Designing Creativity-Enhancing Workspaces: A Critical Look at Empirical Evidence

Abstract

In recent years, companies have increasingly focused on innovative workspaces to enhance employee creativity. These new workspace concepts break with conventional office designs. Google, Apple, and Facebook are typical examples of companies that have received considerable media attention for their unique workspaces. Nowadays, many other organizations deal with the challenge of designing such creativity-enhancing workspaces. In contrast to this high practical relevance, the literature lacks an overview reflecting the present state of research on how to design such work environments. To bridge this gap, we conduct a systematic literature review to draw a comprehensive overview of existing empirical research on creativity-enhancing workspaces. Empirical evidence shows that designing creative workspaces is by no means a trivial task, because the physical work environment can both enhance and inhibit creativity in organizations. We categorize characteristics of creative workspaces and offer insights into how workspaces should be designed so that they foster creativity. Finally, we derive implications for both theory and practice, and conclude with suggestions for future research.

Keywords: creativity, workspace, workplace, physical work environment, literature review