Abstract

The impact of the physical environment on people’s ability to be maximally creative at work is a research area which has been largely neglected. Creativity in the workplace has been the subject of intensive research for over half a century investigating the four ‘P’s of creativity: the creative person, the creative product, the creative process, and the creative ‘press’ or environment. Considerable work has also been done on managing creativity and innovation in the workplace. The fourth ‘P’ or ‘press’ has, however, been predominantly seen in terms of the social environment, and researchers have stepped away from or minimised the effect that the physical environment or press may have on people’s creativity and ability to innovate. This paper presents preliminary findings and theories about physical press and its impact on creativity in the workplace, and suggests a reason for and an approach to researchers’ reluctance to examine this whole area. This leads to an argument for an emerging concept of a creativity syntax which identifies and codifies the elements of the physical press which afford creativity in the workplace.