On time, space and trust in an organization

Chapter three in the readings this week (Dixon, 1999) brought to light the use of "Hallways" within an organization in order to promote collaboration, sharing of ideas and construction of new social meaning (org learning), with the hopes that the construction of these shared spaces will create the substrate for learning to occur.

It was brought up in class that the construction of such spaces is, in a sense, artificial. I would say that intentional creation of a space is no more artificial than, say, home decorations or the layout of a classroom. It is a suggestion as to what might go on inside, not a script which requires a certain outcome. However, I was fascinated by the idea that organizations can dictate the space which its members will be occupying in the same way that they can dictate how time is used within the organization.

There are various extremes to which they can take this. A typical meeting has both an agenda (time is dictated by whomever wrote it), and seating arrangements (spatially dictated by the authoritative figure leading the meeting), while a hallway might be a constrained space (here is your coffee bar/sofa/common area) but not temporally controlled (use it as you see fit). At the other extreme are completely unconstrained parameters - perhaps when one is telecommuting or is responsible for one's own field work. The bottom line is that it implies the organization offer it's members at least some element of trust in their own use of time and space. So my question to you is, to what extent is an organization's ability to learn contingent on implicit and explicit acts of trust?

My second question is, do different people deserve (or are they able to handle the responsibility of) different amounts of trust (in the context of use of space and time) within an organization, and if so, how does this impact collective learning? 

Dixon, 1999. The organizational learning cycle: How we can learn collectively (2nd Ed). Hampshire, England: Mc-Graw Hill Book Company 0-566-08058-3