KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT J A N D U L , C A N A N C E Y L A N , A N D F E R D I N A N D J A S P E R S 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 small and medium-sized enterprises, we conclude that creative personality, the social-organizational work envi- ronment, 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 human resource practices that focus on the individual, the social- organizational work environment, and the physical work environment in order to enhance knowledge workers’ creativity. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Keywords: human resource management, work environment, creativity, SME, knowledge worker Introduction s olutions for a firm’s renewal of products, n owledge workers, or “the creative services, and processes (e.g., Amabile, 1988). K class” (Florida, 2005), are viewed as Human resource management (HRM) plays core to the competitiveness of a firm an important role in strengthening the orga-in a knowledge-based economy nization’s innovation capacity by enhancing (e.g., Lepak & Snell, 2002). These the creativity of knowledge workers (e.g., employees are involved in the creation, distri- Gupta & Singhal, 1993; Mumford, 2000). bution, or application of knowledge (Daven- Human resource (HR) practices to promote port, Thomas, & Cantrell, 2002), and the creativity focus on the individual level: re- workers’ brains comprise the means of pro- cruitment and selection of creative talents, duction (Nickols, 2000; Ramírez & Nembhard, and training and development of employees 2004). Knowledge workers are the source of to become more creative. By r ecruiting and original and potentially useful ideas and selecting creative talents, a firm can attract Correspondence to: Jan Dul, Professor of Technology and Human Factors, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Department of Management of Technology and Innovation, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Phone: +31104081719, Fax: +31104089014, E-mail: jdul@rsm.nl Human Resource Management, November–December 2011, Vol. 50, No. 6, Pp. 715 – 734 © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI:10.1002/hrm.20454 716 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 high-potential candidates who have creative Gilson, 2004; Woodman et al., 1993). Brock- personality characteristics (e.g., Gough, 1979; bank (1999) indicates that “office or plant Malakate, Andriopoulos, & Gotsi, 2007). By layout” is a strategic HR practice to create a training and developing staff, a company can desired organizational culture of creativity develop knowledge and skills for and innovation. HR practitioners emphasize creativity, thereby enhancing the importance of the physical work environ- Besides HR practices their creative capabilities (e.g., ment for creativity as well. For example, the that focus on selecting Puccio, Firestien, Coyle, & Ma- HR director of Red Bull, the market leader in succi, 2006; Roffe, 1999; G. Scott, the energy drink business, observes: “The of- and developing creative Leritz, & Mumford, 2004). fices are not play areas but creative spaces— Because people’s creativity de- we’re a very creative company and we want individuals, and on pends not only on their personal an environment that stimulates creativity” characteristics, but also on their (M. May, 2008, p. 54). providing social- work environment (Amabile, Several case studies indicate that HR has organizational work Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, been successfully involved in office space 1996; Woodman, Sawyer, & Grif- changes and restructuring in large North environments that fin, 1993), HR practices to pro- American and British companies (e.g., Ben- mote creativity also focus on the civenga, 1998; “Even Executives Are Losing enhance creativity, HRM social-organizational work envi- Their Offices,” 1998; Grossman, 2002; Hays, can also contribute to ronment by providing job-design 1998; Khanna & New, 2008; Poe, 2000; methods. Examples include de- Sunoo, 2000; Thomas, 2005). Common employee creativity by signing jobs that encourage em- changes include introducing open plan of- ployees to take risks, stimulate the fices, cubicles, and ergonomic furniture and developing physical exchange and discussion of ideas, have led to increased worker performance work nvironments that and allow employees to work on and satisfaction (Bencivenga, 1998; Brock- new problems (e.g., Amabile et al., bank, 1999; Grossman, 2002; Khanna & New, stimulate creativity. 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; 2008; Kupritz, 2002; D. R. May, Oldham, & Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Other HR Rathert, 2005; Vanarsdall, 2005), improved practices could support leaders in communication and teamwork (Brockbank, motivating their subordinates to be more cre- 1999; M. May, 2008), better transfer to the ative (Brockbank, 1999; De Leede & Looise, job of learned skills (Kupritz, 2002), and bet- 2005; Mumford, 2000), such as building or ter recruitment and retention of qualified integrating a system that allows creative per- personnel (Earle, 2003; Hays, 1998). HRM formance objectives to be defined, or creative involvement in major changes in office spaces efforts to be acknowledged and rewarded in Continental Europe have been reported, (e.g ., Amabile et al., 1996; Mumford, Scott, for example, in companies in Sweden (Ed- Gaddis, & Strange, 2002). vinsson, 1997), Denmark (Koch, 2003), and Besides HR practices that focus on select- the Netherlands (Hogenes, Dul, & Haan, ing and developing creative individuals, and 2006). Although we can speculate that the on providing social-organizational work en- above physical workplace interventions could vironments that enhance creativity, HRM can improve employee creativity, such results also contribute to employee creativity by de- have not been documented. veloping physical work environments that Experimental studies show that certain stimulate creativity. Bamberger (2008, p. 840) features of the physical workplace can have states that “for those seeking to explain indi- positive effects on creative task performance vidual performance in organizations, . . . situ- and mention features such as the presence of ational factors may include physical work- plants (Shibata & Suzuki, 2002, 2004), a non- place conditions.” Several scholars suggest crowded workspace (Aiello, DeRisi, Epstein, & that the physical work environment can be Karlin, 1977), and direct window view (Stone supportive for enhancing creativity (e.g., & Irvine, 1994). Other studies examine a com- Amabile et al., 1996; George, 2008; Shalley & bination of various physical features, and find Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 717 positive effects on creativity. For example, d irectly and strongly than some of the other Alencar and Bruno-Faria (1997) report that an factors.” To our knowledge, no empirical agreeable physical environment with ade- studies exist that examine both dimensions quate light, furniture, space, and ventilation of the work environment (i.e., social-organi- can stimulate creativity, whereas an environ- zational and physical) and creative personal- ment with noise, heat, insufficient illumina- ity to explain employee creativity. The tion, and lack of space inhibits creativity. second contribution of this article is that we McCoy and Evans (2002) identify physical address this gap. First, we present a concep- features in educational environments with tual model and formulate hypotheses on the low and high creativity potential, and Ceylan, effects of creative personality, the social-orga- Dul, and Aytac (2008) conduct a similar anal- nizational work environment, and the physi- ysis of managers’ offices. The physical ele- cal work environment on creative perfor- ments in these studies include windows, light, mance, and their interactions. Next, we test colors, plants, use of natural materials, and our hypotheses with a sample of knowledge furniture. Evidence that the physical work workers in Dutch SMEs. Finally, we discuss environment substantially contributes to the results in terms of the implications for HR knowledge workers’ creativity supports HR practices and for future research. practices to strengthen an organization’s innovation capacity by influencing decision Conceptual Model and Hypotheses making of architects and interior designers about the design of physical workplaces (e.g., Conceptual Model offices and company buildings). The first con- tribution of this article is that we explore this Figure 1 shows our conceptual model to effect of the physical work environment on explain creative performance. The model’s knowledge workers’ creativity. unit of analysis is the individual employee. To what extent can the physical work en- Creative performance is considered as the vironment, the social-organizational work production of novel and potentially useful environment, and individual creative person- ideas produced by an individual (Amabile, ality contribute to employee creativity, and 1988; Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002; Shal- what is their relative contribution? In a dis- ley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; Zhou & George, cussion about the possible effects of individ- 2001)—that is, we consider creativity as an ual, social-organizational, and physical fac- outcome of a creative process. tors, Hemlin, Allwood, and Martin (2008, p. The model draws on the interactionist 206) speculate that “the physical environ- perspective of creativity by Woodman ment almost certainly affects the creativity of et al. (1993), who propose that creative individuals and groups, but maybe less performance is the result of interactions Social-organizational work environment H2 H4a H4c Creative H1 Creative personality performance H4b H3 Physical work environment FIGURE 1. A Conceptual Model of the Relationships Between Creative Personality, Work Environment, and Creative Performance Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 718 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 between the individual and contextual 2003). These studies yield contradictory re- influences from the work environment. sults. Some find a direct relationship with Woodman et al. (1993) formulate hypotheses creativity (e.g., Oldham & Cummings, 1996; about the direct effects of a number of work Unsworth et al., 2000), whereas others do environment characteristics on creative per- not (e.g., Madjar et al., 2002; Zhou, 2003). In formance, such as “Individual creative per- light of the arguments above, we propose formance will be increased by organizational the following direct relationship between cultures that support risk-taking knowledge workers’ creative personality and behaviors.” Our model includes a creative performance: Our model includes variety of specific elements that make up the social-organizational Hypothesis 1: The higher a knowledge worker’s a variety of specific and the physical work environ- creative personality, the higher his/her creative elements that make ment, and that can be controlled performance. through HR practices. We focus up the social- not only on the direct effects of Social-Organizational Work both dimensions of the work organizational environment on creative perfor- Environment and the physical mance, but also on their role as Recent reviews of empirical research on the moderators. effects of the social-organizational work envi- work environment, ronment on creativity (e.g., Anderson, De Creative Personality Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004; Egan, 2005; George, and that can be 2008; Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007; controlled through An employee’s creative perfor- Rank, Pace, & Frese, 2004; Runco, 2004; Shal- mance depends partly on indi- ley & Gilson, 2004; Shalley et al., 2004; Zhou HR practices. vidual characteristics, such as & Shalley, 2003) suggest that several social- domain-relevant knowledge, organizational elements of the work environ- co gnitive style (e.g., divergent ment can motivate people to be more creative. thinking), and personality traits. Numerous Examples are the presence of teamwork that studies relate an individual’s personality requires sharing and discussing ideas, and the traits such as self-confidence and broad presence of complex tasks that require cre- interests to creativity (e.g., Barron & Har- ative problem solving. We used empirical rington, 1981; Feist, 1999; Gough, 1979). studies that were described in these reviews, People who are self-confident and have as well as others found by database, refer- broad interests may be inclined to look for ence, and citation searches, to generate a list new experiences that give them novel ideas. of elements of the social-organizational work While an individual’s domain-relevant environment that can enhance creativity knowledge and cognitive style can be devel- (Table I). oped, personality traits are considered more Amabile et al. (1996) presume that the stable. Gough (1979) defines the concept of employee’s perception of the presence of a “creative p ersonality” as the accumulation of specific element of the work environment is separate personality traits that are related to important for creativity, rather than the creativity. Research on the relationship be- actual presence of that element. For exam- tween personality and creativity predomi- ple, being motivated to be creative depends nantly f ocuses on artists, scientists, or other more on the employee’s perception that the professionals with creative abilities. Few em- leader recognizes creative ideas than the pirical studies use the creative personality actual r ecognition provided by the leader. concept in organizational settings to assess Yet, to a certain extent, there is a relation- the effect of creative personality on the cre- ship betw een perception and real provision. ative p erformance of employees (e.g., Madjar Although each creativity-supporting ele- et al., 2002; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; ment could be considered as a separate con- Unsworth, Brown, & McGuire, 2000; Zhou, tributor to creativity, the goal of the present Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 719 T A B L E I Elements of the Social-Organizational Work Environment That Are Possibly Related to Creativity Number Element Description Examples of Empirical Studies That Relate the Element to Creativity 1 Challenging job The complexity of the job, Amabile and Gryskiewicz (1989) and how demanding the Hatcher, Ross, and Collins (1989) job is Oldham and Cummings (1996) 2 Teamwork Working in a group of Amabile et al. (1996) people toward a common Leenders, van Engelen, and Kratzer goal, by having interac- (2003) tions with each other Monge, Cozzens, and Contractor (1992) 3 Task rotation A schedule with a set Madjar and Oldham (2006) of different tasks to be performed simultaneously 4 Autonomy in job Decision latitude in the job, Greenberg (1992, 1994) for example, with respect De Jong and Kemp (2003) to deciding about the order Ohly, Sonnentag, and Pluntke (2006) of work tasks Zhou (1998) 5 Coaching super- A supervisor who supports Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, and Kramer visor and encourages employ- (2004) ees, builds mutual trust George and Zhou (2001) and commitment, and Oldham and Cummings (1996) provides positive feedback Zhou (1998) 6 Time for thinking The availability of time for Andrews and Smith (1996) idea generation without the time pressure in everyday work 7 Creative goals The situation that the Carson and Carson (1993) employee must produce Madjar and Shalley (2008) new ideas according Shalley (1991, 1995) to goals, and with the Shalley and Perry-Smith (2001) expectation of evaluation 8 Recognition of The recognition (e.g., Amabile et al. (1996) creative ideas praise, awards) of new Baer, Oldham, and Cummings (2003) ideas Eisenberger and Shanock (2003) Paolillo and Brown (1978) 9 Incentives for Possibility of rewards (e.g., Amabile et al. (1996) creative results pay raises, profi t sharing, Baer et al. (2003) bonuses, promotions) after Paolillo and Brown (1978) reaching creative results Eisenberger and Shanock (2003) Friedman (2009) article is not to examine the effects of sepa- p. 136) states: “the predictive power of social rate elements, nor to understand mecha- macro-phenomena . . . is much greater than nisms of how these elements are related to that of any discrete variable studied in labo- creativity. Our study focuses on a higher ratory experiments.” Therefore, we define level of aggregation. The separate elements the degree of support from the overall so- are integral parts of an overall social-organi- cial-organizational environment as the total zational work environment that supports perceived presence of creativity-supporting creativity. It is a cumulative predictor of cre- elements in that environment. On the basis ative performance, which is a conglomerate of the above arguments, we formulate the of additive elements. As Meusburger (2009, following relationship on the effect of the Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 720 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 social-organizational work environment on Tonello, 2006). Positive mood is associated creativity: with creativity (e.g., Amabile, Barsade, Muel- ler, & Staw, 2005; Davis, 2009). Hypothesis 2: The more a knowledge worker per- These physical elements can be included ceives support from his/her social-organizational in the work environment by interior design and building design. Interior design for cre- work environment, the higher his/her creative ativity refers to the design of physical work- performance. places (e.g ., offices) that provides support for creativity (e.g., indoor plants/flowers, inspir- Physical Work Environment ing colors). Building design is related to the design of the building structure elements In the management literature, very little at- that provide such support (e.g., window tention is paid to the impact of the physical view, daylight, adequate ambient condi- work environment on creativity: “Since the tions). Following the same a pproach we 1920s, social science has tended to ignore the developed for the social-organizational work physical work environment” (Baldry, 1997, environment, we define the concept of the p. 365). The majority of physical work envi- physical work environment to support cre- ronment research reported in the manage- ativity as the total of separate physical ele- ment literature examines the effects of spatial ments that are perceived by the employee to arrangements of offices, in particular, the be present in the work environment. We, dilemma between social interactions and pri- therefore, formulate the following relation- vacy of open plan offices (e.g., Sundstrom, ship on the effect of the physical work envi- Burt, & Kamp, 1980; Toker & Gray, 2008; Za- ronment on employee creativity: lesny & Farace, 1987), and workers’ reactions to spatial density (e.g., D. R. May et al., 2005; Hypothesis 3: The more a knowledge worker per- Oldham, Kulik, & Stepina, 1991). Research on ceives support from his/her physical work environ- creative work environments rarely includes ment, the higher his/her creative performance. elements of the physical work environment. For instance, a review study of 45 taxonomies of work environments for creativity and in- Interactions novation (Hunter et al., 2007) indicates that In their interactionist model, Woodman et only one taxonomy (Alencar & Bruno-Faria, al. (1993, p. 295) propose that there are in- 1997) includes physical characteristics. We teraction effects of the social-organizational performed an extensive review of empirical environment and of the physical environ- studies to find potential creativity enhancers ment on the relationship between the indi- of the physical work environment. We se- vidual’s creative personality and creative lected relevant studies on the basis of a broad performance. Only few empirical studies database search of empirical studies in man- focus on interactions between creative per- agement, psychology, engineering, ergonom- sonality and the social-organizational envi- ics and human factors, architecture, and ronment (e.g., George & Zhou, 2001; Madjar i ndoor design journals, or studies that we et al., 2002; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; found using database, reference, and citation Zhou, 2003). For example, Oldham and searches. Table II shows our review results as Cummings (1996) report that employees a list of possible creativity enhancers of the with high creative personalities respond physical work environment. Physical f eatures, more positively to social-organizational en- such as a window view and plants, may pro- vironments that support creativity than vide a source of information for a creative those with low creative personalities. They task (e.g., Shibata & Suzuki, 2002; Stone & argue that the latter may be overstretched or Irvine, 1994), and features such as colors irritated by certain contextual conditions may have a positive influence on a person’s and respond by lowering their creative per- mood (e.g., Küller, Ballal, Laike, Mikellides, & formance. Following the same argument, Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 721 T A B L E I I Elements of the Physical Work Environment That Are Possibly Related to Creativity Number Element Description Examples of Empirical Studies That Relate the Element to Creativity 10 Furniture Furniture (e.g., chairs, tables, Ridoutt, Ball, and Killerby cupboards) that are placed in (2002) the workplace 11 Indoor plants/fl owers Natural plants or fl owers that Ceylan et al. (2008) are placed in the workplace Shibata and Suzuki (2002, 2004) 12 Calming colors Colors that provide a relaxing Ceylan et al. (2008) experience (e.g., green, blue, or blue violet) 13 Inspiring colors Colors that provide a stimulat- McCoy and Evans (2002) ing experience (e.g., yellow, Stone (2003) orange, pink, red, or red violet) 14 Privacy The possibility of being seclud- Aiello et al. (1977) ed from the presence or view of Stokols, Clitheroe, and others Zmuidzinas (2002) 15 Window view to nature Having visual access from the McCoy and Evans (2002) work environment to the outer natural environment (e.g., trees, plants) 16 Any window view Having visual access from Stone and Irvine (1994) work environment to any outer environment 17 Quantity of light The amount of light in the work Knez (1995) environment 18 Daylight The light coming from the sun Ceylan et al. (2008) into the work environment 19 Indoor (physical) The temperature, velocity, hu- Hygge and Knez (2001) climate midity, and composition of the air in the work environment 20 Sound (positive sound) Positive sounds (e.g., music, Alencar and Bruno-Faria silence, absence of noise) (1997) Stokols et al. (2002) 21 Smell (positive smell) Positive odors (e.g., fresh air, Knasko (1992) absence of bad smell) high and low creative employees may re- feature of the physical environment might spond differently to physical work environ- work both directly on outcomes and/or in- ments that support creativity. However, to teractively with psychosocial work elements. our knowledge, no empirical studies are Vithayathawornwong, Danko, and Tolbert available on the interaction effects between (2003) suggest that the physical work envi- creative personality and physical elements of ronment facilitates the social-organizational the work environment. Evans, Johansson, work environment for creativity, rather than and Carrere (1994, op cit. Leather, Beale, & having a direct effect on creativity. As far as Sullivan, 2003) analyze the interaction be- we know, no studies are available that em- tween the physical and the social-organiza- pirically examine the interaction between tional environment and suggest that any the physical work environment and the Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 722 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 s ocial-organizational work environment to than the social-organizational work environ- predict creativity. We formulate the follow- ment, and the physical work environment ing hypotheses on interaction effects: was considered the least important. On the basis of the above arguments, we formulate Hypothesis 4a: The effect of creative personality the following hypothesis on the relative im- on creative performance depends on the perceived portance of individual characteristics, the support from the social-organizational work social-organizational work environment, and environment, such that a high creative personal- the physical work environment for the ity benefi ts more from a higher level of support creative performance of knowledge workers: from the work environment than a low creative personality. Hypothesis 5: The relative contribution of the perceived support from the physical work Hypothesis 4b: The effect of creative personality environment to creativity is smaller than that on creative performance depends on the perceived of the social-organizational work environment, support from the physical work environment, and both contributions are smaller than the such that a high creative personality benefi ts contribution of creative personality. more from a higher level of support from the work environment than a low creative personality. Method Hypothesis 4c: The effect of the perceived support Participants and Procedure from the social-organizational work environment on creative performance depends on the perceived This study employs a questionnaire survey support from the physical work environment, method for testing the hypotheses. Data were such that the support from the social-organiza- obtained from 274 Dutch knowledge workers tional work environment has more effect if the employed in 27 small and medium-sized enter- support from the physical work environment is prises (SMEs). Companies volunteered to take higher. part in a project to enhance innovation in SMEs. The participants were knowledge workers Relative Contributions such as consultants, marketers, controllers, designers, and managers, who perform “brain Studying the joint effects of creative person- work” and usually work in an office environ- ality, the social-organizational work environ- ment. The mean age of the participants was ment, and the physical work environment 37.7, and 78 percent were male. The majority allows us to estimate their relative contribu- of the respondents (269) had Dutch national- tions to creative performance. If we assume ity. Trained research assistants visited each that the number of creativity studies that company to identify departments with knowl- have been published over the years is repre- edge workers and to collect the data. Response sentative for these relative contributions, rates per company varied between 80 percent individual characteristics (“nature”) are and 100 percent, and a total of 424 question- undoubtedly more important than the work naires were returned. We excluded question- environment (“nurture”), and the social- naires with “don’t know” answers or missing organizational work environment is more data for the main study variables, resulting important than the physical work environ- in 274 questionnaires (65 percent) that were ment. Ceylan and Dul (2007) questioned 442 usable for the final analysis. HR and ergonomics professionals from three different countries (Brazil, the Netherlands, Measures and Turkey) about these relative contribu- tions, and found that these professionals Independent Variables believe that all dimensions are important for enhancing creativity. However, individual The Creative Personality Scale (CPS) based on characteristics were ranked as more important Gough’s Adjective Check List (ACL) (Gough, Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 723 1979) was used as our creative personality supporting elements of the social-organiza- measure. The original list contains 18 adjec- tional work environment (Table I) and 12 of tives positively related to creativity and 12 the physical work environment (Table II). negatively related to creativity. Respondents The respondent rated the extent to which a indicate which of the adjectives best describe creativity-supporting element is present (real- them. The total number of selected adjec- ized) using a 7-point Likert scale (from very tives that are positively related to creativity little to very much). To increase validity, re- minus the total number of selected adjectives spondents also had the option of indicating that are negatively related to creativity is “don’t know” for each element. If this option considered as a measure of an individual’s was chosen, or if data were missing, the re- creative personality. Hence, CPS is a forma- spondent was not included in the study, as tive index. It is considered a reliable and our overall indices for the social-organiza- valid measure of creative personality (Batey tional and the overall physical work environ- & Furnham, 2008; Oldham & Cummings, ment need inputs from all single 1996). CPS is a widely used and well-re- elements. We employed a forma- spected creative personality measure, and tive index to obtain the overall We employed a many adaptations have been published in measure of the social-organiza- formative index to the literature. A common one is to use only tional and the physical work envi- a selection of adjectives to simplify data col- ronment. As the proposed overall obtain the overall lection (e.g., Madjar et al., 2002; Unsworth et measure of the work environment al., 2000; Zhou, 2003). Another, more funda- is composed of several different measure of the mental adaptation is to change the original elements, we totaled and averaged social-organizational formative index into a reflective scale (e.g., the element scores. This resulted Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009). Traditional in two scores: one for the support and the physical scale development draws on reflective mea- from the social-organizational surement models where the observed indica- work environment and one for work environment. tors are assumed to be caused by a latent the support from the physical variable, whereas in a formative measure- work environment. The scores of ment model (Damantopoulos & Winklhofer, the elements do not need to correlate; hence, 2001), the opposite direction of causal rela- common test methods for assessing construct tionship between the latent variable and the reliability do not apply. manifest indicators is assumed. We followed the approach of Unsworth et al. (2000) to Dependent Variable maintain the formative index and to simplify data collection by selecting 16 positive adjec- We used self-perceived creativity as our de- tives as a measure of creative personality pendent variable. This is the extent to which (capable, clever, confident, egotistical, hu- employees perceive that they produce new morous, informal, individualistic, insightful, and potentially useful ideas (Zhou, Shin, & intelligent, wide interests, inventive, origi- Cannella, 2008). Employees themselves are nal, reflective, resourceful, self-confident, best suited to report creativity because they and unconventional). The respondents were are aware of the subtle things they do in their asked to mark which of these adjectives best jobs that make them creative (Shalley et al., describes them. The total number of selected 2009). Other people such as supervisors or adjectives is considered as the measure of an colleagues do not have full access to the cre- individual’s creative personality (a maximum ative thoughts and activities of an individual, of 16). Because the item scores of a formative and therefore “the subject, in most cases, index do not need to correlate, common test knows more about himself than peers, super- methods for assessing construct reliability do visors, teachers, etc.” (Hocevar, 1981, p. 459). not apply (Rossiter, 2002). Yet, to a certain extent, self-reported creativ- We assessed the work environment by ity is correlated to supervisor-reported asking respondents to rate 9 creativity- creativity (Axtell, Holman, Unsworth, Wall, Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 724 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 Waterson, & Harrington, 2000). We used a age and creativity (“age curve”), which has three-item reflective self-rating scale to mea- been expressed as a polynomial with a posi- sure employee creativity, which was based on tive coefficient of linear age, and a negative George and Zhou’s (2001) 13-item scale for coefficient of quadratic age (Simonton, 1988). supervisor rating of employee creativity and Therefore, we included linear and quadratic Noordam’s (2006) modification of this scale age in our analysis. Several studies show that for self-rating of employee creativity. Because gender can have an effect on creative perfor- of the high internal consistency of the origi- mance, although the general picture is con- nal scales (both 0.96), we reduced the num- tradictory. J. Baer and Kaufman (2008, p. 28) ber of items in order to simplify state that “it is unlikely that a meta-analysis data collection. Since we consider would show a significant overall gender dif- We used a three creativity (the generation of ideas) ference on these tests, but it should be noted item reflective and innovation (the implementa- that if there were to be an overall ‘winner’ in tion of selected ideas) as related the numbers of studies in which one gender self-rating scale to but distinct concepts, we only outperformed the other, it would be women included items that focus specifi- and girls over men and boys.” We included measure employee cally on creativity (i.e., the gener- gender as a dummy variable in our analysis. creativity. ation of ideas) and those that had In order to reduce multicollinearity, we mean- the highest factor loadings in the centered the scores for age and for the inde- Noordam study. We modified the pendent variables. items by including a frequency element in the question (“often”), because creativity is Controlling for Common Method Bias not only about “novelty” but also about “flu- ency” of idea generation. To increase mea- In our survey study, like in many other stud- surement sensitivity, we employed a seven- ies, the data for the independent and depen- point Likert scale (1 = do not agree . . . 4 = dent variables come from a single source (the neutral . . . 7 = agree) rather than the original knowledge worker). Therefore, there is a risk five-point scales. This resulted in the follow- for common method bias since respondents ing three items for measuring employee cre- may have guessed our hypotheses and may ativity: “In my work, I often have new and have responded accordingly. We took several i nnovative ideas,” “In my work, I often come up measures reported in the literature to control with creative solutions to problems,” and “In my for common method bias. First, in our ques- work, I often suggest new ways of performing tionnaire we separated the independent and work tasks.” dependent variables (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, We performed confirmatory factor analy- Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Second, we explic- sis for the construct of employee creativity. itly emphasized that there were no right or To achieve an overidentified model, two wrong answers (Mäkelä & Brewster, 2009), loadings were specified to be equal. The and third, we guaranteed anonymity (Podsa- resulting one-factor model showed accept- koff et al., 2003; Rogelberg, Allen, Shanock, able fit (χ² = 0.25, p > 0.6; RMSEA = 0.0; GFI Scott, & Shuffler, 2010). After data collection, = 1.0; CFI = 1.0). Construct reliability is 0.89, we performed a statistical single-factor test to which is well beyond the recommended level evaluate whether common method bias was of 0.70. The degree of variance extracted is a problem in our dataset. Since there are few 0.74, which exceeds the recommended techniques to detect common method bias 50 percent. for formative scales (Booth, Park, & Glomb, 2009), we conducted Harman’s one-factor Control Variables test (Messersmith & Guthrie, 2010; Patel & Cardon, 2010; Podsakoff & Organ, 1986; S. G. We included age and gender as control vari- Scott & Bruce, 1994; Zhou et al., 2008), which ables in our analysis. Research has shown is commonly used to assess the existence of that there is a nonlinear relationship between common method variance at item level. Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 725 Principal component analysis with the 21 variable. This analysis showed that company items that make up the independent work has only a minor effect (2.4 percent of the environment variables and the 3 items from explained variance). Hence, we continued the dependent variable showed that the un- the data analysis with the regression models rotated principal components solution ex- presented in Table IV. tracted five components with eigenvalues The regression analysis of model 2 shows greater than 1. The first component ac- that the regression coefficient for creative counted for only 30 percent of the variance, personality differs significantly from zero. indicating that common method variance is This means that there is a significant positive not a serious problem in our dataset. effect of creative personality on creative per- formance (coefficient: 0.20 and p < 0.001). Results This result confirms Hypothesis 1: The higher a knowledge worker’s creative personality, Table III presents means, standard deviations, the higher his/her creative performance. and correlations for the (uncentered) mea- Model 2 also shows that the support from the sures used in this study. The main variables— social-organizational work environment has creative personality, the social-organizational a significant positive effect on creative perfor- work environment, and the physical work mance (coefficient: 0.17 and p < 0.01). This environment—are all positively and signifi- result confirms Hypothesis 2: The more a cantly related to creative performance. The knowledge worker perceives support from social-organizational work environment and his/her social-organizational work environ- the physical work environment are positively ment, the higher his/her creative perfor- and significantly related to each other. mance. Similarly, the regression coefficient The results of a hierarchical regression for the support from the physical work analysis are presented in Table IV. The control environment differs significantly from zero variables were entered first (model 1), f ollowed in the expected positive direction (coeffi- by the independent variables (creative per- cient: 0.12 and p < 0.05). This result confirms sonality, the social-organizational work envi- H ypothesis 3: The more a knowledge worker ronment, and the physical work e nvironment; perceives support from his/her physical work model 2). Next we included the interaction environment, the higher his/her creative terms (model 3). The explained variance in- performance. creases significantly from model 1 to model Model 3 shows that the interaction terms 2, but not from model 2 to model 3. Because do not differ significantly from zero. This the 274 respondents in our study worked means that in our dataset, the effect of cre- in 27 different companies, we performed a ative personality on creative performance multilevel analysis to evaluate the effect of does not depend on the perceived support company on the variance of the dependent from the social-organizational environment T A B L E I I I Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the Study Measuresa Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1. Creative performance 5.08 1.05 2. Age 37.7 10.6 0.10 3. Gender (1 = female; 2 = male) 1.78 0.42 0.15* 0.15* 4. Creative personality 6.11 2.72 0.22*** 0.12* 0.10 5. Social-organizational work 4.65 0.93 0.21*** –0.05 0.07 0.02 environment 6. Physical work environment 4.16 1.24 0.17** –0.04 –0.06 0.05 0.39*** *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (two-tailed). aN = 274. Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 726 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 T A B L E I V Results of Regression Analyses Predicting Creative Performancea,b Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Age 0.09 0.09 0.09 Age2 –0.16** –0.20*** –0.19*** Gender 0.15* 0.13* 0.13* Creative personality 0.20*** 0.20*** Social-organizational work environment 0.17** 0.16** Physical work environment 0.12* 0.10 Creative personality x Social-organizational work 0.01 environment Creative personality x Physical work environment 0.09 Social-organizational x Physical work environment –0.02 ΔR2 9.8% 1.0% Partial F 5.28** 10.29*** 0.97 R2 5.5% 15.3% 16.3% Adjusted R2 4.5% 13.4% 13.4% Model F 5.28** 8.06*** 5.69*** *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. aN = 274. bStandardized regression coeffi cients are reported for a one-sided test. or on the perceived support from the physi- workers, compared with the effects of creative cal work environment, and that the effect of personality and the social-organizational the perceived support from the social- work environment. To our knowledge, this is organizational work environment on cre- the first empirical study that considers the ativity does not depend on the perceived physical work environment simultaneously support from the physical work environ- with the social-organizational work environ- ment, and vice versa. Consequently, Hy- ment and creative personality to explain cre- potheses 4a, 4b, and 4c are rejected. The ative performance. This allows for a more standardized regression coefficients indicate comprehensive discussion on the possible that the contribution of creative personality roles of HRM to enhance creativity. We found to creative performance (coefficient: 0.20) is that all three dimensions independently con- larger than the contribution of the social- tribute to the creative performance of knowl- organizational work environment (coeffi- edge workers. This indicates that not only HR cient: 0.17), which is higher than the contri- practices that focus on recruiting and select- bution of the physical environment ing individuals with creative personality, or (coefficient: 0.12), although the differences on providing a creative social-organizational are small. This result supports Hypothesis 5, work environment through job design and showing that creative personality is more leadership support, but also HR practices important than the social-organizational that focus on providing a creative physical work environment, which is more impor- work environment can be effective in en- tant than the physical environment. hancing knowledge workers’ creativity. This provides empirical evidence for suggestions Discussion made by a number of management scholars (e.g., Amabile et al., 1996; Brockbank, 1999; The objective of the present study was to ex- George, 2008; Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Wood- amine the effect of the physical work envi- man et al., 1993) and HR professionals (cited ronment on the creativity of knowledge in, e.g., Bencivenga, 1998; M. May, 2008) Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 727 that the physical context supports employee more from the physical work environment creativity. than low creative personalities. Future studies We did not find significant interaction should clarify this. We did not find an inter- effects between the social-organizational en- action between the social-organizational and vironment and the physical environment physical environment either. This contrasts with creative personality. Although separate Vithayathawornwong et al.’s elements of the work environment may in- (2003) suggestion that the physi- teract with creative personality (George & cal work environment facilitates To our knowledge, Zhou, 2001; Madjar et al., 2002; Oldham & the social-organizational work this is the first Cummings, 1996; Zhou, 2003), at the aggre- e nvironment for creativity, rather gate level positive and negative interactions than having a direct effect on cre- empirical study may level out. For example, Oldham and ativity. Our study supports Evans Cummings (1996) found that high creative et al.’s idea (1994, op cit. Leather that considers personalities benefit more than low creative et al., 2003) that the physical en- personalities from the social-organizational vironment directly affects out- the physical work work environment elements “job complex- comes without interacting with environment ity,” “supportive supervisor,” and “non-con- the psychosocial work environ- trolling supervisor.” Similarly, George and ment. simultaneously Zhou (2001) report that individuals who We found that the relative rank high in openness to experience (a per- contribution of the physical work with the social- sonality trait that is considered to be linked environment is somewhat smaller organizational work to creativity) benefit more from the work than that of the social-organiza- environment element “positive feedback tional work environment, and environment and from supervisors” than those who score low both contributions are smaller in openness to experience. On the other than that of creative personality. creative personality hand, Zhou (2003) found that less creative This suggests that personality plays to explain creative people benefit more from the element “pres- a greater role in enhancing cre- ence of creative coworkers” (in absence of ativity than the social-organiza- performance. close monitoring supervisors) than high cre- tional or physical work environ- ative people, and Madjar et al. (2002) report ment. Creative performance is We found that all that individuals with less creative personali- driven by personal characteristics three dimensions ties benefit more from the element “support but can be further enhanced by from family or friends” than individuals the work context. The social-orga- independently with more creative personalities. In other nizational work context seems to words, some creativity-supporting elements have a stronger impact on creativ- contribute to are more beneficial for high creative person- ity than the physical environment. alities, whereas others are more beneficial for This finding corresponds to earlier the creative low creative personalities, with possibly no observations by Ceylan and Dul performance of effect on the level of the overall work envi- (2007), who found that human ronment. Nevertheless, the overall work en- resource and ergonomics profes- knowledge workers. vironment does have a direct effect on cre- sionals considered both the orga- ativity: it makes all people more creative nizational and the physical work (both the less and the more creative). More environment as important for creative people do not benefit more from a employee creativity, but ranked the organiza- supportive work environment than less cre- tional work environment as more important. ative people. However, our regression model As expected, we found that age affects cre- 3 shows that the interaction between creative ative performance in a nonlinear way. Our personality and the physical work environ- regression model shows that maximum cre- ment was relatively high (coefficient: 0.09, ative performance can be expected at the age but not significant), which may suggest that of about 40, which corresponds to peaks high creative personalities could benefit found in other studies (Simonton, 1988). We Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 728 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 also found that, on average, men reported and the dependent variables have to come higher levels of creative performance than from a single source—the employees them- women. This effect was unexpected, as in selves—and have to be collected at the same most studies no gender differences are found. time (Zhou et al., 2008). Although we have In cases where differences are found, females attempted to prevent common method bias usually have higher creative performance during data c ollection, and Harman’s one- than males (J. Baer & Kaufman, factor test indicated that common method 2008). Kaufman (2006) suggests bias was not a major problem in our dataset, In a knowledge- that gender differences in self- further studies should preferably include based economy, reported creativity are domain- measures of independent and dependent dependent. Hence, our results may variables collected from different sources. where the creativity indicate that males tend to rate One distinctive feature of our study is themselves higher than females in that our respondents were knowledge of knowledge knowledge work. These results workers in SMEs. SMEs are considered most workers is central, suggest that age and gender should important for regional and national innova- be included as control variables in tion (Asheim & Isaksen, 2003), and HR practices to studies on creative work environ- knowledge workers’ creativity in these enter- ments. prises is an essential resource. Most empiri- promote physical cal studies on creativity and innovation use Limitations and Future respondents from larger companies, possibly work environments Research for reasons of efficient data collection. Our that enhance data collection in SMEs was rather labor- Our study has some limitations. intensive, as many companies had to be creativity are First, there is a possibility for visited by different assistants using a stan- measurement error in the data. dardized protocol. However, executive direc- strategically We constructed new overall indi- tors of SMEs were motivated to participate important because ces for measuring the social-orga- in the study because we offered them advice nizational and the physical work after the analysis of the work environment they contribute environment, which draw upon (Dul & Ceylan, 2011). All data was gathered measures of separate elements of from knowledge workers who were em- to the company’s the work environment. As a first ployed in Dutch SMEs. In order to generalize innovation capacity. approximation, we presumed that our results to knowledge workers in other the effects of single elements on (larger) companies and other cultures, repli- creativity can be added linearly to cation studies are needed, which include obtain the overall measure. Further studies these. Our results cannot be generalized to to explore different ways of aggregating (e.g., creativity in other domains (for example, using weighting factors or nonlinear summa- entrepreneurial creativity or artistic creativ- tion) are desirable. Second, we measured ity), because we focus on employee creativ- creativity by using respondents’ self-reports. ity in a business setting. Although self-perceived creativity may be a more valid measure of an individual’s cre- Implications for Managerial Practice ative performance than a measure of individ- ual’s creative performance that is p erceived Our finding that the physical work environ- by other individuals, such as s upervisors or ment can contribute to creative performance colleagues ( Hocevar, 1981; Shalley et al., of knowledge workers supports the view 2009; Zhou et al., 2008), such measurement and practice that HR has a strategic role in is less objective than counts of creative out- physical workplace design in today’s knowl- put. Further studies should include other edge-intensive and innovation-driven econ- measures of creative performance besides omy. HR professionals can play a vital role self-reports. Third, for practical reasons, in in contributing to designing creative work- many field studies, data for the independent places by cooperating with architects, i nterior Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm KNOWLEDGE WORKERS’ CREATIVITY AND THE ROLE OF THE PHYSICAL WORK ENVIRONMENT 729 designers, facility managers, ergonomists, ally give skewed answers. Instead, he suggests purchasing managers, and so on. Because we that HR practices should focus on managerial found no interaction effects, such HR prac- behavior and workplace environments. On tices could be performed independently from the other hand, Kobe and Goller (2009) claim other HR practices to enhance creativity (re- that the CPS can be a valid method for cruitment and selection, job design, leader- assessing creative personality, if assessments ship support). Physical workplace design just are done carefully by experts. adds to the effects of other practices. One On the basis of our findings, we recom- advantage of focusing on designing physical mend that companies implement three types work environments is that many creativity- of HR practices to enhance employee creativ- stimulating features such as plants or inspir- ity simultaneously: ing colors are relatively cost-effective and • recruitment and selection of employees can be easily implemented without much on the basis of personality traits that are resistance against change, in contrast to so- related to creativity (by using CPS or an- cial-organizational measures such as restruc- other creative personality test); turing jobs or changing leadership styles. • job design and leadership practices Another advantage is that changes in physi- that provide social-organizational work cal work environments are immediately vis- environments that support creativity ible to employees. In a knowledge-based (see Table I); and economy, where the creativity of knowledge • interior and building design practices workers is central, HR practices to promote that provide physical work environments physical work environments that enhance that support creativity (see Table II). creativity are strategically important because they contribute to the company’s innovation These HR practices can together create a capacity. company profile that is difficult to imitate for Our findings about the relative contribu- competitors (Henard & McFadyen, 2008), tions of creative personality and the and hence can contribute to a sustainable social-organizational and physical work competitive advantage. environment indicate that HR practices that focus on selecting creative personalities may be more effective than those focusing on the Acknowledgments work environment. Egan (2005) warns that The authors thank Michel van der Borgh for his using Gough’s (1979) Creative Personality assistance with analyzing data, and Syntens for Scale (CPS) for selection purposes may not be establishing contacts with the participating com- effective because applicants may intention- panies. JAN DUL is a professor of technology and human factors in the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands. He received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. His research interests include designing work environments for employee performance, satisfaction, and creativity, and case study research methodology. He has written more than 150 academic and professional publi- cations and is the author of several books, including a best-selling book on ergonomics. CANAN CEYLAN is an assistant professor of management and organization in the School of Social Sciences in the Department of Business Administration at Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey. She received her PhD in management and organization at the same uni- versity. Her current research focuses on organizational culture and climate for supporting creativity and innovation, the design of the work environments for enhancing creativ- ity, and linking HR systems to innovation and fi rm performance. Her work has been Human Resource Management DOI:10.1002/hrm 730 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2011 published in several peer-reviewed journals, and she has conducted research projects on enhancing creativity and innovation of manufacturing and service organizations in Turkey. FERDINAND JASPERS is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship in the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, the Netherlands. 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