The Social and Spatial Ecology of Work: The Case of a Survey Research Organization (Springer Studies in Work and Industry)

The Social and Spatial Ecology of Work is an important contribution to the P- num Studies in Work and Industry. It is a theoretically informed case study, unique in that it takes full measure of the importance of physical space and the built environment for the quality of people s daily working lives and the attainment of organizational goals. Rita Gorawara-Bhat provides us with a theoretical framework for understanding how important space and envir- ment are for experiential aspects of work as they are contextualized in social relations, linked to status and role, and embedded in organizational culture and bureaucratic structure. Her framework is a creatively synthetic one that draws notably from traditions in social psychology, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgical sociology, and social ecology. Sociologists will find themselves in comfortable surroundings; this is a case study of a major social science research center affiliated with a prominent midwestern university. Studies carried out by psychologists and social psychologists in the - cades of the 1960s and 1970s held great promise for introducing a language and methodology for inquiry about the importance of the physical envir- ment for social life. However, the overall impact of this research turned out to be short lived, perhaps owing to overly deterministic assumptions about space and spatial constraints.