ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the potential applicability of socio-technical transitions theory as a means to understand and evaluate the complexity of workplace design and research. Organisational workspaces can be seen as socio-technical systems that consist of interlinked factors of physical, social, digital, and experienced environments and differ between individual and organisational levels. Moreover, the levels, and thus the workplace, continuously develop due to both internal and external changes in, e.g., society, economy, and technology. These developments transition between levels in various timeframes and scales representing the dynamics of the organisational space. Despite certain limitations, the value of applying socio-technical transitions theory was found to be in providing a framework for structuring interlinked knowledge on different levels of the multi-level perspective and to evaluate transitions from one level and a system to another. Applying socio-technical transitions theory to workplace design research emphasised the aspect of time, thereby introducing adaptable architecture into workplace evaluation. Furthermore, while adaptable architecture examines what and how changes and various uses are allowed within a system, i.e. the building, the socio-technical transitions theory focuses on why and how one system transitions into another by placing the focus especially on the effects of the internal, small-scale changes.
