ABSTRACT
There is an extensive body of work that demonstrates that feelings of belonging are key to work motivation: workers who feel that they fit in with leading members of their organization express higher levels of organizational identity and ambition and express less of a desire to leave the organization. In this chapter, we articulate a model of space and identity compatibility that extends this literature into the domain of workplace space. In particular, we argue that the physical workplace contains symbolic cues that activate identity constructs relating to workers as well as the organization. As a result, these cues inform workers’ perceptions of self-space identity compatibility. For this reason, we argue that the physical workplace can affect workers’ feelings of organizational belonging, motivation, and engagement. We also explore how, in the changing organizational contexts, incompatibility between the self and the space may have positive consequences, encouraging workers to actualize a desired identity or actively craft the space around them. Finally, we discuss the implications of this model for attracting and managing a diverse workforce.
