The workplaces of researchers in different disciplines

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study whether researchers from different disciplines have different requirements for workplaces. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review aimed to understand the academic workplace requirements of different disciplines. The empirical data were gathered by a national survey conducted in Finland. Open-ended questions accumulated answers, which were analysed and clustered. Findings: The analysis implies that the majority of researchers in all the disciplinary categories required places that support both concentration and interaction. When comparing those researchers who asked for a place that only supports either concentration or interaction, the majority of those working in soft-pure disciplines required spaces to support concentration and those in soft-applied disciplines required spaces to support interaction. Researchers from hard disciplines – both applied and pure – consider places supporting concentration or interaction to be equally important. Research limitations/implications: The weakness of this study is the generalisability, as this survey was conducted in Finland. The analysis emphasised diversity between disciplines without analysing diversity within disciplines. Practical implications: Facilities and real estate managers can gain a deeper understanding of the academics’ workplace requirements, which in turn can help them to enhance workplace support of productivity at the same time as cutting real estate costs. Originality/value: This study contributes to the body of research on academic office design.