تاثیرگذاری تعهد سازمانی از طریق طراحی مجدد اداری

Prior research on the effects of office redesign on work-related outcomes has been largely atheoretical and yielded mixed and conflicting findings. Expanding on individual reactions to office design changes as specified by social interference theory, we propose that office redesign affects organizational commitment and this relationship is mediated by employee perceptions of the broader work environment. This conceptual model is tested using 121 financial services employees who experience office redesign and 136 who do not. Results indicate that perceptions of innovation and collaboration mediate the effects of office redesign over and above negative personal reactions such that affective organizational commitment is enhanced among those experiencing reconfigured offices. Findings provide support for an expanded rendition of social interference theory that provides for favorable (as well as unfavorable) employee reactions to office redesign. Such a theoretical explanation is asserted to increase understanding of how the physical environment influences employee attitudes.

There is sustained interest in how physical workspaces influence employee interaction in the conduct of work and employee satisfaction (e.g., Elsbach and Bechky, 2007 and Hua et al., 2011). Unfortunately these relations are not well understood. How the design of office environments, for example, affects employee attitudes and behaviors, has yielded a wide array of disparate empirical findings (Elsbach and Pratt, 2007 and McElroy and Morrow, 2010). One possible explanation for these mixed findings is that a theoretical perspective has seldom guided examination of these relations. The purpose of this paper is to increase our understanding of how office design affects employee attitudes based on an expanded model of social interference theory. We propose an extension of this theory and then test it by examining how specific office design elements can be used to influence one employee attitude, organizational commitment. We focus on organizational commitment for several reasons. Organizational commitment continues to be valued by organizational leaders (Morrow, 2011) despite the fact that organizations are currently operating in an historical era no longer characterized by long term employment (e.g., Cappelli, 2000). In addition, downsizing and the emergence of a new generation of employees have been identified as possible explanations for lower commitment levels (D'Amato & Herzfeldt, 2008). Given this, there is increasing concern over how organizations can establish and restore organizational commitment among employees and the idea of redesigning office space in ways that foster organizational commitment is an intriguing possibility. We pursue this research objective by reporting the results of a field experiment in which changes in office design were guided by a desire to alter employee perceptions of specific elements of the work environment that affect organizational commitment.

This research confirms Elsbach and Pratt's (2007) and others’ conclusions that changes in the physical environment yield offsetting results and helps elucidate the nature of these conflicting findings. When viewed solely from a personal level, increased office density and openness can produce negative reactions on the part of individual officer holders, as specified by social interference theory. However, when viewed in terms of the broader effects of such changes, the effects are more positive. Previous researchers have suggested looking beyond individual reactions to include other experiences, such as friendship opportunities (Oldham & Rotchford, 1983), but this research suggests that reactions to office reconfigurations should also be expanded to include interpersonal work-related experiences, such as work collaboration and innovation. That is, to truly understand the effects of office design on employees, one needs to move beyond individual idiosyncratic reactions to such changes and consider the effects of such changes on work processes, particularly given that our results suggest that these broader effects may offset personal inconveniences caused by changes in the physical office environment. Finally, this study suggests that changes in the physical environment of offices constitute an additional means by which organizations can influence the commitment of their employees. Our results are in line with the work of Fedor, Caldwell, and Herold (2006) showing a relationship between organizational change efforts that improve work functioning and organizational commitment (i.e., we demonstrate that increasing perceptions of work collaboration and innovation enhance organizational commitment). The key for organizations contemplating changes to office design is to promote employee awareness of the interpersonal and organizational benefits of the change, while expressing appreciation for the sacrifices employees may be making in terms of personal discomfort. If this can be accomplished, then employees are more likely to see the office redesign as an investment in them, which may, in turn, be reciprocated by even higher levels of organizational commitment.