Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing

Our goal in this paper is to connect workspace design to employee wellbeing and social sustainability. Toward this connection, we introduce and empirically test a new concept of “workspace integration”. This concept refers to the continuum of integration of an employee’s workspace with the organizat...

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Autores principales:	Iris Vilnai-Yavetz, Anat Rafaeli
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	work environment workspace affordances symbolism opportunities for social interactions workspace sustainability Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/46d3de676bd3452885cdfd60abb53764
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:46d3de676bd3452885cdfd60abb537642021-11-11T19:39:06ZWorkspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing10.3390/su1321119852071-1050https://doaj.org/article/46d3de676bd3452885cdfd60abb537642021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11985https://doaj.org/toc/2071-1050Our goal in this paper is to connect workspace design to employee wellbeing and social sustainability. Toward this connection, we introduce and empirically test a new concept of “workspace integration”. This concept refers to the continuum of integration of an employee’s workspace with the organizational, physical space. We further define three workspace affordances that predict the social sustainability of workspace arrangements by influencing employee wellbeing. The three affordances are perceptions of symbolism of the organization and of symbolism of the self, and opportunities for social interactions. We evaluate our theory using data collected from an online survey of British employees (<i>n</i> = 392) working in offices at home and/or in the organization in various industries. As predicted, workspace integration positively influences wellbeing directly as well as indirectly via mediation of symbolism of the organization and opportunities for social interactions. The third affordance—symbolism of the self—positively influences wellbeing, but is not affected by workspace integration. Our findings confirm the impact of workspace affordances on employee wellbeing, and thus their utility for the analysis of social sustainability. The findings also contribute to understanding of the differences between workspace symbolism of the organization and of the self, their impact on wellbeing, and thus their implications for social sustainability.Iris Vilnai-YavetzAnat RafaeliMDPI AGarticlework environmentworkspaceaffordancessymbolismopportunities for social interactionsworkspace sustainabilityEnvironmental effects of industries and plantsTD194-195Renewable energy sourcesTJ807-830Environmental sciencesGE1-350ENSustainability, Vol 13, Iss 11985, p 11985 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	work environment workspace affordances symbolism opportunities for social interactions workspace sustainability Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350
spellingShingle	work environment workspace affordances symbolism opportunities for social interactions workspace sustainability Environmental effects of industries and plants TD194-195 Renewable energy sources TJ807-830 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Iris Vilnai-Yavetz Anat Rafaeli Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
description	Our goal in this paper is to connect workspace design to employee wellbeing and social sustainability. Toward this connection, we introduce and empirically test a new concept of “workspace integration”. This concept refers to the continuum of integration of an employee’s workspace with the organizational, physical space. We further define three workspace affordances that predict the social sustainability of workspace arrangements by influencing employee wellbeing. The three affordances are perceptions of symbolism of the organization and of symbolism of the self, and opportunities for social interactions. We evaluate our theory using data collected from an online survey of British employees (<i>n</i> = 392) working in offices at home and/or in the organization in various industries. As predicted, workspace integration positively influences wellbeing directly as well as indirectly via mediation of symbolism of the organization and opportunities for social interactions. The third affordance—symbolism of the self—positively influences wellbeing, but is not affected by workspace integration. Our findings confirm the impact of workspace affordances on employee wellbeing, and thus their utility for the analysis of social sustainability. The findings also contribute to understanding of the differences between workspace symbolism of the organization and of the self, their impact on wellbeing, and thus their implications for social sustainability.
format	article
author	Iris Vilnai-Yavetz Anat Rafaeli
author_facet	Iris Vilnai-Yavetz Anat Rafaeli
author_sort	Iris Vilnai-Yavetz
title	Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
title_short	Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
title_full	Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
title_fullStr	Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
title_full_unstemmed	Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing
title_sort	workspace integration and sustainability: linking the symbolic and social affordances of the workspace to employee wellbeing
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/46d3de676bd3452885cdfd60abb53764
work_keys_str_mv	AT irisvilnaiyavetz workspaceintegrationandsustainabilitylinkingthesymbolicandsocialaffordancesoftheworkspacetoemployeewellbeing AT anatrafaeli workspaceintegrationandsustainabilitylinkingthesymbolicandsocialaffordancesoftheworkspacetoemployeewellbeing
_version_	1718431461929910272

Workspace Integration and Sustainability: Linking the Symbolic and Social Affordances of the Workspace to Employee Wellbeing

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