Table Of ContentA HANDBOOK OF THEORIES ON DESIGNING
ALIGNMENT BETWEEN PEOPLE AND
THE OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
Although workplace design and management are gaining more and more attention from modern
organizations, workplace research is still very fragmented and spread across multiple disciplines in
academia. There are several books on the market related to workplaces, facility management (FM),
and corporate real estate management (CREM) disciplines, but few open up a theoretical and practical
discussion across multiple theories from different fields of studies. Therefore, workplace researchers are
not aware of all the angles from which workplace management and effects of workplace design on
employees has been or could be studied. A lot of knowledge is lost between disciplines, and sadly, many
insights do not reach workplace managers in practice. Therefore, this new book series is started by
associate professor Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek (Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands)
and postdoc researcher Vitalija Danivska (Aalto University, Finland) as editors, published by Routledge.
It is titled ‘Transdisciplinary Workplace Research and Management’ because it bundles important research
insights from different disciplinary fields and shows its relevance for both academic workplace research and
workplace management in practice. The books will address the complexity of the transdisciplinary angle
necessary to solve ongoing workplace-related issues in practice, such as knowledge worker productivity,
office use, and more strategic workplace management. In addition, the editors work towards further
collaboration and integration of the necessary disciplines for further development of the workplace field
in research and in practice. This book series is relevant for workplace experts both in academia and
industry.
This first book in the series focuses on the employee as a user of the work environment. The 21
theories discussed and applied to workplace design in this book address people’s ability to do their job
and thrive in relation to the office workplace. Some focus more on explaining why people behave the
way they do (the psychosocial environment), while others take physical and/or digital workplace quality
as a starting point to explain employee outcomes such as health, satisfaction, and performance. They
all explain different aspects for achieving employee-workplace alignment (EWA) and thereby ensuring
employee thriving. The final chapter describes a first step towards integrating these theories into an
overall interdisciplinary framework for eventually developing a grand EWA theory.
Dr Ir Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek is an associate professor in corporate real estate (CRE) and
workplace at the Department of the Built Environment at Eindhoven University of Technology. She is
Chair of the Transdisciplinary Workplace Research (TWR) network, co-editor of the J ournal of CRE ,
and a regular speaker at international events. In her research, she approaches workplaces as an important
strategic resource for knowledge organizations, studying how they should be managed strategically and
how workplace design and use aspects impact employee and organizational outcomes.
Dr Vitalija Danivska is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Built Environment at Aalto
University, Finland. With a background in real estate economics, she is particularly interested in the real
estate business and corporate, facilities management areas. In 2018, she obtained her doctoral degree
with her thesis studying the ‘Workplace-as-a-Service’ concept. She received the EuroFM 2020 Best
Paper award, was the runner-up for the 2018 EuroFM Researcher of the Year award, and organized the
first TWR conference in 2018 in Tampere, Finland.
TRANSDISCIPLINARY WORKPLACE RESEARCH
AND MANAGEMENT
Series Editors: Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska
A HANDBOOK OF THEORIES ON DESIGNING ALIGNMENT BETWEEN
PEOPLE AND THE OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska
A HANDBOOK OF MANAGEMENT THEORIES AND MODELS FOR
OFFICE ENVIRONMENTS AND SERVICES
Vitalija Danivska and Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek
ii
A HANDBOOK OF THEORIES
ON DESIGNING ALIGNMENT
BETWEEN PEOPLE AND
THE OFFICE ENVIRONMENT
Edited by Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek
and Vitalija Danivska
F irst published 2021
b y Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
a nd by Routledge
6 05 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
R outledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija
Danvska; individual chapters, the contributors
T he right of Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska to be identified
as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
T he Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.
com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non
Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
T rademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
B ritish Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Appel-Meulenbroek, Rianne, editor. | Danivska, Vitalija, editor.
Title: A handbook of theories on designing alignment between people and the
office environment / edited by Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series:
Transdisciplinary workplace research and management | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021002602 (print) | LCCN 2021002603 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367652999 (hbk) | ISBN 9781003128830 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Work environment. | Work design.
Classification: LCC HD7261 .H345 2021 (print) | LCC HD7261 (ebook) |
DDC 658.3/8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021002602
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021002603
I SBN: 978-0-367-65299-9 (hbk)
I SBN: 978-0-367-65308-8 (pbk)
I SBN: 978-1-003-12883-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.1201/9781003128830
T ypeset in Bembo
b y Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Preface viii
List of contributors x
1 Gathering theories to explain employee-workplace alignment from
an interdisciplinary viewpoint 1
R ianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska
2 Person–environment fit theory: application to the design of
work environments 14
L ynne Audrey Armitage and Johari Hussein Nassor Amar
3 Job demands-resources model: its applicability to the workplace
environment and human flourishing 27
M ichael Roskams, Eileen McNeely, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska,
and Piotr Bialowolski
4 Task-technology fit theory: an approach for mitigating technostress 39
N elda Vendramin, Giulia Nardelli, and Christine Ipsen
5 Action regulation theory 54
L ukas Windlinger
6 Privacy regulation theory: redevelopment and application to
work privacy 68
C lara Weber, Birgitta Gatersleben, Barbara Degenhardt,
and Lukas Windlinger
v
Contents
7 Information space(s) 82
Mascha Will-Zocholl
8 Social constructionism theory: constructing the user experience
of workplace 93
Kaisa Airo
9 Ecological systems theory 101
Eunhwa Yang and Bonnie Sanborn
1 0 Temperament theory: understanding people in a workplace context 115
M el Bull
1 1 Two-process theory of perceived control: changing the workspace
and changing the self 124
D aibin Xie
1 2 Organisational culture theories: dimensions of organisational culture
and office layouts 132
K usal Nanayakkara and Sara Wilkinson
1 3 Theory of attractive quality: occupant satisfaction with indoor
environmental quality at workplaces 148
Q uan Jin, Holger Wallbaum, Jungsoo Kim, and Richard de Dear
1 4 Flourish theory: a model for multisensory human-centric design 157
D erek Clements-Croome
1 5 Biophilia hypothesis: the benefits of nature in the workplace 169
S ven Wolf Ostner
1 6 Place attachment theory 181
G oksenin Inalhan, Eunhwa Yang, and Clara Weber
1 7 Evolutionary psychology theory: can I ever let go of my past? 195
Y oung Lee
1 8 Behavioural economics theory: masters of deviations, irrationalities,
and biases 209
Y oung Lee
1 9 Nudging in the workplace: facilitating desirable behaviour
by changing the environment 222
T ina Venema and Laurens van Gestel
vi
Contents
20 Activity theory: a framework for understanding the interrelations
between users and workplace design 236
Maral Babapour, Antonio Cobaleda-Cordero, and MariAnne Karlsson
21 Space syntax theory: understanding human movement, co-presence
and encounters in relation to the spatial structure of workplaces 248
Kerstin Sailer and Petros Koutsolampros
22 Organisational knowledge creation theory and knowledge workplaces 261
Mervi Huhtelin and Suvi Nenonen
23 Towards an interdisciplinary employee-workplace alignment theory 272
Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Susanne Colenberg, and Vitalija Danivska
Index 289
vii
PREFACE
This book showcases theories explaining the impact of the office workplace on its users. It was
an idea that had been in Rianne’s head for some years, before it materialized into the underlying
first book of a new book series called Transdisciplinary Workplace Research and Management.
It remained only an idea until she shared it with Vitalija at a workplace conference in Hong
Kong in 2019, whose enthusiasm to collaborate sparked the first real action to work the idea
out into this innovative book series. Much has already been written on the strategic, tactical,
and operational management of office workplaces and their impact on employees by research
ers from many different disciplinary backgrounds. However, this book is unique in showcasing
theories that provide researchers and practitioners with a structure for asking the right questions
and sharing knowledge on methodologies across disciplinary boundaries.
Due to the spread of workplace research across disciplines, we knew we could not oversee
all relevant theories ourselves, with just our own respective engineering and economic back
grounds. Therefore, we soon decided to put out a call for potentially relevant theories in our
networks and across social media platforms to see what would come forward. The response was
so extensive that it felt a bit overwhelming at first. We received ideas for almost 60 different
chapters. But after the initial shock wore off, we decided not to produce one book but to start a
book series instead. There were clearly even more theories available than we realized that could
help advance both workplace design and management research and practice.
When the full draft chapters came in for about 40 theories, our enthusiasm reached a new
high. Although of course we had aimed for inspiration from other disciplines, the level of
inspiration and new knowledge blew our minds. Clearly, a lot of knowledge is lost between
disciplines, as so many theories were new to us and stemmed from many different disciplines.
The described application of each theory to our own field was valuable for us and appeared an
important road to advance our field further as a real science.
Looking through the list of theories, we soon saw two main ‘categories’ of theoretical topics
coming forward, which we used to divide the theories over two books. On the one hand, it
was suggested to include theories in our series on aligning the work environment to the office
employee at the individual level, towards increasing individual outcomes such as satisfaction,
wellbeing, and performance (which became the first book). On the other hand, we received
suggestions for many theories and models focused on the workplace management process and
strategy development and alignment as part of it (which became the second book). Hopefully,
viii
Preface
future books in the series will embrace even more angles, and we are open for suggestions if
you have an idea for it. Workplace research and management methods is one idea that we are
thinking of for the third book.
This first book in the series explains 21 theories, in 21 equally set-up chapters, that provide
important insights for achieving employee-workplace alignment towards support of employee
thriving (happy, healthy, and productive employees). In addition, we have taken these insights
to the next level towards a real ‘transdisciplinary’ viewpoint. Transdisciplinary means that the
knowledge from the theories is not only linked, but that it is also used to create an overall system
without disciplinary boundaries. It was quite a challenge to develop such a shared conceptual
framework, but we managed through a joint effort with all the 41 authors in this book. This
made it possible to take a bold first step in the final chapter of this book towards developing a
grand theory of employee-workplace alignment (EWA).
Thanks to the institutions of several authors and a crowdfunding project that we started on
GoFundMe, we were able to make the e-book versions of these first two books open access to
all (meaning there are no costs to download the book chapters from routledge.com). Besides
the 54 donors who contributed to this crowdfunding initiative on an individual note, we spe
cifically want to acknowledge the large donations we received from the Kardham Group, the
Sonneborgh group, IVBN (Association of Institutional Property Investors in the Netherlands),
and CREME (Dutch end-user platform for corporate real estate managers), as well as donations
from Buck Consultants International, Fakton, and the Dutch branch of CBRE global investors.
We hope you enjoy reading the book. The books are aimed at both researchers and practitio
ners, because all chapters clearly explain a theory, then apply it to the workplace, discuss research
methods and limitations for researchers, and discuss implications for workplace management in
practice. Hopefully, they thus help advance the academic research field and help transfer scien
tific knowledge to practice. You can read the book from front to back, but you can also start in
the end with the grand theory and then visit the individual theories afterwards in the order of
your own interest. We wish you lots of inspiration and wonderment from reading all the knowl
edge gathered in this book.
Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek and Vitalija Danivska
ix
