Analysis of experiences of creative class workers in the innovative workplace

Abstract

The challenge in today’s developed countries’ global market is not about the amount of production as much as the creativity in such production. Technology in the workplace -as a major factor- is playing an important role in changing the nature of work, and creativity as an output is an important issue of research.

Creativity has been a subject of study for the last years and this dissertation aims to identify the workplace as a factor that support or discourage creativity through personal experiences of its users. Data is collected and analyzed from both literatures reviews and two survey studies.

The direct link between the workplace and creativity is not well defined but biased or incomplete in literature and it needed more practical elaboration to be considered; and that was the aim from the survey study. The dissertation then presents the findings through an ethnographic study that took place in two creativity-based firms; a professional and a hyper-active one. Samples were chosen according to their user’s interest to participate in the research. The research main vision is to consider the challenges of investigating the subjective experiences of creative class workers in the physical workplace while presenting its impact on their creativity.

The results were concluded; through in-depth interviews, focus groups meetings, long term field observations, photographs, and field notes. It showed how creative class workers gave support to the benefits of working in interactive workplace. Positive discussions keep up the substantial impact of the physical workplace and were supporting the idea of work enjoyment and confirmed the fact that being in the right workplace does matter.