Journal of Management & Organization, page 1 of 22

© 2017 Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management
doi:10.1017/jmo.2017.46

The spatial context of organizations: A critique of ‘creative workspaces’

DONATELLA DE PAOLI,* ERIKA SAUER** AND ARJA ROPO§

Abstract
This paper examines office design as a spatial context of organizations. Organizations increasingly
invest in designing workspaces to support employee creativity, foster company innovation and
communicate a positive company image. This paper takes a critical view of this ‘hype’ by describing
and analysing images of the headquarters of allegedly ‘creative workspaces’ published on the
internet across a broad range of industries and corporations. Our analysis shows how their design
follows standardized or stereotypical approaches to nurturing creativity: playfully or artistically
designed open spaces, environments reminiscent of home, sports and play, nature, past/future
technologies, or culturally aligned symbols. We discern underlying connections between office
spaces and creativity, suggesting that creativity flourishes in happy, relaxed and playful
communities within close-knit teams. We then identify three contradictions in relation to the
existing literature on creativity and workspaces: individually versus collectively produced creativity;
professionally designed workspaces versus workspaces created through participation; and planned
versus emerging creativity.

Keywords: creativity, workspace, creative space, office design, critique

Received 23 May 2016. Accepted 7 August 2017

INTRODUCTION: THE ‘HYPE’ OF CREATIVE WORKSPACES

W e live in an era where the primary asset of many organizations (Amabile, 1996), classes of people
(Florida, 2002), industries (Caves, 2000; Hartley, 2004) and even economies (Howkins, 2001) is
defined as creative, giving rise to categories such as ‘creative classes’, ‘creative industries’, ‘creative
economies’ and ‘creative workspaces’. During the past decade, there has been increasing interest in
designing the spatial context of organizations to nurture creative processes at work. Organizations strive to
make their workspaces more creative with the help of consultants, architects and designers. According to
Dale and Burrell (2010), this is part of a common trend of companies seeking to reshape their workspaces
to achieve organizational goals through spatial arrangements. Dale and Burrell (2010: 19) go as far as to
refer to this as ‘spatial manipulation’, which, apart from economics, also touches upon core organizational
issues such as change management, communication and creativity, identifying the organization and
communal spaces supporting team work and cooperation. Building workspaces that foster creativity and
innovation is now used for branding purposes to attract clients, but also to appeal to potential employees
and eventually, to gain competitive advantage through the spatial context.

* Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
** Amcham Finland Inc., New York City, NY, USA
§ Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Corresponding author: [Link]@[Link]

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The initial studies on space and organizational creativity were quite general, attempting to make a
link between creativity and the built environment (Lindahl, 2004; Lewis & Moultrie, 2005; McCoy,
2005) and claiming difficulty in terms of drawing any consistent conclusions. In the field of evidence-
based architecture and evidence-based design (see Davis, Leach, & Clegg, 2011 for a review), the
problem of drawing such conclusions is well recognized. In attempting to find which physical factors
influence organizational creativity, the importance of open workspaces is highlighted in some studies
(Kristensen, 2004; Dul & Ceylan, 2011; Sailer, 2011), while others focus more on the use of visual
models, creative tools, and other material objects and artefacts influencing creativity (Carlsen, Clegg, &
Gjersvik, 2012; Doorley & Witthoft, 2012). Finally, studies on creativity and workspaces suggest that
office design may stimulate creativity indirectly, thus creating a favourable organizational culture
(Haner, 2005; Kallio, Kallio, & Blomberg, 2015). These studies examined employees’ or managers’
perceptions of their creativity in the designed workspaces.
Descriptions of the designs of creative workspaces are scarce, except for articles in popular magazines
highlighting companies because of their ‘creative’ office designs. On the internet, many companies claim
to have designed workspaces to enhance creativity. These corporations are in different fields, such as IT,
law, advertising, software and games development, toys, beauty equipment, and sports and beverages, just
to mention a few. It seems that building ‘creative workspaces’ has become a hype – at least for companies
that wish to be perceived as creative and innovative. The purpose of this article is to critically explore these
‘creative workspaces’ to better understand what kind of symbolism and themes they entail and to discern
the underlying assumptions of how workspace designs and organizational creativity are connected.
The following research questions guide our analysis: first, what kind of visual and symbolic cues and
designs do the ‘creative workspaces’ entail, and second, how are these spatial designs connected to
organizational creativity?
The exploration of space and organizational creativity draws on the recently revived interest in the
spatial aspects of organizational life (Clegg & Kornberger, 2006; Dale & Burrell, 2008; van Marrewijk
& Yanow, 2010) and more broadly to a ‘material turn’ in organization studies (Barad, 2003; Dale,
2005; Orlikowski, 2007; Carlile, Nicolini, Langley, & Tsoukas, 2013). Dale and Burrell note that ‘in
the recent years there has been a movement in the conscious design of workplaces to achieve certain
values and business goals through the manipulation of space’ (2008: 9). The study of physical space has
a long and rich tradition in the field of organizational culture as an artefact (Gagliardi, 1990; Rafaeli &
Vilnai-Yavetz, 2004; Vilnai-Yavetz, Rafaeli, & Schneider-Yaacov, 2005). Spaces have been found to
influence and shape behaviour through the structural qualities of office space used instrumentally, but
also through the symbolic and cultural aspects of artefacts (Rafaeli & Vilnai-Yavetz, 2004) and through
people’s subjective experiences of space (Ropo, Salovaara, Sauer, & De Paoli, 2015).
Our study proceeded inductively by starting with empirical observations on what were claimed to be
‘creative workspaces’ on the internet, after which we descriptively analysed their symbolic and design
elements. Our further analysis concerned what these designs would mean in relation to literature on
space and organizational creativity, and what kinds of assumptions about space and organizational
creativity the workspace arrangements might entail. We identified symbolic themes, such as home,
sports and play, technology, nature, and symbolism, which were typically ingrained in the idea of a
creative workspace. The themes were assumed to be connected to organizational creativity in different
ways. Finally, we concluded to some contradictions on the assumptions on space and organizational
creativity in relation to the current literature.

LITERATURE ON ORGANIZATIONAL CREATIVITY AND WORKSPACES

Organizational creativity refers to the production of novel, useful ideas or products that are more or
less appropriate and useful in a given situation (e.g., Mumford & Gustafson, 1988; Amabile, 1996;

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Mumford, 2003) and for the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile
(Amabile, 1996; Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). Research on organizational creativity started with psychological
studies of individuals’ creative minds and personality traits (see Amabile, 1996 for a comprehensive
review). This stream of research can be categorized as the ‘person-centric creativity research’, which
assumes that organizational creativity can be reduced to individual qualities. Gradually, the understanding
of organizational creativity as a more multifaceted and complex phenomenon than that residing
in talented personalities led to the application of contextual and environmental perspectives
(Csikszentmihalyi & Sawyer, 1995). This latter stream of research, which is currently more dominant,
can be defined as ‘contextually oriented creativity research’, which pays attention to the wider
environment for stimulating creativity. Here, creativity occurs in the interaction between the individuals
and a combination of a number of societal, cultural and organizational factors as well as between the
individual, group and organizational levels (Amabile, 1996; Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron,
1996; Styhre & Sundgren, 2005; Csikszentmihalyi, 2007; Mumford, 2012). The few studies examining
creativity from a spatial perspective belong to this latter contextually oriented creativity research.
The interest in workspace design has been growing and can be seen somewhat parallel to the
emerging aesthetic approach to organizing that started to evolve in the late 1980s (Gagliardi, 1990;
Strati, 1992). While noting the increased interest in space as a contextual element influencing orga-
nizational behaviour (Orlikowski, 2007; Dale & Burrell, 2008; van Marrewijk & Yanow, 2010),
Yanow (2010) argues that space has still been largely neglected in organization and management
studies, and she calls for heightened sensitivity towards spatial arrangements.
After organization researchers started to increasingly pay attention to space in the early 2000, the
streams of research in facility management, architecture, environmental psychology and real estate have
since been growing. Researchers studying the effects of office space design from a facility management
perspective have predominantly investigated employee satisfaction, communication or knowledge
sharing (Kampschroer & Heerwagen, 2005; Maarleveld, Volker, & van der Voordt, 2009; Appel-
Meulenbroek, 2013). Dul and Ceylan (2011) state in their review that workplace design has been
analysed from the perspectives of workplace safety, well-being and ergonomics, mainly concerning
physical factors such as indoor plants, windows, colours, lights, materials, physical arrangements,
furniture and other artefacts. The study of organizational creativity from a spatial perspective is rather
limited, maybe because of the difficulty in drawing conclusions on the design of workspaces linked to
employee creativity (Lindahl, 2004; Lewis & Moultrie, 2005; McCoy, 2005; Vischer & Zeisel, 2008).
There is, however, an increasing number of studies referring to the physical aspects of creativity
(Kristensen, 2004; Lindahl, 2004; Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Lewis & Moultrie, 2005; McCoy, 2005).
Most studies arise from different fields of research, ranging from social psychology, environmental
psychology and architecture to facility management and organizational research on creativity. This
makes it difficult to compare previous research as the theoretical assumptions and methodological
approaches vary.
Being aware of this heterogeneous background, we categorize the previous research into three
groups: first, studies examining organizational creativity and space indirectly through the analysis of
how space influences communication, social relations or organizational culture. These are factors that
may all lead to higher levels of organizational creativity (Allen, 1977; Kristensen, 2004; Kallio, Kallio,
& Blomberg, 2015). Second, studies focussing on tools, visuals, furniture and other material elements
inducing or stimulating organizational creativity (Haner, 2005; Carlsen, Clegg, & Gjersvik, 2012;
Doorley & Witthoft, 2012), and third, studies examining specifically designed spaces for creativity
such as ‘innovation labs’ and other kinds of especially ‘creative’ workspaces (Vithayathawornwong,
Danko, & Tolbert, 2003; Lindahl, 2004; Lewis & Moultrie, 2005; McCoy, 2005; Magadley & Birdi,
2009; Williams, 2009; Martens, 2011; Sailer, 2011; Bisadi, Mozaffar, & Hosseini, 2012). We will
review these three streams of research in the following.

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Group 1: Studies examining organizational creativity and space indirectly

From a contextual perspective on creativity, communication in teams or between multidisciplinary
people is considered important for creativity and innovation (Amabile, 1996). This may be one of the
reasons why both creative spaces and research on space and creativity focus on open, interactive office
layouts and proximity between people. Studies on space and organizational communication have found
that people are more likely to communicate with colleagues in their vicinity and that face-to-face
interaction declines rapidly after a distance of 30 m (Allen, 1977; Allen & Henn, 2007). Perceived
distance created by staircases also influences communication (Allen, 1977). Allen and Henn (2007)
describe the trumpet model of the product development process and the different spatial requirements,
especially flexibility, through different phases (Allen & Henn, 2007).
An extensive study on the relocation of a newspaper company (Kallio, Kallio, & Blomberg, 2015)
revealed that careful choice, planning and design of the organization’s location, layout and style can
stimulate openness, equality and collectivity, all of which are found to be conducive to organizational
creativity. The most important factor advancing openness seemed to have been the new division of
space in the newspaper company. The fact that there were now only two floors and that all depart-
ments shared an open space instead of being physically separated by walls brought people physically
closer together, resulting in increased interaction and knowledge creation. These are seen as
prerequisites for creativity. A short description of their new facilities follows:
Compared to the old premises, one could point out that the customer entrance had undergone a considerable
facelift. The previous, bank-like, timeworn and crowded desks were replaced with a trendy, hotel lobby feel
through ever changing photograph exhibitions …. In between the ground floor and the first floor, with a view to
the river, there is a ‘News Bistro’ – a smaller lounge area for employees. At the entrance to the first floor is the
heart of the physical layout of the premises, ‘the Playground’. It is an inviting lounge where employees can gather
for both formal and informal meetings, have coffee breaks, read newspapers and magazines, etc. The personnel
working on the first floor recognised the importance of the Playground as a space that reduces barriers between
groups and makes co-workers more familiar with each other, which, for its part, has had a positive effect on the
organisational culture. (Kallio, Kallio, & Blomberg, 2015: 398)
This comprehensive study on how a change of office space influences creativity indirectly by changing
the organizational culture and practices shows that the physical work environment truly plays a
significant role in promoting organizational creativity.
In conclusion, we can say that the examined studies hold a strong allusion that workspace
arrangements that allow and encourage interaction and communication between people and that
provide different kinds of spaces for different functions also afford organizational creativity to grow.

Group 2: Studies examining material elements to stimulate organizational creativity

According to Haner (2005), cognitively and perceptually stimulating workspace environments can
enhance creativity. Furthermore, Csikszentmihalyi (2007: 136) states that prepared minds in beautiful
settings are more likely to find new connections amongst ideas and new perspectives on issues they are
dealing with.
Recent studies on workspace design and creativity suggest that the use of visual models, creative
tools, prototyping, and other material objects and artefacts influence creativity, as well as a multitude of
fun, colourful tools to support creativity. These can be different kinds of tables, seating arrangements,
whiteboards, screens, writeable surfaces, team spaces, toolkits and displays:
Regardless of whether it’s a classroom or the offices of a billion-dollar company, space is something to think of as
an instrument for innovation and collaboration. It’s not an initial, given condition, something that should be

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accepted as is. Space is a valuable tool that can help you create deep and meaningful collaborations in your work
and life. (Doorley & Witthoft, 2012: 5)
Kristensen (2004) illustrates this in a case study on how space can support the different stages of the
creative process. An interdepartmental project team had a studio space available next to their
departmental workstations. The studio space included a big room and clustered workshops. The study
shows how the studio provided the opportunity for models and visualizations to be made on the spot.
There seems to be a common understanding that space and material tools matter in advancing
creative processes. This needs to be considered, as noted in the studies in the field of design (Doorley &
Witthoft, 2012) and in different knowledge-intensive industries (Carlsen, Clegg, & Gjersvik, 2012).
Doorley and Witthoft (2012) write about how space can be staged for creative collaboration and they
present alternative tools and arrangements to inspire creativity. Their overall idea is that space matters
for creativity, but that it needs to be defined, shaped and decided upon by the people doing creative
work. They believe creative processes need to be bottom-up by engaging the people to contribute and
avoid managerial or authoritative steering, in classrooms as well as in organizations. Carlsen, Clegg, and
Gjersvik. (2012) broaden the view on creative processes or ‘idea work’ to include both prepping,
zooming out, wonder, drama, prototyping, laughter, shaping, resistance and lastly, also materializing
the ideas and processes. The use of pictures or drawings, sketches, miniature models and other material
tools are considered as an important aspect of creative work, whether it is engineering, architecture,
design #or knowledge-based consulting, where their research was carried out.

Group 3: Studies examining specifically designed spaces for creativity

Studies examining specifically designed spaces for creativity such as ‘innovation labs’ are rather rare
(Lewis & Moultrie, 2005; Magadley & Birdi, 2009). Here, we need to bear in mind that studies
emphasizing the role of various material elements in creative work (group 2 in our categorization) are
mostly about organizations and fields that are commonly viewed as ‘creative’ such as the media,
architecture and design, or consultancy, and where spaces may be especially designed for creative work.
In this sense, studies in groups 2 and 3 are not quite exclusive. However, in addition to the more
specific aesthetic and material aspects of workspaces and creativity discussed in group 2, we next
address some more general considerations pointed out in studies on spaces designed especially for
creative work.
Sailer (2011) did a study on a media company before and after a relocation and refurbishment
project. She developed two criteria for creativity in workplaces: first, spaces for chance encounters with
people from different teams are needed for creativity, and second, a balance between spaces for
communication and concentration is needed for creativity. Using a mixed-methods research design,
the case study included structured interviews, satisfaction surveys, social network surveys, space
observations and a Space Syntax analysis of floor plans. The study showed that only the first criterion
was successfully met in the media company. She said that due to some situational industry-related
pressures, the second criterion was not fully implemented. However, her study highlights the
importance of bringing people together to enhance creativity and to balance spaces for communication
and for concentration. The author is cautious about drawing any consistent conclusions on the
relationship between designing spaces for creativity and calls for more research.
Bisadi, Mozaffar, and Hosseini (2012) studied how architecture and urban design researchers would
build an academic research centre while being aware that researchers in those fields are particularly
sensitive to the physical environment. They were able to identify four influential spatial characteristics:
privacy, beauty, spatial diversity and proximity. Their analysis suggests locating individual offices
(to secure privacy) close to each other to increase chance interactions and communication on the stairs,
in corridors and in elevators. They also found that natural elements in interior design were considered

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aesthetically pleasing and that they facilitate creative thinking. The diversity of spaces referred to having
different furniture for different activities and spaces to work in the office: a desk, a sofa and a
hammock. Bisadi, Mozaffar, and Hosseini. (2012) also found that designed common spaces were
perceived to increase creativity: connectedness and the continuity of open and closed spaces were found
to enhance visibility and the sense of proximity. Furthermore, they recommend designing special places
for ‘gathering, chatting, playing and exercising’ (Bisadi, Mozaffar, & Hosseini, 2012: 241).
In his review article, Martens (2011) has characterized the literature on space and creativity as
fragmented and poorly developed. He found some connections between the physical workplace and
creative processes, creative interactions, flow and creative thinking. He complemented the literature
review with interviews of creative professionals that reinforced the literature on a number of occasions.
One finding was that stimulating a creative culture through the organization’s identity seems
important. Moreover, recognizing the symbolic dimension of the physical workplace for creativity as
well as the importance of sharing and developing knowledge were noted. What was important was that
managers worked in the same open-plan area, presented their work (visuals and models) and that there
was a buzzing atmosphere with people interacting and moving around. The study also pointed out that
the places for creative thinking were diverse. Most did their creative thinking during moments of
relaxation: in the shower, while running, in the middle of the night, on the way home, on a train, on a
bus or on a bicycle. Some would just think in the office while sketching or when away from their
computer at an informal meeting table. The study emphasized that the relation between creativity and
the physical workplace depends on individuals’ perceptions.
Our brief overview of a variety of studies examining the relationship between organizational
creativity and physical space either indirectly or more directly does not warrant a causal or determined
relationship. However, there seems to be a certain kind of consensus that spaces that allow frequent
encounters with other people are beneficial for creativity and that it helps if the material tools needed
for idea generation and sharing are readily available. Additionally, a stimulating and aesthetically
pleasing environment is often mentioned in relation to creativity. Overall, physical space arrangements,
their aesthetic aspects and material objects seem not only to afford concrete conditions for creative
work, but also to carry symbolic values that are subjectively experienced and thus difficult to anticipate,
control or manage (Dale & Burrell, 2008; van Marrewijk & Yanow, 2010; Ropo et al., 2015).

RESEARCH METHOD AND EMPIRICAL MATERIALS

Many companies have built ‘creative workspaces’ to provoke and nurture creativity and innovation.
During the past decade, this has become even a trend. To our surprise – and slight irritation – we
found a certain kind of uniformity in these spatial settings.
The companies that occupy a carefully designed office space are typically well-off tech companies
that need to compete for the best employees and hold on to the talent they already have. Another type
of companies that typically pay attention to the office space and design are the so-called creative
companies, such as advertising, branding and architecture.
Despite the variety of companies that have chosen to build creative workspaces, the aesthetics of the
spaces seem to follow a standardized understanding of creativity. Pictures of company headquarters
suggest that creative workspaces are typically designed to create moments of happy and playful
community or team building, flexible and informal communication, and artful, childlike, fun and
trendy work. We started to wonder why they looked the way they did and, furthermore, why this
irritated us as scholars. Companies building creative workspaces often state that they want to enhance
creativity, but little is explicated as to how this was supposed to happen through the spatial
arrangements.

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Our irritation stemmed from a preunderstanding of creativity as a broader social phenomenon that
can occur in various environments and under various conditions. For example, an actor’s work in a
theatre may be considered creative and still, the rehearsing most often takes place in a dark room
backstage where the walls are covered with black materials and messy stuff lying around (Salovaara,
2014, 26:26). Or, researchers’ most fruitful collegial communication may take place sitting on a worn-
out sofa instead of in a newly designed ‘community room’ (Dale & Burrell, 2015). The workspaces
displayed as creative on the internet were very different from these scholarly examples. The conformity
of the internet images made us think that there had to be a somehow taken-for-granted managerial
discourse that creativity blossoms in certain kinds of physical spaces. In methodological terms, our
interest was not on ‘matters of fact’, but on ‘matters of concern’, as Kreiner (2010: 200) puts it. This
means that our focus was not on creative spaces as a matter as such, but on their context and the
multiplicity of meanings they render. We sensitized ourselves to holistic sensuous experiences and
imagined how it might feel to work in the pictured workspaces. Strati (2007) calls this sensible
knowledge development and argues for its scholarly relevance. Unlike Strati, who emphasized the
sensory faculties of touch and hearing, we had to rely on our sight, imagination and empathy as well
as on our own experiences in working in different spaces.
We decided to undertake a more systematic search on the internet with the keywords ‘creative
workspace’ and ‘inspirational office’. As the reader can imagine, even the search engine Google
provided a huge number of images (close to two million images in less than a second). We searched
several internet pages (see references), and to create a reasonable sample for analysis, we finally chose
40 pictures. Our main criterion for choosing especially those 40 images was because the offices,
typically company headquarters, were defined as creative on the internet page blurbs by the companies
themselves. In addition, the images seemed to intuitively follow the same type of pattern.
When gazing at the images of the self-acclaimed creative spaces, saturation was reached at some
point. Certain themes, designs and atmospheres kept on repeating. The images started to resemble each
other in a way that we could not quite put our finger on and wanted to take a closer look.
Methodologically, our approach follows the ‘basic thrust of social constructionism’ as Hacking
(1999) and Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009: 24) define it. First, social constructionist studies regularly
begin with a self-evident truth. In this case, the empirical finding that certain kinds of designed creative
spaces are believed to nurture employee creativity and foster innovation seems to be taken as rather
self-evident. Second, social constructionist studies claim that things do not inevitably need to be that
way. In this case, the proclaimed creative spaces (as is with any spaces) can also hinder creativity. More
specifically, the notion of designed creative workspaces holds to the idea of creativity as something that
can be deterministically influenced or ‘managed’ from outside the occupants of the space.
After colour-printing the internet images, we had a lengthy and vivid discussion on them. We paid
attention to the size of the buildings or the spaces, to forms and materials used within, and to the
decoration and artefacts (or the absence of them). Furthermore, we also considered how the pictures of
the spaces made us feel and what kinds of emotions or memories they evoked. We tried to imagine
ourselves in the spaces. We grouped the spaces into five distinct categories according to their appearance
and what the spaces apparently signalled: (1) home; (2) sports and play; (3) technology; (4) nature and
relaxation; and (5) symbolism, history and heritage. This categorization was our first round of analysis.
The five categories made us wonder why there was such uniformity in the spatial images. ‘Creativity’
seemed be located within rather limited boundaries. Problematizing this led us to the next phase, where
we turned to the literature on creativity, space and organizing. This resulted in the second round of
analysis, where we were able to see some contradictions in the creative space images, thus confronting
the values and ideas that are supported and maintained through these particular constellations.
Dale and Burrell (2008: 43) state that the ‘built world we inhabit tells us narratives, stories about
ourselves and the societies that we live in’. In our study, theory and practice are linked in the ways in

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which space is displayed and utilized. Panayiotou and Kafiris (2010) have analysed company spaces in
films, and according to their study, the built environment and spatial practices tell a story about
‘power’. They came up with dimensions such as the geographic location (prominent–basic industrial),
size, scale and the materials of the building (big–small, tall–small, expensive–modest), doors and
windows (separating–connecting) décor and furnishings (style, colours).
We modified the dimensions slightly to see which dimensions tell a story of ‘creativity’ and if the
dimensions render other aspirations or boundaries as well. Instead of spotting a gap in the
existing literature, we rather view our research as having evolved through problematizing (Locke &
Golden-Biddle, 1997; Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011) and doubt (Locke, Golden-Biddle, & Feldman,
2008). We reflected on our own cultural position, other stances and the literature. By looking at the
images, we concluded that there seemed to be a consensus amongst architects, designers and managers
that with distinct spatial solutions, one can influence and nurture creativity. However, the research
literature is far more careful, claiming that the relationship between creativity and space is too complex
to draw any causal relationships, but that some spatial solutions, such as enabling communication and
interaction, may be beneficial for creativity.
We are aware that as seasoned organization scholars in a white European culture, we tend to
interpret and understand the world around us in a certain way. We cannot claim that everyone and all
the users or viewers of these workspace images would have the same connotations and come to the
same conclusions as we have. We recognize that as scholars we have personal histories of studying
leadership, organizational aesthetics, embodiment and creativity, and we understand that this back-
ground and our personal experiences influence our interpretations (van Marrewijk & Yanow, 2010: 8).
Another limitation of our study is that the sample of the images came from the internet. Now that
our analysis is based on these images, they can be considered as indirect rather than direct observations
by us. A further limitation is that even if the companies emphasized that they wanted to stimulate
creativity through the designed spaces, they may have also other intentions that are difficult to discern
with a short glance of the images.
Next, we will move to analyse the spatial elements and themes in the images of the designed creative
spaces in more detail.

ANALYSIS OF THE SPATIAL ELEMENTS AND THEMES OF THE DESIGNED

CREATIVE SPACES
Karaoke rooms, fire poles, slides and swings, aquariums, gyms, massage rooms and saunas. You name
it. Modern office design is whimsical to say the least. As discussed, the logic behind this unprecedented
attention to office design seems to arise from the assumption that creativity and the physical
environment have a connection. To investigate this further, we looked at the images of modern offices.
The images of the designed creative places taken from the internet were from different companies but
displayed a certain kind of homogeneity, although the symbolic artefacts and interior decorations
varied. One could easily see that the office images were different from regular offices as they were far
more colourful, artistic, informal and playful, even childish. They could just as well have been pictures
taken from homes, leisure or sports retreats, wellness centres, kindergartens or progressive schools. This
seems to be an overall trend in office design according to Dale and Burrell (2010), who have also noted
how offices have lost their traditional workspace characteristics:
… The main themes include play or fun at work … the employee as consumer, the workplace as home and the
workplace as community. These themes incorporate an aestheticization of the workspaces, consciously designing
them to produce pleasurable and sometimes sensuous effects. This is combined, almost ironically, with the
disappearance of the workplace itself as a workplace. (Dale & Burrell, 2010: 20)

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Dale and Burrell (2010) are critical organization scholars who view workspace from a power and
control perspective: the employer provides certain kind of workspace to maintain control of workers.
Following this line of thinking, building ‘creative workspaces’ may be considered as employer’s
manipulation of workers’ behaviour. Our examination of the creative workspace images shows that
certain elements and themes were repeated. We categorized these images as follows:
1. Home
2. Sports and play
3. Technology: imaginative future and past
4. Nature and relaxation
5. Symbolism, heritage and history
Several of these images seem to have lost, as Dale and Burrell (2010) note, the traditional workspace
looks. From a critical perspective one might see these spatial arrangements as various efforts of
manipulation. From an aesthetic design perspective the creative workspace images convey an idea of
freedom and spatial flexibility, a freedom from traditional workspace settings (Ropo et al., 2015). In
the next sections, we describe in more detail how the spatial designs were represented in the images and
reflect on their connection to organizational creativity.

Home
The home theme came up often in the company blurb and images describing creative workspaces. One
could see homemade traditional rugs on the floors and rocking chairs like in Norman Rockwell’s
([Link]/wiki/Norman Rockwell) or Carl Larsson’s paintings ([Link]/wiki/Carl
Larsson). Some companies have hired an office grandma or an office grandpa to be present in the office
(Online Appendix 1, Image No 1, [Link] Her/his task is to
make coffee, perhaps cook or bake cookies, and even take care of the children of the employees if
needed. Her/his presence was said to bring warmth to the atmosphere and emphasize feelings of being
nurtured and cared for. Somewhat ironically, this caring discourse may be seen to indicate that if there
is enough ‘service’ people in the homey workplace, more time and energy is left for creative work. In
fact, many of us have surely had the experience that doing mundane routines at home do the same
trick: some enduring puzzles may be solved or new ideas surface.
We saw many huddle rooms where cosiness is central (Image No 2, [Link]
rooms-space). Cosiness and a homely feeling were created with baskets filled with different colours of
wool yarn and knitting needles (Image No 4 in the Appendix, Picture 18 in the link [Link]
[Link]/2011/03/20-inspirational-office-workspace-designs). The images led us to believe
that people were being encouraged to craft something during the workday if sitting in front of the
computer became too tiring. Many times, especially for knowledge workers, doing something concrete
with hands, like knitting, gardening or shovelling snow gives a quiet moment for brains (and body) to
work on something else but intellectual tasks. This is not to say that the mentioned chores would not
call for intellect, but connected to the use of physical body makes the effort more holistic and possibly
fuels creativity in a different way than by just facing the computer screen.
The kitchen is traditionally constructed as the heart of the home, and the heart of the kitchen is a big
kitchen table (Image No 3, [Link]
feature-open-space-natural-light-play-areas/A55Xw4icRpp26cqFarMAuI/[Link]). A communal
kitchen table reflects a feeling of togetherness, warmth and mutual trust. The staff of companies such as
Ammunition ([Link] and the staff in the office of Louise Campbell
([Link]) (a designer) gather around a big table either to eat, work or both, at least
once a week, some every day. In addition, in the architectural firm Snöhetta, people gather to eat lunch

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at a long communal table every day (Image No 18, [Link]

Eating together is a homely ritual to build mutual dependence and trust, where the informal exchange of
information and experiences takes place. In a small IT company, Frantic, 35 people gather around a long,
massive wooden table on Mondays and Fridays. Monday morning breakfast serves the purpose of
planning the week, whereas Friday is about getting off for the weekend and summarizing the week
(Salovaara, 2014, 4:57).
In addition to large tables and lounge areas, there are often shared workspaces, negotiation rooms or
other spaces that are meant for being together and collaboration. They may have large whiteboards,
comfortable soft chairs or beanbags, as in Pallotta Team Works (Image No 23, [Link]
la-warehouse-office-is-a-shipping-container-city/pallotta-teamworks-6/) or as in Three Rings (Image
No 24, [Link] or even a huge hammock,
as in Google’s Pittsburgh office (Image No 25, [Link]
349939/). The traditional offering for collaboration is a large table that has enough space for everyone
in the organization, referring to inclusion like a home. A quite unique solution for gathering is a wide
staircase that functions as an auditorium (Image No 26, [Link]
46347561563/).
Another element for a comfortable and safe environment provided by a home like office is privacy,
with the possibility of moving between interaction and solitude, as desired. Having one’s own room,
cubicle, screen or at least one’s own desk traditionally offers some privacy. However, in the current open
office concept, there are often no fixed workstations. People come to work and choose (if there are
options left) where they want to work. Privacy is produced with a set of rules and behavioural codes, for
example, by prohibiting people from talking to each other or using their phones in specific spaces.
A critical reflection to having home like workspaces concerns blurring work and free time. One
might ask, if people are supposed to work longer hours in the spatial illusion of home although being
still in fact in office. Also, the emphasis on having various spaces for meeting people and collaboration
in a homey workspace raises questions, because for many professionals working on complex intellectual
issues, socializing is rather a burden than a relaxing activity.

Sports and play

Play and playfulness add to the atmosphere of a carefree childhood or may refer to the rebellious
teenage years. Imagine a space that looks like a fraternity house with all the cheerful noise (Image No
37, [Link]fl[Link]). Flippers, skate ramps and computer games belong to a playful office. The
Australian company SafetyCulture has a basketball court, swimming pool, animals and a cinema
(Image No 5, [Link] Google’s office in
Amsterdam offers a room for gymnastics and for table football (Image No 6, [Link]
com/3039748/the-10-coolest-office-spaces-of-2014).
In the office of Missing Link, they have a fireman’s pole to quickly move from one floor to another
(Image No 7, [Link] and in
LinkedIn, Canada, there are scooters to literally surf around the large office (Image No 8, http://
[Link]/style/toronto-coolest-office-spaces-linkedin-canada).
An interesting question arising from these office playgrounds is why there are more boys’ toys and
activities than traditional girls’ toys such as dolls, Barbie dolls, ballerinas, dolls’ houses and cuddly animals.
The office space images support the idea that regular physical exercise is considered important
(Image No 11, [Link]
switzerland-architects-by-camezind-evolution; Image No 10, [Link]
Offices often have their own gym with treadmills or bicycles where the staff can exercise (Image No 9,
[Link]

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Based on the images, the underlying discourse is that accomplishments in sports are not considered
as a waste of time, but rather as a valuable asset to increase one’s value in the job market. As an example
of this, one can constantly read stories of top managers having marathon running as their hobby.
Physical conditioning and testing has become part of the regime. Whether this truly creates a
community feeling and sense of belonging that would foster collaboration, knowledge sharing and thus
creativity and innovation, or whether the sports enthusiasm merely enhances competition with no
connection to creativity remains vague. Being in good shape and having a competitive mind in sports
seem to equal being a good boss and a good worker, but what about the people who do not value
physical exercise or are unable to perform it? What does it say about the organization’s attitude towards
physically challenged or disabled individuals?
The sports- and play-inspired office space images make one assume that an underlying ancient Latin
saying ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ (healthy mind in a healthy body) still remains valid: If you do not
take care of your physical body, you may not be fit enough to produce creative thoughts. Fostering
playfulness in workspace images, on the other hand, may be connected to creativity by letting
people be childlike, less controlled and overcome rational reasoning, which are usually linked to
creative thinking.

Technology: Imaginative future and the past

Another strong theme in creative office space images is an imaginative and technology-driven future,
but also a romanticized past. Creative workplaces built on various technologically inspired elements –
old or new, factual or imaginary – are built to fire creativity and innovation, such as in the games
company Three Inks Design in San Francisco that created their office around the theme of Jules
Verne’s Nautilus submarine (Image No 13, [Link]/Office_interior_with_
custom_desks). The design combines industrial romantic, steampunk themes, such as modified rusty
steel beams and mechanical parts, old wooden carved screens and Victorian furniture with red velvet
upholstery. The walls are covered with vintage dark green patterned wallpapers and the windows have
brass curtain rods and red velvet window treatments. In this space, the staff has state-of-the-art
technological equipment that is fitted to the old-fashioned surroundings. The office design combines
SciFi-oriented romantic nostalgia from over a hundred years ago with the most recent and even future
technologies.
There are several examples of office spaces that remind us of space stations or spacecraft such as the
White Mountain Data Centre (Image No 14, [Link]
most-super-designed-data-center-fit-for-a-james-bond-villain). The designer of the space says that he
got his inspiration from Star Wars and James Bond movies. Technology, both old and new, may
provide inspirational tools for people interested in how different kinds of gadgets work, how they could
be repaired through complex problem solving. It is quite plausible that figuring out the mechanics of
an old machine brings joy and may open up a completely new way of looking at things. And even the
cruel aesthetics of the old technology like the first cellular phones or computers compared to their
polished contemporary counterparts may give rise to imagine what it has taken for the technology and
design to develop.
The latest technology seems to be an integral part of a creative office image – the question is, what
role does it play in the office? In the contemporary, sleek and light office space, the technological tools
are visible and occupy most of the desk. In an office where the technology is strongly present, the other
furniture gives way to it. The furniture seems to be nondescript or sparse by design, but very
ergonomic. Michael Bilotta’s windowless room, lit with purple neon lights, with a tall brightly lit glass
cabinet in the corner where the modem is in the spotlight is an example of this trend (Image No 15,
[Link] The computer screen is

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vast, reflecting purple light on the shiny desk. The office is almost scary, gothic – like a cave with a
feeling of a deep basement or a dungeon. For some people, the best place to work is a simple
surrounding with nothing else but the necessary equipment, nothing else to distract from con-
centrating on the task at hand. For others, the technology geeks, the latest gadgets, whose char-
acteristics may not be necessarily even used, boost their identity and self-esteem providing a fruitful soil
for innovation bursts.

Nature and relaxation

Nature is often presented in contemporary offices as one of the elements making them comfortable and
relaxing. The most traditional reminder of the natural environment is a green plant. Many offices have
big trees or tree trunks, some even a private company garden (Image No 19, [Link]
2013-06-18/creative-office-interior-design-california; Image No 17, [Link]
portfolio_page/tbwa-chiat-day/; and Image No 16, [Link]
inspirational-office-workspace-designs/). HOK in London has something like a picnic lawn in
their office (Image No 21, [Link]
[Link]).
Wallpapers picturing landscapes or wooden building materials also depict connections to the natural
environment (Image No 20, [Link]
creative-office-interior-design-with-green-sofa-and-carpet-and-black-table-chair-and-modern-office-interior-
915 × 62). Plants have been argued to produce a positive effect on the air quality and greenery is meant
to enhance relaxation and psychological restoration, both boosters of energy and, thus, maybe also of
creativity. Greenhouse-like office spaces are seemingly becoming fashionable. These energy-neutral
spaces are considered beautiful and healthy (Image No 22, [Link]
house-to-be-transformed-into-lush-zero-energy-office-space-in-amsterdam/). Aesthetic pleasure com-
bined with an impression of health may be considered to help one to relax and free up energy for
creative thinking.
Both socializing and privacy are key elements in creativity enhancing workplaces, and often
connected either to a home style office or a space resembling a quiet place in nature. Many companies
nowadays feature café-like spaces often located in nature surroundings with small tables and three to
four chairs. The atmosphere in these spaces is often either Zen-like, calm and slow, or lively with
vibrant colours and brightness. Microsoft Finland has created an office space called the Bistro
(Salovaara, 2014, 21:09; Image No 38, [Link]/finland/yhteystiedot/[Link]). The
Bistro is equipped with modern coffee machines and refrigerators filled with sodas. Small tables provide
space for two to five people to get together and chat.
For many people creativity calls for silence and privacy that can be found in nature for example, by
walking alone in the woods. Or, on the contrary, hiking with friends or colleagues, sweating together
and reaching the peak of a mountain put the creative juices running. For some, listening to the sounds
of nature, like purling water, rustling leaves of the trees, or the buzzing wind take the mind and
thoughts to different spheres, maybe to pleasing memories, away from the present space and time. The
nature element of creativity may take back to the times where people were more united with the
surrounding nature, in good and bad, and where people learned to appreciate the nature and excel.

Symbolism, heritage and history

A meeting room filled with a helicopter cockpit, a hot air balloon basket and a spacecraft could mean
that the sky actually is the limit when working at Google (Image No 32, [Link]
com/blog/dcg-blog/business-private-entities/case-innovative-office-space-one-size-not-fit/). You can

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take whatever extreme transportation vehicle you desire to take you to a world of unlimited
imagination.
Interestingly, some meeting rooms and huts inside the office were built in the form of traditional
buildings such as yurts (Image No 27, [Link]
wooden huts (Image No 31, [Link] and igloos
(Image No 28, [Link]
Google’s office in Zurich offers old, nostalgic ski-lift cabins as a meeting space (Image No 33,
[Link] The ski lifts have Swiss flags painted on
them, the interiors are decorated with traditional red and green colours and the outside staging is
finished with real old skies. The ski lifts are hung in a room with a floor that looks like snow and with
mountain scenery painted on the wall.
Elements blown out of normal proportion is one trend in creative office decoration. Humongous
beehives in Google’s Zurich office (Image No 30, [Link] may
symbolize the importance of environmental consciousness. Oversized tea cups function as cosy,
intimate meeting places and they might symbolize the whimsical imagination à la Alice in Wonderland
as well as Dutch heritage (Image No 34, [Link]
[Link]). The giant blue and white Delphi porcelain cups or
endless, lush tulip beds construct a vivid bond between the place and the nationality (Image No 35,
[Link]
In the same vein, emphasizing national culture and tradition, the Finns have their saunas. In the
construction company Fira’s office in Vantaa Finland, the meeting room looks like a sauna (Image No
29, [Link] In Finland, saunas
have traditionally been a place of birth, either of ideas or of the new-borns in the olden times.
Distinctive decorative elements are often used to emphasize the origins of the company, or their
current location, such as the heritage red telephone booths in England (Image No 36, [Link]
[Link]/what-s-up-with-those-british-red-telephone-booths/216196931/), in London or in
Melbourne, or yellow cabs in New York or Zurich (Image No 39, [Link]
the-best-place-to-work-google-and-their-office-in-zurich/). Geographic locations have different atmo-
spheres, feelings and cultures. Companies make these connections through visual clues in their
spatial arrangements. Symbolic artefacts and visuals reminding of one’s cultural history and roots are
traditional sources for artistic works and may serve as such also for other type of creative work through
the imaginary spatial arrangements.

Summary of the spatial themes and categories in designed creative workspaces

Inspired by Panayiotou and Kafiris (2010), we conceptualized the images of creative workspaces as a story
of social relations and spatially informed creativity. Panayiotou and Kafiris oriented particularly towards
analysing the masculine constructs of power in terms of dominance, hierarchy, control and discipline, as
well as rationality, order and the impersonal. We modified their approach in our analysis of designed
creative spaces. We described the built environment of the workspace, such as its size and the scale of
the spaces, the décor and furnishings, atmosphere and the field of industry that the company images
represented. Furthermore, we make an effort to discern the underlying connection of these spatial
arrangements with organizational creativity. Table 1 summarizes the identified themes and categories of
the studied creative workspaces: home; sports and play; technology; nature and relaxation; and symbolism.
Home is represented as a warm and cosy space with a feeling of warmth, acceptance and
togetherness. In this kind of space, one can feel safe and protected and let the creative juices flow. Also,
a homely space entails the idea of communication, collaboration and mutual sharing, all of which are
needed for creativity.

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TABLE 1. THEMATIC CATEGORIES OF CREATIVE WORKSPACES

Size and scale of Décor and Field of Underlying connection

spaces furnishing Atmosphere industry to creativity

Home Small Sleek or Warm IT Feeling safe, protected

Low ceilings bohemian Soft Software Collaboration
Home size Soft lights Acceptance Consulting Communication
Communal Family Design Sharing
tables Togetherness
Rugs
Sports and Proper spaces for College Youth Games law Physical fitness
play various sports fraternity style competition Energy
activities Colourful boys’ boys club Strength
toys
Technology Extremes in size and Extremes in Scifi Games Technological tools for
scale styles Hightech IT creativity
Lightning Exclusive Engineering Pushing to limits
Banks Affording extreme
Entertainment experiences
Nature Spacious Greenery Wood Happy Advertising Relaxation
Bright Pale colours Relaxing Silence
Open Water/tree Meditative Well-being
elements Peacefulness Balance
Spa/Garden Paradise Health
Symbolism Small History Insider IT Drawing from historical
Secluded Nationality Expensive Consulting and cultural roots
Intimate Cultural values Particular
and traditions Theatrical
Staging

Sporty and playful company images are created with youthful spatial images. Bright workspace
colours and the provision of facilities that can be used properly for a variety of sports activities are
emphasized. Creativity is sought after taking care of the employees’ physical fitness, energy and
strength.
Technologically influenced spatial arrangements reflect future and past images. They display both
old-world equipment, state-of-the art technology and imaginary new worlds. The spatial work
environment brings forth that creative work entails extremes, which calls for pushing to the limits, and
the spaces provide opportunities to experience the extremes.
In companies that have nature as a central theme in their offices, harmony, peacefulness and well-
being are emphasized in the spatial environment. Being relaxed and able to work in a nature-like space
with the opportunity to enjoy silence and a meditative state are considered to foster creativity.
Symbolism and cultural heritage can be spatially used to convey the source of creativity. Exclusivity,
being an insider and being particular are emphasized even by overdoing cultural symbols and traditions
in the spatial solutions of the workspaces.
The companies in our analysis represented different fields of industry, most of which belong to the
so-called knowledge-intensive industries: advertising, banking, design, consulting, engineering,
entertainment, games, IT, law and software. As Table 1 shows, no specific spatial arrangement is
typical for any of these industries. Advertising is the only one that stands out as it only emphasizes
nature in its space design.
Next, we will discuss some of the contradictions we found as to how creativity was conceived in the
workspace images.

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DISCUSSION
A first glance at the creative workspace images displayed on the internet leads to the conclusion that
the designed environments render embodied freedom and spatial flexibility with the association of
creativity. The designed workspaces may be seen to free people from traditional workspace settings
where people are confined to sit in their individual offices the whole day without having the oppor-
tunity or invitation to move around and do different things in different locations (cf. Ropo, Sauer, &
Salovaara, 2013 for traditional seating in schools). Other than sitting by the computer, various types of
spaces give flexibility, such as the opportunity to lie down on a couch for a while or relax in an
armchair, eat when and where you like, play and maybe even do some exercise. All this sets the body
free from a stiff, controlled posture (for the embodiment and experience of built space, see Viljoen,
2010). One would assume that the flexible workspace arrangements have the opportunity to energize
and fuel creativity as well (McCoy, 2005; Dul & Ceylan, 2011).
Second, from a critical perspective, the creative workspace images may give an impression of
exclusiveness. The images of these specially designed workspaces could be interpreted to imply a subtle
connotation of elite people, the ‘chosen ones’ with special skills and wisdom who deserve to have an
extravagant work environment in contrast to the ‘ordinary ones’ who can settle with more mundane
premises.
Third, the images can be read to represent what Lefebvre (1991) conceptualizes as ‘conceived space’:
as architectural abstractions that are linked with forms of managerial control (Dale & Burrell, 2010)
and as ‘perceived space’: as concrete material features and as spatial practices. There is an underlying
assumption in the discourse of creative workspaces that the physical spaces provoke the same types of
emotional and behavioural reactions leading to creativity, thus suggesting that work processes and
outcomes could be managed with certain spatial arrangements. However, empirical evidence shows
otherwise (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007; Ropo, Sauer, & Salovaara, 2013; Ropo et al., 2015). Lefebvre
(1991) helps understand this by bringing forth a third concept, the ‘lived space’ that emphasizes
the personal and embodied experience of space. The lived space is experienced through emotions,
imagination and memories. These are subjective and difficult to control. From that perspective spaces
designed for creativity could be considered as ‘managed spaces of creativity’ or as ‘creativity by
command’.
Finally, we discuss some contradictions as to how organizational creativity is conceived in the
creative workspace images.

Contradiction 1: Individually versus collectively produced creativity

The current company trend illustrated in our empirical material shows that creative workspaces are
mostly designed for collective teamwork. Most of the studied workspaces illustrate open and informal
office designs that are intended to stimulate social encounters, play, physical activities and commu-
nication. Many of them are designed as playgrounds, activity centres (kitchen, bowling green, gym,
etc.), artful environments, natural habitats resembling nature or open, flexible fancy offices. The
inherent premise in these spatial arrangements is that creativity is first and foremost a collective group
phenomenon involving play, activity, fun, noise, dynamics and social interaction. The need to sit alone
quietly and develop a creative idea is hardly considered. If there is a space for individual work, the room
is typically designed for meditation, massage or for workouts. Additionally, office design development
has moved from one extreme of individual small rooms or cubicles to open spaces.
The trend of designing creative workspaces has gone in the opposite direction compared to the
traditional psychologically oriented individual research tradition (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004;
Hennessay & Amabile, 2016). Creative workspaces displayed on the internet are predominantly based

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on the model of open-plan office design that is typically meant to enhance collaboration. Individuality
and different personalities are less emphasized. The current creative workspaces seem to be designed for
extroverts with a high tolerance of noise and distraction. The main emphasis on creativity research until
the 1990s has been on studies of creative individuals to demonstrate the importance of intellect,
personality and cognitive skills for creativity (see Amabile, 1996 for a review). More recent research on
creativity has demonstrated the importance of social and environmental factors for creative perfor-
mance (e.g., Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, &
Kramer, 2004; Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; Csikszentmihalyi, 2007).
However, the importance of personal factors such as certain personality traits, intrinsic motivation and
cognition or skills are still argued to be important for creative performance (Amabile, 2012; Hennessay
& Amabile, 2016). There has also been discussed, not least sparked by the book ‘Quiet’ (Cain, 2012)
about how the extrovert, social, noisy dimension is dominating in many societies, with a claim that the
individual and introvert aspects of the creative process have been downplayed. Considering also recent
research on digital media at work (Derks & Bakker, 2013) about how digitalization leads to inter-
ruptions, multitasking and stress at work, the importance of protecting the sacred spaces of focussed,
embodied creative work becomes even more important (De Paoli, Røyseng, & Wennes, 2017). At the
same time as open-plan office designs are favoured, there is criticism towards thinking that creativity is
only being nurtured by social encounters and team building (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; Bilton,
2007; Hennessay & Amabile, 2016). Creative workspaces based on teams and community-building
through office design contain the premise ‘all together, altogether better’, which has largely been
contested by Dale and Burrell (2010) as creating a false illusion of a harmonious and committed work
environment. We would exercise caution on unilaterally favouring the community-building aspect of
open-plan creative workspaces that overlooks the consideration of individual differences.

Contradiction 2: Professionally designed workspaces versus workspaces created

through participation
A whole industry has developed to support corporations in reshaping and redesigning their workspaces,
as depicted in several books and articles on organization and space (e.g., Dale & Burrell, 2008; van
Marrewijk & Yanow, 2010). Architects, interior designers, facility managers and consultants are deeply
involved in the design and construction processes of new office spaces. Simply looking at the images of
the creative workspaces reveals how they are professionally created by designers and architects, even if
they have been initiated by the companies in the first place.
The coconstruction of organizational efforts, such as space construction together with employees, has
been noted as important for better outcomes in several studies (e.g., Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004;
Emmitt & Ruikar, 2013; Lundström, Savolainen, & Kostiainen, 2016). The coconstruction of work-
spaces has been particularly emphasized by Doorley and Witthoft (2012), who have experimented with
space and their own creativity. They have experience as engineers, designers and teachers in working
creatively. According to them, it is important to empower people to shape their own work environment:
One of our first challenges was to equalize the respective status of students and faculty. When you walk into one
of our classes, it’s almost impossible to tell who’s teaching and who’s learning. Innovation thrives on this kind of
equality. With a boss or a professor standing at the head of the room, it feels like a ‘sage on stage’ – people are
reluctant to share their ideas. Reconfiguring the physical relationship is a powerful signal that participation is truly
welcome. The result is that you get better ideas out in the open, where they can grow. But there’s not just one
ideal design for a collaborative space. The people using it should be able to transform it themselves, move things
around, and create what they need for the work they’re doing at the moment. (Doorley & Witthoft, 2012: 5)
The idea of professionally designed workspaces leading to organizational creativity rests on a rather
deterministic and linear view of the relationship between space and human action, as if physical spaces

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could have an agency ‘in themselves’ to ‘do’ things. Recent research on this suggests otherwise. As
Balogun and Johnson (2005) note, when end-users begin to make sense of their reality, intended
strategies often lead to unintended outcomes. Elsbach and Pratt (2007) have reached the same
conclusion: the same material conditions produce different reactions. They add that more attention
should be placed on the ‘senses and aesthetic sensibilities’ (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007: 212) of how people
interact with their physical environment. This speaks for involving the users of the space more closely
in the cocreation of their workspaces.
People’s subjective and sensuous (aesthetic) experiences have been found to be a key mediating
mechanism in understanding how space and people relate to each other (e.g., Tuan, 1977; Warren,
2002; Vilnai-Yavetz, Rafaeli, & Schneider-Yaacov, 2005; Viljoen, 2010; van Marrewijk, 2011; Ropo,
Sauer, & Salovaara, 2013; Pallasmaa, 2014; Ropo et al., 2015). There is a whole stream of organization
theory called organizational aesthetics (Gagliardi and Strati being the founding proponents of it), which
emphasizes the importance of sense-based knowledge development in understanding organizational
life. We argue that our analysis on the so-called designed creative workspaces also shows that the
underlying assumptions of how spaces lead to creativity fall into the trap of ignoring the very basic
means of knowledge production: the human body.

Contradiction 3: Planned versus emerging creativity

The images studied here emphasize a planned view of what kinds of spaces would produce creativity in
people. As described, in the images, creativity is connected to a homely atmosphere, energetic and
playful sports, technological extremes, nature’s calming effect and culturally drawn symbolic values.
They suggest that creativity needs extraordinary spaces to occur. An example of urban planning points
in the same direction. There is a tendency to build trendy, modern, creative and innovative cities and
places (Florida, 2002), as politicians and policymakers want to develop environments for artists,
bohemians and the so-called creative class to induce and stimulate them to be creative.
Several biographies and accounts by creative people (e.g., Amabile, 1996) describe how creativity often
emerges spontaneously in various kinds of places and is often unplanned. By looking into the life of art
and artists, the field of work defined as the creative industries (Caves, 2000, Bilton, 2007), it appears that
their workspaces are typically neither rationally planned nor look particularly ‘creative’ (Carlsen, Clegg, &
Gjersvik, 2012). A theatre director, describing a rehearsal process, shows us around in the theatre green
room and says: ‘Look, there is nothing inspirational here!’ (Salovaara, 2014, 30:45). When taking a peak
into the actors’ rehearsal room, this is what you see: a windowless space, tiny and worn out. A low ceiling
and bright fluorescence lights, filled with boxes and cabinets where actors and directors keep their props,
make up and dresses, heaps of clothes, shoes and accessories everywhere (Salovaara, 2014, 30:25). The
theatre director in the video (Salovaara, 2014) does not think that the space is important for creativity at
all, but rather the process. According to him, the workspace should allow and enable the free movement of
ideas, but it is not an active agent for producing a creative atmosphere. Creativity is something that people
do rather than a planned quality of the physical place.
We are critical towards intentionally planned workspaces for creativity, and assert that creative ideas
can emerge and creative work can be done in unexpected places and spaces such as on a bus, in a café,
airport, on a train, or while doing mundane activities. Creativity can occur everywhere, at any time.
We do not deny that creativity could be enhanced by designed workspaces, but argue that this ‘planned
creativity’ holds a rather shallow and managerially induced understanding of the relationship between
people and spaces. Elsbach and Pratt (2007) provide a systematic analysis of studies on the meaning
and role of the physical environment in organizations. They refer to the complexity of the pheno-
menon and suggest that ‘the degree of manageability’ of spaces should be considered against this
knowledge (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007: 216).

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 Donatella De Paoli, Erika Sauer and Arja Ropo

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The article directs attention to a contemporary aspect of corporate life in its pursuit of creativity and
innovation: the increasing interest in designing creative workspaces. We have problematized this ‘hype’
by critically describing and analysing images of ‘creative workspaces’ as so named by the respective
companies on the internet.
The main contribution of the study is that the so-called creative workspace designs are based on
unproblematic and rather standardized views of organizational creativity. First, we found recurrent
patterns of constructing a workspace to produce creativity in physical settings that resemble home,
sports and play, past and future technologies, nature and symbols aligned with cultural heritage.
Following that, second, creativity is presented in the images as a joyful, fun and energetic activity in
a relaxing homely atmosphere or in a peaceful nature-like environment. An overly positive view
characterizes organizational creativity. Third, a further analysis pointed out three contradictions.
The first contradiction deals with the emphasis on collective versus individual creativity. In the
workspace images, creativity occurs in close proximity and interaction with colleagues. Constant
communication and collaboration is afforded by various spatial arrangements such as large communal
tables, cafés and meetings spaces. There are no signs of the lonely, depressive or chaotic moments that
many creative workers would surely recognize. There is no doubt that complex issues benefit from
collective problem-solving in shared spaces, but maybe a more balanced view of creativity calling for
both individual and collective spaces would serve a more realistic understanding of organizational life.
This is better addressed in activity-based office solutions where different types of spaces are built for
different functions and needs (e.g., Appel-Meulenbroek, Groenen, & Janssen, 2011).
The second contradiction has to do with whose designs are supposed to produce creativity. The
analysed images were clearly designed by professional designers and architects based on their views of
what is best for creative work. We brought up how recent research has strongly challenged this view
by pointing out that the end-users’ role in cocreating workspaces (e.g., Lundström, Savolainen, &
Kostiainen, 2016) is highly important because the connection between space and human action occurs
through their aesthetic and sensuous experiences (e.g., Ropo, Sauer, & Salovaara, 2013; Ropo et al.,
2015), not through the designers or the management in the first place.
The third contradiction addresses the extent to which creativity can be managed by spatial planning
or to what extent creativity emerges in unexpected times and spaces that may have no inspirational
qualities at all. We challenge the view that designed workspaces are imperative or that they are the
ultimate source for nurturing and releasing organizational creativity.
In conclusion, the article provides a critical view on how space and organizational creativity are
connected in corporate images on the internet and discusses those images in the light of recent
literature in a way that has not been done so far. It highlights overseen aspects in the management and
organization literature while the connection of space and creativity has been earlier addressed mainly in
the fields of real estate management, environmental psychology and architecture. This means that space
and organizational creativity have been mainly discussed by other than organization and management
scholars and, with some exceptions, less critically. This may have led to what we have discussed here, a
hype and a rather unproblematic conceptual treatment of the phenomenon.
We think that the hype is problematic because it leads to overly generalized and standardized views
on space and organizational creativity. In practice, this may mean that differences in subjective
preferences and experiences are overlooked while locating all employees to the same type of workspaces,
which may turn out to be controversial in terms of creativity and innovation. Furthermore, building
new spaces or renovating old ones is costly and companies make big investments under the belief
that these will produce creativity. From this perspective, the hype of creative workspaces is a way of
corporate control and ‘creativity by command’. Once the employer has invested a lot of money to the

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 The spatial context of organizations

premises on the one hand and the overall trend and media support the fanciful designs on the other
hand, who dares challenge or criticize? Furthermore, the hype of creative workspaces has given
architects and designers supremacy over the expertise of the end-users of the space.
We have put forth a discussion on a seemingly common trend in today’s corporate life and discussed
the complex connection of the physical environment and organizational creativity. While doing so, we
wish to point out that this is an important issue for company management to both recognize, reflect on
and learn about.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article was developed in the Research Project ‘Leadership in Spaces and Places’ funded by the
Academy of Finland 2011–2014.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
To view supplementary material for this article, please visit [Link]

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