Work isn’t where it used to be

This chapter is about places for work in the networked and mobile organization. A review of workplaces in history and today highlights that places for work reflect management theories, and that space affects leadership, culture and organization. The workplace today is characterized by a network of places to in which to work and to interact. The chapter identifies four aspects of the new workplace that affect leadership, management, and control: (1) openness and transparency; (2) formal and informal places for interaction; (3) serendipity and creating possibilities for chance encounters; (4) integration of places with different use and ownership. The mobile, dispersed workplace creates a dichotomy in leadership. On the one hand there is a push for more openness, cooperation, interaction and transparency, which in many ways promote aesthetic, bodily and shared leadership. On the other hand, many leaders have to lead people they cannot see all the time. This may mean that they will lose some of the information, and the possibilities to influence on others, by not being physically present in the same space.