ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
In Saudi Arabia, the demand for modern workplaces resulting from the country's national diversification programmes has been fuelled by the rapid commercial building, while the acoustic performance of office spaces has remained an under-researched aspect of office design. This research examines the motivating factors and barriers for specifying acoustic solutions in the commercial office sector in Saudi Arabia and aims to answer two research questions: What factors do decision makers consider when specifying acoustic solutions and what are the barriers faced when implementing it? The qualitative interpretivist design was used. Eight participants (P1–P8) were selected by a purposive sampling technique from the entire specification chain in the Saudi market. Seven were involved in semi-structured interviews and one answered in writing. Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, which were then interpreted considering Innovation Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 2003) and Institutional Theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer et al., 2009). Two research questions were answered, leading to identification of eight themes. Cost was the most important factor for all participants and was always decisive where compromises had to be made. The intangibility of acoustic performance (that is, the difficulty of demonstrating an acoustic benefit before it is installed) was a major obstacle amongst other factors such as lack of client awareness and budget constraints at the end of the project. Adoption, on the other hand, seemed to be determined more by the institutional environment in which specification decisions are made than by the products themselves. Where regulatory pressure is low, cost becomes the default basis for decision making. The study offers an integrated diffusion–institutional account, as institutional conditions influence whether the perceived attributes of an innovation, specifically the observability, are established or not, and also offers guidance for manufacturers and specifiers where cost sensitivity is high and the regulatory pressure is low.
BERA. (2018). Ethical guidelines for educational research (4th ed.). British Educational Research Association.
BRE Global. (n.d.). Hea 05 – Acoustic performance (BREEAM Knowledge Base). BREEAM. https://kb.breeam.com/wp-content/plugins/breeamkb-pdf/pdf/?c=4180
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101.
Danna, K., & Griffin, R. W. (1999). Health and well-being in the workplace: A review and synthesis of the literature. Journal of Management, 25(3), 357–384.
Deakin, H., & Wakefield, K. (2014). Skype interviewing: Reflections of two PhD researchers. Qualitative Research, 14(5), 603–616.
Delle Macchie, S., Secchi, S., & Astolfi, A. (2018). Acoustic issues in open plan offices: A typological analysis. Buildings, 8(11), 161.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160.
Evans, G. W., & Johnson, D. (2000). Stress and open-office noise. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 779–783.
Fisk, W. J. (2000). Health and productivity gains from better indoor environments and their relationship with building energy efficiency. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 25, 537–566.
Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59–82.
Hwang, B. G., & Tan, J. S. (2012). Green building project management: Obstacles and solutions for sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 20(5), 335–349.
International Organization for Standardization. (2021). Acoustics — Acoustic quality of open office spaces (ISO Standard No. 22955:2021).
International WELL Building Institute. (2020). WELL building standard version 2. https://v2.wellcertified.com/
Jahncke, H., Hygge, S., Halin, N., Green, A. M., & Dimberg, K. (2011). Open-plan office noise: Cognitive performance and restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(4), 373–382.
Kim, J., & de Dear, R. (2013). Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 18–26.
Lee, P. J., & Jeon, J. Y. (2016). Impact of noise on self-rated job satisfaction and health in open-plan offices. Ergonomics, 59(2), 222–234.
Meyer, K. E., Estrin, S., Bhaumik, S. K., & Peng, M. W. (2009). Institutions, resources, and entry strategies in emerging economies. Strategic Management Journal, 30(1), 61–80.
Moshashai, D., Leber, A. M., & Savage, J. D. (2020). Saudi Arabia plans for its economic future: Vision 2030, the National Transformation Plan and Saudi fiscal reform. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 47(3), 381–401.
Nowell, L. S., Norris, J. M., White, D. E., & Moules, N. J. (2017). Thematic analysis: Striving to meet the trustworthiness criteria. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 16(1), 1–13.
Robichaud, L. B., & Anantatmula, V. S. (2011). Greening project management practices for sustainable construction. Journal of Management in Engineering, 27(1), 48–57.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2019). Research methods for business students (8th ed.). Pearson Education.
Scott, W. R. (2014). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Smith-Jackson, T. L., & Klein, K. W. (2009). Open-plan offices: Task performance and mental workload. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29(2), 279–289.
U.S. General Services Administration. (2011). Sound matters: How to achieve acoustic comfort in the contemporary office. https://www.gsa.gov/system/files/GSA_Sound_Matters_%28Dec_2011%29_508.pdf
U.S. Green Building Council. (2019). LEED v4.1 building design and construction.
World Green Building Council. (2014). Health, wellbeing and productivity in offices: The next chapter for green building.
Rijkaard, N. D., Sivarajan, A., Din, N. N. O., & Singh, J. S. K. (2026). Factors Influencing the Adoption of Workplace Acoustic Solutions in Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Study of Industry Professionals. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 16(11), 545–5562.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode