Organizational space describes the influence of the spatial environment on the

health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...

, the mind, and the behavior of humans in and around

organizations An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

. It is an area of scientific research in which interdisciplinarity is a central perspective. It draws from

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includ ...

organization An organization or organisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is an legal entity, entity—such as ...

and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

(Dale and Burrell, 2008) added with knowledge from, for instance,

environmental psychology Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental Psychol ...

(Evans and Mitchell, 1998),

social medicine The field of social medicine seeks to implement social care through # understanding how social and economic conditions impact health, disease and the practice of medicine and # fostering conditions in which this understanding can lead to a health ...

(Macintyre et al., 2002), or spatial science (Festinger et al., 1950). In essence, it may be regarded as a special field of expertise of

organization studies Organization studies (also called organization science or organizational studies) is the academic field interested in a ''collective activity, and how it relates to organization, organizing, and management''. It is "the examination of how individua ...

and

change management Change management (sometimes abbreviated as CM) is a collective term for all approaches to prepare, support, and help individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change. It includes methods that redirect or redefine the use of ...

applied to architecture. The knowledge area is related to

evidence-based design Evidence-based design (EBD) is the process of constructing a building or physical environment based on scientific research to achieve the best possible outcomes. Evidence-based design is especially important in evidence-based medicine, where res ...

in which the influence of the spatial environment on patient's

healing With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells ...

, and

customer satisfaction Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of ...

are being researched in health care. It is also related to practice-based areas of management such as

facility management Facility management or facilities management (FM) is a professional management discipline focused on the efficient and effective delivery of logistics and other support services related to real property and buildings. It encompasses multiple disc ...

which is primarily devoted to the maintenance and care of commercial or institutional buildings and to

property management Property management is the operation, control, maintenance, and oversight of real estate and physical property. This can include residential, commercial, and land real estate. Management indicates the need for real estate to be cared for and monit ...

in which the operation of

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

is central. Sometimes it is also referred to as organizational architecture. The scientific field of organizational space must be distinguished from social architecture in which the development of information and communication technologies is central and also different from space science which is concerned with the study of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...

Spatial, physical and built environment

This research strand distinguishes three different environments: the spatial environment from the physical environment and the

built environment The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human a ...

. * Spatial environment: the total context in which

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

s in and around

s function. * Physical environment: all

tangible Tangibility is the property of being able to be perceived by touch. A commonplace understanding of "tangibility" renders it as an attribute allowing something to be perceptible to the senses. In criminal law, one of the elements of an offense ...

physical entities in and around organizations. * Built environment: that what is commonly understood as

and that what is permanently fixed to it.

Organizational-spatial cycle of change

The coherence between the organization and its spatial environment may be regarded as an interwoven interdisciplinary cyclical flux from contingencies, intermediates, performances to interventions (Mobach, 2009). The contingencies are the

organizational An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived fro ...

, architectural,

technological Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

, and

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

conditions under which organization function. In the end they influence the performance of an organization, but first they mix in the intermediates. In this way humans in and around organizations will, for instance, notice these contingencies and will give them meaning (Clegg and Kornberger, 2006; Van Marrewijk and Yanow, 2010). Moreover, the contingencies will also influence social contact (Becker, 1981; Steele, 1973) and the degree to which a spatial environment can be functional (Sharles, 1923). Subsequently, the intermediates influence different

performances A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

, for instance, the

, the mind, and the behavior of people in and around

. The spatial environment can cause

illness A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

, such as with the sick building syndrome (EPA, 1991), but it can also positively influence the vitality of people or the recovery after an operation (Ulrich, 1984). The performances can provoke managerial intervention. In turn, these interventions will change the contingencies, and by doing so, change the elements, relations, and properties of the conditions under which people function.

Sources

*Becker, F.D. 1981. Workspace: Creating Environments in Organizations. New York: Praeger. *Clegg, S.R., Kornberger, M. (eds.). 2006. Space, Organizations and Management Theory. Copenhagen: Liber & CBS Press. *Dale, K., Burrell, G. 2007. The Spaces of Organisation & The Organization of Space -Power, Identity & Materiality at Work. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. *EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). 1991. Office of Air and Radiation. Indoor Air Facts No. 4
Sick Building Syndrome
Washington: EPA. *Evans, G.W., Mitchell, J. 1998. When Buildings Don’t Work: The Role of Architecture in Human Health. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 18: 85-94. *Festinger, L., Schachter, S., Back, K. 1950. Social Pressures in Informal Groups -A Study of Human Factors in Housing. Stanford: Stanford University Press. *Macintyre, S., Ellaway, A., Cummins, S. 2002. Place Effects on Health: How Can We Conceptualise, Operationalise and Measure Them? Social Science & Medicine. 55(1): 125-139. *Marrewijk, A.H. van, Yanow, D. (eds.) 2010. Organizational Spaces. Rematerializing the Workaday World. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. *Mobach, M.P. 2009. Een organisatie van vlees en steen. Assen: Van Gorcum. *Sharles, F.F. (ed.). 1923. Business Building -A Complete Guide to Business for the Wholesaler, Retailer, Manufacturer, Agent etc. Volume I. London: Pitman. *Steele, F. 1973. Physical Settings and Organization Development. Addison-Wesley: Reading Massachusetts. *Ulrich, R.S. 1984. View Through a Window May Influence Recovery From Surgery. Science. 224(4647): 420-421. {{Aspects of organizations Management theory Change management Architecture Health care quality