{"id":3989,"date":"2025-05-07T19:33:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3989"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:40:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:40:36","slug":"why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Why So Many People Decorate Their Cubicles"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Most people personalize their workspaces with photographs, trinkets, or diplomas, even when faced with limited space or rules that prohibit such behavior. While it might seem to be a trivial matter, it can be important, because it can affect employees\u2019 motivation, team productivity, and organizational culture.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron<\/a> of Georgia State University said that a key finding from an Academy of Management Journal<\/em> article<\/a> written by her and Gregory Laurence<\/a> of the University of Michigan-Flint was that not all personalization of people\u2019s office or cubicle is meant for public consumption.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some things that you might have that you put in a place where it\u2019s meant for you, not for others, and those things can be really important to you,\u201d Byron said. \u201cFor example, a lot of our study participants talked about things that only they could see, or maybe other people could see them, but they wouldn\u2019t know how to interpret them\u2014maybe it was a rock that someone picked up on a hiking trip, and so the rock would not have any meaning for someone else, but it was really meaningful to them because it reminded them of their important goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people might say about their office decorations, \u2018It reminds me of how important time that I spend with my family is,\u2019 or \u2018It reminds me of why I do this work,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cSome people talked about other things that were personal inspirations for them, something that represented an ideal for their work output that they were not at yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re a designer, maybe they had a photo of a piece of design that they thought was stellar, and they thought, \u2018My design work is not at that level yet, but that\u2019s what I aspire to,\u2019 so it was all about reminding them of their goals, either their personal goals or their professional goals, or some intersection of their personal and professional goals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Most people personalize their workspaces with photographs, trinkets, or diplomas, even when faced with limited space or rules that prohibit such behavior. While it might seem to be a trivial matter, it can be important, because it can affect employees\u2019 motivation, team productivity, and organizational culture. Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,71,29,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-communicating","category-emotions","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy So Many People Decorate Their Cubicles - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Why So Many People Decorate Their Cubicles\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-07T19:33:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:40:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":338,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/toy-airplane.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"BEHAVIOR\",\"COMMUNICATING\",\"EMOTIONS\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-so-many-people-decorate-their-cubicles\\\/\",\"name\":\"Why So Many People Decorate Their Cubicles - 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While it might seem to be a trivial matter, it can be important, because it can affect employees\u2019 motivation, team productivity, and organizational culture. Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}