Supported and Unleashed - The Impact of Work Environment on the Creative Performance of Knowledge Workers: An Empirical Study in Saudi Arabia

Supported and Unleashed - The Impact of Work Environment on the Creative Performance of Knowledge Workers: An Empirical Study in Saudi Arabia

Organizations pursue innovation to improve performance and gain competitive advantage, and knowledge workers represent an integral part of creating knowledge and helping organizations in their innovation efforts. The current paper seeks to examine the impact of the work environment on knowledge workers’ creativity. Building on The Investment Theory of Creativity, The Componential Theory of Creativity, the Job Demand-Resource model, and the Resource Based View, we develop and test a model suggesting a relationship between work environment –social support, sufficient resources, organizational freedom, and organizational regulations—and the quantity and quality of the creative performance of knowledge workers. Using a sample of 167 engineers in Saudi Arabia, an emerging but wealthy country with huge innovation inspirations, the results of our Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis indicate that all four elements of the work environment included in our study positively impact the quantity and quality of knowledge workers’ creative performance. Our paper provides important contributions to the literature on the work environment, creativity, and knowledge management, with an emphasis on creativity in developing countries. Our study highlights the importance of creating a supportive and encouraging work environment for knowledge workers to foster their creativity. The study offers several theoretical and managerial implications, along with suggestions for future research.