Exploring the impact of restaurants' physical environment on kitchen employees' creativity

This study examines the effect of the physical environment on the social dynamics of employees and their perception of resource adequacy, which eventually leads to their creative performance. The subjects are kitchen employees who are regularly required to invent new dishes to offer restaurant customers so there is a sense of novelty. Data were collected from 425 kitchen employees who worked in ten Taiwanese restaurants. The study uses AMOS to perform structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The results show that the physical environment's functionality does not affect employees' social dynamics. However, spatial efficiency does. This study provides evidence that differences in the physical environment change the perceived adequacy of facilities and social dynamics and affect creativity. • Functionality = FU; Spatial efficiency = SE; Information resources = IR. • Perceived adequacy of facility = PAF; social dynamics = SD. • Physical environment includes FU, SE and IR. • Physical environment is positively related to employees' PAF and SD. • PAF and SD are positively related to employees' creative performance.