Dirty Dungeons and Clean Cubicles: Organizational Consequences of Workplace Cleanliness

Abstract

Since the Hawthorne experiments in the early 1900s, organizational studies have focused on human relations and largely overlooked the role of the physical work environment in shaping organizational behavior. Based on recent research on the psychological overlap between physical cleanliness and moral purity, we investigate the social significance of workplace cleanliness in two large field samples: a prison and a general work setting. We find that employees who perceive that they work in cleaner organizations tend to report greater perceived ethical climate, are more willing to display citizenship behavior, and less likely to report engaging in antisocial behaviors. Further, we find that the relationships between workplace cleanliness and employees’ work behaviors are mediated by perceived ethical climate. These findings suggest that the psychological link between physical cleanliness and moral purity may apply in work settings with important consequences for employee behavior, and more broadly that the psychological consequences of physical work environment may deserve a renewed interest from organizational scholars.