The Workplace of Tomorrow : A Qualitative Case Study on Collaboration in Activity-Based Offices

This thesis investigates how the implementation of an activity-based office has affected collaboration between employees and departments in a municipal context. The study is conducted as a qualitative case study with the project “Morgondagens arbetsplats” (TheWorkplace of Tomorrow) as the empirical focus. Through semi-structured interviews with both employees and managers from different departments, this thesis analyzes how the new office environment has affected the possibilities for collaboration across organizational boundaries. Using neo-institutional theory and social network theory, the study identifies both obstacles and enablers for collaboration. The results show that activity-based offices promote greater flexibility for employees, enabling them to choose workspaces that are more closely aligned with their individual needs and working conditions. However, the increased freedom also means reduced visibility and presence among employees, which makes everyday communication and spontaneous exchange of information more difficult. Digital tools, such as Teams, partly make up for this problem by enabling communication even in a physical absence. However this type of communication is primarily used in already established networks, such as units or departments, which makes communication between organizational boundaries still difficult. Physical proximity therefore appears to be an essential component for collaboration in activity-based offices, and social spaces, such as coffee rooms and restaurants, thus become extra important in fragmented office environments. These spaces act as social nodes where information can be exchanged and contacts can be made between organizational networks. Finally, the results show that institutional norms and logics can counteract the formal intention behind the activity-based office. Old underlying logics can exist in parallel with the new activity-based way of working, which means that employees risk returning to a more institutionalized behaviour where fixed positions and departmental affiliation are reproduced, counteracting the formal intention of greater flexibility and movement between units and departments. An active leadership is thus also important to challenge underlying logics and to encourage employees to adopt a more activity-based way of working, thereby promoting flexibility and collaboration across organizational boundaries.