Research in the field of management and organizational theory generally indicates the absense of space in organizations. Space has largely been a neglected phenomenon, left implicite to practice as something 'limiting' without actually 'existing'. The aim of this research paper is to explore and develop the meaning and concept of space in organizational design theory. By making 'the case for space' we postulate the emergence of a spatial theory of organizations, which markedly breaks with the resource-based ('placebound') view on organizations, common in organizational theory and practice. In this first paper we investigate the metaphor of space, specifically with a view to its potential value for contemporary practice. Furthermore, we discuss 'space and time' in a managerial framework and develop an organizational spatial design perspective allowing managers to overcome existing constraints and boundaries, in order for their organizations to better succeed in a complex, volatile and turbulent world without being restricted by traditional limitations, which often require continuous adjusting and/or adapting through restructuring and change. In a further working paper - planned for mid 2008 - we intend to extend the notion of space in modern organizations to involve a distinct set of design criteria and parameters allowing space to be operationalized in organizational practice.

An important challenge to organization theory is to search for constructs that explain how contexts for work emerge, evolve, persist and change. This book explores the concept of "space" as representing a wide variety of contexts. Organization as a process, as distinguished from organization as an entity, is seen as the construction of space, where space is the outcome of human action and interaction as well as providing a context for actions and interaction. The book shows how different forms of space lie at the base of a number of developments in organization theory. It then takes the step to show how contemporary developments in social science represented by works by writers such as Giddens, Luhmann, Latour and Bourdieu can be used to establish a dynamic understanding of organization as space. Insights from these discussions are used to establish a unique and coherent way of understanding complexities of modern organization.

Explores the relation between architecture, management and organization theory. By looking at processes of organizing from a spatial perspective, this book shows how power, culture, change, and identity are embedded, enacted and played out in and through space. It is for people studying architecture, design, management and organization theory.

The term Facilities Management has become global but fraught with confusion as to what the term signifies. For some, notably in the USA, Facilities Management remains a discipline of human ecology. Elsewhere the term has become conflated with an alternative meaning: providing or outsourcing the provision of various services essential to the operation of particular buildings. This volume redresses that imbalance to remind Facilities Management of its roots, presenting evidence of Facilities Management success stories that engage the wider objectives of the organizations they serve, and engaging students, scholars and critical practitioners of general management with an appreciation of the power and influence of physical space and its place in the theory and practice of organizations. This book includes management perspectives from outside the field to ensure that the issues raised are seen in an organizational and management context, informing debate within the Facilities Management fraternity. It draws on human ecology and the perspective of the firm as, itself, an intra-organizational ecology of social constructs. The ecology of a firm is not restricted to the firm’s boundaries. It extends to wider relationships between the firm and its stakeholders including, in an age of outsourced building services, the Facilities Management supply chain. This volume offers arguments and evidence that managing such constructs is a key role for Facilities Management and an important participant in the provision of truly usable spaces.

This volume presents a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the theories, evidence and methodological issues of contingency theory - one of the major theoretical lenses used to view organizations.

Through the focus on organizational space, using the reception and significance of the seminal work on the subject by sociologist Henri Lefebvre, this book demonstrates why and how Lefebvre's work can be used to inform and elaborate organisational studies, especially in view of the current interest in the "socio-material" dimension of organisations. As the "spatial turn" in organisational research exposed the importance of spatial design in inducing power and cultural relations, Lefebvre's perspective has become an inspiring, theoretical framework. However, Organisational Space and Beyond explores how Lefebvre’s work could be of a much wider relevance, especially given his profound theoretical engagement with diverse schools of philosophical and sociological thought, including Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre and Foucault. This book brings together a range of authors that collectively develop a broader understanding of Lefebvre's relevance to organizational studies, including areas of management concern such as strategy and diversity studies, and ultimately draw on Lefebvre’s work to rethink, reimagine and reshape scholarship in organisational studies. It will be of relevance to researchers, academics, students and organizational professionals in the fields of organisation studies, management studies, cultural studies, architecture and sociology.

Organization theory is presently dominated by theories of strategic choice and politics. Managers are seen as exercising a wide choice and maximizing their personal self-interest through complex power struggles. This stimulating volume challenges these views, arguing instead that managerial decisions are determined by the situation and serve the interests of the whole organization. Showing that organizations follow laws which generalize across organizations of many different kinds in many different national cultures, the book rejects the model of organizational configurations or types. The author offers a critical assessment of leading organization theorists such as Henry Mintzberg, John Child, Michael Hannan and Danny Miller - and also of the satirist Northcote Parkinson.

In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also, for renowned urban theorist Edward W. Soja, a concrete example of spatial justice in action. In Seeking Spatial Justice, Soja argues that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access is a basic human right. Building on current concerns in critical geography and the new spatial consciousness, Soja interweaves theory and practice, offering new ways of understanding and changing the unjust geographies in which we live. After tracing the evolution of spatial justice and the closely related notion of the right to the city in the influential work of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and others, he demonstrates how these ideas are now being applied through a series of case studies in Los Angeles, the city at the forefront of this movement. Soja focuses on such innovative labor–community coalitions as Justice for Janitors, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and the Right to the City Alliance; on struggles for rent control and environmental justice; and on the role that faculty and students in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning have played in both developing the theory of spatial justice and putting it into practice. Effectively locating spatial justice as a theoretical concept, a mode of empirical analysis, and a strategy for social and political action, this book makes a significant contribution to the contemporary debates about justice, space, and the city.