Analysis of Privacy Perception Among Open Plan Office Users

Analysis of solitude Perception Among Open Plan Office UsersCHAPTER 1INTRODUCTIONWhat is an Office?Offices be doing lays designed for regular utilize to achieve personal, assort or organizational goals through the accomplishment of tasks. Sanders and McCormick, (2002) go on to state that these tasks sack be group into cognitive, physical, social or procedural tasks. The section runs a location for contact and could in addition be a re put upory for tools, information and some other resources required to attend business objectives. It is alike a business resource, this a point most lot fail to understand thus, the failure to properly design and evaluate bailiwick spaces.The act as place or use is cardinal of the places the modern man spends the bulk of his waking hours. Sanders and McCormick, (2002) say almost half of ones waking hours are played out in and around the locating. This would try ex visualizeation for enquiry efforts into the design and utilizat ion of offices.According to Myerson and Ross (2003) the office grew out of the accompanimentory and because fol pocket-sizeed the trend of bureaucratization of fabrication. Thus, offices take been becharmed differently by users and companies. Some view it as an address, others as a necessary evil just to others it is considered to be an asset. Bjerrum and Bdker (2003) put downd that the design of an office was habitu whollyy considered as a personify and done to support quiet hold out and also show peoples status. While the purpose of the New office is to be that of attracting and retaining rung as well as to revolutionalize corporate nuance.Work places or offices have been described variously as conventional, traditional, and limitingd or circulate program offices. Some, group them as outsized or sm in all, landscaped etc. (Sanders and McCormick, 2002). The general descriptions of workspaces fall under the categories of bold be after and cellular offices and thi s is based on the architectural and operating(a) features of the work spaces (Duffy, Laing and Crisp, 1992). other descriptions and com bitmentalization of offices involve the hive which is suited to individual processes. The den suited to group processes. The cell designed for concentrated study age the club supports transactional acquaintance (Sailer, Budgen, Lonsdale, turner and Penn, 2009). at that place are other descriptions of office types for role model, Myerson and Ross (2003) from an architectural point of view, showed that views of property and space as cogitate to the office environment have been evolving and as such, they delineate four thematic categories of offices namely narrative which presents the office as a brand experience. Nodal where the office as association connector. The neighbourly theme sees the office as a social landscape and lastly nomadic office as distributed work space these grouping reflect to a greater extent than of necessity and corporate nicety non necessarily a collection of generally practically replicable models.In just about other categorization of offices by Myerson and Ross (2006) is based on the fact that the offices evolved to suit knowledge workers, as such, the categories match each of the four realms of knowledge work namely the academy is standardisedned to the corporate realm which is a more than collegiate and collaborative near to work, guild the professional realm in essence a professional cluster of peers overlap a attainment or specialization, square the public realm where the corporation is centripetal to the city or the market place and the lodge the domestic or cloak-and-dagger realm more of the rifle and work setting. In the general scheme of things offices are quench broadly classified into open air protrude and hole-and-corner(a) or cellular offices all other forms are variations of the devil.Cellular OfficesAlso called closed offices, this type of offices are the traditional or conventional offices which are usually closed and mysterious workspaces (Maher and von Hippel, 2005) i.e. they are designed with floor to ceiling walls, a door and dimensioned for a single user. This type of office is also called a cell-office and stern be a share room office, used by 2-3 persons (Danielsson, 2008). This has been the generally accepted, traditional or popular sense of the place called an office.Open Plan OfficesThese are found to be a common workspace shared by a group of employees. The original externalize of the open conception office has continued to evolve, but it is the absence of floor-to-ceiling walls that is said to be the primary property of open-plan offices. The arrangements of office furniture, leaveitions, screens, office equipment, or plants mark out individual and available work areas (Valesny and Farace, 1987). ace of the strengths of the open plan office correspond to Bjerrum and Bdker (2003) is the openness and flexibili ty allowing one to give notice to where things are happening and allowing for overhearing and over-seeing (p. 207) thus enhancing peripheral participation.Other types of the open plan office let in the bull pen office, action offices, landscaped offices (Sanders and McCormick, 2002). In the bull pen offices, the work desks are arranged in urbane row as farther as the eyes shag see.In reality, most firms have a mix of office typologies ranging from cellular units designed for a single user to a small room office shared by a few people whence the spaces shared with a large group with or without specifically assigned work places and with varying measures of visual and audio silence.Recent Developments in Open Plan OfficesIt is safe to argue that, the open plan office has fashion progressively popular (de Korte, Kuijt-Evers and Vink, 2007 Ding, 2008 Oldham and Brass, 1979 Pejtersen, all in allermann, Kristensen and Poulsen, 2006 etc.) and several(prenominal) reasons could be a dvanced to explain the widespread credence and use of the open plan offices and its variations.There is also a move to wards a lessening in open plan office workspaces especially in the United States of America due to the understanding that smaller workstations are cheaper to respect (Dykes, 2011) this according to Veitch, Charles, Farley and Newsham (2007) is because on that point is a failure in understanding the full value of the physical office environment and link issues in open plan offices in particular.Advantages of open plan officesSearches through literature (Danielsson, 2008 Oldham and Brass, 1979 Pan and Micheal, 2007 Roper and Juneja, 2008 Valesny and Farace, 1987 etc.) present the following as reasons for the adoption of open plan offices. They include decrease in office space and cost decline The price of real estate is predicated on the area rented and utilized. With organizations using term of a contract spaces, it is cheaper to use the rented floor or floors a s open plan offices. In most cases, the cost of partitioning is saved if an open plan set up is deployed fully or partly. tractableness for organizational changes The open plan office lends itself to easy restructuring of work areas. In most cases, it is easier to fit in one more members of lag (Sanders and McCormick, 2002).More good work flow and communication Some jobs require continuous team work, face to face interaction and a comparatively high level of daily procedures. For such work groups, the open plan office or variations thereof are usually recommended and deployed. The enhancement of some level of peripheral participation is one of the strengths of the open plan office.Possible enhancement of social facilitation The enhancement of collaboration i.e. the fostering of a team spirit, where, work teams or task forces are close to one another and can quickly form a huddle to sort out problems without resorting to information technology edible like the intercom, emails, ph ones, video conferencing or even the walk up to another office. Oldham and Brass, (1979) specifically examined interpersonal issues that included intradepartmental and interdepartmental interaction, friendship opportunities, noting that supervisor and co worker feed fundament could be improved.Ease of supervision There is an ease of supervision, in that, a look over the landscape of the office can give an idea as to who is present and what each member of staff is doing.Limitations of open plan offices.Regarding the limitations of open-plan office designs, Maher and von Hippel (2005) rightly point out the fact that in open plan office layouts distractions and overstimulation are intrinsically consorted to the design. These issues have consistently been themain down sides of open plan offices and some of them includeincrease workplace psychological disorder (Pan and Michael, 2007). change magnitude disturbances and distractions.Increased feelings of crowding and loss of retirement .There is a reduction in autonomy and task identity and a reduction in supervisor and co worker feedback in trustworthy cases (Oldham and Brass, 1979).One point of agreement in open plan office research is that there is a generally low level of perceive privateness in open plan offices, as interruptions and distractions of the visual and acoustic kind occur oft eras in open plan offices. (Pejtersen et al. 2006 Roper and Juneja, 2008)Furthermore, researchers have observed that these negative outcomes resulting from the adoption of the open plan office design tends to result in dissatisfaction with work and the workplace thus, reducing functional efficiency, decreasing performance, especially, for non routine tasks and also, reduced feedback from supervisors due to some interlacingity with the freedom of communication (de Korte et al. 2007 Pejtersen et al. 2006 Sundstrom et al. 1982 Vischer, 2007 ). This understanding has led some organizations to get off returning to the traditi onal private offices i.e. with floor to ceiling partitions assigned to an individual (Roper and Juneja 2008).Evolving nature of office workAlso worthy of note, is the evolution of work patterns. An increasingly large number of persons work mainly at or from home and visit the office sparingly. This has apt(p) rise to the several types of offices one of which is the flex-office, which is dimensioned for less than 70% of the total company staff to be in at the same time. Another design is the combi-office where a member of staff is not assigned to a specific desk but sharing of common facilities provides the spatial definition of such an individuals work space i.e. the task and personnel at hand may check up on the sitting arrangement of persons in the office (Danielsson, 2008).Thesis OverviewThe thesis is organized in to 5 chapters Chapter one provides an introduction the concept of an office, its major types and variations. It then focuses on the open plan office and then highligh ts the strengths and limitations of the open plan office.Chapter two provides a literature review of the concept of privacy percept it reviews the perceived benefits of privacy and then traces the expectation that privacy knowledge could be influenced by culture. Significant studies related to dissatisfaction with open plan offices are examined for possible links to culture. The discussion then moves to culture, its definition and then the attempts make in the classification of culture. The Hofstede paradigm is then discussed and some studies employing the paradigm are reviewed. The research motivation and hypotheses are presented.Chapter iii discusses the methodological analysis of the study, the survey method, issues noted and the take exception expected. The source and design of the questionnaire was presented and the analysis methods proposed. The statistical analysis tool was briefly introduced.Chapter four shows the procedure of the survey, documents the responses received , analyzed the data imperturbable from the general information part of the questionnaire and then chronicles the statistical analysis of the second part of the questionnaire designed to elicit privacy perception in open plan office environments.Chapter five provides a discussion of the results obtained in chapter five and then presents the limitations of the current study while providing directions for further work.CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEWThis part of the thesis discusses the links amongst privacy perceptions and culture. It also includes definitions and explanations of some related terms. Lastly, it includes a presentation of some ideas relevant to the work and results of related studies.The chapter concludes with the research question, research hypothesis and the motivation for the study. screen PerceptionIn order to facilitate a better understanding, the term privacy is restored firstly then the concept called perception. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary ( 2011), privacy is said to be the quality or state of being isolated from company or observation. Wikipedia defines perception as the process of attaining awareness or understanding of receptive information. It goes on to say what one perceives is a result of interplays amongst past experiences, including ones culture, and the rendition of the perceived.Privacy is a very(prenominal) difficult concept or construct to define not to talk of evaluating, it has commanded interest from the fields of anthropology, architecture, cultural geography, environmental design, ethology, history, law, philosophy, and sociology, as well as branches psychological science such as clinical, counseling, developmental, educational, environmental and social psychology (Newell, 1995 1998).Newell (1995) in her extensive review of the concept of privacy divided the perspectives of privacy into, people touch on, place centered and the person-environment or the person-place interaction with the primary inte rest on the place, people or equally on the person and place and or with the interaction itself. Leino-Kilpi et al. (2001 p. 664) in another review of literature on privacy noted that perspectives applied to the analysis of the concepts of privacy to beThe units experiencing privacy. They go on to note the unit experiencing privacy can be both an individual or a group, or both.Desired Achieved privacy. This is explained by the understanding that the concept of privacy is either seen as a natural state or studied as an achieved state (Newell, 1998).Reactive Proactive privacy. This is to say the assert of communication and also the control of knowledge.Furthermore, they describe the dimensions of privacy to include physical, psychological, social and informational thus, suggesting privacy dimensions to be made up of four quadrants of the diagram as shown in figure 2.1 below..Source Leino-Kilpi et al. (2001)It would be seen that in an open plan office all the dimensions of privacy as enumerated look 2.1 above are impinged upon First, physical approachability to the person is unrestricted. Secondly, the cognitive intrusions erupt due to audio and visual distractions. Thirdly, it is more difficult to control social contacts for example, the choice of participants for interaction, the interaction frequency, length and content of the said interaction. Then finally, the ease with which certain private pieces of information close to the person is easily accessible is a problem in open plan offices, after all, most open plan offices do not have a single route of access or a door to the work space. So, it is difficult to mark and nurture ones filth and as such protect some form of private information from would be trespassers (Anjum, Paul and Ashcroft, 2004).In the light of these perspectives, one of the definitions of privacy suggested is that privacy is a voluntary and temporary discipline of separation from the public domain (Newell, 1998, p. 357).Oldham, Kulick and Stepina (1991) highlighted the fact that individuals reacted negatively to environments characterized by few enclosures, closeness and high density because such environments undecided individuals to too many friendless or uncontrolled intrusions.It is also agreed that, the perception of the work environment manoeuvres to satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the work and the work environment. Fischer, Tarquinio and Vischer (2004, p.132 ) posit that the there are three major categories of mediating influences on workplace satisfaction and these are, individual differences like culture, age, professional or status, organizational place setting and environmental features.All these issues could be further grouped into two internal and external factors as relates to the individual. These two descriptions could be mapped to the two ingredients required for a need for privacy to last i.e. a person or persons and a place. Sanders and McCormick (2002, p. 485) also point out t hat apart from the physical features of the built environment, people are influenced by nonphysical features like social, cultural, technological, economic and political factors characteristic of the environment.External FactorsThese are the place factors, usually described as the environmental or design issues which can lead to noise distractions, visual distractions, interruptions, crowding and accessibility issues (Ding, S. 2008). Due to the absence of internal walls, the low height of walls or partitions in open plan offices influences privacy the more enclosures, the refuse the people per given space and the higher the partitions, the higher the privacy perceived (Danielsson 2008 Oldham, G. R et al. 1991 Sundstrom, Herbert and Brown, 1982 etc.).Organizational context is also considered to be an external factor. This involves the type of industry involved by the organization. For example doctors consulting rooms should provide more audio privacy compared to an architectural fir ms offices or design studios.Internal FactorsThis grouping is based on the person factors or what goes on at heart the person, the suggestion that individual differences related to but not restricted to personality traits, gender, individual experience etc. touch ones perception of, and hence the paygrade of the work environment (external or place factors). Some studies have found that variations exist across gender in perception of privacy in the open plan office (Yildirim, Akalin-Baskaya and Celebi, 2007). Also, in a different cross cultural study of privacy, Newell (1998) found that privacy was more a condition of the person thus, the succession of the experience and the change on the person as a result of the experience leads to its suspected therapeutic effect. In general perceptions and attitudes to privacy, she found that gender also played a part especially within cultures.Maher and von Hippel (2005) and others before them showed that individual differences in the abil ity to handle overstimulation by the applications programme stimulus screening and restrictive abilities influenced the perceptions of the work environment. These inhibitory skills are cognitive in nature and such inhibitory skills are found to vary between individuals and even especially across cultures. For example, dorm (1966) points out that the Japanese are said to be content with paper walls as acoustic screens while the Dutch and Germans require thick walls and recur doors to serve as acoustic screens.Benefits of Privacy in the work EnvironmentNewell (1998, p. 359) relates the need for privacy to help in maintaining wakeless internal physiological and cognitive functioning subjectively described as wellbeing. The study concluded that achieving the perceived privacy had some therapeutic effects.On the area of performance, especially for knowledge workers like engineers, accountants, software designers, decision makers etc., auditory and visual distraction have been found t o be a cause of focal point and even performance terms (Roper and Juneja, 2008). Furthermore, Oommen, Knowles and Zhao (2008) point to the likelihood of aggression and increased instances of eye, nose and throat irritations while working in open plan environments. This in turn affects productivity. finaleCulture is said to be the room of life of a group of people. This, among other things covers their beliefs, set, norms and rituals. Specifically, Hofstede (2009 p. 1) points out that culture is the collective programming of the genius that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from the others and it manifests itself in the form of symbols, heroes, rituals and values. Earlier, an American anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his books, talked close to language and especially modes of communication as a point of differentiating cultures (Hall E.T 1966 1976). He even considered language to be the core of culture while, Geert Hofstede considers language as a par t of the rituals of a particular culture (Hofstede, 2010). This goes to point out some of the existing disagreements somewhat what culture is and even how it comes about.Culture is thus, studied as a means of understanding or cast off light into the behavior or reactions of individuals or people groups. Edward Hall in his book the hidden dimension writes that people from different cultures inhabit different sensory worlds, so that experience, as it is perceived through one set of culturally patterned sensory screens is quite different from experience perceived through another. (1966, p. 2). This highlights and explains the link between culture and perception generally and in spatial terms especially.Classifying CulturesThere have been several descriptions and models of culture (Matsumoto and Yoo, 2006 Hall, 1966 1970), for example, Hall (1966) alludes to contact and non-contact groups or cultures in relation to spatial meanings and preferences within people groups . This is relate d to the social dimension of privacy (Leino-Kilpi et al. 2001), but he especially specifies high and low context cultures according to their ways of communicating.For the high context (HC) culture or communication for that matter, much of the information is implicit while, in the low context (LC) culture, nearly everything is explicit. He also wrote about the concept of time among cultures (Hall, 1976). Where there are polychronic (P-time) and monochronic (M-Time) cultures the M-time society or culture would prefer to do only one thing at a time when serious i.e. for such persons, time is linear and segmented with each activity scheduled while, the individuals in a P-time culture can juggle several activities, they emphasize the involvement of people and the completion of tasks rather than schedules.Edward T. Hall coined the term Proxemics which he describes as interrelated observations and theories of mans use of space as a specialize elaboration of culture Hall (1966 p. 1). In ex plaining his observations in proxemic behavior (Hall, 1963 p. 1003) he notes that what is close to an American may be distant to an Arab.Many other researchers and individuals apart from Edward Hall had worked on other frameworks and dimensions of culture. Matsumoto and Yoo, (2006) lists some of these frameworks which are interestingly identified by the names of the researchers that discovered them and this list which is not exhaustive, includesHofstedes (1980) with subsequent revisions and dimensions added Schwartz (2004) who presented seven common value predilections, Smith, Dugan and Trompenaars (1996) had two general value preferences House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta (2003) came up with nine value drutherss related to leadership Inglehart (1997) had two attitude-belief-value orientations, attachment et al. (2004) is said to have reported two social axioms. All cited in Matsumoto and Yoo, (2006 p. 239).The listing above does not mention each of the dimensions. The d imensions of each framework listed are found in put off 2.1 below.Table 2.1 Six Theoretical Frameworks for world-wide Dimensions of Cultural VariabilityFrameworkDimensionsHofstedes (2001) dimensions ofwork-related valuesIndividualism vs. collectivismPower distanceUncertainty avoidance masculinity vs. femininityLong- vs. short-term orientationSchwartzs (2004) dimensions ofvaluesEmbeddednessHierarchyIntellectual autonomyAffective autonomyEgalitarianismMasteryHarmonySmith, Dugan, and Trompenaarss(1996) dimensions of valuesEgalitarian commitment vs. conservativismUtilitarian involvement vs. loyal involvementHouse, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, andGuptas (2003) dimensions ofleadership valuesPerformance orientationAssertiveness orientation futurity orientationHuman orientationInstitutional collectivismFamily collectivismGender egalitarianismPower distanceUncertainty avoidanceIngleharts (1997) dimensions ofattitudes, values, and beliefsTraditional vs. secular-rational orientationSurvival vs. self-expression valuesBond et al.s (2004) dimensionsof social axioms (beliefs)Dynamic externalitySocietal cynicismSource (Matsumoto, D and Yoo, S. H, 2006 p. 240)National versus Organizational cultureAs a society has a culture, so do organizations and such organizations employ staff who come from a particular culture(s). The organizations then require these individuals to work in offices. isolated from the culture description related to issue boundaries, there is a culture that seems to characterize workplaces or organizations and this is called organizational or corporate culture.Barney (1986) notes that like culture itself, organizational culture has many competing definitions and then goes on to suggest that a generally acceptable definition of organizational culture to be as a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business. (p. 657). He goes on to point the pervasive nature of organizational culture in that, it helps to define the relationship of the firm to parties it comes in contact with through its business. This simply shows that culture within the work place especially geared towards profitability or the bestowal of advantages could be termed organizational or corporate culture. Generally it will be assumed that the national culture will also play a part.Guidroz, Kotrba, and Denison (2009) from results of a study of multinational companies, aim that their study seems to point to organizational culture superseding national culture in diversity management practices. The issue in question in this thesis is not exactly a management matter but the individual perception of privacy in the open plan office environments and would suggest that both national and organizational cultures playing a part because according to (Brand, 2009) the design of the workspace or workplace communicates the corporate culture of the organization meaning, the adoption of the open plan environment can be tie d to the organizations corporate culture.Hofstedes Cultural DimensionsThis is a hugely popular cross-cultural model (Gerhart and Fang, 2005 Hofstede et al, 2010 Sivakumar, Nakata, 2001) currently in use, with its roots in industrial psychology (Meeuwesen, van den Brink-Muinen and Hofstede, 2009) is called the Hofstedes model of culture named after Geert Hofstede a Dutch emeritus Professor of organizational anthropology and worldwide management in the Netherlands.Hofstedes work highlighted the fact that culture is manifested through symbols, heroes, rituals and values. But, Hofstede argues that values form the core of culture as represented by the Hofstede culture onion in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2 shows the onion bodily structure graphically illustrating the manifestation of culture at different levels and even the interactions therein.As seen from Figure 2.2 above symbols, heroes and rituals are by themselves visible to all observers. It is the cultural meanings of the practices th at are open to interpretation by the observer while, values are unseen or embedded within the person but they still subtly determine choices and much more (Hofstede et al., 2010). Hofstedes research studied value survey responses of similar respondents from different countries as to their approach, as related to four base problems prevalent in most societies (Meeuwesen et. al, 2009) these includedHandling social inequalities in the society.The approach to dealing with uncertainty in general.The structure of the relationship between an individual and the group.The emotional role division between the male and females in a society.The initial data for Hofstedes culture study came about through an analysis of global Business Machine Company (IBM) staff surveys at a time, the company was called Hermes. He utilized the responses from routine staff surveys about values and related matters to provide ratings for countries on each of what he then called the four dimensions of culture.This was achieved by examining correlations between mean wads of questionnaire items at the level of countries. Other approaches, like analysis at the individual level did not provide much useful information (Hofstede, 2009). Later, certain studies showed the need for another dimension and this lead to the inclusion of a twenty percent dimension called, foresightful term orientation.Each dimension of culture score for a country is calculated using a scale of roughly 0 to 100 for each dimension. A dimension of culture is an aspect of culture that can be measured relative to other cultures (Hofstede, 2009 p. 6) and the higher the score of a dimension, the more that dimension is exhibited in the society or nation in question while for lower scores the opposer pole of the dimension is more pronounced. Thus, the scores are therefore bipolar (Jones, 2007)In a 2010 book, Greet Hofstede, his son Gert Jan Hofstede and a research collaborator Micheal Minkov reviewed in the beginning works, al ongside their recent studies and added a 6th dimension called indulgence versus restraint (IVR) to the previously known Hofstedes five dimensions of culture. The sixth dimension was largely as a result of the work of Micheal Minkov (Hofstede et al., 2010).The six dimensions of Hofstedes cultural model now include power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), long term orientation (LTO), and the deep added indulgence (IVR).Power distance (PDI).This indicates the degree of inequality that exists and is accepted among the persons with and without power i.e. the leadership versus the followership respectively as normal and current in any given society. If the power distance scores are high, it indicates a pyramidal or hierarchical system where the power is resident at the top while, lower scores indicate greater equality suggesting power is shared and spread within the group.Individualism (IDV).This is related to the seAnalysis of Pr ivacy Perception Among Open Plan Office UsersAnalysis of Privacy Perception Among Open Plan Office UsersCHAPTER 1INTRODUCTIONWhat is an Office?Offices are workspaces designed for regular use to achieve personal, group or organizational goals through the accomplishment of tasks. Sanders and McCormick, (2002) go on to state that these tasks can be grouped into cognitive, physical, social or procedural tasks. The office provides a location for contact and could also be a repository for tools, information and other resources required to meet business objectives. It is also a business resource, this a point most people fail to understand thus, the failure to properly design and evaluate work spaces.The work place or office is one of the places the modern man spends the bulk of his waking hours. Sanders and McCormick, (2002) say almost half of ones waking hours are spent in and around the office. This would provide explanation for research efforts into the design and utilization of office s.According to Myerson and Ross (2003) the office grew out of the factory and then followed the trend of bureaucratization of industry. Thus, offices have been viewed differently by users and companies. Some view it as an address, others as a necessary evil but to others it is considered to be an asset. Bjerrum and Bdker (2003) noted that the design of an office was mostly considered as a cost and done to support quiet work and also show peoples status. While the purpose of the New office is to be that of attracting and retaining staff as well as to revolutionalize corporate culture.Work places or offices have been described variously as conventional, traditional, and closed or open plan offices. Some, group them as large or small, landscaped etc. (Sanders and McCormick, 2002). The general descriptions of workspaces fall under the categories of open plan and cellular offices and this is based on the architectural and functional features of the work spaces (Duffy, Laing and Crisp, 19 92).Other descriptions and categorization of offices include the hive which is suited to individual processes. The den suited to group processes. The cell designed for concentrated study while the club supports transactional knowledge (Sailer, Budgen, Lonsdale, Turner and Penn, 2009). There are other descriptions of office types for example, Myerson and Ross (2003) from an architectural point of view, showed that views of property and space as related to the office environment have been evolving and as such, they identify four thematic categories of offices namely narrative which presents the office as a brand experience. Nodal where the office as knowledge connector. The neighborly theme sees the office as a social landscape and lastly nomadic office as distributed work space these grouping reflect more of necessity and corporate culture not necessarily a collection of generally practically replicable models.In another categorization of offices by Myerson and Ross (2006) is based o n the fact that the offices evolved to suit knowledge workers, as such, the categories match each of the four realms of knowledge work namely the academy is likened to the corporate realm which is a more collegiate and collaborative approach to work, guild the professional realm in essence a professional cluster of peers sharing a skill or specialization, agora the public realm where the corporation is open to the city or the market place and the lodge the domestic or private realm more of the live and work setting. In the general scheme of things offices are still broadly classified into open plan and private or cellular offices all other forms are variations of the two.Cellular OfficesAlso called closed offices, this type of offices are the traditional or conventional offices which are usually closed and private workspaces (Maher and von Hippel, 2005) i.e. they are designed with floor to ceiling walls, a door and dimensioned for a single user. This type of office is also called a cell-office and can be a shared room office, used by 2-3 persons (Danielsson, 2008). This has been the generally accepted, traditional or popular understanding of the place called an office.Open Plan OfficesThese are found to be a common workspace shared by a group of employees. The original concept of the open plan office has continued to evolve, but it is the absence of floor-to-ceiling walls that is said to be the primary characteristic of open-plan offices. The arrangements of office furniture, partitions, screens, office equipment, or plants mark out individual and functional work areas (Valesny and Farace, 1987).One of the strengths of the open plan office according to Bjerrum and Bdker (2003) is the openness and flexibility allowing one to move to where things are happening and allowing for overhearing and over-seeing (p. 207) thus enhancing peripheral participation.Other types of the open plan office include the bull pen office, action offices, landscaped offices (Sanders a nd McCormick, 2002). In the bull pen offices, the work desks are arranged in neat row as far as the eyes can see.In reality, most firms have a mix of office typologies ranging from cellular units designed for a single user to a small room office shared by a few people then the spaces shared with a large group with or without specifically assigned work places and with varying measures of visual and audio privacy.Recent Developments in Open Plan OfficesIt is safe to argue that, the open plan office has become increasingly popular (de Korte, Kuijt-Evers and Vink, 2007 Ding, 2008 Oldham and Brass, 1979 Pejtersen, Allermann, Kristensen and Poulsen, 2006 etc.) and several reasons could be advanced to explain the widespread adoption and use of the open plan offices and its variations.There is also a move to wards a reduction in open plan office workspaces especially in the United States of America due to the understanding that smaller workstations are cheaper to maintain (Dykes, 2011) this according to Veitch, Charles, Farley and Newsham (2007) is because there is a failure in understanding the full value of the physical office environment and related issues in open plan offices in particular.Advantages of open plan officesSearches through literature (Danielsson, 2008 Oldham and Brass, 1979 Pan and Micheal, 2007 Roper and Juneja, 2008 Valesny and Farace, 1987 etc.) present the following as reasons for the adoption of open plan offices. They includeReduction in office space and cost decline The price of real estate is predicated on the area rented and utilized. With organizations using rental spaces, it is cheaper to use the rented floor or floors as open plan offices. In most cases, the cost of partitioning is saved if an open plan set up is deployed fully or partly.Flexibility for organizational changes The open plan office lends itself to easy restructuring of work areas. In most cases, it is easier to fit in one more members of staff (Sanders and McCormick, 2002). More efficient work flow and communication Some jobs require continuous team work, face to face interaction and a relatively high level of routine procedures. For such work groups, the open plan office or variations thereof are usually recommended and deployed. The enhancement of some level of peripheral participation is one of the strengths of the open plan office.Possible enhancement of social facilitation The enhancement of collaboration i.e. the fostering of a team spirit, where, work teams or task forces are close to one another and can quickly form a huddle to sort out problems without resorting to information technology provisions like the intercom, emails, phones, video conferencing or even the walk up to another office. Oldham and Brass, (1979) specifically examined interpersonal issues that included intradepartmental and interdepartmental interaction, friendship opportunities, noting that supervisor and co worker feed back could be improved.Ease of supervision There is an ease of supervision, in that, a look over the landscape of the office can give an idea as to who is present and what each member of staff is doing.Limitations of open plan offices.Regarding the limitations of open-plan office designs, Maher and von Hippel (2005) rightly point out the fact that in open plan office layouts distractions and overstimulation are intrinsically linked to the design. These issues have consistently been themain down sides of open plan offices and some of them includeIncreased workplace noise (Pan and Michael, 2007).Increased disturbances and distractions.Increased feelings of crowding and loss of privacy.There is a reduction in autonomy and task identity and a reduction in supervisor and co worker feedback in certain cases (Oldham and Brass, 1979).One point of agreement in open plan office research is that there is a generally low level of perceived privacy in open plan offices, as interruptions and distractions of the visual and acoustic kind occur frequen tly in open plan offices. (Pejtersen et al. 2006 Roper and Juneja, 2008)Furthermore, researchers have observed that these negative outcomes resulting from the adoption of the open plan office design tends to result in dissatisfaction with work and the workplace thus, reducing functional efficiency, decreasing performance, especially, for non routine tasks and also, reduced feedback from supervisors due to some complexity with the freedom of communication (de Korte et al. 2007 Pejtersen et al. 2006 Sundstrom et al. 1982 Vischer, 2007 ). This understanding has led some organizations to begin returning to the traditional private offices i.e. with floor to ceiling partitions assigned to an individual (Roper and Juneja 2008).Evolving nature of office workAlso worthy of note, is the evolution of work patterns. An increasingly large number of persons work mainly at or from home and visit the office sparingly. This has given rise to the several types of offices one of which is the flex-offi ce, which is dimensioned for less than 70% of the total company staff to be in at the same time. Another design is the combi-office where a member of staff is not assigned to a specific desk but sharing of common facilities provides the spatial definition of such an individuals work space i.e. the task and personnel at hand may determine the sitting arrangement of persons in the office (Danielsson, 2008).Thesis OverviewThe thesis is organized in to 5 chapters Chapter one provides an introduction the concept of an office, its major types and variations. It then focuses on the open plan office and then highlights the strengths and limitations of the open plan office.Chapter two provides a literature review of the concept of privacy perception it reviews the perceived benefits of privacy and then traces the expectation that privacy perception could be influenced by culture. Significant studies related to dissatisfaction with open plan offices are examined for possible links to culture. The discussion then moves to culture, its definition and then the attempts made in the classification of culture. The Hofstede paradigm is then discussed and some studies employing the paradigm are reviewed. The research motivation and hypotheses are presented.Chapter three discusses the methodology of the study, the survey method, issues noted and the challenge expected. The source and design of the questionnaire was presented and the analysis methods proposed. The statistical analysis tool was briefly introduced.Chapter four shows the procedure of the survey, documents the responses received, analyzed the data collected from the general information part of the questionnaire and then chronicles the statistical analysis of the second part of the questionnaire designed to elicit privacy perception in open plan office environments.Chapter five provides a discussion of the results obtained in chapter five and then presents the limitations of the current study while providing direction s for further work.CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEWThis part of the thesis discusses the links between privacy perceptions and culture. It also includes definitions and explanations of some related terms. Lastly, it includes a presentation of some ideas relevant to the work and results of related studies.The chapter concludes with the research question, research hypothesis and the motivation for the study.Privacy PerceptionIn order to facilitate a better understanding, the term privacy is defined firstly then the concept called perception. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2011), privacy is said to be the quality or state of being apart from company or observation. Wikipedia defines perception as the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. It goes on to say what one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including ones culture, and the interpretation of the perceived.Privacy is a very difficult concept or construct to define not to talk of evaluating, it has commanded interest from the fields of anthropology, architecture, cultural geography, environmental design, ethology, history, law, philosophy, and sociology, as well as branches psychology such as clinical, counseling, developmental, educational, environmental and social psychology (Newell, 1995 1998).Newell (1995) in her extensive review of the concept of privacy divided the perspectives of privacy into, people centered, place centered and the person-environment or the person-place interaction with the primary interest on the place, people or equally on the person and place and or with the interaction itself. Leino-Kilpi et al. (2001 p. 664) in another review of literature on privacy noted that perspectives applied to the analysis of the concepts of privacy to beThe units experiencing privacy. They go on to note the unit experiencing privacy can be either an individual or a group, or both.Desired Achieved privacy. This is explained by t he understanding that the concept of privacy is either seen as a subjective state or studied as an achieved state (Newell, 1998).Reactive Proactive privacy. This is to say the control of communication and also the control of knowledge.Furthermore, they describe the dimensions of privacy to include physical, psychological, social and informational thus, suggesting privacy dimensions to be made up of four quadrants of the diagram as shown in figure 2.1 below..Source Leino-Kilpi et al. (2001)It would be seen that in an open plan office all the dimensions of privacy as enumerated Figure 2.1 above are impinged upon First, physical accessibility to the person is unrestricted. Secondly, the cognitive intrusions abound due to audio and visual distractions. Thirdly, it is more difficult to control social contacts for example, the choice of participants for interaction, the interaction frequency, length and content of the said interaction. Then finally, the ease with which certain private pi eces of information about the person is easily accessible is a problem in open plan offices, after all, most open plan offices do not have a single route of access or a door to the work space. So, it is difficult to mark and protect ones territory and as such protect some form of private information from would be trespassers (Anjum, Paul and Ashcroft, 2004).In the light of these perspectives, one of the definitions of privacy suggested is that privacy is a voluntary and temporary condition of separation from the public domain (Newell, 1998, p. 357).Oldham, Kulick and Stepina (1991) highlighted the fact that individuals reacted negatively to environments characterized by few enclosures, closeness and high density because such environments exposed individuals to too many unwanted or uncontrolled intrusions.It is also agreed that, the perception of the work environment leads to satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the work and the work environment. Fischer, Tarquinio and Vischer (2004, p.132 ) posit that the there are three major categories of mediating influences on workplace satisfaction and these are, individual differences like culture, age, professional or status, organizational context and environmental features.All these issues could be further grouped into two internal and external factors as relates to the individual. These two descriptions could be mapped to the two ingredients required for a need for privacy to exist i.e. a person or persons and a place. Sanders and McCormick (2002, p. 485) also point out that apart from the physical features of the built environment, people are influenced by nonphysical features like social, cultural, technological, economic and political factors characteristic of the environment.External FactorsThese are the place factors, usually described as the environmental or design issues which can lead to noise distractions, visual distractions, interruptions, crowding and accessibility issues (Ding, S. 2008). Due to the absen ce of internal walls, the low height of walls or partitions in open plan offices influences privacy the more enclosures, the lower the people per given space and the higher the partitions, the higher the privacy perceived (Danielsson 2008 Oldham, G. R et al. 1991 Sundstrom, Herbert and Brown, 1982 etc.).Organizational context is also considered to be an external factor. This involves the type of industry involved by the organization. For example doctors consulting rooms should provide more audio privacy compared to an architectural firms offices or design studios.Internal FactorsThis grouping is based on the person factors or what goes on within the person, the suggestion that individual differences related to but not restricted to personality traits, gender, individual experience etc. affect ones perception of, and hence the evaluation of the work environment (external or place factors). Some studies have found that variations exist across gender in perception of privacy in the ope n plan office (Yildirim, Akalin-Baskaya and Celebi, 2007). Also, in a different cross cultural study of privacy, Newell (1998) found that privacy was more a condition of the person thus, the duration of the experience and the change on the person as a result of the experience leads to its suspected therapeutic effect. In general perceptions and attitudes to privacy, she found that gender also played a part especially within cultures.Maher and von Hippel (2005) and others before them showed that individual differences in the ability to handle overstimulation by the application stimulus screening and inhibitory abilities influenced the perceptions of the work environment. These inhibitory skills are cognitive in nature and such inhibitory skills are found to vary between individuals and even especially across cultures. For example, Hall (1966) points out that the Japanese are said to be content with paper walls as acoustic screens while the Dutch and Germans require thick walls and do uble doors to serve as acoustic screens.Benefits of Privacy in the work EnvironmentNewell (1998, p. 359) relates the need for privacy to help in maintaining healthy internal physiological and cognitive functioning subjectively described as wellbeing. The study concluded that achieving the perceived privacy had some therapeutic effects.On the area of performance, especially for knowledge workers like engineers, accountants, software designers, decision makers etc., auditory and visual distraction have been found to be a cause of stress and even performance impairment (Roper and Juneja, 2008). Furthermore, Oommen, Knowles and Zhao (2008) point to the likelihood of aggression and increased instances of eye, nose and throat irritations while working in open plan environments. This in turn affects productivity.CultureCulture is said to be the way of life of a group of people. This, among other things covers their beliefs, values, norms and rituals. Specifically, Hofstede (2009 p. 1) poin ts out that culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from the others and it manifests itself in the form of symbols, heroes, rituals and values. Earlier, an American anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his books, talked about language and especially modes of communication as a point of differentiating cultures (Hall E.T 1966 1976). He even considered language to be the core of culture while, Geert Hofstede considers language as a part of the rituals of a particular culture (Hofstede, 2010). This goes to point out some of the existing disagreements about what culture is and even how it comes about.Culture is thus, studied as a means of understanding or shedding light into the behavior or reactions of individuals or people groups. Edward Hall in his book the hidden dimension writes that people from different cultures inhabit different sensory worlds, so that experience, as it is perceived through one set of cultur ally patterned sensory screens is quite different from experience perceived through another. (1966, p. 2). This highlights and explains the link between culture and perception generally and in spatial terms especially.Classifying CulturesThere have been several descriptions and models of culture (Matsumoto and Yoo, 2006 Hall, 1966 1970), for example, Hall (1966) alludes to contact and non-contact groups or cultures in relation to spatial meanings and preferences within people groups . This is related to the social dimension of privacy (Leino-Kilpi et al. 2001), but he especially specifies high and low context cultures according to their ways of communicating.For the high context (HC) culture or communication for that matter, much of the information is implicit while, in the low context (LC) culture, nearly everything is explicit. He also wrote about the concept of time among cultures (Hall, 1976). Where there are polychronic (P-time) and monochronic (M-Time) cultures the M-time soci ety or culture would prefer to do only one thing at a time when serious i.e. for such persons, time is linear and segmented with each activity scheduled while, the individuals in a P-time culture can juggle several activities, they emphasize the involvement of people and the completion of tasks rather than schedules.Edward T. Hall coined the term Proxemics which he describes as interrelated observations and theories of mans use of space as a specialized elaboration of culture Hall (1966 p. 1). In explaining his observations in proxemic behavior (Hall, 1963 p. 1003) he notes that what is close to an American may be distant to an Arab.Many other researchers and individuals apart from Edward Hall had worked on other frameworks and dimensions of culture. Matsumoto and Yoo, (2006) lists some of these frameworks which are interestingly identified by the names of the researchers that discovered them and this list which is not exhaustive, includesHofstedes (1980) with subsequent revisions a nd dimensions added Schwartz (2004) who presented seven universal value orientations, Smith, Dugan and Trompenaars (1996) had two universal value orientations House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman and Gupta (2003) came up with nine value orientations related to leadership Inglehart (1997) had two attitude-belief-value orientations, Bond et al. (2004) is said to have reported two social axioms. All cited in Matsumoto and Yoo, (2006 p. 239).The listing above does not mention each of the dimensions. The dimensions of each framework listed are found in Table 2.1 below.Table 2.1 Six Theoretical Frameworks for Universal Dimensions of Cultural VariabilityFrameworkDimensionsHofstedes (2001) dimensions ofwork-related valuesIndividualism vs. collectivismPower distanceUncertainty avoidanceMasculinity vs. femininityLong- vs. short-term orientationSchwartzs (2004) dimensions ofvaluesEmbeddednessHierarchyIntellectual autonomyAffective autonomyEgalitarianismMasteryHarmonySmith, Dugan, and Trompenaarss(1 996) dimensions of valuesEgalitarian commitment vs. conservatismUtilitarian involvement vs. loyal involvementHouse, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, andGuptas (2003) dimensions ofleadership valuesPerformance orientationAssertiveness orientationFuture orientationHuman orientationInstitutional collectivismFamily collectivismGender egalitarianismPower distanceUncertainty avoidanceIngleharts (1997) dimensions ofattitudes, values, and beliefsTraditional vs. secular-rational orientationSurvival vs. self-expression valuesBond et al.s (2004) dimensionsof social axioms (beliefs)Dynamic externalitySocietal cynicismSource (Matsumoto, D and Yoo, S. H, 2006 p. 240)National versus Organizational cultureAs a society has a culture, so do organizations and such organizations employ staff who come from a particular culture(s). The organizations then require these individuals to work in offices. Apart from the culture description related to national boundaries, there is a culture that seems to characterize w orkplaces or organizations and this is called organizational or corporate culture.Barney (1986) notes that like culture itself, organizational culture has many competing definitions and then goes on to suggest that a generally acceptable definition of organizational culture to be as a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business. (p. 657). He goes on to point the pervasive nature of organizational culture in that, it helps to define the relationship of the firm to parties it comes in contact with through its business. This simply shows that culture within the work place especially geared towards profitability or the conferment of advantages could be termed organizational or corporate culture. Generally it will be assumed that the national culture will also play a part.Guidroz, Kotrba, and Denison (2009) from results of a study of multinational companies, claim that their study seems to point to organizational cult ure superseding national culture in diversity management practices. The issue in question in this thesis is not exactly a management matter but the individual perception of privacy in the open plan office environments and would suggest that both national and organizational cultures playing a part because according to (Brand, 2009) the design of the workspace or workplace communicates the corporate culture of the organization meaning, the adoption of the open plan environment can be tied to the organizations corporate culture.Hofstedes Cultural DimensionsThis is a hugely popular cross-cultural model (Gerhart and Fang, 2005 Hofstede et al, 2010 Sivakumar, Nakata, 2001) currently in use, with its roots in industrial psychology (Meeuwesen, van den Brink-Muinen and Hofstede, 2009) is called the Hofstedes model of culture named after Geert Hofstede a Dutch emeritus Professor of organizational anthropology and international management in the Netherlands.Hofstedes work highlighted the fact that culture is manifested through symbols, heroes, rituals and values. But, Hofstede argues that values form the core of culture as represented by the Hofstede culture Onion in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2 shows the onion structure graphically illustrating the manifestation of culture at different levels and even the interactions therein.As seen from Figure 2.2 above symbols, heroes and rituals are by themselves visible to all observers. It is the cultural meanings of the practices that are open to interpretation by the observer while, values are unseen or embedded within the person but they still subtly determine choices and much more (Hofstede et al., 2010). Hofstedes research studied value survey responses of similar respondents from different countries as to their approach, as related to four basic problems prevalent in most societies (Meeuwesen et. al, 2009) these includedHandling social inequalities in the society.The approach to dealing with uncertainty in general.The structure of the relationship between an individual and the group.The emotional role division between the male and females in a society.The initial data for Hofstedes culture study came about through an analysis of International Business Machine Company (IBM) staff surveys at a time, the company was called Hermes. He utilized the responses from routine staff surveys about values and related matters to provide ratings for countries on each of what he then called the four dimensions of culture.This was achieved by examining correlations between mean scores of questionnaire items at the level of countries. Other approaches, like analysis at the individual level did not provide much useful information (Hofstede, 2009). Later, certain studies showed the need for another dimension and this lead to the inclusion of a fifth dimension called, long term orientation.Each dimension of culture score for a country is calculated using a scale of roughly 0 to 100 for each dimension. A dimension of culture is a n aspect of culture that can be measured relative to other cultures (Hofstede, 2009 p. 6) and the higher the score of a dimension, the more that dimension is exhibited in the society or nation in question while for lower scores the opposite pole of the dimension is more pronounced. Thus, the scores are therefore bipolar (Jones, 2007)In a 2010 book, Greet Hofstede, his son Gert Jan Hofstede and a research collaborator Micheal Minkov reviewed earlier works, alongside their recent studies and added a sixth dimension called indulgence versus restraint (IVR) to the previously known Hofstedes five dimensions of culture. The sixth dimension was largely as a result of the work of Micheal Minkov (Hofstede et al., 2010).The six dimensions of Hofstedes cultural model now include power distance (PDI), individualism (IDV), masculinity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), long term orientation (LTO), and the recently added indulgence (IVR).Power distance (PDI).This indicates the degree of in equality that exists and is accepted among the persons with and without power i.e. the leadership versus the followership respectively as normal and legitimate in any given society. If the power distance scores are high, it indicates a pyramidal or hierarchical system where the power is resident at the top while, lower scores indicate greater equality suggesting power is shared and spread within the group.Individualism (IDV).This is related to the se