Cluster analysis: Grouping workers by work location choice

Cluster analysis is a data reduction technique used in quantitative research to group observations into mutually exclusive groups. Objectivity and robustness of the results are the strengths of this technique (especially in the case of two-step cluster analysis). In workplace research, scholars have scantly used cluster analysis. Some research has used cluster analysis to define workers’ profiles regarding roles, tasks, and feelings. Few contributions adopted cluster analysis to profile workers based on their location choices. Nowadays, workers perform their activities from multiple locations (e.g., offices, homes, and third spaces). The increasing multi-location of work – enabled by information and communication technology – calls for a better understanding of workers’ location choices. This chapter heeds this call and explains how to (i) apply cluster analysis to survey data on workers’ location choices; (ii) interpret the results of this analysis; and (iii) advance workspace research and orient firms’ decisions on their workplace policies by using cluster analysis.