US Academy of Management 2023 - PDW

Time:      Friday, August 4th, 2023 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM ET (GMT-4)
Place:     39 Dalton St, Boston, MA 02199, USA
Venue:   Back Bay Ballroom C at Sheraton Boston Hotel

What is the future for the physical workplace? As employee desire for work location flexibility persists, employers are grappling to reconfigure their offices to meet future needs. This PDW will explore how workplaces are changing in response to hybrid working and new work patterns post COVID-19. We consider the potential for management practices, space design, and technology integration to interact with organizational behaviors in future workplaces that address businesses’ needs to keep workers front and center. Understanding behavior within hybrid and diverse working arrangements is a complex challenge as the psychological, architectural, technological, organizational, policy and cultural elements intertwine and coevolve. The cross-disciplinary links between these factors are often under acknowledged both theoretically and practically within organizational research. Through two video case studies, invited expert panellists discussion, and facilitated themed breakout discussions, PDW participants will consider the design of future workplaces from differing disciplinary perspectives and contemplate the opportunity to develop multi-disciplinary research collaboration, apply innovative methodologies, conceptualize new elements and theorize emerging phenomena. Research action plans will result from the themed breakout discussions that contribute to a call for action. Video case studies, reflective podcasts, and the call for action summary of the discussions will be shared with participants post event.  A twitter feed will capture the important points and interesting discussions taking place during the workshop.

Please register for the PDW session using this form. Please note that all attendees must also be registered for the US Academy of Management Annual Meeting. 

Objectives:

(1) Highlight the spatial-temporal dimension in the design of work, workspaces, organizational strategy, and work policies;

(2) Raise awareness of the cross-level (i.e., individual, team, organization) consequences of workplace adaptation, exaptation, expansion and disembodiment;

(3) Explore potential collaboration opportunities across academic disciplines;

(4) Discuss new ways to conceptualize both organizational and non-organizational spaces and places to better accommodate the increasing diversity of working arrangements;

(5) Develop a call for action for interdisciplinary theorization of future organizational spaces.

Preparatory Activities:

Participants will be provided two industry video case studies via the ListServ tools prior to the workshop. These videos showcase office adaptations, new ways of working and use of digital technologies in contemporary workplaces. Participants will be asked to reflect on their experience of “future workplaces”, prepare examples, and send questions to aid in discussions during the workshop.

Workshop Activities:

1. Introductory presentation focusing on the socio-technical and interdisciplinary challenge of hybrid working and the implications for future workplaces.
2. Industry case studies presentation includes a shortened version of the videos disseminated before the workshop to ensure all participants share the key information. Key aspects and discussion points will be highlighted to prompt following activities.
3. Panel discussion to reflect different disciplinary perspectives on the case studies and the key changes in transitioning to hybrid working and new workspaces with the chair facilitating discussion after the presentations. Panelists include:  Linda Putnam (UC Santa Barbara, USA, member of CTO, OMT and former Distinguished Lecturer for ODC), Anu Sivunen (University of Jyväskylä, Finland, member of CTO), Kathleen Stephenson (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, member of OMT), Chiahuei Wu (Kings College London, UK, member of OB). This interactive session will also include Q&A from both panelists and participants. The discussion is designed to introduce PDW delegates to the range of approaches and the conceptual frameworks used to explore this topic. At the end of this session the participants will be grouped into tables based on shared themes and priorities.
4. Break-out tables around four themes are designed to engage delegates in small group discussions facilitated by nine PDW team members: organizers (Matthew C. Davis & Linhao Fang (University of Leeds, UK) and Elizabeth J. Sander (Bond Business School, Australia)), the panelists and PDW facilitators (Emma Gritt and Afshan Iqbal (University of Leeds, UK).

 Theme 1: Physical design of future organizational spaces (OB interest)

 Theme 2: Theorizing the new workplaces (OMT interest)

 Theme 3: Integrating technologies in future workplaces (CTO interest)

5. Plenary Discussion table leads will share key ideas and action points, and opportunities for future research. Social media and post event materials are designed to continue discussions.

Workshop Outputs:

(1) Research action plans developed by each participant. (2) Twitter feed of key points arising to engage wider AoM community and provide a summary. (3) Video case studies and audio podcast summaries of discussions will be available on organizers’ website (https://futureworkplace.leeds.ac.uk/) for teaching purposes and to aid research collaboration. (4) Panel and discussion points will be integrated into a “call for action” paper following the PDW.