ABSTRACT
Organizations recognize the importance of the physical environment and spend millions of dollars on architecture and office design. However, the impact of these initiatives is not well understood. At the same time, psychological ownership has emerged as a core variable in organizational behaviour research, aiding our understanding of numerous personal and organizational effects. To this end and with our focus on ownership as a psychological phenomenon, we review a theory of psychological ownership at both the individual and collective levels and explore the relationships to the physical work context. Following this overview our attention turns to an examination of psychological ownership in design and other aspects of the physical environment to uncover new areas of impact that feelings of ownership have within the work and organizational context.
