Methodological Approaches for Workplace Research and Management

Chiara Tagliaro, Marko Orel, Ying Hua, Chiara Tagliaro, Marko Orel, Ying Hua

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032256153
• eBook ISBN: 9781000892642
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

This book explores a wide range of methodological approaches to examining various forms of workplace physical environments. It focuses on pressing questions regarding the relationship between the spatial component of the workplace, including its progressive hybridisation with other physical and virtual places, and its users, be they public organisations, private companies, or start-up businesses and solopreneurs.

International contributors address a range of methods that are applicable both in research and practice to confront the most cutting-edge workplace-related issues. The assumption is that work has been changing, thanks to the virtualisation of many activities, and that homeworking and hybrid working modes are expected to increase significantly after Covid-19. Thus, spaces hosting work need to adapt accordingly. Researchers and practitioners have been struggling to determine how much space will be needed by companies, what kind of space will better host different work activities, which workers are more suited for working from home, and which instead are more productive if they have an office-based working arrangement. The necessary evolution of the office should follow evidence-based decisions on the abovementioned matters, which are only possible through rigorous investigations. This volume aims to support these investigations, which call for inventive applications of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. By doing so the book will encourage solid practices and thorough research agendas in workplace design, management, and use.

Contributions come from different disciplines, including facilities management, real estate management, psychology, design, architecture, sociology, and organisation studies. Chapters highlight the importance of appropriate methodologies, borrowed from different fields, in addressing contemporary questions and developments in workplaces. By analysing the challenges and opportunities for conducting rigorous research in different workplace settings, this book will be critical reading for both academics and students, as well as for decision-makers and professionals who deal with workplace design and management.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Foreword by Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska
• Preface: Expanding the understanding of methodological approaches for workplace research and management in the new era
• 1 Outlook: Collecting methods for transdisciplinary workplace research and management
• 2 Workplace autoethnography: Exploring the place through aspects of the self
• 3 Affective ethnography: Interpreting body language in the workplace fieldwork
• 4 Digital ethnography: Understanding platform labour from within
• 5 Critical discourse analysis: Studying the symbolic aspects of workplaces
• 6 Diary studies: Capturing real-time experiences in the workplace
• 7 Cluster analysis: Grouping workers by work location choice
• 8 Stated choice experiments: Identifying workplace preferences and behaviours
• 9 Delphi method: Reaching consensus on workplace performance
• 10 Social network analysis: Studying social interactions and relations in the workplace
• 11 Surveys: Gathering data for workplace post-occupancy evaluation
• 12 Space syntax: Examining human-workplace behavior through isovists and shortest paths
• 13 Journey mapping: Describing the spatial experience of workplace users
• 14 Compendium: Choosing methods for workplace research and management
• 15 Wind-up: On methodological takeaways and the importance of workplace research
• Index