ProspeKtive

What are the implications of spatiality and the social on informal relationships at work?

February 2022

The experts

Delphine Minchella

Delphine Minchella

Teacher-Researcher in Management

Doctorate in Strategic Management

EM Normandie – Laboratoire Métis

 

Expert - Jean-Denis Culié

Jean-Denis Culié

Teacher-Researcher in Human Resources Management
Doctor in management sciences

EM Normandie

For companies, informal interactions represent a particularly strategic issue because it has been established for several decades that they have a positive influence, particularly on innovation and cooperation between individuals (Mintzberg, 1973). As early as the 1950s, many researchers questioned how the spatial configuration of the organization could favor the emergence of this type of relationship (Newcomb, 1956), leading to the emergence of different approaches around this issue.

The material approach

Two major theories dominate the material approach: the theory of proximity and that of intimacy. Proximity theory (Newcomb, 1956; Davis, 1984) suggests that individuals are more likely to interact informally with their colleagues if the latter are physically close to them. This idea of ​​proximity is closely linked to that of centrality in the sense that the opportunities to meet will be more numerous in the central places of the organization, whether it is a geographical centrality or a functional centrality. , as is the case with places where we go frequently when we are at work (the photocopier room, for example). The theory of intimacy emphasizes the importance of the feeling of control over one's environment in order to exchange informally with others (Altman, 1975; Sundstrom et al., 1980). Therefore, we would favor places ensuring that we see who can come to us and hear our discussions (Sundstrom et al., 1980).

The social approach

Unlike the material approach, the social approach considers that the spatial environment does not play a particular role in the emergence of informal relationships. It puts forward the idea that informal exchanges in organization are generated by a regular social practice – spatially anchored – of a group of individuals without taking into account precisely the characteristics of their environment. From this perspective, social space is procedural, an idea that we find in thinkers from different disciplines such as philosophy (Merleau-Ponty, 1945; de Certeau, 1990), anthropology (Augé, 1992) or social geography ( Lussault, 2007).

The socio-material approach

This last approach focuses more on the dialectical relationship between the social and material dimensions. The theory of socio-materiality (Dale, 2005) highlights that these two dimensions are in fact inseparable and that, in fact, neither can be considered more decisive than the other. In this current, the theory of social affordances (based on the work of Gibson, 1986) argues that informal interactions will emerge more favorably if the place offers centrality, allows for intimacy, but also that the culture of the organization by through a managerial designation seems to accept exchanges of this nature in this specific place (Fayard and Weeks, 2007).

In our latest academic article to appear in the Revue "Recherche et Cas en Sciences de Gestion", based on a longitudinal case study in a large corporate office, we test these different approaches with two of the main meeting points for informal interactions of users working in this building: one, wanted as such by the designers of the head office and the general management, and the other which emerged shortly after the commissioning of the building, when it was not made no mention by the architects or management.

Beware of too strong managerial designations

If, indeed, we find many elements going in the direction of the geographical and functional centrality and the intimacy, our results also highlight the fact that if the social designation to go frequenting a specific place for informal moments with its colleagues is too strong, it will then be experienced as an injunction from management and will incite resistance. This designation would then produce the opposite effect to that sought by the designers. Thus, the first meeting point was gradually neglected by the employees while the second became an emblematic social place for informal relations.

It is therefore better to limit the managerial designation to an absence of prohibition and let the employees choose the place where they will meet rather than wanting to do it for them.

 

  • Altman, I. (1975), Environment and social behavior: Privacy, personal space, territory, and crowding, Monterey, CA: Brooks
  • Augé, M. (1992), Non-lieux: Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, Paris: La librairie du XXe siècle
  • Dale, K. (2005), “Building a social materiality: Spatial and embodied politics in organizational control, Organization 12, 5, 649-678
  • Davis, T.R.V. (1984), “The influence of the physical environment in offices”, Academy of Management Review, 9, 2, 271-283
  • Fayard, A.-L. & Weeks, J. (2007), “Photocopiers and water-coolers: The affordances of social interactions”, Organization Studies, 28, 5, 605-634
  • Gibson, J.-J. (1986), The ecological approach to visual perception, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
  • Lussault, M. (2007), L’homme spatial, la construction sociale de l’espace humain, Paris: Seuil.
  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945), Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris: Gallimard
  • Mintzberg, H. (1973), The nature of managerial work, New York: Harper and Row
  • Newcomb, T.M. (1956), “The prediction of interpersonal attraction”, American Psychologist, 11, 11, 575-586
  • Sundstrom, E., Burt R.E. & Kamp, D. (1980), “Privacy at work: architecture correlates of job satisfaction and job performance”, Academy of Management Journal, 23, 1, 101-117

Release date: February 2022

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