ABSTRACT
Although the term ‘workplace’ is widely used in industrial sociology and related behavioural sciences, it is actually used in two distinct ways. There is the abstract use of the word to denote the concept of any place where work is done, analogous to other concepts such as ‘the home’, and second a more specific usage referring to the actual physical surroundings, the built work environment. In this latter sense we have come to associate it with certain types or classifications of building or structure – the factory, the office, the mine, the shop. This is where labour power is sold, bought and put to work.
