Abstract
This paper examines how neoliberal governmentality is conveyed and promoted through office design technologies within professional service firms (PSFs). Our data, constituted through interviews with firm representatives and site visits, points to the pursuit by PSF management of a core principle of marketization, which is promoted through a range of spatial technologies inscribed in the office space to sustain the development of subjectivities reflective of Homo economicus. Specifically, we found that fluid open-plan layouts and adaptable workplaces constitute technologies of government with great ambitions, aiming to cultivate a paradoxical climate of cooperative competitiveness within the firm, a constant endeavor toward efficiency, and a transformation of firm members into neoliberal self-entrepreneurs. One of the chief ideas that motivates office designers is to provide PSF members with the freedom to work how, where, and when they want in order to meet their firm’s imperatives of effectiveness and client satisfaction. Ultimately, our study shows that office design initiatives within PSFs constitute tools of neoliberal governmentality that aim to govern subtly the emancipation of firm members as accomplished self-entrepreneurs.
Keywords
Introduction
For a long time, space has been identified as an important referent in the study of organizational phenomena (Clegg & Kornberger, 2006; Dale, 2005; Dale & Burrell, 2008; Kornberger & Clegg, 2004; Taylor & Spicer, 2007). Accordingly, a significant body of research sheds light on a range of issues surrounding organizational space, 1 with an emphasis on the role of designed spaces in the organization’s life (Munro & Jordan, 2013). Studies have focused on the layout of the workplace in analyzing how it could facilitate interaction and encourage creativity (Arge & De Paoli, 2000; Duffy 1997; Meyerson & Ross, 2003), increase cost efficiency and productivity (Parker, 2016), affect employee motivation and satisfaction (Hatch, 1990; Sundstrom, Burt, & Kamp, 1980), and foster a tighter control of labor (Carmona, Ezzamel, & Gutiérrez, 2002; Fleming & Spicer, 2004; Fleming & Sturdy, 2011). A more critical stream recently emerged, examining the social production of organizational space and how it conveys certain organizational values, transforms modes of organizational control, and promotes certain forms of ideological socialization through the manipulation of space (Clegg & Kornberger, 2006; Dale, 2005; Dale & Burrell, 2008; Halford, 2004, 2008).
Within this critical research strand, many studies conceive of organizational space as a management control tool (Halford, 2004, 2008) that exerts power in more or less subtle ways. Early studies on workspaces (Baldry, 1997, 1999) underlined how work buildings act as structures of control that limit movement and constrain interactions to facilitate supervision and surveillance. For numerous scholars, workspaces indeed represent major power structures (Baldry, 1997, 1999; Carmona et al., 2002; Fleming & Spicer, 2004; Fleming & Sturdy, 2011; Parker & Jeacle, 2019). This stream of research particularly draws our attention to the role organizational space plays in the exercise of disciplinary power (Foucault, 1975; Townley, 1993) on organizational members. As Taylor and Spicer (2007) point out, these analyses of organizational space are essentially underpinned by a disciplinary perspective (Foucault, 1975) where the workspace, in a capitalist environment, acts as a tool for powerful employers to (self-)discipline employees (Halford, 2008). Although insightful, this literature neglects upstream processes through which organizational space is conceived of and configured (Taylor & Spicer, 2007). It also overlooks the thesis of contemporary thinkers on spatiality who argue that organizational space is involved in significant dynamics, moving away from the disciplinary spatial model to enter into a neoliberal post-disciplinary era (Spencer, 2011). Our study takes place against the backdrop of this new era of spatiality, conceiving of office design as a significant platform for intervention, seeking to frame employees’ conduct of conduct as neoliberal agents.
What we maintain in this paper is that, just as everyday life is increasingly colonized by neoliberalism, so too is the organizational space. Through our analysis of office design initiatives unfolding in professional service firms (PSFs), we will see that space is carefully and consciously conceived to reflect a neoliberal governmentality project that aims to transform firm members into “entrepreneurs of the self” (Foucault, 2008)—who are provided with the “freedom” they need to meet valued organizational imperatives. Specifically, the objective of this paper is to examine, in the context of public accounting firm office design, how neoliberal governmentality is conveyed and promoted through spatio-organizational technologies that seek to govern the “freedom” of firm members. We carried out our investigation through interviews with accounting firm representatives and site visits in three countries (Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom). It is important to note that our analysis focuses on organizational space as conceived by PSF management. As such, we did not examine how organizational space is perceived and experienced by employees. We acknowledge that the actual use of space can be quite unpredictable and spontaneous, and can therefore differ from what was initially planned (Halford, 2004, 2008).
We believe understanding the range of intentions that underlie PSF office design projects is important to help rank-and-file professionals realize how a neoliberal agenda informs spatio-organizational initiatives that promote “freedom” within the workplace. Through a careful conception of space, PSF management aims to develop a powerful control device to influence, in subtle ways, the mind and behavior of organizational members to their firm’s business imperatives. The shaping of “professional minds” is not a trivial stake as, par ricochet, PSFs exert significant influence in a wide range of fields—in terms of economics, politics, and collective sense-making. Therefore, how PSF management strives to shape professional minds through neoliberal office design constitutes a critical issue, both theoretically and socially.
This study aims to make a twofold contribution to the literature. First, it extends research on organizational space by conceiving space as a technology of neoliberal governmentality. Recognizing that organizational space is now articulated in ways that are increasingly distant from a classic disciplinary perspective, our neoliberal governmentality emphasis brings to the fore the neglected relationship between power and freedom in office design. In so doing, our study arguably goes beyond dichotomies of structure and agency prevailing in organization studies (Raffnsøe, Mennicken, & Miller, 2019) to show how employees’ freedom is not always an obstacle to social control, but could instead be thought of and acted upon as a “soft” control catalyzer.
Second, this paper extends research on PSFs by examining the manner in which office design is planned to influence how day-to-day professional work is organized and conducted. Despite the significant impact that organizational space may have on the ways people interact and behave at work, researchers have largely ignored the physical realities and spatio-organizational features that surround professional work. Interestingly, Eyal (2013, p. 871) calls for a sociology of expertise that notably examines the intended influence of spatial arrangements: “a full explication of expertise must explore indeed this background of practices and the social, material, spatial, organizational, and conceptual arrangements that serve as its conditions of possibility”. In a way, the purpose of the present study is to “bring space back in” (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004, p. 1095) the purview of academic work on PSFs.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. The next section presents the theoretical framing of our study, informed by the literature on neoliberal governmentality. This is followed by a description of the methodological features of our investigation. We then present our findings, focusing on the main office design technologies through which the neoliberal governmentality project is deployed. Our findings are then discussed, followed by areas for future research and concluding remarks.
Theoretical Framework
Neoliberalism is a multifaceted concept “that manifests quite differently in diverse contexts in syncretism with pre-existing institutions and ideologies” (Fletcher, 2019, p. 538). Unsurprisingly, a variety of analytical perspectives have been used to conceive of neoliberalism, such as Foucauldian or Marxist perspectives (Birch & Springer, 2019; Chiapello, 2017), each having its peculiar preferences, strengths, and weaknesses (see Birch, 2017, for a detailed analysis of these perspectives).
With an ever-expanding variety of conceptual traditions, the analytical usefulness of neoliberalism has been questioned. In a recent article revisiting the bulk of research on neoliberalism in the organization literature, Birch and Springer (2019, p. 468) underlined how this concept, “as currently theorized, is overstated as a way to understand recent and ongoing social changes”. These authors particularly challenge two assumptions on which most neoliberal studies are premised, i.e., that neoliberalism is everywhere (p. 469) and that we are all in the process of becoming “market monsters” (p. 471).
Neoliberalism is challenged as a theoretical underpinning because it is now used to study a wide range of (political, social, organizational, and so on) phenomena that are perceived as bad or disagreeable, suggesting that neoliberalism is everywhere (with negative consequences), therefore undermining its specificity and analytical relevance (Birch & Springer, 2019; Cornelissen, 2019). A number of scholars (e.g., Fletcher, 2019; Springer, 2014), however, assert that such criticisms may be overcome through a careful theorization of neoliberalism that “attempts to locate neoliberalism within a particular context as but one component to the unfolding of a complex political economic story” (Springer, 2014, p. 156). In this study, we rely on a comprehensive framework, that of Fletcher (2019), to explore how some dimensions of neoliberalism manifest in the specific context of PSFs’ office design.
The usefulness of neoliberalism is also questioned because of the tendency of Foucauldian studies to consider that, under neoliberalism, everybody is transformed into “market monsters” who consider themselves as “private business organization[s] driven by financial logics seeking the highest return from their investments” (Birch & Springer, 2019, p. 471). Birch and Springer (2019) maintain that this point largely remains an undetermined assumption in need of further thought and nuance, for instance in terms of actors’ reflexivity. In this paper, we adopt a Foucauldian governmentality perspective which goes beyond dichotomies of structure and agency, recognizing that agents are endowed with reflexive skills (Suddaby, Viale, & Gendron, 2016). Accordingly, whereas neoliberal technologies can aim at inciting agents to think of themselves as enterprising individuals, this is not to say that all agents will obediently follow this path. Nonetheless, as Rose (1999, p. 20) suggests, it is important from a governmentality perspective “to start by asking what authorities of various sorts wanted to happen, in relation to problems defined how, in pursuit of what objectives, through what strategies and techniques”. Therefore, although we recognize that there is inescapably a gap between neoliberal intentions and employees’ actual thinking and behavior (Fletcher, 2019), analyzing the way in which a neoliberal technology is thought and designed constitutes a relevant intellectual endeavor.
In what follows, we carefully set out the conceptualization of neoliberalism that informs our inquiry and present the framework we use to articulate neoliberalism in the particular context of office design.
Neoliberalism as a particular governmentality
Adopting a Foucauldian perspective, we view neoliberalism as a particular form of governmentality articulating and disseminating a set of market-centered beliefs that aim to transform people into Homo economicus or entrepreneurs of the self (Chiapello, 2017; Fletcher, 2019; Rose, 1999). Foucault defines governmentality as the “art of government” in a wide sense, i.e., where government takes on meaning beyond the form of leading and directing populations. Foucault thus encourages us to broaden existing conceptions of power (e.g., hierarchical or top-down), to consider how power intermingles with rationalities and beliefs, and to examine how broader forms of power influence the capacity of individuals to control themselves. In a broad sense, governmentality can be defined as the “conduct of conduct”, that is, as an ensemble of means to influence and shape individual thought and behavior (Foucault, 1991). A specific neoliberal governmentality, Fletcher (2019, pp. 544–5) contends,
aims to construct and manipulate the external incentive structures in terms of which individuals, conceived as self-interested rational actors, evaluate the costs versus benefits of alternative courses of action (Foucault, 2008; Fletcher, 2010). It is, Foucault describes, “an environmental type of intervention instead of the internal subjugation of individuals” (2008: 260); “a governmentality which will act on the environment and systematically modify its variables” (ibid.: 271).
To elaborate further on the distinctive aspects of neoliberal governmentality, Foucault (2008) contrasts it with more traditional forms of governmentality in his previous work, namely disciplinary and sovereign governmentalities. Disciplinary governmentality underpins self-regulation of behavior through the inculcation of “appropriate” values and standards (Fletcher, 2019; Foucault, 1975). This type of governance is generally associated with the Panopticon concept, which incites subjects to internalize certain norms and values in order to self-discipline themselves (Fletcher, 2019; Foucault, 1975). Sovereign governmentality, in contrast, is based on a “command-and-control” principle, taking the form of regulatory policies aimed at controlling subjects’ behaviors (Fletcher, 2019). It is through the distinction between these three forms of governmentality—one centered on command-and-control (sovereign), one oriented toward values and standards (disciplinary), and one incentive-based (neoliberal) —that the broader notion of neoliberalism takes on a peculiar meaning, as a means of governing human behavior in a subtle yet appealing way, that is to say through the promotion of certain forms of freedom.
Comprehensive framework
In order to develop a fine-grained analysis of how neoliberal governmentality manifests itself in PSF office design, we rely on Fletcher’s (2019) framework whose analytical toolkit “enables multidimensional investigation of the complex ways in which neoliberalism articulates with distinct forms of governance” (Birch & Springer, 2019, p. 470). In his framework, Fletcher (2019) develops a four-part typology of neoliberalism comprising: (1) an overarching governmentality project; (2) a set of general principles or rationalities the governmentality project embodies; (3) the specific technologies through which it is implemented; and (4) the forms of subjectivities that a given governmentality project seeks to cultivate. According to Fletcher (2019, p. 545), these four dimensions—which are further explained below—“can of course be differentially emphasized in particular variegated projects”.
Overarching governmentality
Applied to the context of organization, neoliberalism, as a project of governmentality, can be understood as a set of incentive structures designed to shape minds toward market-centered beliefs, therefore encouraging organization members to behave as adaptable and responsive entrepreneurs adjusting their conduct to the conditions of the market in order to realize (and benefit from) their freedom. The incentive structures are embedded in a range of organizational parameters such as policies, organizational pronouncements, and the organization’s space. Accordingly, contemporary architecture increasingly resonates with neoliberal governmentality (e.g., Spencer, 2011, 2016). Viewed as a structural incentive aiming to shape the conduct of individual “freedom”, architecture has been recognized, in recent years, as a means to articulate and diffuse neoliberal governmentality (Spencer, 2011, 2016). Therefore, we contend that neoliberalism can manifest itself through the workspace environment.
Principles
Neoliberal governmentality prescribes an ensemble of principles such as privatization, deregulation, and commodification (Fletcher, 2019). These principles all fall under the overarching notion of marketization—aiming to instil market-based rationality in different areas of social and organizational life. As Foucault (2008, p. 131) contends, neoliberalism is “taking the formal principles of a market economy and [. . .] projecting them on to a general art of government”. Neoliberal governmentality can therefore be seen to pursue a core principle, that of marketization, which promotes incentives in line with an entrepreneurial environment: offering opportunities to exchange information, developing new contacts, and undertaking “business” initiatives—thus encouraging certain types of behaviors. This core principle “may be enacted in various ways [. . .] within projects advocating an explicitly neoliberal philosophy” (Fletcher, 2019, p. 546). In this study, we investigate the specific ways in which marketization is promoted in PSF office design initiatives.
Specific technologies
Technologies are variegated and heterogeneous, bringing together mechanisms that allow the principles of a governmentality project to take shape, such as techniques of notation and calculation, procedures of examination, or building design and architectural forms (Miller & Rose, 1990). In this paper we analyze the role of office design technologies through which the principle of marketization is operationalized and the neoliberal governmentality project deployed.
Subjectivities
Through a set of principles and technologies, the neoliberal governmentality project seeks to cultivate (although certainly not always succeeding; see Barnett, 2005, 2010) various forms of subjectivities. Under neoliberalism, individuals are encouraged to transform themselves into Homo economicus, i.e., rational actors who are inclined to assess the costs and benefits of different alternatives, have a penchant for competition, and behave as entrepreneurs of themselves to “pursue [their] own interest” (Foucault, 2008, p. 270). As such, entrepreneurs of the self draw on the resources and skills at their disposal in order to benefit from payoffs ensuing from their work or behavior. They are “expected to act in ways that maximize their (human) capital value” (Cooper, 2015, p. 15). In so doing, Foucault argues, the individual who responds “systematically to modifications in the variables of the environment appears precisely as someone manageable” (Foucault, 2008, p. 270) and, even, “governmentalizable” (p. 252).
Although the distinction between these categories is not necessarily absolute, we argue that this typology is particularly useful for examining processes that relate to the development and promotion of a project that aims to shape the minds of organizational members in a subtle manner, specifically through the ways in which professional offices are designed. As Fletcher (2019, p. 547) points out,
Understanding neoliberalism in this multidimensional perspective thus allows us to avoid dichotomies and strict limits, to sidestep the impossible task of adjudicating whether a given situation is or is not neoliberal in its entirety and instead assess which particular elements of a given process – at different scales and in different dimensions – reflect common neoliberal tendencies.
Thus, with this framework, we examine the extent to which the processes that underlie PSF office design reflect a neoliberal agenda. We argue that, through the (re)configuration of workspaces, PSF management seeks to create a web of spatio-organizational features reflective of a neoliberal governmentality project. In so doing, management pursues a core principle of marketization, which is promoted through a range of spatial technologies inscribed in office space. These technologies seek to sustain the development of subjectivities specific to Homo economicus, characterized by cooperative competitiveness, efficiency, and free self-entrepreneur spirit. In sum, our analytical endeavor focuses on spatial technologies used by PSF management to promote and operationalize a neoliberal governmentality project predicated on a core marketization principle, which is targeted at shaping firm members’ subjectivities accordingly.
Method
This study emerged from a broader research project which aimed to better understand how office designs, in the context of accounting firms, are developed and the impact they may have on the credibility and legitimacy of organizations. More specifically, the initial objective was to examine what representations of accountants and of their work are conveyed through office design and what the main preoccupations of designers and accountants are when elaborating office design. The use of a qualitative approach was considered appropriate given the complex dynamics we thought were involved in the development of each firm’s office design (Patton, 2002). Our data collection approach was centered on interviewing actors involved in office design projects and observing the features of such designs in situ. This allowed us to constitute a meaningful dataset to analyze how neoliberal governmentality is conveyed and promoted through PSF office design.
Sources of data and data collection
Interviews
Our data consists overall of 19 interviews with 23 participants carried out between August 2014 and November 2015. Specifically, we interviewed 11 partners or managing partners involved in office design projects, ten accounting firm representatives in charge of their office’s design, one senior manager, and one administrative assistant. At the time of interviews, the majority of participants (i.e., 65%) were working (or had worked) within Big Four firms. All interviewees were or had been involved in the decision-making process related to their office’s latest design project and were knowledgeable about their firm’s approach in terms of design. Most offices we visited had renewed their design within the last two years. The redesign of some had occurred further back but we thought the data was of interest since these offices were among the first in their respective country to introduce a new vision of office design. Table 1 summarizes key information about the interviewees.
Interviewee details.
Participants 04a and 04b, 05a and 05b, 15a and 15b, and 16a and 16b were respectively interviewed together.
These interviews were followed by site visits during which unrecorded discussion took place. Detailed field notes were taken afterwards.
Interviewees 05a and 05b completed their interview data with an email conversation.
The interview process took place in three somewhat concurrent phases. The first phase consisted of consulting firms’ websites and the financial press to identify Canadian firms that undertook or were in the process of undertaking office design projects. Firms were then contacted by email to solicit their participation, emphasizing our willingness to meet with people that were directly involved in these projects. The second phase consisted of interviewing representatives of Canadian firms that accepted to participate in our study. The third phase consisted of collecting data in other countries as suggested by Canadian participants. Indeed, after the first interviews in Canadian firms, participants identified cases of new office designs that were developed in the UK and which, they believed, could be relevant settings for our study. UK firms were reportedly at the forefront of office design and, therefore, could provide an opportunity to deepen our research analysis. Consequently, some interviews were conducted in the UK as well as in Ireland while additional interviews were conducted in Canada.
Collecting data in three different countries allowed us to gain insights into global tendencies in PSF office design. Ultimately, the total number of interviews conducted as part of this study was sufficient to gain an impression of theoretical saturation (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Indeed, in the final interviews carried out, we felt a significant degree of redundancy in the responses obtained regarding design features and in participant descriptions of the process by which their office design project was developed and implemented.
The recording of semi-structured interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes, averaging 48 minutes. The interviews initially focused upon main trends in professional office design, the process typically followed in the firm or office when a new design project was conceived and implemented, the main actors involved, sensitive issues emerging in the process, and the representation of the firm as conveyed through office design. In responding to our questions, most participants tended to discuss the specifics of the latest office design project in which they had been involved, but also mentioned how the design initiatives aimed at transforming work environment and practices. As such, our interest was not only in the design reconfigurations and spatial arrangements, but also in how interviewees presented their office space in terms of transformative opportunities. An interview guide containing open questions was used to conduct the interviews to enable participants to freely express their viewpoints in their own words (Patton, 2002). All interviews were recorded and transcribed to facilitate the analysis. In cases where the participants extended the discussion of key topics after the end of recording, detailed notes were made within two hours of the interview.
Measures were taken to sustain the trustworthiness of data collected (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Before the start of every interview, permission was sought to record the discussion digitally. Much care was taken to reassure participants that complete anonymity was guaranteed, for themselves and their employers. After the interviews had been transcribed, a copy of the transcript was sent to every interviewee. Every participant was thus able to suggest amendments or add further explanations to the transcription to ensure they were comfortable with what they said during the meeting. 2
Observation
Interviews were complemented by observation in most cases. Direct observations occurred first while waiting to conduct the interviews. In several cases, we were invited to wait in an office area where we could observe the workplace settings (e.g., the stairs, coffee corner, or open plan layout). A few interviews were also conducted in the office café, which allowed us to “experience” the “alternative” workspaces available to employees. In addition, we asked for visit tours (e.g., office area, cafeteria, conference rooms, teamwork rooms), when possible, which took place right after the interviews, to develop a better sense of what participants were telling us during our discussions. We asked for permission to take photographs during the visits—or we asked to obtain some pictures of the new design—to enrich the data and provide us with a basis to visualize interviewee descriptions of design. Site visits lasted between 15 and 45 minutes, averaging 30 minutes and resulting in over 300 photographs.
Direct observations first enabled us to visualize and experience the “feeling” of being physically present in the office. In particular, we were exposed to the range of activities that were taking place and the flow of people that were moving in the work environment. Second, they allowed us to capture details that may have escaped awareness among participants. Indeed, participants may have come to take some aspects of their office design project for granted (e.g., vast open space, luminosity, or colors), thereby diminishing their sensitivity to nuances otherwise apparent to an observer not fully immersed in this setting (Patton, 2002). Third, observations allowed us to see and hear things not necessarily discussed during the interview, such as the level of noise, the extent of messiness on some work desks, or the narrowness of individual working spaces.
Data analysis
Data analysis occurred in two phases. First, one of the authors gave each interview transcript and observation note a preliminary reading to identify the most significant themes transpiring from the data. This resulted in a classification of office design features and transformative aspects of the design. The cross-cutting idea emerging from this classification was the extent to which the features of office design were consistent with the spirit of neoliberalism. Therefore, in a second stage, two of the authors carried out together a detailed coding analysis, this time in light of Fletcher’s (2019) comprehensive framework, focusing on office design technologies and the subjectivities these technologies aim to cultivate. Through this process we identified two central office design technologies (i.e., fluid open-plan layout and adaptable workspaces) as well as some key subjectivities sustained through these technologies: cooperative competitiveness; efficiency; and free self-entrepreneur spirit. Table 2 summarizes our coding concepts in light of the comprehensive framework and provides examples of quotes from interviews for each category.
Office design technologies and coding concepts.
Following detailed analysis, interview excerpts were transferred to a separate thematic file organized along the different codes and sub-codes. The thematic file was reanalyzed several times; after each round of analysis, some of the excerpts were discarded to ensure that only the most significant ones were retained. Of course, when necessary, we returned to the original transcripts. Doing a two-author detailed coding helped us to strengthen our comfort regarding the trustworthiness of our analyses, providing us with opportunities to challenge the coding, question the categories, and refine the argument. As our research progressed, we sought to strengthen the consistency of our emerging conclusions (more specifically, regarding the overlap between neoliberalism and PSF office design technologies) by consulting supplementary documents on office design. For example, we consulted journals and magazines specialized in office design and newspaper articles to develop a sense of current trends in office space. Final interpretations were discussed and agreed upon by all three authors. Ultimately, we felt that neoliberal governmentality constituted a meaningful template to make sense of the data.
Findings: Designing Neoliberal Office Spaces
As mentioned above, two major office design technologies emerged from the analysis of our empirical data. This section fleshes out the role of these two technologies, as well as the subjectivities they nurtured, through the provision of empirical evidence. Before going further, there is no doubt in our minds that the spatial technologies we analyzed were partly influenced by economic considerations, such as the cost-benefit approach. The latter is consistent with neoliberal thinking (Fletcher, 2019). However, our data collection revealed office design is much more than a simple cost-cutting exercise. As one interviewee points out:
although people would say that we do it [i.e., reconfiguring space] to reduce costs, it’s not really the case. Because, as you can tell, we spent a lot of money on this space. So, at the end of the day, we re-vectored where the spending was. [. . .] We’re still spending a lot of money on space for people. It’s just that we’re spending it differently. (managing partner, Big Four)
In comparison to ritualistic referrals to the cost-benefit approach, we believe that our analytical endeavor enabled a deeper understanding of how PSF managers articulate neoliberal governmentality through office design projects.
Fluid open-plan layout
One of the most common features of PSF office design projects is the adoption of open-plan layouts reminiscent of a “marketplace” promoting the interaction of firm members as they cross paths in their daily undertakings. Although the open-plan model is not novel (Baldry, 1997), we observe in PSFs a “contemporary” translation of the open space concept which goes beyond disciplinary control. Instead of a technology allowing direct control of employees (Baldry, 1997), our data indicates that open space in PSFs is a more fluid space (Kornberger & Clegg, 2004) layout which not only minimizes divisions by permanent walls and enclosed rooms, but also allows firm members to freely choose where to seat, regardless of hierarchical boundaries. Indeed, the open space layout is designed to offer firm members the ability to choose where and when to work. For instance, most firms adopted a “hot desking” system under which seats are not assigned to specific individuals. Employees just choose their seat on a day-to-day basis:
We have hot desking but I like to call it not desking. [. . .] It’s about not actually being attached to your desk. It’s about providing some areas where people go to because they’re in four or five days a week and some areas where people don’t mind coming in, touching down, using the space. There’s a whole bunch in between that kind of varies. [. . .] We’re fairly relaxed about how we allocate desks. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
Rather than assigning one floor to a specific line of service and desks to specific individuals, organizational members can freely sit wherever they want. Some other firms went a step further and adopted a hoteling system under which seats are booked in advance when needed. Under a hoteling system, employees book a spot to sit and work at the office just like they would book a hotel room:
Everything is based on a software platform and [. . .] every single seat has a unique ID number. You can go to that software and it’s accessible through your computer, through iPads, etc. You can decide where you want to go. For example, from 8 to 10, I can choose this seat. Then, from 10 to 12, I can be in a meeting room, and from 12 to 1 I’m at lunch, I don’t need a location. From 1 to 3 I may sit in the café. [. . .] so I can actually go and identify different locations throughout the day. At the same time, we have a number of locations where there are no unique identifiers, and [. . .] you can go sit there whenever you want. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
The underlying ideal of this “unallocated seating system” is that all employees, regardless of their hierarchical position, can use the spatial arrangements on equal terms in a de-hierarchized office space.
There’s no differentiation between partners and junior staff. So junior staff and partners can be sitting side by side at a collaborative environment. We don’t have any type of hierarchy in that world. (managing partner, Big Four)
In this context, the main objective of open space is no longer bureaucratic monitoring, but rather encouraging connectivity and collaboration in order to increase efficiency, sell additional services, and strengthen internal competitiveness. In all this, firm members are incited to perceive themselves as free self-entrepreneurs. Indeed, according to our interviewees, the open-plan layout provides conditions of possibility for in-house interactions to develop unrestrainedly, allowing office members to share ideas and information with one another on an ongoing basis:
I think the best part is that it [i.e., open plan] has created a lot of different connection points and touch points within our organization. Before, you used to go sit down in your cubicle or your office for the day. You would interact with people very limitedly. Today, you’re constantly moving around and you’re seeing different people and you’re having touch points that are ten times what you would have touched before. You see and spend time with people continuously. It creates a whole different level of productivity, of engagement, and of innovative thinking in terms of sharing ideas constantly. You can’t share ideas on the phone. You have to share ideas face-to-face. (managing partner, Big Four)
As this quote suggests, the open space allegedly provides a context in which connectivity develops more easily. In the eyes of interviewees, an office design that allows for regular connectivity is commonly considered highly valuable because of the PSFs’ competitive environment:
Those connections are actually really valuable. Because that’s when you say, “oh I’ve got to do this report for so and so on such and such”, and someone will say “oh well, we did something similar to that a couple of weeks ago. Let me send you what I just did.” And it’s those connections that we want to re-create. The bigger an organization gets, the bigger the risk I think for going into silos. [. . .] So creating as many spaces like that [i.e., increasing connectivity] is actually quite key I think. (senior manager, Big Four)
In this type of office design, cooperation as much as competition between firm members is encouraged. Workspaces promote the belief that a peculiar type of relationship should structure human interactions in organization settings, specifically by integrating design features that encourage a greater level of competition as well as cooperation within the office. Through fluid open-plan layout, office members are incited to cooperate significantly with their internal competitors (i.e., their colleagues), a phenomenon called “coopetition” (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 2011). Although never explicitly discussed—to our knowledge—in the neoliberal literature, coopeting is coherent with a neoliberal view as it implies competitors working together to create a more valuable market than they could by working individually (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 2011).
In most firms that adopted an open-plan layout, coopetition is meant to supplant hierarchy. Our observations and interviews indicate that firms aim to create an open culture where partners, managers, trainees, and even administrative staff freely interact. As the following quote suggests, “cross-pollination” —a term used by a Big Four partner to refer to collaboration—seems to be the ultimate goal regarding this kind of office design:
We want people to be aware of what’s going on. We want people to talk about the clients. And then everyone knows what’s going on. [. . .] you’re not having, here are all the junior people in one place, here are all the senior people in another place. We want to have a friendly, open culture where information is shared wherever possible. (managing partner, small accounting firm)
Such cross-hierarchical designs, with the connectivity they entail, are also meant to increase the ability of firm members to be more efficient in resolving problems. Ingrained in office design initiatives is an overarching ambition, namely, that open layout establishes a climate which is dedicated to client service and innovation in serving clients:
What we’re seeing is the ability to solve problems is happening quicker [. . .]. I see you in the hallway, I grab you and say, “let’s go solve this issue right now that we’ve been trying to connect for the last two weeks by phone. [. . .]” We’re connecting quicker and more frequently, and we have the creativity, the whole innovation discussion around more thought-provoking ideas happening because of the environment we’re in. Now you would say that maybe that was happening before too. It’s not the same level. And you feel that, you see it, you ignite it. I experienced that today. I solved more problems today than I typically would in our old world. I would have had to schedule over the next period of two to three weeks to meet with people. Here it’s five minutes’ conversations, ten minutes’ conversations [. . .]. So the productivity element is changing the market kind of client service aspect but also I think it’s by far increasing that whole level of innovation, thought-provoking ideas, client services. (managing partner, Big Four)
As the above quotes suggest, open-plan layouts are put forward to incite the office “entrepreneurs” to act upon themselves in order to reach organizational goals and deliver superior performance in serving clients, therefore encouraging employees to “think of themselves as (and reflect on themselves as being) enterprising individuals” (Houghton, 2019, p. 620).
In sum, our analysis shows that the neoliberal core principle of marketization is articulated through a fluid open-plan layout technology aiming to facilitate networking and connectivity within the workforce, particularly at the office, while promoting a greater degree of intertwining between competition and cooperation. The open plan is meant to transform the office space into a vast “marketplace” supposed to maximize encounters between “entrepreneurs” while sustaining a high efficiency climate under which these “entrepreneurs” work together intensively to meet organizational imperatives.
Adaptable workspaces
To incite organizational members to adjust their conduct to the conditions of the market, adaptable workspace technologies are put in place aiming to render firm members more productive while encouraging them to develop as competitive and communicative entrepreneurs. Through our data collection, we observe that many office space features in PSFs are designed to foster adaptation to various work situations, e.g., individual work, small group work, public presentations. For instance, designers wanted to offer firm members workspaces where they could work in smaller groups without being disturbed by the noise level in the open space:
In an open plan floor, what they were to do was to provide an area where people could meet, but particularly both stand up and sit down, so the table is adjustable. So it would be maybe tête-à-tête or four people for maybe 15 minutes. That sort of thing. (real estate/office design director, mid-tier firm) And it is open, like it’s not enclosed all the way around. There are actually two openings and there is a light and there are little stools. It is very much like a breakout room for a 15 minutes’ catch-up that people can do on the floor. Within the enclosed area, inside the pod, the noise, voices don’t carry from there. It absorbs noise on the outside, it also contains the conversation. (real estate/office design director, mid-tier firm)
These workplaces, often called “pods” by interviewees, allegedly provide incentives to coopete with colleagues. In some firms, staircases are also designed to be a strategic gathering point where impromptu and public meetings could happen:
The staircase isn’t a mechanical means to get up to the floors [. . .]. It’s a cascade stair. [. . .] There are seated areas on the staircase with a separate staircase coming on the side, with balconies at the top so people can stand.
3
[. . .] So we build those staircases and we build the environments that enable people to stop going to a quiet room with a lock on it when they can do it in a public forum. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
According to interviewees, staircases are places where employees can stop for a chat during the day to exchange information on client services. Such encountering places reportedly aim to foster a range of connecting opportunities, which may ultimately translate into greater quality of services and efficiency of work. We were able to observe such interactions between employees on staircases, as we saw some of them having a discussion or stopping one of their colleagues to have a quick chat.
Interestingly, these adaptable workspaces are designed with a peculiar representation of work in mind, as the following quote suggests:
So a lot of the work now is done in teams. People like to cluster around together in teams, they like to work collaboratively together, and a more traditional layout doesn’t lend itself to that. You’ve only got so many meeting rooms and meeting rooms are generally needed for formal meetings, so we’re looking at a way of saying, well maybe if we change the way that we actually accommodate people we can actually build in more of those type of facilities. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
Adapting to employees’ “natural” needs thus becomes a key element of the way in which neoliberalism is articulated in the firms’ spatio-organizational arrangements. However, these “needs” are not viewed as being constructed and idiosyncratic. The strategy is to make staff believe that neoliberal space is consistent with the approaches in which today’s professionals “naturally” work. In other words, adaptable spatial technologies are represented as fitting the natural “needs” of professionals at work, which allow these individuals to feel good about the work they do.
Adaptable space also serves multiple functions—e.g., working, training, eating—to respond to the “needs” of organizational members, the broader aim being to mobilize PSF members as enterprising social actors able to work long hours, shifting efficiently across tasks and assignments. For instance, designs often offer employees the possibility of eating while working. As one interviewee explains, “[The restaurant], that’s a workplace for me. That’s where people work. [. . .] And we’re encouraging it, and we’re providing data points and the power and Wi-Fi to enable them to work in those spaces” (real estate/office design director, Big Four). Indeed, we were able to observe comfortable cafeterias nicely designed where employees were eating, discussing with colleagues, and working on their computers. Some firms also offer a gym directly on the workplace to allow sporty staff to maximize their time at work:
We have a gym now, because it’s part of what we want to do with our staff. You know it’s about empowering our staff to say: “I’ve got half an hour to spend, my meeting got canceled. I’m going down to a spin class.” During the day. So that type of concept. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
Offering a gym is thought to increase staff efficiency as they do not have to go elsewhere for training; everything is offered in house. As the following quote points out, “It’s easy to get here at 7:30, end up training at 8:15, take a shower, and be ready for work at 8:45. It replaces training activities you can get elsewhere” (real estate/office design director, Big Four). Staff are thus able to devote more time for work and, ultimately, be more productive.
While elaborating on the various adaptable facets of their respective interior office design, interviewees candidly admitted that the overarching objective is to strengthen employee competitiveness and efficiency, which points to the instrumental nature of office design:
The building is for the people to actually be able to work the way that is most efficient for them and if we are able to do that just by crafting different solutions for people in terms of desking, in terms of furniture, in terms of different kinds of features, then that’s what we really have to do. (real estate/office design director, Big Four)
In so doing, the designs are meant to encourage firm members to behave as “entrepreneurs of the self”, relying on their social skills, imagination, and resourcefulness in their daily undertakings to maximize returns on themselves (Cooper, 2015). As the next interviewee clearly points out, the role of office design is to bring organizational members to see the office as a space of their own, in order to encourage them to behave like entrepreneurs deeply motivated to serving clients well:
If we want the working floors to be engaging for staff, then we need to [. . .] make them feel productive and in an environment where they just get on and be as productive for our clients as possible. So the quality output is better than having to remind them where they work. So yes it’s that shift on what the space is for, how you want people to feel when they’re in the space. [. . .] we want our staff to feel that they’re in something that they take some ownership of. This is my building, my space, and somewhere that they can feel like they work as productively as possible. (senior manager, Big Four)
Neoliberal space therefore seeks to capitalize on the staff’s emotional domain in order to promote behavior in line with entrepreneurship of the self. Multiple features of the adaptable workspace are also set up to lead the professional entrepreneurs to feel free to organize their day as they want to:
So you might come in and grab a coffee in the corporate restaurant on the way up the stairs or the elevator to your floor. And you might have a conference call in the morning, perhaps with a client. And you might book a small enclosed meeting space for that meeting. So for say two hours. And then you need to collaborate with the rest of the team on a project [. . .], so then you find out where they’re located. You go and you sit with the team, do the collaboration stuff that you need to do. You need to go out of the office for lunch so you put your papers and your laptop in your locker [. . .]. You come back. You might go to one of the café stations and grab a coffee [. . .]. So perhaps you’re working late this evening and so you decide to take a yoga break in the middle of the afternoon. And then come back to your desk and work for the remainder of the day. (partner and real estate/office design leader, Big Four)
The adaptability of the space is presented as a feature that is highly valued by firm members because it provides them with the freedom they “need” to work in inspiring and efficient ways. This sense of freedom is important in a context where the focus is on deliverables. Being viewed as entrepreneurs of the self, firm members are expected to use their freedom to adapt their working spaces as they choose, in order to meet deadlines and reach superior performance. Therefore, neoliberal office space ultimately aims to liberate the worker from ineffective bureaucratic constraints; this does not imply, though, that employees are not subject to sophisticated forms of control (such as outcome-based control).
Paraphrasing the words expressed by several interviewees, PSF office designs nowadays are predicated on the idea of adapting space to professionals’ existing needs for productivity—but in so doing the rhetoric precisely creates and strengthens such “needs”. In the eyes of most interviewees, one of the overarching goals of the firms is to “get the best out” of their employees—to extract value from them. In a neoliberal regime, this “extraction” is not done through overt disciplinary mechanisms. Instead, it is accomplished through a constellation of initiatives that aim to influence the mind in subtle ways—inculcating in staff a certain conception of what is “naturally” expected of them in the workplace.
Discussion
In this study, we focused on PSFs’ office design projects, carefully and consciously conceived by design planners and firm partners to create a web of spatial structures reflecting a neoliberal governmentality. Drawing on Fletcher’s (2019) theoretical framework, we examined the range of spatial technologies used by PSF management to promote and articulate neoliberal governmentality and its core principle of marketization. Our analysis especially brings to the fore the intricate relationship between power, freedom, and office space, thereby contributing to the view that space is much more than a disciplinary mechanism. Our study also extends research on PSFs by examining the manner in which office design is planned to influence how day-to-day work in contemporary firms is organized, accomplished, and controlled. This section discusses further this twofold contribution to the literature, focusing on the implications of our analysis in terms of the neoliberalization of professional (spatial) life.
Our first contributory statement is meant to engage with the literature on organizational space. According to our analysis, neoliberal office designs constitute technologies that aim to create and sustain an organizational climate that governs firm member mentality, particularly through the notion of “freedom”. Paradoxically, but as expected from a neoliberal ideology, office space aims to provide organizational members with a sense of liberty enabling them to work in a committed way toward their organization’s imperatives. This sense of liberty transpires in design technologies such as open plans and adaptable work environment allowing members to work where, when, and how they want. However, this is a liberty of means, not ends. Employees, expected to become entrepreneurs of the self, are incited to behave “freely” in order to reach their organization’s performance standards. PSF management aims to achieve this “government of freedom” through spatial arrangements encouraging specific behaviors, notably by maximizing the likelihood of encounters in central stairs, facilitating collaboration through alternative workspaces, and overcoming the barriers of hierarchy through open spaces free of closed assigned offices.
By showing how office design favors a sentiment of individual freedom and agency while aiming to govern and constrain organizational behavior, we believe our analysis overcomes the classic dichotomies of structure and agency prevailing in organization studies (Raffnsøe et al., 2019). Contrary to disciplinary spaces constraining movement to facilitate supervision, our findings suggest that space may enhance employees’ sense of freedom while subtly favoring distinct forms of organizational control, particularly self-control and other “soft” control devices. As Raffnsøe et al. (2019, p. 167) underline:
Liberalism showed, according to Foucault, that to govern well is to govern less. Put differently, the exercise of power understood as governmentality presupposes that action on the actions of others only works where there is some freedom, a point that has often been misunderstood.
As such, our analysis is coherent with Foucault’s account of neoliberal governmentality that underlines the intensifying relationship between power and freedom, a relationship which is often overlooked in the organizational literature. What our study brings to the fore is not only a government of mentality being spatially inscribed in PSFs, but more importantly a project to govern the freedom and the emancipation of individuals represented as self-entrepreneurs. Office space now tends to be designed to provide firm members with significant freedom regarding work technicalities, but they must also deliver and perform, even if this requires working overnight. Much is expected from them in terms of coopetition, productivity, and performance.
Our second contributory statement aims to enter into conversation with the PSF literature on organizational control. As such, our analysis suggests that neoliberal office design will fundamentally change forms of control surrounding work and workers in PSFs. The vast, open and fluid spaces we observed constitute a significant departure from traditional ways of coordinating and controlling work in PSFs, which were predicated on some kind of spatial enclosure surrounding the individual (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983). For a long time, the bureaucratic approach dominated in the development and implementation of control systems surrounding work in PSFs (Dirsmith & McAllister 1982; Greenwood, Hinings, & Brown, 1990). Yet the hot desking practice fundamentally blurs the linkages between the individual and some controllable place (where different measures and observations could previously be produced on individual performance). Fluid offices imply a move away from the assignment of specific physical places to individuals, which traditionally was understood as a key referent in establishing hierarchy and a sense of organizational commitment (Macintosh, 2002). In addition, the nature and meaning of teamwork may change as teams become characterized with ephemerality for the sake of fluidity and innovation. These important changes should not be downplayed as they imply challenges in controlling work and developing solidarity with the organization and one’s working unit.
Our findings also point to subtle controlling effects that may ensue from neoliberal spatial designs. Whereas Covaleski, Dirsmith, Heian, and Samuel (1998) maintain that control through management-by-objectives and mentoring can transform PSF members into disciplined and self-disciplining actors whose goals are reflective of the firm’s business imperatives, we suggest that neoliberal office design in contemporary PSFs involves technologies that operate in a distinct way. By providing firm members with much flexibility regarding work technicalities, the workplace aims to offer these individuals a sense of freedom that could allegedly allow them to “coopete” in better ways, be more productive, and deliver higher value in terms of client service. Office design can therefore be viewed as a control device used by PSFs to influence, in subtle ways, the mind and behavior of organizational members to their firm’s business imperatives. Ultimately, our study demonstrates that neoliberal office design constitutes a template that conveys an ambitious agenda, which is not only to control professional work, but also to mold employees’ behavior and shape their identity as self-entrepreneurs.
Future research is needed on the paradoxical phenomenon of government of emancipation we brought to the fore as well as the range of consequences ensuing from the neoliberalization of PSF office spaces. There is a need to explore further the relationship between spatio-neoliberal power and entrepreneurial freedom in other kinds of organizations—as the neoliberalization of office space may unfold differently from context to context. Furthermore, future research could examine how the consequences of neoliberal office spaces differ from our traditional understanding of socialization and control in PSFs. Although our study sheds some light on these consequences, we did not interview those being governed. Thus, future research could analyze how PSF members enact and navigate their “freedom” along the tight boundaries of coopetition and performance. Future work could also investigate how neoliberal design may influence (or not) firm members’ thinking and ways of working. As mentioned by Houghton (2019, pp. 622–3), “while we can talk of neoliberal subjects, this is not to say agents will operate exclusively through that frame. [. . .] No one is born a neoliberal subject, but rather may become one.” Accordingly, instances of resistance to neoliberal spatio-arrangements could be examined through observation and discussions with people increasingly pressured to act, behave and think as entrepreneurs of the self.
Conclusion
Drawing on Foucault’s conceptualization of neoliberalism and Fletcher’s theoretical framework, we examined how neoliberal governmentality is conveyed and promoted through office design projects undertaken in PSFs. Our interviews with 23 firm representatives and our site visits demonstrate that neoliberalism permeates office design technologies in large and mid-tier firms. In neoliberal spaces, fluid open-plan layouts and adaptable workspace technologies are carefully designed to promote behavioral ideals, namely cooperative competition, work efficiency, and free self-entrepreneur spirit. PSF managers attempted to transform office spaces into centers of open adaptability with the aim of facilitating connectivity and enabling coopetition. From this perspective, space is conceived not only as a means to increase efficiency but also through the agenda of making office members feel as entrepreneurs of the self, endowed with significant room to maneuver regarding work technicalities. Flexibility and freedom are promoted as the hallmark of these new workspaces. But this agenda is not neutral. Our data suggests that PSF office design initiatives both reflect and promote key neoliberal tendencies and, in so doing, arguably act as a tool, not only to govern mentality, but also to govern emancipation. From a broader perspective, our analysis also brings to the fore unanticipated complexities regarding the concept of emancipation. That is, the aim of emancipating PSF members from the barriers of bureaucracy intermingles with an agenda that seeks to “emancipate” members from the very roots of professionalism (Hall, 1968). Is this kind of “emancipation” socially desirable?
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all the participants of this study for their time and contribution. We benefited from the comments made by workshop participants at Concordia University (Montréal), IAE de Nice—Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (France), Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (Brazil), and University of Virginia (Charlottesville). We also acknowledge the comments from participants at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (Washington, DC), the 2018 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference (Edinburgh, Scotland), and the 2018 Qualitative Research and Critical Accounting (Latin American) Conference (Sao Paulo, Brazil). We would also like to thank the editors and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments in revising this article for publication.
Funding
The authors received financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Concil of Canada.