Merging prescriptive and behavioral approaches for office layout

Abstract

Various approaches have emerged for designing office layouts and for better understanding their impact on employee attitudes and performance. They can be broadly categorized as either being prescriptive or behavioral. Prescriptive approaches are a collection of solution procedures and algorithms aimed at designing layouts around work flows and managerial preferences. While assisting with the combinatorial difficulties in layout planning, little thought is given to how individuals are influenced by spatial arrangements. The behavioral approach, on the other hand. consists of various theories and empirical studies of how spatial arrangements impact employee satisfaction and motivation. However, they pay little attention to translating such insights into workable layouts. The purposes of this paper are threefold. First, the disparate approaches to office layout are critically reviewed. Second, a new theory of spatial arrangements is proposed and tested in an exploratory fashion. Third, suggestions are made on future research and how prescriptive models can be reformulated to better handle the behavioral aspects of office layout.