Space, Vision and Organizational Learning

Abstract

The concept `open-plan office' has captured the corporate imagination. Most research in the area assumes that spatial layouts of work places enhance social interaction and communication among individuals, thereby facilitating learning, sharing and transfer of knowledge. However, absent from these discussions is the significance of visual aspects of space. Drawing on case studies, the article attempts to highlight the link between the visual, perceptual features of space and effects on organizational learning. Whereas Foucauldian vision models over-emphasize inscribing practices in the learning process, this article argues for the significance of incorporating spatial practices, suggesting that organizational learning is the outcome of an interplay of incorporating and inscribing practices. Incorporating practices, as responses to a body in a perceptual space, produce inscriptions that congeal into organizational learning, organizational rules, procedures and routines, and involve an intertwining of vision and movement, of active engagement of the body with the physical environment.

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