15391: Reimagining Organizational Space: New Frontiers in the Modern Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally transformed how organizations approach workspace design and work arrangements, with approximately 27% of U.S. workers and 22% of U.K. workers now operating in hybrid formats. This panel symposium brings together leading scholars to explore three critical dimensions of this transformation: corporate spatial strategies for flexible workforces, team dynamics across different work arrangements, and the role of technology in enabling organizational relationships. While extensive research exists on traditional office designs and their impact on employee behavior, the current landscape of multiple work arrangements presents new theoretical challenges and opportunities that remain understudied. Our distinguished panelists—Ethan Bernstein, Jen Rhymer, Leroy Gonsalves, Maria Roche, and Sunkee Lee—will draw from their diverse research portfolios to examine how traditional theories of organizational space and behavior apply across different work arrangements and where theoretical extensions are needed. The symposium will also explore how advances in technology affect employee relationships, organizational culture, and team identity, while creating new methodological possibilities for organizational research. Through structured presentations and interactive discussions, this 90-minute session aims to advance theoretical understanding of the evolving nature of organizational space while identifying promising avenues for future scholarly inquiry in this rapidly changing domain.