The Offices

The Office Allocation Drama at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business

In 2002, as the Booth School of Business prepared to move into a new building designed by architect Rafael Viñoly, a unique process for office selection was devised among the faculty, highlighting key behavioral economic principles and inter-faculty dynamics. The allocation was based on a draft system where the order of picking offices was decided by Deputy Dean John Huizinga under the guise of "merit," and the exact method for determining this order incorporated both merit-based decisions and random drawing within designated categories.

Office Drafting Approach: - Faculty members were grouped into categories or "bins" based on perceived merits, with the exact number of bins and their content decided by John Huizinga. - Order within each bin was randomized, and faculty picked their offices based on their position in the draft.

Execution and Challenges: - The drafting process was intended to fairly distribute offices based on contributions to the school and to ensure a dispersion of prominent faculty across the building. - Despite initial intentions, the process led to significant discontent, particularly among senior faculty who felt unjustly ranked or were unlucky in the draw within their category.

Draft Day Dynamics: - A meticulously planned draft day was disrupted when discrepancies in the stated sizes of the offices emerged, leading to a suspension and resetting of the draft.

Post-Draft Reflections: - After moving into the new building, it became apparent that apart from the highly coveted corner offices, most offices were similar in comfort and utility. Factors like exact square footage or floor level, which had dominated draft preferences, had little practical impact on the desirability of the offices. - The incident underscored the influence of specific numeric metrics on decision-making and highlighted behavioral biases, such as the endowment effect, even in a mock setting.

Potential Architectural Considerations: - Awareness of the office assignment process might have influenced architectural decisions, potentially allowing a design more conducive to equitable distribution and less rivalry among faculty.

This episode illustrates the complexities and unintended consequences of decision-making processes within academic institutions, highlighting the real-world application of behavioral economic principles such as fairness, meritocracy, and the influence of minor differences in perceived value. The allocation process, including its successes and flaws, reflects broader themes in human behavior and organizational management, emphasizing the importance of transparency and consideration of human factors in administrative decision-making.