The influence of office space design and how it affects the performance and productivity of company staff and co- workers : On managers reasoning and decisions concerning office space design

Decisions are made daily in organizations, both large and small. Earlier research shows that human behavior is affected by the physical environment and so our interest in whether organizations use office design as a strategic tool for increasing performance and productivity of their employees and furthermore how the basis for the decisions looks like, was woken. The purpose of this study is to examine what managers base their decisions on regarding office design and compare those decisions with existing theories of decision making and the current research on how various office environments impacts on individual staff performance. The empirical study is based on a comparative analysis since the underlying idea of our study was to see if the results differ in different organizations, depending on the managers' starting points for their decisions regarding office design. Semi- structured interviews were chosen as research method in the interviews. The results of the study shows that managers do have knowledge of office design and its impact on employee performance and productivity, but they do not use office design as a strategic tool. Managers decisions regarding office design originates from different backgrounds, depends on the size of the organization, business activity and different qualifications.