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The Cornell University
International Workplace Studies Program (IWSP) was launched in 1989
and under the direction of Franklin
Becker and William Sims has focused on the ecology of new ways
of working.
The IWSP has
established itself as an international leader in the study of what
has come to be called Integrated Workplace Strategies (IWS). Using
the framework of organizational ecology, the IWSP examines workplace
strategies as a complex ecosystem in which one simultaneously considers
the cost/benefit implications of the interplay of work processes,
employee demographics, physical design, information technology,
and organizational culture as they converge in a workplace strategy.
Over the past
thirteen years the IWSP has explored a number of issues (see 'Publications")
at the cutting edge of workplace strategy, including:
- Alternative
workplace strategies such as non-territorial, shared, team-oriented,
and universal footprint offices.
- Remote collaborative
work.
- The management
of workplace change.
- New ways
of constructing and procuring "zero-time" space to better manage
uncertainty.
- Workplace
strategies for dynamic organizations that balance communication,
flexibility and cost.
In examining
workplace strategies and their organizational impacts, the IWSP
research program has been shaped by five factors that continue to
transform organizations and their workplace strategies. These include
the need to:
- Reduce the
cost of doing business.
- Improve the
quality of products and services and the speed with which these
are brought to market.
- Attract and
retain the best-qualified staff.
- Exploit information
technologies that generate new opportunities for working remotely,
flexibly, and virtually.
- Enhance flexibility
and the ability to manage uncertainty and risk.
The IWSP enjoys
the sponsorship of a consortium
of private and public sector organizations in:
- United States
- Canada
- Europe
- Japan
- Germany
What's New
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IWSP's current research theme
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The Value of a Campus: Costs and Benefits of Collocation
One of the most critical decisions large organizations
face is whether, how, which and to what extent to collocate
organizational units as the organization grows and evolves
over time. All things being equal, most companies prefer
having the whole company "under one roof." But things
are not equal. There are cost, security, attraction
and retention, business continuity, branding, market
location, technology and other issues that need to be
considered. When they are, the value of a campus, or
collocation, may become less obvious, though perhaps
for some firms no less compelling. Using the organizational
ecology framework, the IWSP's current research examines
the value of collocating business units, whether in
a single high-rise tower, a multi-building urban "campus",
or a suburban campus. 
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Offices
That Work
Organizations face unprecedented pressures to respond
quickly to unpredictable and rapid changes in virtually
every aspect of their business: the economy, marketplace,
technology and labor. Agility has become more a matter
of survival than choice. At the same time, global competition
has turbocharged both the pace of change and the need
to contain costs. And as if matters were not complicated
enough, labor demographics have generated a conflicting
set of employee expectations about the nature of work
that organizations must consider as they shape their
firms to meet this often bewildering onslaught of external
and internal demands.
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