Spatial organizations

The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop the concept of space in organizational design theory. Traditional research in this field generally indicates the absense of space in design. Space is mostly taken for granted or, at best, treated implicitly as an organizational limitation instead of an opportunity. By making the ‘case for space’ we aim to indicate the emergence of a spatial theory of organizations, which markedly breaks with the resource-based (‘place bound’) view of the firm, common in today’s organizational theory and practice. Instead the knowledge-based (‘space bound’) view of organizations allows for the realistic introduction of new organizational forms. The emergence of such new forms is generally seen as important with a view on the systematic instead of opportunistic enhancement of the performance potential and capacities of companies, increasingly operating in a knowledge-based economic environment. We argue that spatial organizations predominantly take the form of ‘arrangements’ (modular, cellular, circular and constellar), shaped around the natural ability of people to work with some types of knowledge better then with others