1
Forthcoming in Human Resource Management
Knowledge worker creativity and the role of the physical work environment.
Jan Dul
a,b
, Canan Ceylan
c
, Ferdinand Jaspers
b
b
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
c
Department of Business Administration, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey
ABSTRACT
The present study examines the effect of the physical work environment on the creativity of knowledge
workers, compared with the effects of creative personality and the social-organizational work
environment. Based on data from 274 knowledge workers in 27 SMEs, we conclude that creative
personality, the social-organizational work environment, and the physical work environment
independently affect creative performance. The relative contribution of the physical work environment is
smaller than that of the social-organizational work environment, and both contributions are smaller than
that of creative personality. The results give support for HR practices that focus on the individual, on the
social-organizational work environment, and on the physical work environment in order to enhance
knowledge worker creativity.
KEYWORDS
Human resource management, work environment, creativity, SME, knowledge worker
2
1. Introduction
Knowledge workers or “the creative class” (Florida, 2005) are viewed as core to the competitiveness of a
firm in a knowledge-based economy (e.g. Lepak & Snell, 2002). These employees are involved in the
creation, distribution, or application of knowledge (Davenport, Thomas, & Cantrell, 2002), and the
worker’s brains comprise the means of production (Nickols, 2000; Ramírez & Nembhard, 2004).
Knowledge workers are the source of original and potentially useful ideas and solutions for a firm’s
renewal of products, services, and processes (e.g. Amabile, 1988). Human resource management (HRM)
plays an important role in strengthening the organization’s innovation capacity by enhancing the creativity
of knowledge workers (e.g. Gupta & Singhal 1993; Mumford, 2000). Human resource (HR) practices to
promote creativity focus on the individual level: recruitment and selection of creative talents, and training
and development of employees to become more creative. By recruiting and selecting creative talents, a
firm can attract high-potential candidates who have creative personality characteristics (e.g. Gough, 1979;
Malakate, Andriopoulos & Gotsi, 2007). By training and developing staff, a company can develop
knowledge and skills for creativity, thereby enhancing their creative capabilities (e.g. Puccio, Firestien,
Coyle, & Masucci, 2006; Roffe, 1999; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004).
Because people’s creativity not only depends on their personal characteristics, but also on their
work environment (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby & Herron, 1996; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin,
1993), HR practices to promote creativity also focus on the social-organizational work environment by
providing job design methods. Examples include designing jobs that encourage employees to take risks,
that stimulate the exchange and discussion of ideas, and that allow employees to work on new problems
(e.g. Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Other HR practices
could support leaders in motivating their subordinates to be more creative (Brockbank, 1999; De Leede &
Looise, 2005; Mumford, 2000) such as building or integrating a system that allows creative performance
objectives to be defined, or creative efforts to be acknowledged and rewarded (e.g. Amabile et al., 1996;
Mumford, Scott, Gaddis & Strange, 2002).
3
Besides HR practices that focus on selecting and developing creative individuals, and on
providing social-organizational work environments that enhance creativity, HRM can also contribute to
employee creativity by developing physical work environments that stimulate creativity. Bamberger
(2008, p. 840) states that “for those seeking to explain individual performance in organizations, (…)
situational factors may include physical workplace conditions”. Several scholars suggest that the physical
work environment can be supportive for enhancing creativity (e.g. Amabile et al., 1996; George, 2008;
Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Woodman et al., 1993). Brockbank (1999) indicates that “office or plant layout”
is a strategic HR practice to create a desired organizational culture of creativity and innovation. HR
practitioners emphasize the importance of the physical work environment for creativity as well. For
example, the HR director of Red Bull, the market leader in the energy drink business observes: “The
offices are not play areas but creative spaces - we're a very creative company and we want an environment
that stimulates creativity” (May, 2008, p. 54).
Several case studies indicate that HR has been successfully involved in office space changes and
restructuring in large North-American and British companies (e.g. Anonymous, 1998; Bencivenga, 1998;
Grossman, 2002; Hays, 1998; Khanna & New, 2008; Poe, 2000; Sunoo, 2000; Thomas, 2005). Common
changes include introducing open plan offices, cubicles and ergonomic furniture and have led to increased
worker performance and satisfaction (Bencivenga, 1998; Brockbank, 1999; Grossman, 2002; Khanna &
New, 2008; Kupritz, 2002; May, Oldham, & Rathert, 2005; Vanarsdall, 2005), improved communication
and teamwork (Brockbank, 1999; May, 2008), better transfer to the job of learned skills (Kupritz, 2002),
and better recruitment and retention of qualified personnel (Earle, 2003; Hays, 1998). HRM involvement
in major changes in office spaces in Continental Europe have been reported, for example, in companies in
Sweden (Edvinsson, 1997), Denmark (Koch, 2003), and in the Netherlands (Hogenes, Dul & Haan, 2006).
Although we can speculate that the above physical workplace interventions could improve employee
creativity, such results have not been documented.
Experimental studies show that certain features of the physical workplace can have positive
effects on creative task performance and mention features such as the presence of plants (Shibata &
4
Suzuki, 2002, 2004), a non-crowded work space (Aiello, DeRisi, Epstein & Karlin, 1977) and direct
window view (Stone & Irvine, 1994). Other studies examine a combination of various physical features,
and find positive effects on creativity. For example, Alencar & Bruno-Faria (1997) report that an
agreeable physical environment with adequate light, furniture, space and ventilation can stimulate
creativity, whereas an environment with noise, heat, insufficient illumination, and lack of space inhibits
creativity. McCoy & Evans (2002) identify physical features in educational environments with low and
high creativity potential, and Ceylan, Dul & Aytac (2008) conduct a similar analysis of managers’ offices.
The physical elements in these studies include windows, light, colors, plants, use of natural materials and
furniture. Evidence that the physical work environment substantially contributes to knowledge workers’
creativity supports HR practices to strengthen an organization’s innovation capacity by influencing
decision making of architects and interior designers about the design of physical workplaces (e.g. offices
and company buildings). The first contribution of this paper is that we explore this effect of the physical
work environment on knowledge workers’ creativity.
To what extent can the physical work environment, the social-organizational work environment
and individual creative personality contribute to employee creativity, and what is their relative
contribution? In a discussion about the possible effects of individual, social-organizational, and physical
factors, Hemlin, Allwood & Martin (2008, p. 206) speculate that “the physical environment almost
certainly affects the creativity of individuals and groups, but maybe less directly and strongly than some of
the other factors”. To our knowledge, no empirical studies exist that examine both dimensions of the work
environment (i.e. social-organizational and physical) and creative personality to explain employee
creativity. The second contribution of this paper is that we address this gap. First, we present a conceptual
model and formulate hypotheses on the effects of creative personality, the social-organizational work
environment, and the physical work environment on creative performance, and their interactions. Next, we
test our hypotheses with a sample of knowledge workers in Dutch SMEs. Finally, we discuss the results in
terms of the implications for HR practices and for future research.
5
2. Conceptual model and hypotheses
2.1 Conceptual model
Figure 1 shows our conceptual model to explain creative performance. The model’s unit of analysis is the
individual employee. Creative performance is considered as the production of novel and potentially useful
ideas produced by an individual (Amabile, 1988; Madjar, Oldham & Pratt 2002; Shalley, Zhou & Oldham
2004; Zhou & George, 2001), i.e. we consider creativity as an outcome of a creative process.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The model draws on the interactionist perspective of creativity by Woodman et al. (1993) who propose
that creative performance is the result of interactions between the individual and contextual influences
from the work environment. Woodman et al. (1993) formulate hypotheses about the direct effects of a
number of work environment characteristics on creative performance, such as: “Individual creative
performance will be increased by organizational cultures that support risk taking behaviors”. Our model
includes a variety of specific elements that make up the social-organizational and the physical work
environment, and that can be controlled through HR practices. We focus not only on the direct effects of
both dimensions of the work environment on creative performance, but also on their role as moderators.
2.2 Creative personality
An employee’s creative performance depends partly on individual characteristics, such as domain relevant
knowledge, cognitive style (e.g. divergent thinking), and personality traits. Numerous studies relate an
individual’s personality traits such as self-confidence and broad interests to creativity (e.g. Barron &
Harrington, 1981; Feist, 1999; Gough, 1979). People that are self-confident and have broad interests may
be inclined to look for new experiences that give them novel ideas. While an individual’s domain relevant
knowledge and cognitive style can be developed, personality traits are considered more stable. Gough
(1979) defines the concept of ‘creative personality’ as the accumulation of separate personality traits that
