Bad to the bone?

Forged during a utopian era with the aim of humanizing the office environment, Herman Miller’s Action Office system is now widely understood to have been a precursor to the much hated and much maligned cubicle. This case study explores this tension, bridging the well-meaning intention of Action Office with the negative spatial realities the system brought about, and positioning Herman Miller’s flagship Action Office furniture system within contemporary political and ideological frameworks.

Drawing upon extensive archival materials including internal memos, lectures, newsletters and promotional materials, this case study maps the research, design and promotional process of Action Office against the broader contours of Theory Y understandings of work and workplaces. This talk specifically considers the development and maintenance of a Scanlon Plan (gainsharing program) at Herman Miller as an embodiment of many of the potential pitfalls of Theory Y concepts and conceptions.

Through analysis of this material it is suggested that the ultimate failure of the Action Office system may have stemmed, at least in part, from a disconnect between the Theory Y conceptualization of the labor process and the reality of the labor process and labor relations within modern monopoly capitalism.