Page 129 - WHERE WE WORK - Schlegelmilch

Ideas in place
4.1 Introduction
Few people would deny that transparency is a very pronounced characteristic of contemporary open offices, yet thus far, research has treated transparency as mere context. Instead, the literature describes open offices (and other offices) along characteristics such as privacy and proximity (Khazanchi et al., 2018). This has resulted in contradicting findings and a discussion persisting for the last 30 years (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007). On the one hand, increased proximity (lack of spatial boundaries) within open offices facilitates employees to connect with each other (Agrawal et al., 2008; Festinger et al., 1963; Khazanchi et al., 2018; Sailer & Penn, 2009) and, in turn, interaction-based behaviors, such as knowledge sharing and collaboration, increase (Allen, 1977; Allen & Gerstberger, 1973). On the other hand, limited privacy and increased proximity – characteristic of open offices – have detrimental effects on communication (Bernstein & Turban, 2018; Khazanchi et al., 2018; Sundstrom et al., 1994), personal effectiveness (Vilnai-Yavetz et al., 2005) and satisfaction (e.g., Haapakangas et al., 2018). Others have frequently noted this disparity in results (e.g., Bernstein & Turban, 2018; Elsbach & Pratt, 2007; Zalesny & Farace, 1987), yet hardly any studies managed to find a suitable explanation for it.
In an attempt to address this disparity, we propose that research needs to draw on the concept of transparency as a spatial characteristic of open offices to better capture its potentially positive impact on employee behaviors. Transparency refers to access to information (Bernstein, 2017; Castilla, 2015; Rosenfeld & Denice, 2015), for example, about coworkers. We conceptualize workplace transparency as a spatial characteristic of open offices, which consists of the subdimensions visual and task transparency. Even though the idea that transparency affects people's behavior is not new, little research exists operationalizing and measuring transparency (Bernstein, 2017).
Furthermore, as companies rely on innovation for their success (Martins & Terblanche, 2003; Pisano, 2015), we need to understand the impact of workplaces on innovative behaviors (Oksanen & Ståhle, 2013). We
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