The Relationship between Physical Workplace Attributes and Organizational Creativity, Case Study: Knowledge-based Companies

Abstract

After years of investigating the effective factors of organizational productivity, managers concluded that physical workplace attributes is one of the most important variables. Physical workplace attributes play a vital role in increasing or decreasing organizational productivity, effectiveness, high performance, creativity as well as influence on job motivation, satisfaction and loyalty. Limited research findings link the physical work environment to employees' physical and mental health. Although the significant of physical attributes in work environments couldn't be ignored, there is a big gap in management literature reviews and studies of this field. The aim of this research is to fill this theoretical gap as well as recognition, classification and evaluation the physical attributes of workplaces. To gain these goals, in this study we have investigated the relationship between organizational creativity and Physical workplace attributes, and the effective factors of driving creativity in work places. Nowadays, Innovation and creativity have become critical skills for achieving success in organizations while they can increase the productivity of the organization. Therefore, after reviewing the related literature, 260 questionnaires were distributed among 80 active knowledge-based companies in “Khorasan Razavi Science and Technology Park" and “Ferdowsi university of Mashhad" incubator to evaluate their Physical workplace attributes as well as its relationship with organizational creativity. Analysis via Structural equation modeling by AMOS software shows that Physical workplace attributes strongly influences on organizational creativity, especially through “Work surfaces" and “Daylight and view" factors. In other words, to increase organizational creativity as a vital factor of creating sustainable competitive advantage for organization, designing and creating and developing a workplace with proper and fit physical features is necessary.