Creativity & Work Environments Promoting

Creativity & Work Environments Promoting Creativity in Work Environments In the article entitled, "Qualities of Work Environments that Promote Perceived Support for Creativity," author Daniel Stokols et. al. (2002) probed into the phenomenon of promotion of creativity as resulting to quality work environments. More specifically, the authors identified two key predictors that they hypothesized will determine job satisfaction, inducing creativity or leading to increased creativity. These predictors are physical and social constructs determined as environmental distraction and social climate, respectively.

Using regression analysis to determine the significance and strength of association of the relationship between the physical and social predictors and "effects on personal and organizational outcomes," it was found that both social climate and environmental distraction is significantly related to job satisfaction (137). This relationship between the social and physical environments and effects on personal stress and job satisfaction among the 97 campus-based employees and non-university workers surveyed in the University of California (facilities) reflected the inherent strength and weakness of the study.

While the findings proved the authors' hypothesis was correct and actually exist and is significant, the authors also took into account the fact that the unit of analysis -- individuals who are employees working in the campus -- was not sufficient to warrant the representativeness of the results to reflect role of social and physical environments to creativity among employees and in organizations in general. The texts that follow discuss in detail the points of agreement and contention about the findings, analyses, and conceptualization measures of the study. Stokol's et.

al.'s study is analyzed based on four (3) critical and interrelated sections in the study: the conceptualization and operationalization of the variables and measures, respondent criteria and sampling method, and limitations set. The study introduced variables and measures that are operationalized based on definitions generated (over time) from previous studies on the same topic. These variables were (1) social climate (determined based on "subjective appraisals" of the respondents); (2) environmental distraction; (3) personal stress; (4) perceived support for creativity at work; and (5) job satisfaction.

Both personal stress and job satisfaction were categorized under the "effects on personal and organizational outcomes" that the author hypothesized to be significantly related to social climate and environmental distraction in the workplace. The variables were thoroughly defined and determined through the measures identified and reported in the study. However, it is also critical to look at how the variables were identified and chosen to be the linkages through which creativity in the workplace is determined.

From the authors' determination of the survey variables personal stress and job satisfaction, they did not strongly establish, through a critical study of extant literature, that creativity is indeed synonymous with level of personal stress and job satisfaction. Indeed, it is possible to look at these variables in the context of determining, for example, efficiency at work. Efficiency, in fact, could also be used as a measure of creativity, since it could be argued that efficiency is a vital component of creativity.

Thus, from the study's operationalization of its outcome variables, the study cannot definitely claim that they actually determined the relationship between creativity in the workplace and the predictor variables social and physical environments mainly through outcome variables job satisfaction and personal stress. Indeed, carefully determining the operational definition of 'creativity in the workplace' is just as critical as proving that there is a significant relationship between this variable and the social and physical environments of the employee's workplace.

Amabile's (1995) study on "high" and "low" creativity identified the 'creativity in the workplace' variable operationally as developing new ideas, being innovative, and reducing "emphasis" on the "status quo," "internal political pressures," and "norms of evaluation" (125). The author's study developed measures through which creativity can be determined; this was a process that was not thoroughly strengthened in Stokols et. al.'s study.

Operationally defining the creativity variable would enable the authors to at least make a strong claim that what they were actually measuring is creativity in the workplace, rather than just personal stress and/or job satisfaction. Because of the poor operationalization on the expected outcome variable creativity in the workplace, the study could not definitely say that indeed, the social and physical environments of an employee's workplace is significantly related to creative thinking in the workplace.

More salient than the operationalization problem in the study was also the question of representativeness of the study to employees and organizations in general. A study on creativity in the workplace aims to provide insights on how working conditions -- socially or physically -- help promote or actually deter creative thinking in the workplace.

As an empirical study on this important issue in organizations and among employees, it is critical to ensure that the sample type and even the sampling size will be representative for the general population of employees in organizations. As it is, the study surveyed only employees working in the University of California campus -- both employed and not employed by the University.

Moreover, the sample size of n=97 was not a statistically robust number for the authors to generalize their findings about creativity in the workplace to the general population of employees and organization. It is possible that, because the respondent criteria are limited and sample size not even statistically robust, the findings are applicable only to the sample studied -- that is, employees working in a campus environment (both University and non-University employees).

Despite the rigorous data analyses that the authors conducted in the study, these results will not be useful for end-users if the variables and measures are not clearly operationalized. In addition, measures must be relevant to the variable being tested, otherwise, the authors will be testing for variables that are not logically related to each other, even if these relationships are tested and found to be significant. Significance is also affected.