Perceived Support Offered by Virtual and Real Environments for Creative Work

Environmental characteristics that have been empirically shown to improve creative outcomes in organizations include furniture and greenery. Virtual environments (VEs) are emerging as new work environments, but their potential to promote creativity has yet to be studied in detail. This work aims to explore which aspects in the holistic perception of VEs are considered beneficial for creative work, as well as examining whether real environments (REs) and VEs are perceived as influencing creativity in a similar way. Two online studies, involving a total of 380 participants, were conducted. In Study 1 (N = 101), 26 screenshots representing a wide sample of freely available VEs were rated by participants in an online survey. In Study 2 (N = 279), the stimuli also included similar REs. The stimuli were pretested to identify commonly perceived aspects differentiating the holistic perception of the environments. Results partially supported the hypothesis that REs and VEs may influence creativity in a similar way. There were significant differences between the characteristics of the preferred environments for individual and group settings, but greenery emerged as being consistently perceived to benefit creative work. The findings can guide future design of VEs as well as REs for supporting creativity.