Office communications and office location: A review of current research

Abstract

Goddard J. B. (1970) Office communications and office location: A review of current research, Reg. Studies 5, 263–280. The paper first establishes the growing importance of office type activities, the role of communications in office location and the problem of assessing the likely impact of future telecommunication systems on location. Three basic research questions are suggested. First, what forms of personal contact could be satisfactorily maintained by future telecommunication systems? Second, what are the patterns of communication within and between existing organizations and do these reveal characteristics that suggest strong locational constraints or substantial volumes of contact that might be transferred to telecommunications, so enhancing locational flexibility? Third, how with knowledge of existing communications patterns and of substitutability, can decisions about location be made to take account of communications characteristics? Finally, how can knowledge about contact systems be used by planners to influence patterns of regional development? These questions are approached by reference to current research into each topic. The first topic covers management science research into communications behaviour and laboratory experiments into the characteristics of person to person communications in relation to the characteristics of various communications channels. The second topic covers field surveys of contact patterns in 80 central London offices and 100 Swedish companies and a classification of these contacts using latent profile analysis. The third topic covers an operational research approach to the location of government in which communications characteristics are incorporated in a management decision-making model. The paper concludes with some comments on the implications for regional planning of telecommunication developments.