Ethical leadership dilemmas in
the open office environment
Donatella De Paoli, Norwegian School of Management BI
Perttu Salovaara, Arja Ropo, University of Tampere
Bristol 9.12.2011
Paper background
• Based on the project “Leadership in Spaces
and Places” with 5 interdisciplinary projects:
– Interior design, Disseminated work, Social space,
Symbolic management, Office space design
– “How do spaces and places perform and construct
leadership?”
Lefebvre (1991),
three spaces:
- Planned
- Practiced
- Imagined
Imagined:
Subjective,
atmosphere,
feeling,
experiences,
likes and
dislikes…
Panopticon (Foucault)
Practice of Panopticon
Organizational space as a resource of
control?
• “The work building facilitates managerial control
of the labour process, enabling the co-ordination
of production through the division of labour and
the construction of systems of surveillance”
• “Workers are subjected to specific architectural
and managerial constructions of organizational
space – frontier of control over the working
environment”
Halford 2004
Historical background
• Historically factories and offices (early 20th c.)
were open and controlled by leaders • Hawthorne studies drew attention away from
physical facilities and conditions
• Renewed interest for space in organizational
studies last 10 years
• However, little research on leadership &space
Analysis of materials
• “It is a commonplace in traditional research
that prisons, hospitals and similar total
institutions have a set of informal rules, which
are different from, and often oppose, the
official ones” (Potter Wetherell 1987, p. 19)
Tentative analysis
Ethical dilemmas
• Dilemma: “double proposition”, problem offering two
possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable
• Ethical leadership dilemmas at open office
1. Environment should promote communication and
cooperation, but there are examples where it does the
contrary
•
e.g. How to give personal feedback (in professional Panopticon)?
2. Less distance between hierarchical levels: informality
encouraged, yet being “on stage” (some leaders
complain they are constantly watched at – and so do
followers)
3. Social learning: unified perception of architecture,
uniform culture, all end up doing same, fast integration
to the code; afraid of breaking the rules, social control
that leads to self-control
Thank you!
Questions, comments, ideas?!