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Assessment Tool

The project identified seven indicators of the physical work environment in a knowledge workplace that are critical to generating highly creative and innovative ideas, as well as superior worker performance. The CAPTIW© assessment tool pinpoints those key performance indicators (KPIs) and examines them within the context of the physical work environment of the Creative and High-Performing Knowledge Workplace (CHPKW). Concurrently, it evaluates the physical work environment against the innovation measures and economic competitiveness of knowledge-intensive organizations. Lastly, it analyzes a pattern of the relationship between specific KPIs of the physical work environment and the other KPIs of the components critical to creative performance such as organizational culture, work process, and individual work styles and traits.

The CHPKW Model

In general, four strands explain the organizational creativity and innovation: People, Place, Process, and Product. To produce innovative products, services, or management practices, three contributors are necessary: creative people, place, and process. While one may prove stronger than the others at individual organizations, all three components must be addressed to yield better performance. The CHPKW model has been developed for this project to fully explain the impact of the place on the people, process, and product. The model was adopted from the four Ps of Creativity by Rhodes (1) and the conceptual model of the employee’s creative process towards innovation developed by Dul and Ceylan (2).

Lee’s model separates Place into two categories: organizational environment and physical environment. The model starts from the physical work environment to imply its impact on the other three strands: Individuals/Groups, Process, and Organizational Environment & Culture. These four strands together affect Innovation & Economic Competitiveness that are the outcomes of the creative practice. The figure below conceptually illustrates how the physical work environment impacts the other strands of the creative practice and ultimately innovation.

CHPKW Model

Based on the CHPKW model, KPIs of each strand have been identified by an extensive literature review. These are as follows:

  • The KPIs of the Individuals & Groups strand examined: knowledge/expertise, experience, job level, personality, motivation, and cognitive style/ creative thinking skills (2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7).

  • The finalized KPIs of the Individual & Groups strand that exhibit the evidence of impact from the physical work environment: cognitive style & psychological process, creative thinking skills, and individual performance, health, & well-being.

  • The KPIs of the Process strand examined: individual cognitive & psychological process, knowledge share, display of ideas, changing team number, changing activities, diverse activities, interaction, collaboration, and flow (7),(8),(9),(10).

  • The finalized KPS of the Process strand: knowledge share, display of ideas, changing team numbers, changing activities, diverse activities, interaction, collaboration, flow, and time. The Process strand in general addresses the knowledge management process of individuals and among team members.

  • The KPIs of the Organizational Environment & Culture strand examined comprise four themes within the strand: Job Design, Resources, Management Practice, and Leadership and Organizational Motivation (2),(6),(7),(9),(11),(12),(13),(14),(15).

    The KPIs examined are:

    • Challenging job, team work task rotation, and autonomy for Job Design.

    • Time, people with expertise, systems and processes for work, relevant information, and availability of training for Resources.

    • Freedom and autonomy, fit between individuals and assigned tasks, sense of positive challenge and involvement, trust and openness, project supervision, overall goal setting, feedback and constructive debate, good communication, enthusiastic support for work, fit between team members, playfulness and humor (spontaneity and ease), and open to new ideas for Management Practice.

    • Coaching supervisor, time for thinking, creative goals recognition and support of creative, innovative ideas, incentives for creative, innovative results, risk-taking, shared vision & alignment with missions, goals, and objectives of the organization, and expectations for and encouragement of new ideas for Leadership and Organizational Motivation.

  • The finalized KPIs of the Organizational Environment & Culture strand: freedom/ autonomy, trust/ openness, good communication, playfulness and humor/ spontaneity & ease, shared vision/ alignment with missions, goals, & objectives of the organization, enthusiastic support for work, recognition & support of creative & innovative ideas, open to new ideas/ expectations for & encouragement of new ideas.

Seven KPIs of the Physical Work Environment of the CHPKW

A total of seven KPIs have been identified with a set of measures in each KPI for the physical work environment of the CHPKW. These seven KPIs are Space Type Support, Space & Furniture Layout Support, Space Size & Access to Equipment Support, Neural & Psychological Stimulation and Relaxation, Furniture Ergonomics, Ambient Conditions, and Healthfulness. The framework was developed, and KPIs, sub-KPIs, and measures were identified by integrating two comprehensive frameworks developed by Dr. Lee, the project leader: Seven Creative Workplace Measures and Eight Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) for Performance, Health, and Well-being (PHW) (more info on the Project Objectives.

KPIs of Four Strands in the CHPKW Model

Based on this model, CAPTIW© analyzes how the physical environment supports employee creative performance, health and well-being to increase innovation performance of a company. CAPTIW© is grounded on the 7 KPIs and complete sets of sub-KPIs that solely utilize objective and prescriptive measures to diagnose the performance workspace. These types of measures offer advanced analyses that are quantifiable and actionable for the better performance of the workplace environment.

KPIs and Sub-KPIs of the Physical Work Environment

CAPTIW© is a first of its-kind comprehensive tool that encompasses a set of key performance indicators in employee creative performance, health and well-being in the assessment in order to diagnose multi-faceted dimensions of the performance of the workplace environment. It, especially, integrates to the assessment a comprehensive list of health and well-being indicators as these are two of the most critical contributors to employee performance. Key indicators of health and well-being are identified by an extensive literature review of peer-reviewed & expert-reviewed publications. Many of these indicators share common grounds with well-known fitness and wellness standards and guidelines for interventions through the physical environment. Thus, it is a good evaluation tool as a reality check for the workplaces that pursues these standards and guidelines. The extensive benefits of CAPTIW© beyond the evaluation of health and well-being aspects of workplaces is its capacity to examine the comprehensive performance of workspaces by encompassing the areas in performance, health, and well-being of knowledge workers, and link the workspace performance to the organizational bottom line.

Health and Well-being Components of CAPTIW©

* Factors overlapping criteria in Well Building Standard®
** Factors overlapping criteria in Active Design Guideline
Fitness and Wellness Components of CAPTIW©

Innovation Measures

A total of five categories of innovation have been selected to cover a diverse range of industries and types of businesses: Product Innovation, Process Innovation, Organizational Innovation, Marketing Innovation, and Intellectual Property, with a set of measures in each category. Objective innovation measures have been identified for the purpose of the project by examining four representative innovation instruments across the world. Based on the recommendation from the OECD innovation microdata project (16), three representative innovation instruments were selected in addition to the US innovation instrument. The four innovation instruments include the US Business R&D and Innovation Survey (17), the European Union Community Innovation Survey (18), Australian Public Service Innovation Questionnaire (19), and the Canadian Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy (20). The latest versions of the instruments available at the time were analyzed for commonality and uniqueness based on the four categories of innovation indicators from the Oslo manual (21). Innovation measures for this project have adopted or modified the measures from these four instruments with permission. In addition, certain innovation strategy questions have been adopted from these instruments.

Categories of Innovation Measures and Relevant Industries

References

  1. Rhodes, M. (1987). An analysis of creativity. In S.G. Isaksen (Ed.), Frontiers of creativity research: Beyond the basics (pp.216-222). Buffalo, NY: Bearly.
  2. Dul, J. & Ceylan, C. (2011). Work environments for employee creativity. Ergonomics, 54(1), 12-20.
  3. Lukersmith, S. & Burgess-Limerick, R. (2013). The perceived importance and the presence of creative potential in the health professional's work environment. Ergonomics, 56(6), 922-934.
  4. Batey, M. & Furnham, A. (2006). Creativity, intelligence, and personality: A critical review of the scattered literature. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 132(4), 355-429.
  5. Lapierre, J. & Giroux, V. (2003). Creativity and work environment in a high-tech context. Creativity and Innovation Management, 12(1), 11-23.
  6. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity and innovation in organizations (Vol. 5). Boston: Harvard Business School.
  7. Peschl, M. & Fundneider, T. (2012). Spaces enabling gamechanging and sustaining innovations: Why space matters for knowledge creation and innovation. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change, 9(1).
  8. Martens, Y. (2011). Creative workplace: instrumental and symbolic support for creativity. Facilities, 29(1/2), 63-79.
  9. Moultrie, J., Nilsson, M., Dissel, M., Haner, U., Janssen, S., & Van der Lugt, R. (2007). Innovation spaces: Towards a framework for understanding the role of the physical environment in innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management ,16(1).
  10. Sailer, K. (2011). Creativity as social and spatial process. Facilities, 29(1/2).
  11. Isaksen, S.G. & Ekvall, G. (2010). Managing for Innovation: The two faces of tension in creative climates. Creativity and Innovation Management, 19(2), 73-88.
  12. Hunter, S. T., Bedell, K. E., & Mumford, M. D. (2007). Climate for creativity: A quantitative review. Creativity research journal, 19(1), 69-90.
  13. Nemiro, J. (2004). Creativity in virtual teams: Key components for success (Vol. 6). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
  14. Lapierre, J. & Giroux, V. (2003). Creativity and work environment in a high-tech context. Creativity and Innovation Management, 12(1), 11-23.
  15. Ekvall, G. & Ryhammar, L. (1999). The creative climate: Its determinants and effects at a Swedish university. Creativity research journal, 12(4), 303-310.
  16. OECD (2009). Introduction. In OECD (Ed.), Innovation in firms: A microeconomic perspective, (pp. 21-68), Paris: OECD Publishing.
  17. The US Department of Commerce & the US Census Bureau (2013). 2013 Business R&D and Innovation Survey. Retrieved from http://bhs.econ.census.gov/hbs/brdis/TREEMENU/brdis_13.pdf.
  18. Eurostat (2010). Community Innovation Survey. Retrieved from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/microdata/documents/CIS_Survey_form_2010.pdf.
  19. Australian Public Service Commission (2012). Australian Public Service Questionnaire on Innovation. Retrieved from https://innovation.govspace.gov.au/files/2012/09/APSII-Questionnaire.pdf.
  20. Statistics Canada (2012). Survey of Innovation and Business Strategy (SIBS) 2012. Retrieved from http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/instrument/5171_Q1_V2-eng.pdf.
  21. OECD & Eurostat (2005). Oslo Manual Guidelines for collecting and interpreting innovation data. Paris: OECD Publishing.