The Open Office: Google and the Modern Penitentiary

Steven Chen
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Steven Chen: California State University

Chapter 7 in The Design Imperative, 2019, pp 101-110 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Firms, such as Google and IDEO, have turned to multipurpose, open office plans to encourage spontaneous employee interactions and creativity. At the outset, these environments seem like play spaces rife with distraction. How does anyone do work here? How do these environments foster discipline and productivity? This chapter challenges the idea that open offices are communal, Zen-like spaces. Rather, the chapter proposes that the reason why open offices work is because they resemble one of the most effective instruments of discipline—the modern-day penitentiary. A prison.

Keywords: Modern Penitentiary; Open-plan Office; surveillanceSurveillance; Radio Hour; Panoptic System (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-78568-4_7

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