Where you sit affects who you interact with and ask for help.Photo credit: Diana TyszkoA new study, using the U.S. Senate Chamber as its laboratory, provides documented evidence of that phenomenon. It shows that where a person is located influences who they interact with and who they will turn to in order to build support for their own agenda.

For the truly powerful, however, seating arrangements don't make much of a difference. That's because the people they need support from usually come to them.

The study's researchers chose the Senate as "a window into how people rally support for their initiatives," said Christopher Liu, an assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Liu conducted the study with Rotman PhD student Jillian Chown.

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The Senate was ideal for study because of its rich record-keeping. The researchers analyzed co-sponsorship patterns for bills proposed between 1979 and 2001. This was compared with seating charts kept for the same period. Detailed analysis was done on the distance between specific senators’ desks to test for the likelihood that senators sitting closer to each other might co-sponsor similar bills.

The study found that co-sponsorship of a senator’s bill was more likely to come from those sitting near them. Senators sitting close together were also more likely to co-sponsor the same bills. More senior – and therefore more powerful – senators however were not dependent on their senate location for support on legislative initiatives.

Although the study took place in a political forum, its findings have implications for other organizations that are trying to better understand the importance of where their employees are located and how to foster interactions between them. 

"Geographic location is a managerial lever," said Liu. "You can't force people to work with one another. But you can make them share a bathroom, or pass one another in the hall.”

The study is forthcoming in the Strategic Management Journal.

Ken McGuffin is a writer with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto