Environmental: Topic Six Flashcards
(45 cards)
What is topic six about?
Territory and personal space
What did Wells look into?
Office clutter or meaningful personal displays: the role of office personalisation in employee and organisational well-being
What were Wells’ research questions?
Do men and women personalise their workspace differently? Is personalisation more important to women’s well being than men’s? Is a companies personalisations policy associates with organisational well-being?
Describe the sample used in Well’s study?
20 companies in Orange County, CA, all small businesses with at least 15 employees
How many surveys were given out and how many were returned?
661 given out, 338 returned
How many P’s took part in the follow up case study?
15 women and 8 men from 5 of the companies
How many sections was the survey made up of?
7
What were the 7 sections of the survey?
Workspace personalisation, satisfaction with physical work environment, job satisfaction, well-being, employee perceptions of organisational well being, personality traits, personal demographic info
Describe what the case studies were like
Tape recorded, structured interviews based on open ended questions and lasted 10-15 mins with a follow up examination of workspace
What was Wells’ first result found?
That men and women personalise differently
What was the difference between men and women and the number of objects that they had in their workspace?
11.12 vs 7.68
What did women tend to display in contrast to men?
Women displayed symbols of family/friends as well as plants whereas men displayed symbols of achievement or sports
What were the difference in aims between men and women when personalising their desks?
Women wanted to express identity whereas men wanted to show status
What was personalisation associated with (Wells’ 2nd result)?
With job satisfaction which associates with employee well being
What did the survey data show in terms of personalisation being important to the genders and what did interviews show about this? (Wells’ 3rd result)
Survey showed personalisation was not significantly more important to women than men however interviews suggested it was
Give some qualitative data which suggest that personalisation was important to women
‘Seeing my kids is a stress reliever’
What did companies with more lenient personalisation policies report?
They reported a more positive organisational climate, greater morale and reduced staff turnover
From Wells’ results, can a companies personalisation policy be associated with organisational well being?
Yes
What did Smith look into?
Territorial behaviour on beaches
What was Smith’s research?
A field observation on different nationalities and how they compete for beach space
Where did Smith conduct his observations?
On US, German and French beaches
How did Smith gather information?
Interviews were conducted with people on the beach and size, depth and width of occupied space was recorded
What did researchers ask in the interviews (Smith)?
They asked about nationality and how long they would be there for
People from where made the largest territorial claims and also used sand castles/reserved signs?
People from West Germany
