This PhD project explores patterns of interaction and communication in open offices. The study considers how talk is ordered and organised between staff members, both back stage and also when clients are present. It involves the collection of audio and video recordings of employees in the context of their daily routine work. These recordings facilitate the consideration of a range of interactional resources used by colleagues, including talk, gesture, bodily orientation and also the use of office technologies, such as computer keyboards and telephones. The aim of the project is to refine our understanding of how colleagues in open offices move from seemingly individual tasks to more explicit collaborative activities. Throughout the empirical chapters, particular attention is paid to those moments when new episodes of talk emerge. This focus is important as it goes to the heart of contemporary debates about the nature of open offices: the tension between claims about the enhanced opportunities for knowledge sharing and counter claims about the increased problems of interruption and distraction. While there are many articles on the advantages and disadvantages of the open office, there are remarkably few that explore the organisation of talk amongst people in open office environments. The study’s methodological approach is informed by ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) and the project has been built around the collection and analysis of video data. Audiovisual recordings are reviewed and transcribed using standard CA orthographies to aid the analysis and explore in depth the sequential organisation of talk and non-vocal conduct. The study’s research approach also draws on ethnographic field observations, discussions with participants and openended interviews. The combination of these materials allows the researcher to unpack the social practices that underpin work and collaboration. The study contributes to contemporary debates in conversation analysis, workplace studies and organisation studies more generally, unpacking the organisation of initiation sequences in institutional settings. The main findings of this research study focus on: (i) the ways in which objects and technologies provide resources for initiating interaction; (ii) the distinctive characteristics of initiations in multi-party interaction; (iii) and the ways in which shared knowledge in the office is used in initiating interactions. These findings contribute to key debates in organisation studies concerning the advantages and disadvantages of open offices — by revealing the practical solutions that participants deploy in managing the tension between interruptions and knowledge sharing.

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Thesis (Magister Technologiae)-Vaal University of Technology, Discipline Office Management & Technology / The objectives of this research project were primarily to determine the requirements of commerce and industry for competent office managers, to contribute to the curriculum development of information administration, to facilitate action learning (AL) in information administration, and by making changes in training to empower learners to become competent office managers. The influence of training and development of office managers is explained. The National Qualification Framework (NQF) integrates training and education in business and management on all levels. An important aspect is, that professional institutes, education and training institutions and other stakeholders, are combining experience to collectively benefit learners, employers, professions and the economy as a whole. A combination design of both quantitative (traditional) research and qualitative (action) research, including two questionnaires (open-ended and closed), interviews, observations, focus groups and a case study, were used. This study proved the relevance of office management education, by way of the demand for a formal qualification by commerce and industry, as a primary result of the phenomenal change in technology and the need for multi-skilled office managers. A contribution to the training of office managers concerning the following aspects was made: A profile for an office manager, as well as highlighting the need for training, curriculum development, and portfolio development

Les PME sont en France la cible de nombreuses sollicitations depuis plus de trente ans. Les opérations de conseil se sont particulièrement intensifiées auprès de ces petites entreprises afin de les rendre plus performantes. Sous l‟impulsion des pouvoirs publics, des programmes d‟accompagnement spécifiques leur sont proposés au cours de ces dernières décennies. Notamment, le modèle de la gestion des compétences qui est présenté, à la fin des années quatre-Vingt-Dix, comme la voie à suivre pour faire face aux enjeux de la mondialisation et de la compétitivité. La diffusion de ces nouvelles normes organisationnelles s‟effectue par le biais d‟une nébuleuse d‟acteurs. Parmi ces formes de conseil, quel rôle jouent les organisations intermédiaires, à la fois prescriptrices et productrices de dispositifs institutionnalisés d‟incitation à la GRH ? Ces dispositifs sont-Ils actionnables ? Quels impacts ont ces approches dans les entreprises et plus particulièrement dans les plus petites d‟entre elles ? Ces opérations de conseil modifient-Elles les pratiques des dirigeants de PME ? Les prescriptions des consultants jouent-Elles un rôle identique, ou sont-Elles appropriées, incorporées de façon spécifique par les dirigeants, selon une diversité de trajectoires d‟appropriation liée à la pluralité des configurations de petites entreprises ? / For over thirty years, a great number of appeals have been made to SMEs. Consultancy operations have significantly intensified with regard to these companies, in order to increase their performance. Under the influence of public governance, specific recommendations and support programmes have been proposed to SMEs over the past few decades. Among these, the skills management model, which was presented at the end of the 1990s as the best path to take in order to respond to the challenges companies now face with regard to globalisation and competitiveness. The dissemination of these new organizational norms occurs through a nebula of actors. With regard to these recommendations, what is the role of intermediary organisations, which simultaneously produce and prescribe institutionalized incentive plans for Human Resources Management? Can these plans be seen as actionable? What are the impacts of these approaches on firms, and especially on the smallest firms? Do these consultancy operations modify the practices of the directors of SMEs? Do the prescriptions of consultants always play the same role, or are they incorporated and appropriated differently by company directors, in accordance with a diversity of modes of appropriation adapted to the plurality of organizational structures present in small companies?