The productivity tax of new office concepts: a comparative review of open-plan offices, activity-based working, and single-office concepts

Gerlitz, Andrea; Hülsbeck, Marcel Article — Published Version The productivity tax of new office concepts: a comparative review of open-plan offices, activity-based working, and single-office concepts Management Review Quarterly Provided in Cooperation with: Springer Nature Suggested Citation: Gerlitz, Andrea; Hülsbeck, Marcel (2023) : The productivity tax of new office concepts: a comparative review of open-plan offices, activity-based working, and single-office concepts, Management Review Quarterly, ISSN 2198-1639, Springer International Publishing, Cham, Vol. 74, Iss. 2, pp. 745-775, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-022-00316-2 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/309942 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Vol.:(0123456789) Management Review Quarterly (2024) 74:745–775 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-022-00316-2 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative review ofopen‑plan offices, activity‑based working, andsingle‑office concepts AndreaGerlitz1 · MarcelHülsbeck1 Received: 15 June 2022 / Accepted: 19 December 2022 / Published online: 5 January 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract This systematic review critically analyzes the relationship between office concepts and individual and organizational performance. Based on the current literature, we identify seven key dimensions to guide our understanding: office concept, work, personality fit, satisfaction, health, control paradigm, and enabling paradigm. Our systematic search yielded 429 published papers on office concepts and performance between 2005 and 2022. Rigorous selection criteria narrowed them down to 46 empirical articles included in this analysis. The results show that activity-based working not only negatively impacts performance but also affects employee satisfaction and health. Open-plan offices can reduce real-estate costs but lead to lower performance levels, thereby imposing a tax on productivity which outweighs the initial cost savings. Activity-based working has the potential to enhance collaboration and interaction but is dependent on a professional and proactive management. In most cases, especially for knowledge workers, the single office turns out to be the environment in which employees show the best individual and organizational performance. Keywords Productivity tax· Employee· Satisfaction· Performance· Office concept· Open-plan office· Activity-based working· Single office 1 Introduction The “new world of work” causes fundamental changes (Aroles etal. 2019) that lead to reorganizations of work and workplaces (Okhuysen etal. 2013; Schmid and Dowling 2020). These have consequences for office layouts. Scholars distinguish * Andrea Gerlitz andrea.ger[email protected] Marcel Hülsbeck marcel.huelsbec[email protected] 1 Witten Institute ofFamily Business, WIFU-Foundation Chair ofFamily Business Management, Universität Witten/Herdecke, Alfred-Herrhausen-Str. 48, 58448Witten, Germany 746 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 several dimensions of office concepts that affect employees’ behavior and subsequent individual and organizational performance (Węziak-Białowolska etal. 2018). When deciding on the implementation of new office concepts, corporate real estate and facility management mostly consider real estate costs (Appel-Meulenbroek etal. 2018; de Vries etal. 2008) as potential benefits are complex and therefore hard to assess (Feige etal. 2013). At the same time, boundaries in the office environment are being removed to foster interaction and collaboration (Bernstein and Turban 2018). Although the theory on how removing boundaries affects human behavior is divided (Ward etal. 2017). Although the social facilitation hypothesis, represented by sociologists, suggests that removing boundaries may foster collaboration and collective intelligence (Geen and Gange 1977), organizational scholars, mainly social and environmental psychologists (Taylor 1975), draw an opposite conclusion. Removing boundaries decreases the occupants’ collaboration (Kim and De Dear 2013; Brennan etal. 2002; Bosch‐Sijtsema etal. 2010). Negative aspects that scholars discuss regarding unbounded office concepts include levels of distraction and a decrease in satisfaction and health, which result in a loss of productivity. These accumulated adverse effects cause stress and perceived pressure on employees, resulting in less knowledge sharing and collaboration (Škerlavaj etal. 2018). However, defining the optimal office concept for a given organization is not a trivial task. The prevalent focus on real estate costs may result in a productivity tax that outweighs the short-term cost-benefits. Still, open office concepts enjoy an excellent reputation. Companies like Google, with their mission to “create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world”, made these office concepts popular worldwide. However, empirical evidence points to the risk that employees feel dehumanized after relocation to a new office concept (Taskin etal. 2019). The following three office concepts dominate the office environment with specific characteristics. Single and shared offices are enclosed private rooms for one to three individuals (De Been and Beijer 2014) with additional enclosed meeting rooms, as well as shared facilities for printers, etc. In general, occupants of single and shared offices can control the heating and lighting per room. Open-plan offices (OPOs) are large unbounded open spaces where many employees have their workstations. Often transparent materials (e.g., glass) are used as design elements to create openness. Generally, OPO have a central climate and lighting system (De Been and Beijer 2014). Activity-based working (ABW), sometimes also called flex office, is also an unbounded large open office, but without fixed/assigned workstations. There are fewer individual workstations provided than employees working in the facility. Out of a variety of work settings (for example, areas for collaborative work), employees need to choose where to work according to their preferences and daily activities. After leaving a workstation, employees are expected to clean their desks (De Been and Beijer 2014). Taking into account the diversity of these office concepts, it has become necessary to develop a clear and holistic understanding of the relationship between office concepts and the individual and organizational performance aspects. To investigate these performance aspects, it is necessary to understand the differences between office concepts and why they might vary in their performance. Scholars treat performance as a multifaceted phenomenon (Carroll 1979; Chandler and Hanks 1993; Luo etal. 2012). Within the research stream on office concepts, performance is ill defined as a 747 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… multi-dimensional concept that comprises quantitative and qualitative performance on the individual as well as on the organizational level (Kämpf-Dern and Konkol 2017; De Croon etal. 2005). Therefore, we use the term performance as an umbrella term that embraces the eclecticism of current research on office concepts. This systematic integrative literature review (SLR) aims to structure the eclectic state of the literature by dimensions in this growing field and offer advice for practitioners. This interdisciplinary research covers psychology (Seddigh etal. 2015), real estate management (Haynes 2007), architecture (Megahed and Ghoneim 2020), human resource management (Taskin etal. 2019), engineering (Veitch etal. 2007) and health (Pejtersen etal. 2011; Zhang 2020). However, an integrative model is lacking. So far, many reviews have been conducted (Gjerland etal. 2019; Richardson etal. 2017; Engelen etal. 2019; De Croon etal. 2005). However, these reviews examined either one specific office setting, such as ABW (Engelen etal. 2019), or one particular performance, such as health (Richardson etal. 2017; De Croon etal. 2005), or conducted a scoping review that does not analyze in depth why and how office concepts impact performance but identified research gaps (Gjerland et al. 2019). Therefore, we follow the urgent call by Gjerland etal. (2019) to holistically examine the relationship between office concepts and various other categories such as level of distraction, privacy, satisfaction, and performance. Furthermore, we integrate employee satisfaction and health as a largely neglected category (De Croon etal. 2005; Richardson etal. 2017) in the ongoing discussion on the three most important office concepts: OPO, ABW, and single office. This led to the following research question: How do these three different office concepts affect individual and organizational performance? This paper makes the following value-added contributions. First, it adds to the debate office concepts by providing a detailed and critical look at their impact on satisfaction and performance. Second, findings are visualized. Third, this article gives concrete suggestions for practitioners to view office space not merely as real estate costs but as an environment that may foster or hinder employees’ satisfaction and productivity. Fourth, our research agenda will enhance and guide future research. This paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the methodology used for this SLR. In the third section, we analyze the results of the literature based on dimensions of prior literature and conclude with our visualization of results. In the concluding section, we summarize the main results of this SLR, acknowledge limitations, and discuss promising avenues for future research. We conclude with practical implications. 2 Method This SLR aims to analyze the relationship between office concept (single office, OPO, or ABW) and individual and organizational performance. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to create a transparent data collection and synthesis process that maximizes the level of objectivity and reproducibility (Tranfield etal. 2003) and minimizes possible authors’ bias in the selection of literature to 748 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 identify the status quo of existing literature as well as generate new insights (Pittaway etal. 2014) that may support decisions in research and practice (Briner and Denyer 2012). We followed the three stages of a SLR: planning the review, conducting the review, and reporting the findings (Kraus etal. 2020; Pittaway etal. 2014). We based the inclusion criteria for this SLR on several a priori considerations. To ensure the reliability of the empirical analyses in each article, only peer-reviewed articles are included (Bouncken etal. 2015) that are in English language and empirically evaluate office layouts (namely “open-plan office”, “activity-based working”, “single or shared offices”). Researchers and practitioners use a wide range of different office layout descriptions. However, after consulting with experts (Kraus etal. 2020) and analyzing previous reviews (Gjerland etal. 2019; Richardson etal. 2017; Engelen etal. 2019; De Croon etal. 2005), we identified these three office layouts to be the most relevant. These strict inclusion criteria seemed necessary to strive for an evidence-based model (Webster and Watson 2002). Based on the insights of the seminal review by De Croon etal. (2005), we sample articles from 2005 to 2022. In 2005 the New Work Movement experienced a renewal. From this time onwards, office concepts such as the OPO and the ABW have played an increasing role and are designed and implemented worldwide. A new stream of research studies the effects and implications of office concepts. This SLR analyzes these more recent studies. The search was carried out in February 2022 on the leading scientific research database EBSCO (narrowed down to Business Source Premier, EconLit, Psychology and Behavioral Science Collection, APA Psychology Articles, and Medline) to identify relevant, high-quality studies and to ensure an exhaustive search across disciplines. A literature search was conducted threefold. First, we searched on EBSCO for articles whose titles, abstracts, or keywords contained “open-plan office” (short: OPO). It resulted in 170 matches. We then combined them with (AND) “productivity or efficiency or performance” (which resulted in 85 papers). Because the terms “productivity”, “efficiency,” and “performance” are not clearly defined and are often used interchangeably, we included all three terms in our search. In the second stage, we searched for articles whose titles, abstracts, or keywords contained “activity-based working” (102 results) and also combined them with (AND) “productivity or efficiency or performance” (35 results). In the last stage, we searched articles concerning “office concepts” or “work environments” (121 results) and combined them also with (AND) “productivity or efficiency or performance” (51 results). This initial search yielded 429 published articles. The database search was supplemented by additional articles identified through reference checks and expert interviews with two scholars. This resulted in 4 additional articles covering OPO, 10 additional articles on ABW, and 1 article added to our search of “office concepts” or “work environment”. We cleaned the raw data in a four-step procedure. First, we manually removed all duplicates. Second, all non-English articles were manually removed. Third, only studies that were conducted among adults who perform paid office work were included. Fourth, the authors read all paper titles and abstracts. We focused on papers that empirically investigate the relationship between office concepts and employee behavior and organizational performance. We excluded articles that (a) lack empirical primary data, (b) dealt with related fields but did not meet the research objective, (c) did not measure any outcomes, (d) 749 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… focused on air quality, (e) focused on pathogenic effects of the office environment on pre-existing diseases (e.g., cancer, diabetes), and (f) focused only on gender differences. The remaining 92 articles were thoroughly read and verified. Overall, 46 papers meet the specific inclusion criteria for this SLR (see Table1). The first author kept a review protocol to capture the evolution of the gained insights. Analytical phase: We analyzed previous reviews and merged the dimensions used resulting in the following seven: office concept, work, personality fit, satisfaction, health, control paradigm, and enabling paradigm. In our analysis, we differentiate Table 1 Search strategy and paper inclusion Positive selection criteria Language English Publication Academic Journals Date Papers published between 2005 and 2022 Data base 1. EBSCO 1.1 Business Source Premier 1.2 EconLit 1.3 Psychology and Behavior Science Collection 1.4 APA Psychology Articles 1.5 MEDLINE 2. Additional relevant articles 1 Query:“Open Plan Office” Result Titles 170 AND “productivity or efficiency or performance” 85 Relevant title and abstract 26 Relevant after reading 18 Additional relevant articles 4 Total relevant articles after reading 22 II Query:“Activity based working ” Result Titles 102 AND “productivity or efficiency or performance” 35 Relevant title and abstract 24 Relevant after reading 6 Additional relevant articles 10 Total relevant articles after reading 16 III Query: “Office concepts” or “work environment” Result Titles 121 AND “productivity or efficiency or performance” 51 Relevant title and abstract 14 Relevant after reading 7 Additional relevant articles 1 Total relevant articles after reading 8 Papers included in this review 46 750 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 between individual performance based on subjective effects (personality fit, satisfaction, health, perceived productivity) and organizational performance (real estate cost, labor productivity). The office concept, as one of our primary dimensions, refers to the workplace design and type of boundaries in an office (De Croon etal. 2005). The office concept influences how workspaces within a room are designed, where employees carry out their work. For this SLR, we include the following three different office concepts: single office (shared room office), OPO, and ABW. The dimension “work” comprises two variables: level of distraction and interaction. Depending on a given work task, workers are receptive to higher levels of distraction and require various levels of interaction. The level of distraction is the level of disturbance within a given work environment. The acceptable noise level varies depending on the cognitive workload (De Croon etal. 2005). Some tasks require quiet work zones to perform, while others, for example, repetitive tasks, can be fulfilled with higher background noise. Interaction defines the required amount of collaboration that results in background noise. Personality fit describes how different personality traits affect the perception of and satisfaction with office concepts (Ellwart and Schulze 2009). For example, an introverted employee may prefer a personal and quiet workspace, while an extrovert may enjoy coworking with others within a room (Wadu Mesthrige and Chiang Yat 2019). Personality fit influences employee satisfaction, health, and performance. Office concepts are linked to work and personality fit and affect the satisfaction with environmental (visual, acoustic, temperature), interpersonal (interaction with coworkers) and overall job aspects. While satisfaction focuses on short-term effects, health looks at the long-term effects. At best, occupants feel healthy and flourish; at worst, a dissatisfying work environment negatively impacts occupants’ health (De Croon etal. 2005) and their motivation. Enabling paradigm takes a long-term perspective. It is a human-centered approach that shows the relationship between office concepts and performance (Haynes 2007) by incorporating dimensions such as work, personality fit, satisfaction, and health. The direct impact of a chosen office concept on real estate cost is called the control paradigm. It focuses on direct monetary efficiency but neglects to mediate variables that may lead to a productivity tax (Haynes 2007). Based on these categories, we analyzed and structured the data for our SLR. Within the final phase of conducting a review, the synthesis of findings is represented (Sect.3). We followed the advice of Fisch and Block (2018) to conclude the findings section with a conceptual model (see Fig.1). 3 Analysis In this section, we provide an analysis of the 46 reviewed papers and show the influence of office concepts on the other dimensions. A summary description of all reviewed articles is provided in the Appendix of this paper. First, we briefly introduce the different office concepts. Second, we analyze the dimension “work” by looking closer at the level of distractions and interaction. Third, we consider the effects of personality fit. Fourth, we evaluate employee satisfaction with the environment, interaction, and job. Fifth, we examine the influence on health. Sixth, we 751 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… examine the effect of enabling paradigm on performance, and finally, seventh, we look at the cost paradigm. Each aspect is analyzed with respect to the specific office concept. We conclude each section with a summary. 3.1 Office concepts The literature does not use a single common terminology for office types. To align the language of different researchers, we developed the following taxonomy to define the different office concepts based on Duffy and Powell (1997) and Danielsson and Bodin (2008). 3.2 Work: Sometimes it isdistraction, sometimes it isinteraction! 3.2.1 Level ofDistraction A recurring theme in the reviewed studies is noise-induced distraction. When speech intelligibility cannot be ensured, occupants feel distracted, and their satisfaction and performance diminish. Appel-Meulenbroek etal. (2021) studied occupants’ coping strategies for different noise sources. Their findings show that choosing a specific coping strategy depends on the origin of the noise; for instance, when the noise source is near one’s desk, occupants use the avoidance strategy by interrupting their work or trying to be quieter. However, the stress level will remain when trying to ignore the noise. Göçer etal. (2019) compared higher and lower performing OPOs and found noise as one predictor of lower performance. As distractions lead to greater stress and frustration, more errors are made (Mark etal. 2008), and collaboration is reduced (Škerlavaj etal. 2018). Noise appears as a consistently reported problem in OPO; see Hedge (1982). Wadu Mesthrige and Chiang Yat (2019) show that interruptions, overcrowding, and noise negatively influence the occupants’ performance in OPO. Roskams and Haynes (2020) show that reducing the level of distraction results in higher productivity, which is in line with Roelofsen (2008). They Fig. 1 Visualization of results 752 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 also find that lower perceived distraction is associated with higher psychological comfort and enthusiasm, which is consistent with previous studies (Haynes 2008; Veitch etal. 2007; Candido etal. 2016). Roelofsen (2008) states that in an office where potentially disturbing conversations take place the ideal noise level should be around 45dB (A) and never be higher than 48dB (A). Furthermore, noise can lead to working pressure, cause fatigue, depression, and reduces overall satisfaction (Jahncke etal. 2011; Sander etal. 2021). Personality and work tasks influence how employees perceive the disturbance level (Oseland and Hodsman 2020; Roelofsen 2008). Banbury and Berry (2005) found that 99% of their participants report concentration problems due to background noise from other employees. They also show that noise distraction is higher in OPO than in single offices. Pejtersen etal. (2006); De Been and Beijer (2014); Kaarlela- Tuomaala etal. (2009), and Kim and De Dear (2013) provide further evidence that the distraction level in single offices is the lowest. To cope with noise distractions in OPO, quiet work areas are a needed remedy (Chacon Vega etal. 2020; Chadburn etal. 2017; Roelofsen 2008; Seddigh etal. 2015). Employees moving from OPO to ABW perceive better conditions for concentration (Blok etal. 2009; Candido etal. 2019; Haynes etal. 2019; Rolfö etal. 2018). But distraction still play a role in ABW (Rolfö etal. 2018). It leads to less concentration (Keeling etal. 2015) and therefore less productivity (Wadu Mesthrige and Chiang Yat 2019) compared to single offices. Roelofsen (2008) recommends incorporating smaller closed office spaces to better cope with noise distraction. Noise distraction is a widespread problem in open office environments, especially in OPO, but also in ABW. The distraction level depends on the job role and personality and affects the occupants’ performance. A growing number of employees are looking for quiet work areas. In a world where knowledge workers are in high demand, companies may be well recommended to reconsider OPO as the dominant office concept. 3.2.2 Interaction Interaction is linked to noise and distraction because it can be seen as its counterpart. New office concepts like OPO and ABW have been designed to facilitate interaction, but face-to-face communication decreases in OPO environments (Brennan etal. 2002; Sailer and Thomas 2021). Bernstein and Turban (2018) examine how human interaction patterns change because of the architectural shift from a traditional office to an OPO. Gathering data by tracking face-to-face interaction with wearable sociometric devices and gaining data from electronic communication servers, including e-mail and instant messaging, they conducted two intervention-based field studies at corporate headquarters. Their results show that workers in unbounded offices reduce face-to-face interaction by 70%. The researchers observe that the employees try to isolate themselves as best as possible, pretending to be remarkably busy. In addition, the occupants feel observed and transparent. As a result, they choose electronic communication tools. When dealing with complex cognitive tasks that require deep work, irrelevant environmental stressors such as undesired interaction should be avoided to enable the occupants’ performance. Chadburn etal. (2017) show that knowledge workers 759 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… and organizational performance has been neglected in management studies, this SLR covers a wide range of disciplines, including papers from various adjacent fields. Consequently, the journal quality of the included articles is not comparable and may vary. However, it was particularly important to conduct an SLR as a first step to provide a first integrative overview. We encourage scholars to build on this SLR and contribute to this fertile field (with particular emphasis on management studies). Third, this research uses performance as an umbrella term that includes quality and quantity of outcomes because our objective is to identify the differences between the three office concepts rather than to analyze the effects of these office concepts individually. This is since the existing state of research does not allow for such a finegrained analysis. A distinction between productivity, efficiency, and performance measurements would be useful for scholars and practitioners alike. Fourth, office concepts may also affect other organizational performance values, such as innovation and flexibility. It would be interesting to research how different office concepts affect an organization’s innovation performance, as these are the current challenges of most industries. Fifth, this SLR only briefly touches on remote work, an emerging work concept that will gain importance, especially considering COVID-19. Employees will be in the office less often. Probably, team meetings and face-to- face interaction will gain more importance in the office space at the company. This will affect physical office requirements. Additionally, the remote office is within a private setting. Thus, feelings like dehumanization will not play a role. However, other aspects will arise: guaranteeing a professional workplace, being able to distinguish between professional and private time, and the rise of other distraction levels (children, partners, etc.), among others. Some corporations proclaim to become ‘all remote’. “Companies including Pinterest, Dropbox, Twitter, and Yelp have charted out a hard pivot from swanky, perk-filled offices to embrace remote-working futures, while larger firms, like Facebook and Salesforce, have said they plan on more flexible schedules”, says Gregory Barber in Wired Magazine (Barber 2021). These companies will be at the forefront of becoming virtual institutions. It may be possible that companies will operate without any headquarters, even without any office, as all their employees will work remotely. With companies that market products without running their own production sites, such as Nike as a role model, a new type of all-remote corporation has become the vision for some corporate leaders and would cause a significant shift in our work environments. However, already in 2017, IBM ended the era of remote working, although the earlier remote policy had resulted in significant cost reduction: an office space reduction of 78 million square feet that led to a cost saving of over 100 million US dollars (Kessler 2017). But they found that employees work more effectively and experience higher job satisfaction when working shoulder to shoulder, so the IBM workforce was moved back to offices. According to John Sullivan, a professor of management at San Francisco State University who specializes in HR strategy working together in person is one key to innovation (Kessler 2017). Most recently, Elon Musk followed the IBM example by ordering all Tesla employees back to their (physical) offices post-COVID (McGahey 2022). The study of office concepts from the perspective of remote work is a promising avenue for future researchers (Table2). 760 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 This SLR provides a concise overview of the existing body of research and names knowledge gaps to be investigated in future research that will deepen and extend our understanding of office concepts and their impact on performance (see Table3). Table3 supplies a brief overview of the state of the art, and Table4 provides selected opportunities for future research. In this section, we broaden our view and show other areas that will benefit from further research. This SLR reveals that current research did not differentiate between distinct types of knowledge workers. A more precise look will be fruitful, as different knowledge work calls for specific environments. One may imagine that, for instance, one type of knowledge work requires data as input that can be displayed on screens, while another requires physical stimulus material scattered around in the office (e.g., financial analyst versus textile designer). The different work tasks of knowledge workers will be reflected in future research. Research may also examine the rhythms of knowledge work: how often and when periods of concentrated work are prevalent compared to periods of sharing ideas with coworkers. In addition, this SLR found a research gap on Table 2 Taxonomy of office concepts Term Definition Single office One employee works alone in his/her private room Shared room office Two or three employees share a single room Small OPO (open-plan office) Four to nine employees share a room Medium-sized OPO 10 to 24 employees share a room Large OPO More than 24 employees share a room ABW (activity-based working) Employees can choose from various workstations (often including an OPO environment as well as quiet work areas) Table 3 State of the Art + positive effect, – negative effect, ~ highly context-specific, ?not enough evidence Office concept (transitions) Dimension Work Personality fit Satisfaction Health Enabling paradigm Control paradigm Traditional office to open-plan office – ? – – – + Individual office to open-plan office ? ? – – – ? Open-plan office ~ ~ – – – + Open-plan office to activity-based working ~ ? + + ~ + Traditional office to activity-based working ~ ? – + – + Diverse offices to activity-based working ~ ? ~ + ~ + Activity-based working ~ ? ~ ~ ~ + 761 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… Table 4 Selected opportunities for future research Elements Research gaps Research question examples Office concept Comparison between traditional office settings to ABW R1: How do employees react with respect to satisfaction, health and performance when moving from a traditional office setting (with single offices and meeting rooms) to ABW (including quiet work zones and collaboration areas)? The implementation process (of ABW) R2: What are the key drivers of successful ABW implementation? Management systems of ABW R3: How do different space and time management systems of ABW impact occupants’ work, satisfaction, health, and performance? Level of distraction The design of quiet work areas R4: How should quiet work areas designed? What exactly do occupants look for when looking for a quiet work area? Personality Fit Personal preferences and work typologies R5: How do different personality types cope and adapt to different office concepts in relation to the type of (knowledge) work? Control Paradigm Measurement of real estate cost across different areas R6: How do organizations measure real estate costs across different areas (e.g., San Francisco financial district vs. Minnetonka in Minnesota)? Enabling Paradigm Measurement of workers’ productivity R7: How can we measure the workers’ productivity in different office concepts? Drivers of innovativeness R8: What office concept enhances innovation? Measurement of productivity tax R9: Develop a model that measures the productivity tax by defining the KPIs for each outcome variable 762 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 personality traits in general. We suggest studying how different office concepts influence the performance of different personality types, thus helping to design office environments that support personal satisfaction, health, and performance. This leads to future research on team characteristics. What is the best match of office concept and team, e.g., what is the ideal office concept for teams that occasionally meet for a quick exchange, and what kind of office suits best a team that works together over a prolonged period of time in a concentrated manner? This train of thought leads to interaction and cooperation. What are the differences between concentration and cooperation and concentration and creativity, and how can these issues be addressed in an appropriate office concept? We see exciting potential in interdisciplinary research teams that can integrate/merge different research fields, e.g. psychology, management, and architecture. Regarding the successful implementation process of new office concepts, scholars have not examined, to date, the interaction of an office concept with the organizational management styles. It is reasonable to assume that office concepts and management styles affect each other. What percent of changes in this quality can be accounted for by the physical design, and what percentage is due to managerial influences? Thus, research may carefully investigate both ways: how brick and mortar affect management and how certain management styles lead to specific architecture (think, for instance, about Google vs. Apple). In addition, longitudinal studies are needed to investigate the habitual effects of office concepts. How do occupants learn to use a specific office concept? Last, but not least, office concepts are perceived as a signal in the “war of talents”: There may be differences between employee attraction (short-term effects during the application phase) and employee retention (long-term effects in the daily life of employees). Here, we again face competing goals of realizing quick short-term success versus ensuring longterm success. 4.3 Practical implications The current policy of implementing office concepts neglects the individual needs of employees and causes a sense of feeling dehumanized. Traditionally, office space is perceived as an expenditure that should be minimized. This SLR suggests looking at office space as a room for human development. First, the workspace should match the demands of the job. Second, there is a need for quiet work areas, as well as areas for collaboration, especially when different personality types are considered. Offer a proper mix of areas based on work tasks and personalities for each office location. Furthermore, planning an office concept is an impactful strategic management tool because one decides who will meet and how often in which environment due to physical proximity. Third, noise distraction is an undesired side effect of open workplaces such as OPO and ABW. The noise level should never be higher than 48dB(A). Install noise reduction elements in open areas or minimize unbounded areas. Fourth, workers prefer to have control over their workspace. Corporate policies should allow employees to personalize their workspace. Fifth, ABW is not an architectural solution but a management task. Implement a time and space management system that meets the needs of employees. Sixth, despite a trend to OPO 763 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… and ABW, the single office has its merits: Employees have the most control over their office environment, including light, noise, interaction, aesthetics, etc. Despite its name, the single office allows interaction and collaboration when needed (open door/closed door). Organizations may examine which office concept best suits the needs of its employees and not disregard the single office as old-fashioned upfront. Seventh, the office concept reflects corporate culture; organizations are well advised to choose an office concept that nourishes a human-centered culture. Even from a managerial perspective, a good office concept helps to keep the retention rate high and attracts new employees. As a final remark, designing “the optimal office concept” seems to be a constant work in progress. We encourage to build interdisciplinary teams consisting of but are not limited to managers who understand and plan the workflow and have a clear perspective on performance criteria, real estate planners who have an eye on cost, architects, who know how to build attractive spaces, psychologist, who focus on physical and mental well-being and motivation, and, most of all, workers who will actually work in the planned office. Ideally, the latter will be the focal point of all planning and designing. We could also envision a ‘mock-up’-phase, where the office is already occupied, but certain elements are still in flux (see, for instance, the architect Alexander (2002) developed design patterns and a way of building that indicate future paths to office designs). Both the organization and its workers will benefit from a holistic and human-centered office concept. Appendix A Summary of reviewed papers. Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings From traditional to Open-plan office Baldry and Barnes 2012 18 Examine the introduction of OPO Cost reduction is a main reason for OPO Single offices are important for self-esteem, professional identity, appreciation for employees and overall image Bernstein and Turban 2018 152 Examine the effect of open office architectures on employees’ face-to-face, e-mail and instant messaging interaction patterns Decrease in F2F communication Increase in electronic communication Decrease in productivity* Di Blasio etal. 2019 1078 Study the introduction of OPO Increase noise and stress Decrease in mental health symptoms and well-being Decrease in productivity 764 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings Kaarlela-Tuomaala 2009 31 Examine how the perceived acoustic environment differ from single office to OPO After relocating to OPO: Increase noise distraction and concentration problems Reduced privacy Reduced interaction Kim and De Dear 2013 42,764 Examine if OPOs facilitate communication, interaction and satisfaction Enclosed private offices outperform OPOs in almost all aspects (IEQ*) Sailer and Thomas 2021 3 organizations Examine socio-spatial perspectives on OPO versus traditional offices All three organizations have different demands on their office concept and on interaction The most unplanned interaction was found in traditional office Sander etal. 2021 43 Compare effects of noise in simulated OPO with quieter private office environment In OPO: decrease in psychological well-being (increase in stress) From individual to Open-plan office Bergström etal. 2015 79 Investigate perceived health, work environment and self-esti- mated productivity one month before and at three, six and twelve months after relocation from individual offices to an open-plan office environment Decrease in satisfaction Decrease in health Decrease in productivity* Open-plan office Ahmadpooret al. 2017 238 Assess the impact of employees’ perceptions of workplace design and conditions on their performance and behavior Decrease in satisfaction Decrease in productivity* Increase in team interaction Chacon etal. 2020 3028 Investigate the performance of OPO layouts and occupants’ concerns Physical environment influences satisfaction Need for areas for quiet working Chadburn etal. 2017 213 Analyze the drivers that allow for enhanced personal productivity of knowledge-based workers Office design influences knowledge workers productivity Need for interaction areas as well as quiet zones 765 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings Costa and Villarouco 2012 3 departments Systematically analyze the OPO working space Office layout must follow the characteristics of tasks and their interrelationships (since adverse physical and organizational conditions may have a negative impact on work productivity) To increase productivity the worker’s health and work efficiency must be ensured Göçer etal. 2012 2133 Difference between high vs low performance OPOs Aesthetics and quality, noise distraction and privacy are the strongest predictors for low performance OPOs Muville etal. 2016 1 building Examine the impact of the ambient environment on perceived comfort, health, well-being and by extension, productivity in the workplace Significant differences in ambient environment can exist in relation to comfort, health, wellbeing and by extension productivity within individual buildings No measurable differences in directly related ambient Oseland and Hodsman 2020 2145 Identify personal factors, including personality traits, which underpin noise distraction of office workers in order to mitigate noise and improve well-being and performance Noise distraction depends on job roles and personality Noise affects stress and well-being Roelofsen 2008 n.a Examines how productivity* can be negatively affected in OPO environment The ideal background noise level of OPO is between 45dB(A) and 48dB(A) Decrease in productivity* can be related to speech intelligibility Need for smaller closed office spaces for telephone calls, accurate or creative work Personnel costs higher than real estate costs 766 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings Roskams and Haynes 2020 78 Test employee’s satisfaction within the work environment Higher environmental comfort was associated with improved wellbeing and productivity* Distraction leads to less productivity Samani and Alavi 2020 117 Influence of openplan workplaces on employees’ workrelated behavior and their outcome Increase in a more democratic working culture Increase in interaction Samani etal. 2017 238 How individual perception affects creative outcome in OPOs Personal control over work environment must be ensured to raise social interaction and creative outcome Seddigh etal. 2015 527 Effect of office design and performance on cognitive tasks Increase productivity* in calm work environments Veitch etal. 779 Develop a model linking environmental and job satisfaction (OPO) OPO occupants who were more satisfied with their environments were also more satisfied with their jobs, suggesting a role for the physical environment in organizational well-being and effectiveness Węziak-Białowolska etal. 2018 456 Aim to understand the relationship between perception of the OPO and the impact on employees as well as on their behavior Decrease in privacy and a high office density affect satisfaction From open-plan office to activity-based working Blok etal. 2009 684 Effect of work environment on communication, concentration and productivity Less costs than OPO Increase in satisfaction, team interaction, productivity and concentration Candido etal. 2021 2090 Study predictors of occupants’ satisfaction and productivity of five different industries Interior design and physical configuration play a crucial role on occupants’ satisfaction and productivity Candido etal. 2019 896 + 20 Effect before and after relocation Increase in satisfaction, health, IEQ and productivity* 767 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings Divett 2020 1275 + 138 Evaluates satisfaction and productivity Increase in satisfaction, interaction and productivity* Key drivers of productivity are team interaction and decision-making Foley etal. 2016 88 Sedentary behavior and musculoskeletal discomfort in ABW Increase in health (standing time, less lower back pain) Rolfö etal. 2018 34 + 66 Explore how physical conditions, office use, communication, privacy, territoriality, satisfaction and perceived performance change following a company’s relocation from an OPO to an ABW Increase satisfaction compared to OPO No change in productivity* Lack of communication and rules lead to high people-to-workstation ratio From traditional office to activity-based working Arundell etal. 2018 146 Examine the influence of redesign office concept Increase in physical activity, interaction with colleagues Positive effect on eating behavior Small decrease in productivity Gorgievski etal. 2010 266 Examine a post-occu- pancy evaluation Lack of privacy No storage for personal stuff Anonymous workplace Increase in working at home From diverse offices to activity-based working Brunia etal. 2016 930 Analyze accommodation of new office concepts Employee satisfaction is influenced by many physical characteristics of the work environment and by the implementation process Keeling etal. 2015 179 Analyze the effect of agile workspace Agile working renegotiates the trade-off between interaction and privacy Increase in interaction and privacy compared to OPO 768 A.Gerlitz, M.Hülsbeck 1 3 Author Year Sample n = Aim of study Key findings Activity-based working Appel-Meulenbroek etal. 2011 182 Relationship between office design, its intentions and the actual use after implementation When ABW is not used as intended: decrease in satisfaction, health and productivity* Haapakangas etal. 2018 239 Determine perception and use of ABW in relation to self-rated productivity and wellbeing at work, and to identify important predictors of these outcomes Work environment influences satisfaction and productivity* Privacy and communication are important for productivity* Need for minimization of work time spent looking for available workspaces Fincke etal. 2020 16 Analyze job demands and resources of ABW Work autonomy, the flexibility to decide where and when to work, and an improved communication and collaboration between different departments have a perceived positive effect on well-being, performance and motivation Nijp etal. 2016 2912 Examine the effects of NWW on organization and work and on employee’s outcome Does not necessary lead to changes in psychosocial work characteristics Decrease in health (intervention group) Parker 2016 n.a Examine the phenomenon of activity-based working Key output for ABW: Cost efficiencies and productivity. While ABW adopters and advocates present ABW as a desirable staff satisfaction and operations facilitator, the cost efficiency, however, is pre-dominant Wadu and Chiang 2019 37 + 3 Impact on employee productivity of adopting ABW Distraction leads to less productivity* Physical and behavioral (more) working environmental factors influence employee productivity 775 1 3 The productivity tax ofnew office concepts: acomparative… Ward R, Giorgi S, Glynn MA, Elsbach KD, Meyer R, Voronov M, Weber K (2017) If the walls could talk: at the interface of design, materiality and Culture. Acad Manag J Ann. https:// doi. org/ 10. 5465/ AMBPP. 2017. 10012 sympo sium Webster J, Watson RT (2002) Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: writing a literature review. J Decis Syst 29(3):129–147. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 12460 125. 2020. 17985 91 Węziak-Białowolska D, Dong Z, McNeely E (2018) Turning the mirror on the architects: a study of the open-plan office and work behaviors at an architectural company. Front in Psychol 9:2178. https:// doi. org/ 10. 3389/ fpsyg. 2018. 02178 Zhang J (2020) Integrating IAQ control strategies to reduce the risk of asymptomatic SARS CoV-2 infections in classrooms and open plan offices. Sci Technol Built Environ 26(8):1013–1018. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1080/ 23744 731. 2020. 17944 99 Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.