Glorifying and scapegoating narratives underlying activity-based workspaces in higher education

Abstract

PurposeOur study centered on activity-based workspaces (ABWs), unassigned open-plan configurations where users’ activities determine the workplace. These workspaces are conceived and shaped by accommodation professionals (APs) like managers and architects and are loaded with their ideas, ideals, norms and values; therefore, they are normative and hegemonic. Previous research has largely failed to consider how APs’ spatial conceptions materialize in the workplace. To address this omission, we adopted a narrative approach to study APs’ impact during the conceptualization stage.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected via a 10-year at-home ethnographic study at a Dutch university, including observations, interviews, documents and reports. Studying the researchers’ organization allowed for a longitudinal research approach and participative observations. The data focused on the narrative techniques of APs when establishing an ABW.FindingsIn introducing ABWs, APs resorted to two principal narrative strategies. Firstly, the ABW concept was lauded as a solution to a host of existing problems. Yet, in the face of shortcomings, lecturers were often blamed.Originality/valueDespite the considerable influence of APs on both the physical layout of workspaces and the nature of academic labor, there is little insight into their conceptions of the academic workspace. Our research contributes a novel perspective by revealing how APs’ workspace conceptions drive the narratives that underpin the roll-out of ABWs and how they construct narratives of success and failure.

Guest editorial: New directions in workplace ethnography

“…It reveals the complexities of collaboration and navigating social dynamics (as Trifan et al ., 2024). A focus on positionality , power , and politics (see Nooij et al ., 2024; Skovgaard-Smith, 2024; Stefan et al ., 2024; Trifan et al ., 2024; Zhang, 2024; Zhu, 2024). From an interpretivist perspective, knowledge of workplaces is not “out there” to be discovered but generated in the interaction between researcher and research participant (Ybema et al ., 2009).…”

“…One pivotal stakeholder in this respect is the gatekeeper, whose ideas about interesting research may considerably influence access negotiations (as Stefan et al ., 2024). Positionality also implies a critical reflection on the higher education workplaces of ethnographers themselves, including the political sensitivities (see Zhang, 2024) and hegemonic assumptions (see Nooij et al ., 2024) that characterize these workplaces and, for example, the collaborative dynamics of knowledge creation in interdisciplinary teams (see Trifan et al ., 2024). Lastly, a focus on positionality also uncovers how research participants maneuver politically charged and hierarchy-inflicted organizational contexts.…”

“…The increasing relevance of ethnographers’ engagement with the field indicates a shift away from the “ivory tower” of higher education institutions towards occupying physical (e.g. Becker and Roessingh, 2024 in this issue) and virtual (Trifan et al ., 2024) workplaces and spaces, and actively engaging with organizations and actors for purposes of change- and impact-making (elements of which are in Nooij et al , 2024, Stefan et al , 2024; Zhang, 2024). The renowned ability of ethnographers to immerse themselves in the field enables them not only to make shrewd observations as a “fly on a wall” and gain a deeper understanding of the localities, communities and people under scrutiny but also to address social and political issues, to intervene in the everyday, and to facilitate participatory approaches to social change (e.g.…”

“…(2024) to help create an inclusive and collaborative virtual space for workers. This shift also implies closing the proximal gap between the researcher and the researched, be it via at-home ethnography (Nooij et al ., 2024), autoethnography (Orel, Zhang in this issue) or multi-sited ethnography (Becker and Roessingh, 2024 in this issue).The fourth theme concerns navigating the multi-sitedness of the workplac e as ethnographers increasingly move beyond a traditional focus on singular organizations, sites or localities (Marcus, 2013) towards flexible and dynamic approaches that account for interprofessional, interdisciplinary and interorganizational relations and practices that cross, transcend and renegotiate workplace boundaries (Van Duijn, 2020). While multi-sited workplace ethnography is not new, researchers do increasingly utilize novel concepts and approaches to capture social phenomena, trace networks and follow the movements of people, activities and objects across various workplace sites and contexts.…”

“…(2024) to help create an inclusive and collaborative virtual space for workers. This shift also implies closing the proximal gap between the researcher and the researched, be it via at-home ethnography (Nooij et al ., 2024), autoethnography (Orel, Zhang in this issue) or multi-sited ethnography (Becker and Roessingh, 2024 in this issue).…”