Limburg and Wendy Spinks respectively. Finally, Part 4 of the book, ‘Rethinking knowledge networking and virtual collaboration’, looks at issues raised by collaboration and learning tools intended to improve interaction and knowledge management across social and physical borders. The chapters in question, by Nic Beech, George Cairns and Gerry Kincaid; Birger Rapp and Pauline Ärlebäck; and by Pertii Järvinen, point to a number of key conceptual and methodologies issues that must be broached if we are to understand and manage the new types of work involved.

We hope and believe that the ideas presented in these chapters will lead to more rounded and systematic approaches to today’s challenges in workplace redesign. The insights they provide are important not only for producing buildings and systems of work that support and enhance (rather than constrain and frustrate) the actions and options of users. They also lay down a new and integrated agenda for managers and workplace designers as they face up to the world of eBusiness change.

References

Becker, F. and Steele, F. (1995) Workplace by Design, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Duffy, F. (1997) The New Office, London: Conran Octopus.

Horgen, T.H., Joroff, M.L., Porter, W.L. and Schön, D.A. (1999) Excellence by Design: transforming workplace and work practice, New York: John Wiley.

Jackson, P.J. and van der Wielen, J.M. (eds) (1998) Teleworking. International Perspectives: from telecommuting to the virtual organisation, London: Routledge.

Kalakota, R. and Robinson, M. (2000) e-Business 2.0: roadmap for success, Harlow: Addison Wesley.

Leaman, A. and Borden, I. (1993) ‘The responsible workplace: user expectations’, in Duffy, F., Crisp, V.H.C. and Laing, A. (eds) The Responsible Workplace: the redesign of work and offices, Oxford: Butterworth Architecture in association with Estates Gazette.

Robertson, K. (1999) Work Transformation: planning and implementing the new workplace, New York: HNB Publishing.

Tapscott, D., Ticoll, D. and Lowy, A. (2000) Digital Capital: harnessing the power of business webs, London: Nicolas Brealy.

Part 1: eBusiness structures and processes

In Part 1 we are concerned with the way developments in eBusiness and the Internet are affecting organisational structures and processes. Chapter 2 by James McCalman and Craig Anderson examines how workplace design can be used to provide a better integration of the physical work environment with IT and flexible working. The management of eBusiness, they argue, must analyse the impact between organisational structures, teamwork and intra and interfirm collaboration. Central to this is the concept of ‘corporate nomads’—flexible workers who mingle their use of workspace and time with supporting technology in order to undertake work tasks, and liaise with clients and team members.

McCalman and Anderson note that many businesses engaged in eBusiness change are looking to IT as a way of supporting the redesign of office space, particularly in terms of minimising the fixed costs of occupancy. In so doing, they say, businesses must confront the need to accommodate fluctuations in the number and locations of personnel brought about by the turbulence in market conditions. The authors argue that in response to such factors, management is increasingly predisposed towards greater autonomy in work design, which may also involve producing ‘smarter working’ arrangements by embracing a creative fusion of work environments, technologies and people.

McCalman and Anderson point out that developments in eBusiness have led to a redefinition of the relationships between buyers and suppliers, as well as between businesses and their customers, thereby blurring the boundaries between different parts of the value chain. One consequence of this is a need for business network redesign, encompassing inter-organisational collaboration and greater cross-functional team working. Such developments, they point out, have major consequences for the way work processes and interactions should be supported, both in technological and spatial terms.

The authors remind us that the design of the working environment has long been treated as a marginal and technical matter, premised on a set of values and beliefs that reflect the industrial origins of the workplace. They show, however, how attempts have been made to overcome the constraints in such designs by development of ‘intelligent buildings’, that is, workplaces with technologies and environments more supportive to human needs and able to respond to change over time. Greater building intelligence, say McCalman and Anderson, is central to creating workplaces that allow individuals and teams to generate, manipulate and distribute knowledge—an essential ingredient in working practices and business relationships in eBusiness design.

The authors substantiate their arguments with an international case study. They conclude that technology alone cannot provide eBusiness with solutions to its problems, particularly given the need for more concerted attention to knowledge creation and management. A much wider approach is needed, which supports the work of individuals and teams at the various spaces and times they may be working. Settings that support informal and formal collaboration, brainstorming and creativity, but also reflection and concentration, will be demanded. This requires, they argue, a thorough understanding of the new ways that organisations function in the eBusiness era, and the central importance of knowledge processes to them.

As with the previous authors, in Chapter 3 Lisa Harris looks at the way eBusiness developments challenge traditional organisational structures, but in this case with particular reference to the issues raised for established marketing practices. The growth of networked and virtual forms of organisation calls for new ways of managing marketing information and interfacing with customers. Indeed, Internet developments, she argues, have heightened the need for new, more agile forms of networking that allow for greater attention to customer value.

Harris highlights, for instance, the emergence of ‘meta-mediaries’— Internet-based enterprises that help customers navigate the growing complexity and volume of the Web. For organisations themselves, new communications challenges must also be faced, such as ensuring consistent forms of customer interaction, even where several enterprises within a network are involved. As such, the integration of customer and marketing data becomes essential for the success of new eBusiness structures. In this context Harris also discusses the issues raised by ‘clicks and mortar’ businesses, especially the matter of ‘channel cannibalisation’. She describes how some companies have designed operations around a combination of ‘offline’ (physical, e.g. high street stores) and ‘online’ (virtual, e.g. Internet) ways of interacting with customers.

One consequence of these developments is that marketing operations will increasingly need to be based around customer groups, rather than geography or products. This will not only require changes to organisational structures, Harris argues, but new forms of data integration and support that enable better customer profiling, and personalisation of services and offerings, and that generally improve the quality and management of customer relationships.

2 Designing oases for corporate no mads: The impact of facilities management on work design and the flexible workforce

James McCalman and Craig Anderson

Introduction

Does eBusiness mark the beginning of a revolution? Tapscott (1995) describes its growth as part of the burgeoning of a digital economy where:

…we are witnessing the early, turbulent days of a revolution as significant as any other in human history. A new medium of human communications is emerging, one that may prove to surpass all previous revolutions in its impact on our economic and social life. The computer is expanding from a tool for information management to a tool for communications…. In this digital economy, individuals and enterprises create wealth by applying knowledge, networked human intelligence, and effort to manufacturing, agriculture, and services. In the digital frontier of this economy, the players, dynamics, rules, and requirements for survival and success are changing.

(Tapscott 1995: xiii)

Plus ça change? The impact of eBusiness on workplace design can also be viewed as a management fad which, like trends in music or clothes, go in and out of favour as consumer tastes change or people get older. Like management trends in general, the concept of eBusiness has just about reached the stage of popular critique and many would argue that it is only a matter of time before it is seen as a populist notion or fad more associated with youth culture than organisational logic. However, the concept of workplace design has a much deeper history, and as a popular practice has survived intact for over 50 ye...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Guest foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: eBusiness issues and workplace design
• Part 1: eBusiness structures and processes
• Part 2: Workplace architecture and design
• Part 3: The design and introduction of new methods of work
• Part 4: Rethinking knowledge networking and virtual collaboration