Evaluating Components Affecting Sense of Community in Office Spaces

A sense of community refers to an individual’s experience of social life in an environment. Various research has demonstrated that the sense of community has had the highest effects on peoples’ participation in environmental functions, including working in a closed office space. The idea of belonging to society has brought about considerable social responsibilities and advantages over the last decade. The sense of community helps people to get together more in a working environment as they are together in the family. It also helps people to demonstrate better conduct and morality in a working environment. This study aimed to use multi-criteria decision-making methods to measure the sense of community indicators and to respond to the study hypotheses. In this regard, the study explored available resources to extract 17 components affecting the sense of community. The views of the population under study were investigated by developing, distributing, and collecting questionnaires. For this purpose, 60 questionnaires were given out to academic professors, experts, and specialists in architecture, while social, environmental, and behavioral components were prioritized. By eliminating incomplete questionnaires, 57 questionnaires were finally analyzed, and in the end, the BWM (Best-Worst method in the multi-criteria decision-making) method was used. Out of social components, environmental components, and behavioral components, the subcomponents of shared connections and social interactions, the subcomponent of using public spaces, and the subcomponent of society were respectively identified as the best components affecting the promotion of the sense of community in office spaces. To promote the sense of community in office spaces, such measures as attention to shared connections, attention to social interactions, and spatial capacities for employee cooperation in space were taken.