Towards Designing for the Postdigital Hybrid Workplace
A Systematic Literature Review
Downloads
This paper frames the future workplace as a postdigital hybrid space of practice that foregrounds humanistic values and holistically accommodates various requirements of individuals and collectives who make up the socio-cultural context of the workplace, wherever work may occur. However, to move towards designing for the postdigital hybrid workplace, it is necessary to first have an overview of the requirements foreseen for the future of workplace that are pertinent to notions of the postdigital and hybridity within the scholarly domain. On this basis, the paper presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of workplace design and management literature (2010-2022) informed by the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Studies were sourced through Scopus and Google Scholar, and screened for comprehension, relevancy, and certainty. Studies were appraised for quality before inclusion in the SLR, using a framework that combines a Weight of Evidence (WoE) framework (Gough 2007) with a set of appraisal criteria that can be used in qualitative research (Hannes 2011). Through a thematic analysis of the final 37 studies, the following seven requirements were identified: 1) embodied, intuitive and multimodal experiences, 2) a balance between privacy and interaction, 3) environmental comfort, 4) disconnection, 5) a culture that empowers the individual, 6) social territories and collective synergies, and 7) heterogeneity. The paper discusses that collectively the requirements identified signify the importance of the socio-spatial context in which work occurs. Therefore, as the ecosystem of work continues to change and adapt to hybridity, changes in meanings, perceptions and behaviours related to these requirements should be further investigated in order to better support design and management strategies. In addition, the paper acknowledges the inevitable juxtapositions of opposing expectations and requirements in a flexible workplace, and brings light to the behavioural, temporal and connectivity dimensions under which rivalling issues should be considered for a postdigital hybrid workplace.
Adamovic, Mladen. 2022. “How Does Employee Cultural Background Influence the Effects of Telework on Job Stress? The Roles of Power Distance, Individualism, and Beliefs about Telework”. International Journal of Information Management 62: 102437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102437
Al horr, Yousef, Mohammed Arif, Martha Katafygiotou, Ahmed Mazroei, Amit Kaushik, and Esam Elsarrag. 2016. “Impact of Indoor Environmental Quality on Occupant Well-Being and Comfort: A Review of the Literature”. International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 5(1): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsbe.2016.03.006
Alexenberg, Melvin L. 2011. “Chapter 1: Postdigital Perspective: Rediscovering Ten Fingers” In The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness, 31–60. Bristol, UK/Chicago, USA: Intellect.
ARUP. nd. “Future of Offices: In a Post-Pandemic World”. Accessed August 4, 2022. https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/research/section/future-of-offices-in-a-post-pandemic-world.
Baker, Mary. 2021. “4 Modes of Collaboration Are Key to Success in Hybrid Work”. Gartner. Accessed September 16, 2022. https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/4-modes-of-collaboration-are-key-to-success-in-hybrid-work.
Berbegal-Mirabent, Jasmina. 2021. “What Do We Know about Co-Working Spaces? Trends and Challenges Ahead”. Sustainability 13(3): 1416. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031416
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology”. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2): 77–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Bouncken, Ricarda B., Muhammad Mahmood Aslam, and Yixin Qiu. 2021. “Coworking Spaces: Understanding, Using, and managing Sociomateriality”. Business Horizons 64(1): 119-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2020.09.010
Bürkner, Hans-Joachim, and Bastian Lange. 2020. “New Geographies of Work: Re-Scaling Micro-Worlds”. European Spatial Research and Policy 27 (1): 53–74. https://doi.org/10.18778/1231-1952.27.1.03
Chen, Chien-Fei, Selin Yilmaz, Anna Laura Pisello, Marilena De Simone, Amy Kim, Tianzhen Hong, Karol Bandurski, Mateus V. Bavaresco, Pei-Ling Liu, and Yimin Zhu. 2020. “The Impacts of Building Characteristics, Social Psychological and Cultural Factors on Indoor Environment Quality Productivity Belief”. Building and Environment 185: 107189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107189
Cohen, Jacob. 1960. “A Coefficient of Agreement for Nominal Scales”. Educational and Psychological Measurement 20(1): 37-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316446002000104
Cramer, Florian. 2014. “What Is ‘Post-Digital’?”. APRJA 3(1): 10–24. https://doi.org/10.7146/aprja.v3i1.116068
Davis, Matthew C., Desmond J. Leach, and Chris W. Clegg. 2011. “The Physical Environment of the Office: Contemporary and Emerging Issues”. In International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2011, edited by Gerard P. Hodgkinson and J. Kevin Ford, 193-237. UK: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119992592.ch6
De Paoli, Donatella, and Arja Ropo. 2015. “Open Plan Offices- the Response to Leadership Challenges of Virtual Project Work?”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 17 (1): 63–74. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-08-2014-0020
de Souza e Silva, Adriana. 2006. “From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces”. Space and Culture 9(3): 261–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331206289022
Diab-Bahman, Randa, and Abrar Al-Enzi. 2020. “The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Conventional Work Settings”. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 40(9/10): 909–27. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-07-2020-0262
Dul, Jan, Canan Ceylan, and Ferdinand Jaspers. 2011. “Knowledge Workers’ Creativity and the Role of the Physical Work Environment”. Human Resource Management 50 (6): 715–34. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20454
Dunbar, Robin. 2022. “Foreword”. In Beyond the Workplace Zoo: Humanising the Office, by Nigel Oseland, xvi–xvii. Oxon, UK/ New York, USA: Routledge.
Fast, Karin. 2021. “The Disconnection Turn: Three Facets of Disconnective Work in Post-Digital Capitalism”. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27(6): 1615–30. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F13548565211033382
Forooraghi, Melina, Elke Miedema, Nina Ryd, and Holger Wallbaum. 2020. “Scoping Review of Health in Office Design Approaches”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 22 (2): 155–80. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-08-2019-0036
Gensler Research Institute. 2021. “U.S. Workplace Survey Winter 2021”. Accessed August 4, 2022. https://www.gensler.com/gri/us-workplace-survey-winter-2021.
Gough, David. 2007. “Weight of Evidence: A Framework for the Appraisal of the Quality and Relevance of Evidence”. Research Papers in Education 22 (2): 213–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520701296189
Graham, James, and Alessandro Gandini. 2017. “Introduction: Collaborative Production in the Creative Industries”. In Collaborative Production in the Creative Industries, edited by James Graham and Alessandro Gandini, 1-14. London: University of Westminster Press.
Hannes, K. 2011. “Chapter 4: Critical Appraisal of Qualitative Research”. In Supplementary Guidance for Inclusion of Qualitative Research in Cochrane Systematic Reviews for Interventions Version 1 (updated August 2011), edited by J. Noyes, A. Booth, K. Hannes, A. Harden, J. Harris, S. Lewin, and C. Lockwood. Cochrane Collaboration Qualitative Methods Group, 2011. https://methods. cochrane.org/qi/supplemental-handbook-guidance.
Harris, Rob. 2019. “Real Estate in the Digital Era”. Journal of General Management 44 (3): 119–27. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0306307019834404
Hua, Ying, Vivian Loftness, Judith H. Heerwagen, and Kevin M. Powell. 2011. “Relationship between Workplace Spatial Settings and Occupant-Perceived Support for Collaboration”. Environment and Behavior 43 (6): 807–26. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0013916510364465
Hui, Felix Kin Peng, and Lu Aye. 2018. “Occupational Stress and Workplace Design”. Buildings 8(10): 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8100133
Ipsen, Christine, Marc van Veldhoven, Kathrin Kirchner, and John Paulin Hansen. 2021. “Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18(4): 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph18041826
Johanson, Mathias, and Peter Törlind. 2004. “Mobility Support for Distributed Collaborative Teamwork”. Journal of Information Technology in Construction 9: 355–66. https://www.itcon.org/2004/25
Kegel, Paul. 2017. “The Impact of the Physical Work Environment on Organizational Outcomes: A Structured Review of the Literature”. Journal of Facility Management Education and Research 1(1): 19–29. https://doi.org/10.22361/jfmer/76637
Kemper, Jakko. 2023. “Glitch, the Post-Digital Aesthetic of Failure and Twenty-First-Century Media”. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 26(1): 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211060537
Landis, J. Richard, and Gary G. Koch. 1977. “The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data”. Biometrics 33(1): 159-74. https://doi.org/10.2307/2529310
Lund, Susan, Anu Madgavkar, James Manyika, Sven Smit, Kwielin Ellingrud, Mary Meaney, and Olivia Robinson. 2021. “The Future of Work after COVID-19. McKinsey Global Institute”. Accessed April 16, 2022. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid-19.
Malinin, Laura H., Alison Williams, and Katharine Leigh. 2016. “Chapter 10: The Psycho-Spatial Dynamics of Workplace Designs for Creative Disruption”. In International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in Design, edited by Robert DeFillippi, Alison Rieple, and Patrik Wikstrom, 204-28. Glos UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784716646.00019
Manca, Claudia. 2022. “Tensions as a Framework for Managing Work in Collaborative Workplaces: A Review of the Empirical Studies”. International Journal of Management Review, 24(3): 333-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12280
Marco, Elena, Mina Tahsiri, Danielle Sinnett, and Sonja Oliveira .2022. “Architects’ ‘Enforced Togetherness’: New Design Affordances of the Home”. Buildings and Cities 3(1): 168–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bc.189
Merkel, Janet. 2015. “Coworking in the City”. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 15 (1): 121–39. http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/coworking-city?utm_content=buffer7ea1a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Nanayakkara, Kusal Tharinda, Sara Jane Wilkinson, and Sumita Ghosh. 2021. “Future Office Layouts for Large Organisations: Workplace Specialist and Design Firms’ Perspective”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 23 (2): 69–86. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-02-2020-0012
Needle, Rose, and K.L. Malia. 2021. “Creatives in the Office: Personality and the Environmental Effects of Workspace”. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising 42 (3): 277–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2020.1770144
Ng, Cheuk Fan. 2010. “Teleworker’s Home Office: An Extension of Corporate Office?” Facilities 28 (3/4): 137–55. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632771011023113
Nurick, Saul, and Andrew Thatcher. 2021. “The Relationship of Green Office Buildings to Occupant Productivity and Organizational Performance: A Literature Review”. Journal of Real Estate Literature 29 (1): 18–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/09277544.2021.1909316
O’Connor, Cliodhna, and Helene Joffe. 2020. “Intercoder Reliability in Qualitative Research: Debates and Practical Guidelines”. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 19: 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919899220
O’Hara, Kenton, Jesper Kjeldskov, and Jeni Paay. 2011. “Blended Interaction Spaces for Distributed Team Collaboration”. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 18 (1): article 3. https://doi.org/10.1145/1959022.1959025
Page, Matthew J., Joanne E. McKenzie, Patrick M. Bossuyt, Isabelle Boutron, Tammy C. Hoffmann, Cynthia D. Mulrow, Larissa Shamseer et al. 2021. “The PRISMA 2020 Statement: An Updated Guideline for Reporting Systematic Review”. BMJ 372 (71): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71.
Palumbo, Rocco. 2020. “Let Me Go to the Office! An Investigation into the Side Effects of Working from Home on Work-Life Balance”. International Journal of Public Sector Management 33(6/7): 771–90. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-06-2020-0150
Papagiannidis, Savvas, and Davit Marikyan. 2020. “Smart Offices: A Productivity and Well-Being Perspective”. International Journal of Information Management 51: 102027. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.10.012
Petani, Fabio James, and Jeanne Mengis. 2023. “Technology and the Hybrid Workplace: The Affective Living of IT-Enabled Space”. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 34(8): 1530-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2021.1998186
Petrulaitiene, Vitalija, Pia Korba, Suvi Nenonen, Tuuli Jylhä, and Seppo Junnila. 2018. “From Walls to Experience-Servitization of Workplaces”. Facilities 36 (9/10): 525–44. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-07-2017-0072
Pitchforth, Jegar, Elizabeth C. Nelson, Marc van den Helder, and Wouter Oosting. 2020. “The Work Environment Pilot: An Experiment to Determine the Optimal Office Design for a Technology Company”. PLoS ONE 15 (5): e0232943. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232943
Reeves, Tony. 2019. “A Postdigital Perspective on Organisations”. Postdigital Science and Education 1 (1): 146–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0018-3
Richardson, Ann, John Potter, Margaret Paterson, Thomas Harding, Gaye Tyler-Merrick, Ray Kirk, Kate Reid, and Jane McChesney. 2017. “Office Design and Health: A Systematic Review”. NZMJ 130 (1467): 39–49. https://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/office-design-and-health-a-systematic-review
Rico, Ramón, and Susan G. Cohen. 2005. “Effects of Task Interdependence and Type of Communication on Performance in Virtual Teams”. Journal of Managerial Psychology 20(3/4): 261–74. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940510589046
Saatçi, Banu, Roman Rädle, Sean Rintel, Kenton O’Hara, and Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose. 2019. “Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure”. In Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing. CRIWG+CollabTech 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol 11677, edited by H. Nakanishi, H. Egi, I.A. Chounta, H. Takada, S. Ichimura, and U. Hoppe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4
Schmidtner, Makus, Claudia Doering, and Holger Timinger. 2021. “Agile Working during COVID-19 Pandemic”. IEEE Engineering Management Review 49(2): 18–32. Doi: 10.1109/EMR.2021.3069940
Serrano-Martínez, Cecilia. 2016. “The Office as a Mixing Pot and Playground. An Ethnographic Study at a Creative Workplace”. Qualitative Sociology Review 12(3): 138–52. https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.12.3.07
Sicotte, Hélène, Andrée De Serres, Hélène Delerue, and Virginie Ménard. 2019. “Open Creative Workspaces Impacts for New Product Development Team Creativity and Effectiveness”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 21 (4): 290–306. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-10-2017-0039
Skogland, Mari Anna Chatarina, and Geri Karsten Hansen. 2017. “Change Your Space, Change Your Culture: Exploring Spatial Change Management Strategies”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 19(2): 95–110. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-07-2016-0024
Smith, Nicola .2022. “How Modern Office Design Impacts Working Relationships and Decision Making”. Worklife. Accessed August 4, 2022. https://www.worklife.news/spaces/how-modern-office-design-impacts-working-relationships-and-decision-making/
Spinuzzi, Clay. 2012. “Working Alone Together: Coworking as Emergent Collaborative Activity”. Journal of Business and Technical Communication 26 (4): 399–441. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1050651912444070
Spinuzzi, Clay, Zlatko Bodrožić, Giuseppe Scaratti, and Silvia Ivaldi. 2019. ““Coworking Is About Community”: But What Is “Community” in Coworking?” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 33 (2): 112-40. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1050651918816357
Striano, Francesco. 2019. “Towards “Post-Digital”. A Media Theory to Re-Think the Digital Revolution”. Ethics in Progress 10(1): 83–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/eip.2019.1.7
Tandon, Anushree, Puneet Kaur, Namita Ruparel, Jamid Ul Islam, and Amandeep Dhir. 2022. “Cyberloafing and Cyberslacking in the Workplace: Systematic Literature Review of Past Achievements and Future Promises”. Internet Research 32(1):55-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-06-2020-0332
Tanpipat, Waynika, Huey Wen Lim, and Xiaomei Deng. 2021. “Implementing Remote Working Policy in Corporate Offices in Thailand: Strategic Facility Management Perspective”. Sustainability 13(3): 1284. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031284
Thoring, Katja, Roland M. Mueller, Pieter Desmet, and Petra Badke-Schaub. 2020. “Spatial Design Factors Associated with Creative Work: A Systematic Literature Review”. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 34: 300–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0890060420000232
Tremblay, Diane-Gabrielle, and Arnauld Scaillerez. 2020. “Coworking Spaces: New Places for Business Initiatives”. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management 31(1): 39-67. https://doi.org/10.3917/jie.pr1.0063
Trenerry, Brigid, Samuel Chng, Yang Wang, Zainal Shah Suhaila, Sun Sun Lim, Han Yu Lu, and Peng Ho Oh. 2021. “Preparing Workplace for Digital Transformation: An Integrative Review and Framework of Multi-Level Factors”. Frontiers in Psychology 12: 620766. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.620766
Vasarainen, Minna, Sami Paavola, and Liubov Vetoshkina. 2021. “A Systematic Literature Review on Extended Reality: Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality in Working Life”. International Journal of Virtual Reality 21(2): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.20870/IJVR.2021.21.2.4620
Waizenegger, Lena, Brad McKenna, Wenjie Cai, and Taino Bendz. 2020. “An Affordance Perspective of Team Collaboration and Enforced Working from Home during COVID-19”. European Journal of Information Systems 29(4): 429–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1800417
Wang, Peng, Xialiang Bai, Mark Billinghurst, Shusheng Zhange, Xiangyu Zhang, Shuxia Wang, Weiping He, Yuxiang Yan, and Hongyu Ji. 2021. “AR/MR Remote Collaboration on Physical Tasks: A Review”. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing 72: 102071. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcim.2020.102071
WeWork, and Workplace Intelligence. nd. “The Future of Work is Hybrid”. Accessed August 4, 2022. https://www.wework.com/en-GB/info/full-report-the-future-of-work-is-hybrid.
Williams, Michael, and Tami Moser. 2019. “The Art of Coding and Thematic Exploration in Qualitative Research”. International Management Review 15(1): 45–55. http://www.imrjournal.org/uploads/1/4/2/8/14286482/imr-v15n1art4.pdf
Yang, Eunhwa, Yujin Kim, and Sungil Hong. 2023. “Does Working from Home Work? Experience of Working from Home and the Value of Hybrid Workplace Post-COVID-19”. Journal of Corporate Real Estate 25(1):50-76. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-04-2021-0015
Zerella, Sarah, Kathryn von Treuer, and Simon L. Albrecht. 2017. “The Influence of Office Layout Features on Employee Perception of Organizational Culture”. Journal of Environmental Psychology 54: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.08.004
Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, Pablo, and Maryamsadat Sharifiatashgah. 2021. “The Relationship between Perceived Crowding and Cyberloafing in Open Offices at Iranian IT-Based Companies”. Cognition, Technology & Work 23: 331–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-020-00627-y
Copyright (c) 2023 Mina Tahsiri
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal which is under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).