The Interplay Between Daily Activating Moods and Physical Work Environment on Daily Creativity

Abstract

Although recent studies have attempted to clarify the daily dynamics between moods and creativity, relatively limited studies have explored how changes in daily activating positive and negative moods influence changes in daily creativity (i.e., controlling for the effects of prior daily moods and creativity) in real organizations. Furthermore, although the importance of physical working environment has been highlighted in the creativity literature, it remains unclear how the dimensions of physical working environment (i.e., adjustable work area and facilitation of informal communication) influence employees’ daily creativity as well as moderating the effects of daily activating moods on creativity. Using the daily dairy research design, we collect lagged daily data from 70 creative workers across 10 consecutive working days, yielding 662 valid matched daily responses. The results of multilevel path-analysis show that both changes in daily activating positive/negative moods had lagged and positive effects on changes in subsequent creativity, and the physical environment that facilitates informal interactions strengthened these positive lagged effects. In addition, a physical environment that facilitates informal interactions also directly predicted changes in daily creativity. Surprisingly, an adjustable work area attenuated the positive lagged effect of changes in daily activating positive moods on daily creativity.