Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present an environmental psychological case study regarding an office design change. The employees of the researched company had the chance to decide whether to stay in the classic open office set-up or to switch to a shared desk supplemented by a one-day-a-week home office possibility. The authors examined the development of participants’ territorial behaviour and place attachment.

Design/methodology/approach

The given organizational situation is a quasi-experimental design; the variables were examined via questionnaire in a longitudinal model. Quantitative measurement was supplemented with focus group discussions.

Findings

The degree of personalization (a type of territorial behaviour) decreased significantly not only among those who lost their permanent workstations – as we expected – but also in the entire population. Workplace attachment stagnated for the entire population, but workstation attachment showed a significant decrease among those who switched to the shared desk.

Research limitations/implications

The limitations and the advantages are also followed by the nature of a case study: high ecological validity with relatively low sample size.

Practical implications

Redesigning an office is never just an economic or interior design issue, but a psychological one. This paper provides practical environmental psychological insights into implementing office designs without permanent individual workstations.

Originality/value

This paper presents the environmental psychological background of shared desk design implementation. The authors point out the significance of repressing personalization behaviour and as per the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to introduce the concept of workstation attachment.

中文翻译：

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办公室的转型：共享办公桌设计中的领地行为和场所依恋

目的

本文的目的是提出有关办公室设计变更的环境心理案例研究。接受研究的公司的员工有机会决定是继续使用经典的开放式办公室设置，还是改用共享办公桌并辅以每周一天的家庭办公。作者研究了参与者的领地行为和地方依恋的发展。

设计/方法论/途径

给定的组织情境是一种准实验设计；通过纵向模型中的问卷调查来检查变量。定量测量辅以焦点小组讨论。

发现

正如我们预期的那样，个性化程度（一种领域行为）不仅在那些失去永久工作岗位的人中显着下降，而且在整个人口中也显着下降。整个人群的工作依恋度停滞不前，但在那些改用共享办公桌的人中，工作站依恋度显着下降。

研究局限性/影响

案例研究的性质也决定了其局限性和优点：较高的生态有效性和相对较小的样本量。

实际影响

重新设计办公室不仅仅是一个经济或室内设计问题，而是一个心理问题。本文提供了在没有永久个人工作站的情况下实施办公室设计的实用环境心理学见解。

原创性/价值

本文提出了共享办公桌设计实施的环境心理背景。作者指出了抑制个性化行为的重要性，据作者所知，他们是第一个引入工作站依恋概念的人。