Seeking a facilities management philosophy for the changing workplace

Abstract

Promotes the notion that the emergent field of facility/facilities management (FM) requires a philosophical basis, where philosophy refers not to esoteric, academic abstraction, but to the basic theory and general principles of knowledge that underpin everyday activity. Argues specifically for generation of a philosophy of “the workplace”; the separate but related social, physical, technological and organizational contexts of work; the centre stage of FM activity, in order to: first, provide a knowledge base that critically engages with the complexities and ambiguities of these diverse but interconnected contexts of work; second, engage with some of the failings of FM knowledge to date, where idealistic best practice is presented as if it were theory, and simplistic research presents universal solutions based upon limited engagement with a single context; and third, provide a knowledge base that can stand up to critical analysis from other fields of knowledge, some of which overlap with that of FM.