REINVENTING THE WORKSPACE THROUGH THE HYBRIDIZATION OF WORK

The organization and management of workspace is one of the most promising fields in organisation studies. Starting from March 2020, due to the pandemic, the increase of people in smart working has created a significant pressure in workplace design. Why? Because we were used to workplaces designed for physical presence and now we have to learn both how to rethink spaces and how to work in different places. This emerging topic adds to another one, sprang up in 2016: the phenomenon of hybridization of work – driven, on one side, by the digital transformation and, on the other, by an evolution in the ways of relating to others. The sum of these two factors opens up new reflections on the organization of work. In this master thesis we recognize and take note of a new theme - the organization of workspace - which has become relevant because the explosion of remote work has forced companies to rethink internal spaces. The major purpose of this master thesis is to investigate how organizations should rethink and reinvent workspaces (in terms of physical space and organizational space), in light of the effects of the pandemic and of some emerging, fast, unpredictable and global phenomena. At first, we are going to study how work is changing in terms of hybrid jobs, and afterwards we are going to analyze the consequences that all this generates in terms of design and organization of the workspace. In other words, the research objective is to detect how these two phenomena change the organization of work and, especially, the impact they have on the management of workspaces – which turns out to influence the performance, individual and team work, and to be one of the most promising fields in organisation studies. To achieve the set goals, our analysis will be guided to some extent through a theoretical approach and to some other through empirical research, leading us to elaborate interesting managerial implications.