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Does Architectural Design Matters on

Organizational Cultures?

“The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction

that makes the sparks (Lehrer 5)”. From this point of view, while the world is changing, new

companies and their identities desire to be creative by their people source. Their architectural

design values tried to alter the relations in the organizations to have more innovative cultures.

In the book “Management across Cultures”, the authors declared that change is everywehere

(Steers et.al. 15). This changing process has layers through the climate of the organization,

indeed in companies and their values. Moreover, the safest place where changing has always

keeps going is the personal relationships in this new world (15). If we are looking deep to the

organizational culture, it exactly defines the human side. This culture is considered in the

everyday working lives over the interests.

The literature on cultures has concentrated principally on theories which are based in

organizations. Cultural approach to organizations theory by Geertz and Pacanowsky has

relations with the change in organizations coming up the idea of architectural insights for the

organizations. On the other hand, the group communication theories’ literature regards the

teams, groups of this new worls. Functional perspective on group decision making theory by

Hirokowa and Gouran clarify groups’ deciding process by interacting with the new era

organizations. Understanding these two theories by questioning architectural design is open to

new discussions for the organizations of today. Leach examines the relations of

communication and the design part (14). He tries to understand an organizational culture,

interpersonal communication and architectural design over the relations. These relations

define the minimum needs of the culture or it adapts itself with culture for changing days (15).

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The understanding of relations with the theories and the architectural design is the key

commitment of this paper. For searching the meaning to this relations and interactions to be

hold by the theories, Leach indicates “Architecture is not the autonomous art it is often hold

out to be. Buildings are designed and contructed within a complex web of social and political

concerns” (14).

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that organizational cultures are altering or taking

directions from the architecture, especially in new era’s technology companies. Having

analyzed the literature on culture and organizations, I will go on to discuss these alterations by

the group communication theories mentioning groups and their decision making process. The

main question is what constitutes the relation between the organizational culture and the new

age’s technological companies and their design of spaces? For achieving this goal, this paper

analyzes the questioning of organizational cultures are altering or taking directions from the

architecture of new era’s technology companies. In order to explore this idea in the level of

people, the group decisions have clear effect to understand the communication in the process

of decision. These two theories are tried to be applied for the new era’s organizations,

especially for the technology companies. By using assumptions and disciplinary approaches,

this investigation relates the cultural approach and the group communication. In this

perspective, the most striking concept is the culture. It is the main issue for this paper

searching the relations between the theories and the topic. Besides, the theories help to

conceptualize the new companies, their ecosystem, all their design ideas and the cultural

values of organizations. The paper try to use and extend the concepts of values in architecture

and design based on organizational culture and group decisions. This aspect of relating the

culture, organizations, communication and the new era has not been given so much attention.

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Leach identifies that architecture is not analysed as an art of autonmy (14). The buildings are

designed within a complex net of social and political issues (14).

CULTURAL APPROACH

Offices and corparate campus designs are products of organizations that define and delimit

their space for their culture. These spaces provide culture for daily routines of the

organizations. In the article Designing Space to Support Knowledge Work, authors argue that

impact of design goes beyond the interaction; it is becoming a framework for all the

knowledge of relations (Peponis et.al. 815). Therefore, the structure of designing space idea is

the factor of organizational culture (815). The fact that office design is one of the layer of

culture is that it is coming from the idea of getting together. Organizational communication

theories have been considered to demonstrate the concept idea of new businesses in the

context of design and architecture. If Cultural approach to organizations theory by Geertz and

Pacanowsky is one of the areas to understand the topic, the corporate culture needs to be

defined both physically and socially.

Organizational Communication Theory. In the Griffin’s book he examines Geert’s thoughts

about culture in these words “Geertz writes that man is an animal suspended in webs of

siginificance that he himself has spun” (261). While defining culture as those webs and for the

travelling on the web, an outsider has to discover and learn shared interpretations that holding

web as a web. The main ideation of culture is sharing of meaning, understanding and

sensemaking by Geertz (262). Moreover, the web of organizational culture has the relation

with the employee performances that is the actions of the organizations for Pacanowksy. He

added members constitute a culture beyond their job roles with their process, beyond the

web’s spinning (262). Innovating new ideas in the organizations needs both pragmatic

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features like functions and layout, construction and meaning. Therefore, it is necessary to

develop an understanding of those contextually defined factors implicated in the layout, not

only individuals.

Beyond Organizations. It is very well known that workplaces have different types of people

considering their skills, backgrounds, educations, ages and so on (Steers et.al. 279). In this

new era of technology, corporate culture points out different places of views for different

people, Griffin discussed (264). It is considered a freedom of actions in the organization or

quality of the organization. Indeed, Pacanowsky believes culture is more than a figurative

variable in organizations; it is the big picture of the organization itself (265). He argues the

organizations as not only doing jobs, but also the employees have personal needs like picnics,

talking, hating or loving. This theory basis coming to the idea that culture in organization has

a big relation with the spaces that people living in the organization (Griffin 265). One of the

reasons that understanding the space design through this theory is the culture value. Moreover

culture is becoming readable with the physical needs of the organizations. According to the

history of Larkin Company Building, the owner of the company invites the famous architect

Frank Lloyd Wright for designing their new office building (Duffy 2). He especially wanted a

building that helps to cultivate the culture of their organization.and supporting a commercial

strategy for accommodating innovative work processes. In this 100 years old history, the

employees’ spaces are the key points besides their values (2). The organizational

communication defines not only the social aspects but also the design of the spaces by

physical identities that organizations can live and show their continuity. So on, it can be

discussed that organizational approach tries to live with the groups. If we consider a firm from

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the technology part of the organizaitons like Cisco, it is easy to adapt organizations and their

culture approaches for their design ideas for workplaces. In their home page, it is analysed

that employees participate this kind of creative and innovative sector needs meetings and

workgroup discussions. This discussion through groups will be considered in the second part

of the paper with the functional perspective on group decision theory. Cisco Company argues

that they designed their office spaces considering the individual works spaces called cubicles

and they saw the cubicles are 65 percent vacant because of the mobility of employees with the

regular work hours. So that, they transform floor plans’ logic provides spaces for both

planned and spontaneous meetings. These kind of places they use technologies like audio and

videoconferencing, interactive white boards, instant messaging, e-mail, and voice mail. By

considering the Cabe’s article about the office design ans business performance, there exist an

important connection. The more common this idea came into place; the office design has to be

changed in the process of organization cultures. Duffy tells that the designs of the corporate

organizations have been changing especially in Europe as communication systems are

changing (6). Moreover, where as in 1960s the offices seem like open floorplanning for work

space, in 1970s the offices began to seem as social engagement platforms for the development

of the structure. On the other hand, the idea of opening floorplans was changing with respect

to individual, personalized rooms is important (Duffy 2). In 1980s computers take theirplace

on the desks answering the new office design frames would be announced. This quickly

changing new guideline for design is the main idea that organizations link everytime culture

of the organization and teamwork (3). Brynjolfsson made analysis to learn the new

technology of the spaces and works produced with the human relation (Lohr 8).

As this research continues, he finds teamworking, floorplan design are high relation to

organizational culture and workplace design. Therefore they are affecting employees and their

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relation with the company culture. He adds spatial configurations having chance to transform

spaces for more commucative spaces. It is an important view that called space communication

resembles the individuals’ relation to company (8). “Space communicates, as well as

providing space for individuals to communicate with one another” Lohr siginifies (9). The

culture of organizations understood by valued espressions (Lohr 51). Moreover, the space can

be considered as an encouraging role of culture to hange. So that space continues to transform

the culture of the organization. The process of meanings of office space and their functional

modes by Gottschalk is the schema of the history and office spaces in Europe (Lohr 52) (see

table 1.)

Table 1

Development of Office philosophies and Office concepts in Europe

Source: Lohr 52

Where group works thought to be most important elements of the tasks, sometimes the design

of the space supports the activity groups (Wineman and Adhya 2). They argue the workspaces

enhance the quality of the culture in terms of participants’ view for the organization and the

facilities in the organization (3). This view is related with the cultural aspects of the

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organizations. Dufy argues “organizational culture has two sides autonomy that is placed its

value on individual or group decision making and the interaction side that’s placed its value

on interactivity” (2).

Geertz suggests in his introduction to The Interpretation of Cultures, “because most of what

we need to comprehend a particular event, ritual, custom, idea, or whatever is insinuated as

background information before the thing itself is directly examined” (9). These observations

help organizations construct their cultures whereas they need physical constructions to turn

their views to the new era. Zakout perceives this physical contsructions are near to modern

society (21). He defines social processes with relation to architecturl design and architecture

understandings. The interesting thing is that, he claims as an architect, modern world design

has some properties. These are sometimes lack in the highly technological firms and they

need to be assisted by other technology. Apple Company can be a good case study for

thinking these ideas. Wanhemert declares Apple is one of the iconic brands that wants its own

headquarter in the form of campus (1). Looking through the Apple’s point of view to their

new campus design, we can see that their office named places change into campus like the

case of Google (Wanhemert 3). In the design manifesto, Apple Campus is beyond a simple

great building. The main idea is a new, unified, secure apple campus. The company’s floor

plan is the reflection of collaborative space. The idea is allowing employees to circulate the

ring floor plan side by side offices. They wanted employess walk, and called this building

walkable building that’s why yhey designed in a circle form (see fig.1).

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Figure 1

Apple’s New Campus Design Renderings

Source: Wired. Web

These new tech companies are thought to be searching for the new cultures and their

innovation capabilities. This is another issue of Silicon Valley and its environment. In his

article, Jakobsson and Stiernstedt claims that closely placed to the Stanford University, the

Silicon Valley have grown rapidly with the high density of genious immigrants (12). Valley

can be considered as the birthplace of U.S.computer industry. In this perspective, 47,000

square meter Google Campus called Googleplax was built in 2004 covering offices,

laboratory and playground. The Googleplax’s architect explains the idea of the campus like an

average American city and it has variety of people and they need to be come together

(Jakobsson and Stiernstedt 118). These interactions make their teamworking capacity and

creativity. Interestingly, Clive Wilkinson, the architect has the idea that communication and

interaction solve the problem of innovation climate if design allows it (120). He designed the

center of Googleplex as a small pavilion land with monumental spaces or stairways by using

the idea of openness and transparency. The building also features a central spine, or in the

words of the architect, a “main street,” around which “neighborhoods” of activity are

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clustered (120). Furthermore, all design ciriterias can be interpreted as Silicon Valley’s

special technology and effects of the climate that been there already. The common desire of

the building is reinventing and communicating with the values of Google. This idea has good

ties with the culture and architecture relation. In Google Company’s homepage, the offices

and their designs encourage this interaction of culture in the organization itself. The

employees have teams and their conversations besides their plays. This new technological

companies, becoming a Google model or not, have the understanding of new era specialities.

Martin declares “Some of top executives have sought to create a culture cast in their own

image, to perpetuate an organizational culture reflecting their own personal values, thereby

attempting to achieve an organizational form of immortality” (Martin 3). It is the perception

of the culture and the groups together with the values of the design.

GROUP COMMUNICATION

According to a survey holded by Oxford Properties, the main concept is connecting the people

and their environments with the idea of collaboration (4). Workspaces are places of

knowledge sharing, that the company assumes. Beyond this, they all want to create an

environment that all groups have the high engagaments and have the power good decisions.

This belief of teamwork or collaborative spaces has the relation with the group

communication. Hirokowa and Gouran originated the functional perspective on group

decision making is a communication theory that deals with the decisions made by groups. As

Griffin suggests, the theory focuses on how a group can increase the likelihood of making a

good decision (233).

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Group Decision Making. The idea is to create a synergy within the group so that the result is

greater than that of the individual members (233). The variated perspectives of the members

bring them to look at the issue from a wide variety of views and thus would be able to

generate a far wider list of alternative possible solutions. In the Encyclopedia of

Communication Theory, the functional perspective of effective group decision comments that

the decision level is based on not only the production of assortive acts of person but also,

requirements for the task (Salazar 3). Interestingly, when we want to consider the virtual

terms in the decision making in groups, technology has brought new dimensions to teamwork

according to the medium of communication (Nordbäck 13) . She argues that team members

have a chance to be located different offices and communicate with each other by virtuality

(13). However they haven’t got the physical space, they need a space for communication and

experience the culture of the organization. In group decisions, most of the scholars think that

discussion between group members has apositive effect on the decision’s quality (Griffin

240). In the thought of medium is the talk, conversations take place between participants in

the traditional way of thinking. Moreover, Hirokowa wasn’t faced with the idea of this

traditional wisdom, he credited the communication has more with the decisions (240). So that,

he suggested that group discussion is a tool for craeting social reality called descisions (240).

As groups discussed in the manner of decision, it is important to set the advantages of group

deicision also. Hirokowa argues that groups have the advantage of more information than the

individual. Therefore, conditions for making decision have more alternatives, creativity and

innovation. When people join into the conversation, they usually evaluates all choices and

then share the most suitable way. In another words, communication between the indiviuals for

aiming the right decision, rewarding and satisfying process when people more involved.

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Beyond Decisions and Groups. A Consideration is that all group members are quite intelligent

for making a challenging decision. If so, the task will be more cleverly thinking, more factual

and more creative (Griffin 233). Hirokowa and Gouran, the theorists are establishing that

group interaction has an actual effect on decision (233). To link this ideas for the climate of

the decision making, the group is important as the place of the members are coming together

is important. Team members want to create the appropriate environment for deciding even

they feel some uncomfort for deciding with the group (Bellamy & McNeill 2). It is the

paradigm of group decision has to do with the enviroment a lot. In new technological firms,

the idea of producing an enviroment is another challange for teamworks. For example, Google

focuses attention on group decisions in their own cultural way by using their own tools: the

campus and the bicycle. Google Company declares its vision by the employees it has. The

people they hire are smart, determined and experienced their visions in their home pages

explaine. It is an issue of even the company has the goals and the vision, it is good to diverse

it with all other minds, languages, global thoughts. In their working culture, enviroment

defined by ranging from cycling to beekeeping. As Bellamy and McNeill discuss the

environment of the decision is important for the quality, Google conference bike for the

meetings is a good example to understand how environment of groups can change through

design (see fig.2).

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Figure 2

Google Conferance Bike

Source: Google Home Page, Web

Crowley mentioned that by Google’s genourous definitions to their work, we all estimate the

Google is a company of having a phenomenal success, not their idea of culture (30). Besides,

over the years, especially in the media, Google is extremely space oriented views like bowling

alleys, endless pools, people getting free haricuts during workhours, free gym membershipss.

Using a similarly approach, Steelcase firm’s CEO Jim Hackett assume that workspaces that

are coming the idea of organizational charts and hierarchy, now in the information age, there

is more flexibility in workspace design (Bradt 10). Hackett explained this new workplace is

the transition between I space to We space as the space has the power of enabling the

information (10). People are focused in collaborative and teamworks both open and closed

environments. They are deciding by group in the different varieties of space designs. Bradt

reminds that organizations adapt themselves. Physical enviroments of workspaces are

changing day by day from private offices to open plan workspaces Swick adds (1).

Companies desire to increase the collabrative enviroment also they want their spaces has

access to natural light. This physical enviroment cases support the idea of new organizational

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communites. In the Impact Magazine, new transitions to creative addicted companies, they are

forming an enviroment both helping their employees and their physical space (Swick 2).

MIXING THE SPACE, CULTURE AND GROUPS

According to La Guardia, organizational culture is more open to change and is more flexible

than our personal cultures (12). The reason is that she adds, the organizational cultures are

interpretive, like bank headquarters. The design of a bank headquarter has the effect of luxury,

needs artworks in design and distinctive furniture for a purpose. The company wants to tells

its culture with its physical impressions. Not only for employees but also customers have

cahnge tu see this culture view. Agin and Gibson decleres that innovation occurs when there

ara young and energetic workforce (45). This is the culture of meaning that every employee

has beter ideas to sahre with the all organization through open communication. The

workspace design increasing the capabilities of group interaction so that the individuals

become collectively more creative and cognitively effective (Peponis et. al. 816). Duffy

clarified that any organizational expression effected by the architectural and spatial design of

the organization (818). Furthermore, Roethlisberger and Dickson clarifies the employee

satisfaction and morale by the well recognized management in the potential work enviroment

(827). Indeed, Allen discuss the open office layout with one level further, interactions beyond

their assigned workgroups or new patterns of the organizations (819). These patterns make a

idea box for the organizational issues especially in creativity and flexibility. It is the other

perspective of these group decision in the place of the organizations where their key point is

their architecture. Moreover, the culture change essentially begins with the idea of

organizational culture Schein argues (240). He noted the cgangesin organizational culture

where the teaching process is always continue. It is the requirement of organization’s

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preferred values, beliefs, expectations, and behaviors (240). It is interesting that Novartis

Company located in Basel defines their office design for fostering the collabrative enviroment

(241). They use the argument “common workspaces, sofas, soft lighting and cappuccino

machines to encourage people to talk, share ideas and build relationships” (Schein 241).

CONCLUSION

“When a group is forming and growing, the culture is a“glue” – a sorce of identity and

strength. In other words, young founder-dominated companies need their cultures as a way of

holding together their organizations” (Schein 14). I have attempted to construct relations of

organizational culture and the teams’ decision process through altering the modes of design.

The definition of design highlights the new era companies architectural design principles in

order to have ultimate organizational cultures and good decisions. Cultural approach to

organizations theory by Geertz and Pacanowsky and Functional perspective on group decision

making theory by Hirokowa and Gouran are the theories helped identifying the process of

new cultures, new designs and new era organizations. If, new companies try to alter their

culture by using architectura design, architecture should offer an influence on the employees.

It is possible to say an organization has chance to enrich its culture by uising architecture.

This paper has begun to explore how on some specific aspects of the broader theme. As

organizational culture has taking on more layers, the layers effect is bigger than before. To

this end, following the main aim of the paper, demonstrating organizational cultures is a way

of showing the today’s world. While new era’s technology companies are altering through

architectural design or taking directions from the architecture, it is a place to shape the

organizational culture and their groups.

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This paper was designed to enrich the literature of the relations between the ideas of the

organizations and their physical spaces. As looking through the theories and the main

examples, these findings are consistent with the organizational life. It could be that the

employees of the organizations have more comments to this issue of culture. It has to be

emphasized that the paper was exploratory to the two theories selected. Clearly, if paradigms

like group decisions and the organizational cultures will relate the design and the creativity as

I argue in this paper, it will be easy to make changes that are suitable fort he new era

companies. In sum, the understanding of organizations through the methodology of design

would become a process.

The workplace and its relation with the era, the workplace is not only thought as a pace to

conduct business; it is a multi-functional enviroment that responding and adapting the

changing paradigms of business, its employeers and community (Oxford Company 20). As

Schein mentioned in his article “Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture” that

organizational culture analyzed with different variables (3). Interestingly, he offers artifacts

that are the constructed enviroment of the organization and its architecture, technology, office

layout is open to intrepretation to understand the culture. Nonetheless, these parameters are in

the reseacrh of the main question. Besides, the group thinking in culture is another key factor.

“Culture is embedded in groups, hence the creating group must always be clearly identified”

(Schein 5).

Noticeably, the more questions can be asked to understand the relation of space design and

the culture of organizations and teamwork. As Tharp sharpens “The critical effort of

workspace design lies in aligning the various and sometimes competing needs of the group

with the physical environment” (4). The designing with the concern of organizational culture

requires both group thinking and the culture itself (4). This organizational cultural

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implications will have the power on design and teamworking. These assesments seem in the

new era companies especially in technological ones as work of companies are changing. This

is the way of thinking integrated with architecture and social sciences together.

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