Lisanne Bergefurt’s dissertation “The physical workplace as a resource for mental health” aimed to provide holistic insights in the relationships between the physical office-and home-workplace characteristics and mental health. Using a mixed-method approach, with systematic literature reviews, cross-sectional data analyses, a virtual reality experiment, and a field experiment, these insights were obtained. The dissertation initially introduces ten indicators of mental health, representing a range of short-term, transient, to long-term, chronic consequences, and from negative to positive feelings and states. Systematic literature reviews show that for both the office and the home, most research has focused on indoor environmental quality (IEQ)…

Victor Cabral’s dissertation “A look inside the coworking space. The social and entrepreneurial relevance of new flexible office space environments.” is a research project that aimed at opening the ‘black box’ of coworking spaces in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of what coworking spaces are and what they provide their tenants. The data for this project, which focused particularly on coworking spaces in Amsterdam, was collected through semi-structured interviews and observations, as well as through content analysis of coworking space websites and of chat applications of coworking communities. A key finding of this project is the importance of…

Research has shown that breastfeeding has important long-term health effects on both children and mothers. The World Health Organization recommends that children are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and that breastfeeding is continued thereafter, alongside complementary feeding, until children are at least two years old. However, many mothers experience problems with breastfeeding and stop earlier than they would like. A major reason why women stop prematurely is the often-difficult combination of breastfeeding and work. In this dissertation Sjoukje van Dellen studied what organizations can do to support breastfeeding employees, both before the return to work and…

Antonio Cobaleda Cordero´s research focus on the experiences of users with flexible offices because to understand the influences that the design qualities of office artefacts and spaces have on such experiences, as well as their design implications. The research angle adopted builds on a UX theoretical background and a practical approach with multiple user studies in real office environments. The findings show that user experiences with flexible offices are influenced by interrelated design qualities of the spaces and artefacts in use, rather than isolated qualities. These (tangible and intangible) qualities define the nature of an artefact, a space, or constellations…

Niina Andrade-Asikainen’s dissertation “Supporting well-being in workplace transformations – Critical Sociomaterial components and their evaluation in a knowledge-intensive organization” identifies the success factors of workplace change in a longitudinal case study. The findings build on survey data complemented by observations, interviews, and document analysis. The data is analyzed abductively from the perspectives of managers, employees, workspace experts, and the researcher. The dissertation contributes to workplace research by demonstrating that three key mechanisms drive and impact employee experiences and the success or failure of the entire transformation already from the preparation phase of the workplace transformation. These mechanisms are the expected…

Yaoyi Zhou’s PhD dissertation explores how coworking members are socially connected and what environmental factors are related to their social networks formation. This dissertation is composed of two studies. Study #1 is an exploratory study that investigates coworking space characteristics and the members’ social connectivity. Mixed methods were applied to study coworking spaces in New York City.  A total of 12 coworking managers were interviewed, and this qualitative data was complemented by 160 hours of participant observation and surveys finished by 42 coworking members from 7 coworking spaces.  The results suggest that social connectivity between the members was low even before the…

Howard Cooke’s PhD thesis reveals whether the stated primary shift of increasing Corporate Real Estate (CRE) agility was evident during the Great Recession and individual decision-makers preferences when making disposal choices. The research comprised two separate strands. Firstly, an examination of the behaviour of the top 350 companies on the London Stock Exchange through the period 2007 to 2014. Evidence of a dynamic alignment capability in CRE portfolios was missing, with links between CRE metrics and the performance of the firm limited. The second strand identified the variables that individuals’ consider when making CRE decisions. Many CRE alignment models identify…

Jan Gerard Hoendervanger’s PhD thesis revealed individual differences explaining mixed outcomes of activity-based work (ABW) environments. These work environments, providing workers with a variety of non-assigned work settings, seem heading to become the new normal in the post-COVID-19 world of work. Yet, research has shown mixed results, which call the effectiveness of the concept into question. To find clues for the optimization of ABW practice, the research project was designed to examine how workers’ jobs, tasks, behaviors, psychological needs, and demographic characteristics may be related to their perceived fit. Two survey-based studies revealed relevant workers’ attributes, which were further examined…

Poor work privacy represents a frequently reported issue in open office environments, yet relatively little is known about its consequences. In addition, prior research has limitations including weak operationalisations and measures of privacy. Therefore, Clara Weber developed in her thesis a new work privacy measure and examined the adverse effects of poor work privacy on workers’ well-being. The roles of coping appraisal and contextual factors in this relationship were explored to inform future preventative steps. Study 1 (n = 30) qualitatively explored different scenarios of poor work privacy in an open-plan office context for the development of a new measure…