r Academy of Management Review

2021, Vol. 46, No. 2, 231–251.

https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2017.0177

BRINGING THE GREAT OUTDOORS INTO THE

WORKPLACE: THE ENERGIZING EFFECT OF BIOPHILIC
WORK DESIGN
ANTHONY C. KLOTZ
Texas A&M University

MARK C. BOLINO
University of Oklahoma

Organizations are increasingly designing workplaces that offer employees opportuni-

ties to incorporate nature into their professional lives. Despite the extensive study of
work design, the scope and effects of employees’ contact with nature have rarely been
considered as a meaningful element of the work context. This is an important oversight,
given the significance of the biophilia hypothesis, which proposes that humans have an
innate desire to connect with nature, and research showing that individuals benefit
from contact with nature. Moreover, prior research has largely focused on the positive
effects of nature on individuals, and it is unclear whether these effects will remain
positive in organizational settings, or whether biophilia at work can sometimes have
negative implications. In this paper, we draw on the biophilic design literature to
identify contextual characteristics of work design that influence the extent to which
employees have contact with nature while on the job. In addition, we describe how
contact with nature affects employees’ cognitive, emotional, prosocial, and physical
reserves of energy. Finally, we explain how the effects of biophilic work design on
employees’ potential energy is enhanced, reduced, or even reversed by situational and
individual factors.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized
people are beginning to find out that going to the
mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity;
and that mountain parks and reservations are useful
not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers,
but as fountains of life.
—John Muir (1901: 1)
Most employees spend the majority of their
workdays indoors, laboring in offices, cubicles, and
meeting rooms (Aries, Veitch, & Newsham, 2010;
Decker, 2016; Schlanger, 2016). For many modern
organizations, locating employees in close proximity
to one another and to their computers within large
office buildings facilitates efficient communication,
increased camaraderie, and stronger organizational
culture. Despite these benefits, one consequence
of this work arrangement is that employees spend
most of their work lives in buildings, often isolated
from the outdoors and from nature. A typical office
building or manufacturing facility may have win-
dows, but, beyond glimpsing outside through a pane
of glass, many employees only experience nature
and the outdoors in limited doses while on the job
(Aries et al., 2010).
231
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Although workplaces are often largely separated
from nature, recent trends in building design indi-
cate that, as organizations create new places of work,
they are increasingly designing structures that facil-
itate deeper and more frequent connections between
their employees and the natural world. For example,
whereas 20% of Apple’s prior headquarters con-
sisted of landscaped areas, 80% of the company’s
new headquarters is composed of woodlands and
meadows (O’Brien, 2016). The newest building at
Facebook’s head office connects to the rest of campus
via a sheltered green space, and it is topped by a
nearly four-acre rooftop garden with a walking trail
snaking through it (Kwun, 2018). Likewise, some
Amazon employees in Seattle now work in three
massive, glass-enclosed pods that house not only
working spaces, but also thousands of species of
plants (Sears, 2016). On the way to their offices,
Salesforce employees pass through a main lobby
featuring a 108-foot video wall that displays footage
of forests, waterfalls, and other natural elements
(Korody, 2016). This trend is not limited to technol-
ogy firms; Walmart, for instance, unveiled plans for
its new campus in Bentonville, Arkansas, that
232 Academy of Management Review
incorporate more than 15 acres of lakes and miles of
trails, nestled among sustainable office buildings
and situated on over 350 acres of native-seeded
green space (Wilson, 2019). The increasing inte-
gration of nature into work contexts indicates that
designers and organizational leaders consider the
creation of workplaces where employees can
meaningfully interact with nature to be a worth-
while investment.
Beyond changing aspects of their physical envi-
ronment, many organizations also give employees
access to outdoor spaces. Indeed, proximity to the
outdoors can influence corporate relocation deci-
sions. When DaVita, a Fortune 500 company, moved
its headquarters to Denver, the company’s CEO
stated the decision was based partly on the fact that
“a lot of our best people care about the outdoors and
so it was just common sense to put people in a place
like Denver that provides such easy access to the
outdoors” (Headwaters Economics, 2012: 16). Na-
ture is also finding its way into benefit plans; for in-
stance, REI offers all employees two “yay days” per
year, during which they are paid to spend time in
contact with nature (Geier, 2016). Likewise, al-
though corporate retreats have often taken place
outside the office, workers at several Silicon Valley
firms are now being offered opportunities to spend a
day “forest bathing,” completely immersed in the
outdoors and disconnected from digital devices
(Schulte, 2015).
In sum, organizational leaders increasingly see
value in exposing their employees to nature. How-
ever, beyond recognizing nature as part of the phys-
ical work environment and reviewing research
related to this idea (Elsbach & Pratt, 2007), organi-
zational researchers have been slow to examine the
implications that contact with nature may have for
employees, teams, and organizations (Gray & Birrell,
2014). This oversight is important because research
in adjacent fields has linked exposure to nature with
beneficial outcomes that are commonly investigated
by organizational researchers and have practical
implications for employees’ work lives, such as
lower stress (Jiang, Li, Larsen, & Sullivan, 2016),
enhanced mood (Bratman, Hamilton, Hahn, Daily, &
Gross, 2015), improved social cohesion (Zelenski,
Dopko, & Capaldi, 2015), and higher cognitive per-
formance (Berman, Jonides, & Kaplan, 2008).
Our lack of understanding of the effects of nature
in the workplace may also be problematic in light of
research on other aspects of the physical work en-
vironment that suggests that the effects of workplace
design are sometimes unpredictable. For example,
April
despite the widespread adoption of open office plans
(Ashkanasy, Ayoko, & Jehn, 2014), open offices can
negatively impact employee well-being and perfor-
mance (De Croon, Sluiter, Kuijer, & Frings-Dresen,
2005; Pejtersen, Feveile, Christensen, & Burr, 2011).
Thus, although contact with nature at work should
generally benefit employees, there may be limits or
costs associated with bringing the outdoors into
organizations; alternatively, the benefits of contact
with nature at work may also have the potential to
overcome shortcomings in other aspects of work
design, such as open office concepts. As such, in-
creasing our understanding of contact with nature at
work may also enhance our understanding of the
physical work environment more generally.
Management researchers have contemplated
and evaluated the implications of work design for
the past 50 years (Parker, Morgeson, & Johns,
2017), but, during this time, physical elements of
employees’ workspaces have been “virtually ig-
nored in the fields of I/O psychology and man-
agement” (Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson,
2007: 1337). In other words, while the study of
work design, in general, has flourished, our un-
derstanding of its physical, or contextual, aspects
has not. As such, applying the “biophilia
hypothesis”—the proposition that humans pos-
sess a strong and innate affinity for nature
(Wilson, 1984) and that people thrive when they
are in contact with nature—to work design creates
an opportunity to extend our understanding of
how the physical work environment affects its
inhabitants. Indeed, our knowledge of work de-
sign is incomplete because, although studies
have identified some physical elements of em-
ployees’ workspaces that may influence their at-
titudes and performance (Morgeson & Humphrey,
2006), research on contextual work design has
failed to consider work conditions that place
employees in contact with nature. Consequently,
we lack basic knowledge of how employees in-
teract with, and respond to, nature at work.
The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical
model of how contextual work design affects the
extent to which employees are exposed to nature at
work; how contact with nature affects employees’
energy reserves; and when these effects will be
strong, weak, or reversed (see Figure 1). To do this,
we first provide a detailed description of the bio-
philia hypothesis. Then, we draw upon principles of
biophilic architecture and the contextual work de-
sign literature to understand how two dimensions of
employees’ work—(a) the extent to which they work
2021
FIGURE 1
A Model of Biophilic Work Design
Depth and Scope of
Contact with Nature at Work
Outdoor breaks
Outdoors brought indoors
Outdoors via physical
barrier
Representations of nature
in natural settings, and (b) the degree to which
their job tasks involve interaction with nature—
determine the amount of contact with nature in
their work lives. Next, we identify four types of
contact with nature that represent the primary ways
through which these indoor workers experience
nature while at work. We then use attention resto-
ration theory (ART) (Kaplan, 1995) to explain how
contact with nature increases employees’ reserves
of cognitive, emotional, prosocial, and physical
energy. Finally, we extend ART into the organiza-
tional domain to identify situational and individual
moderators that influence the effects of contact with
nature at work.
By developing a model that explains how contact
with nature increases employees’ energy reserves,
our theorizing changes our current understanding of
physical work design in at least three important
ways. First, we add an important dimension to the
study of work context characteristics, which have
largely been ignored in the management literature
(Humphrey et al., 2007); indeed, to the extent that
aspects of physical work design (i.e., physical de-
mands, work conditions, and ergonomics) have been
examined, prior research has largely focused on how
the presence or absence of physical demands, haz-
ardous work conditions, and proper ergonomics can
help or harm employee attitudes (Morgeson &
Humphrey, 2006). Second, by linking biophilic
work design and energy, we identify how the
Klotz and Bolino 233
Potential Energy
Fascination Cognitive
Being away
Emotional
Prosocial
Extent
Compatibility Physical
physical work context affects employees’ cognitive,
emotional, prosocial, and physical energy reserves.
By explicating this process, we also contribute to the
growing literature on the antecedents and structure
of employee energy (Lanaj, Foulk, & Erez, 2019;
Quinn, Spreitzer, & Lam, 2012). Of course, work
design characteristics that are generally positive may
have a dark side (Fineman, 2006). Thus, our third
contribution is to highlight the potential limits of,
and downsides to, contact with nature at work.
THE BIOPHILIA HYPOTHESIS AND
CONTEXTUAL WORK DESIGN
Human evolution has largely taken place in close
contact with, and with high dependence on, the
natural world (Wilson, 1984). Indeed, only relatively
recently (i.e., within the past 5,000 years) have
humans lived most of their lives indoors. People in
the United States now spend approximately 92% of
their time indoors and only 2% of their time outdoors
(with the other 6% being time in transit [Klepeis
et al., 2001]), and a study of more than 20,000 people
in the United Kingdom found that they spent less
than 8% of their time outdoors (MacKerron &
Mourato, 2013). The biophilia hypothesis (Wilson,
1984), however, argues that, because the develop-
ment of the human body and its systems took place in
an environment dominated by natural elements,
such as the weather, plants, animals, sunlight,
234 Academy of Management Review
landscapes, and natural bodies of water, the way that
individuals today think, feel, learn, and behave re-
mains closely linked to the natural world (Kellert &
Wilson, 1993). According to the biophilia hypothe-
sis, this connection between humans and nature
continues to manifest itself as an innate and power-
ful desire1 to commune with nature (Kellert, 2005),
and studies indicate that contact with nature is im-
portant for health and well-being (Hartig, Mitchell,
de Vries, & Frumkin, 2014).
The most prevalent application of the biophilia
hypothesis has taken place in the field of architec-
ture, wherein scholars and practitioners have turned
to biophilic design not only to remedy environmen-
tally unsustainable building practices, but also to
allow people living in urban areas to connect with
nature, and possibly facilitate their flourishing in
doing so (Kellert, 2005). Somewhat analogously, one
thread of organizational research focuses on con-
textual elements of employees’ workspaces, and the
effects they have on workers (e.g., Elsbach, 2004).
This contextual domain is one of the four main do-
mains of work design, along with the task, knowl-
edge, and social domains (Morgeson & Humphrey,
2006). Although the contextual domain has been
given little attention by organizational scholars rel-
ative to the other three domains of work design
(Morgeson, Dierdorff, & Hmurovic, 2010), it is partic-
ularly relevant to the study of nature and work be-
cause it comprises “the context within which work is
performed, including the physical and environmental
contexts” (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006: 1323).
1
Previous research on biophilic design sometimes refers
to the fulfillment of biophilic needs (e.g., Kellert,
Heerwagen, & Mador, 2008). Although some researchers
(e.g., Murray, 1938) have defined needs less stringently,
Baumeister and Leary (1995: 498) argued that, in order for
something to be considered a “need,” or a fundamental
source of human motivation, it should do all of the fol-
lowing: “(a) produce effects readily under all but adverse
conditions, (b) have affective consequences, (c) direct
cognitive processing, (d) lead to ill effects (such as on
health or adjustment) when thwarted, (e) elicit goal-
oriented behavior designed to satisfy it (subject to moti-
vational patterns such as object substitutability and
satiation), (f) be universal in the sense of applying to all
people, (g) not be derivative of other motives, (h) affect a
broad variety of behaviors, and (i) have implications that
go beyond immediate psychological functioning.” It is
unclear if the notion of biophilic needs satisfies all of
these nine criteria; therefore, we refer to the desire to
have contact with nature as a biophilic desire rather than
a biophilic need.
April
Within the contextual domain of work design, re-
searchers have identified three main characteristics
of employees’ work contexts—physical demands,
work conditions, and ergonomics (Humphrey et al.,
2007). Whereas “physical demands” refers to how
much physical activity the job requires, and “ergo-
nomics” focuses on the correctness of the posture
and movements associated with a job, “work con-
ditions” captures the setting in which jobs are
performed (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). As men-
tioned above, the contextual domain has received
less scholarly attention than other aspects of work
design, and, within this often-overlooked domain,
work conditions have been particularly under-
studied. That is, even when aspects of the contextual
domain have been investigated, there has generally
been a greater emphasis on understanding the
physical demands of the job rather than the work
conditions (Morgeson & Campion, 2003). Further-
more, to the extent that work conditions have been
examined, they are often equated with the absence of
environmental stressors (e.g., excessive noise, un-
comfortable temperature, health hazards, accident
risks), rather than the presence of positive envi-
ronmental features (Wilson, DeJoy, Vandenberg,
Richardson, & McGrath, 2004), like opportunities
to connect with nature.
Given its focus on employees’ physical surround-
ings, theory regarding employee contact with nature
at work falls squarely within the work conditions
subdomain of contextual work design. Importantly,
though, despite being understudied relative to other
characteristics of employees’ work, and despite its
relatively narrow focus, prior research indicates that
work conditions relate to employee satisfaction and
other important outcomes (Morgeson & Humphrey,
2006). By expanding work conditions to include
biophilic work conditions—those aspects of a job
that place employees in contact with nature—this
subdimension of contextual work design more fully
captures the scope of the physical work conditions
that employees encounter on the job. Next, we de-
scribe two overarching biophilic work conditions
that can be used to classify the biophilic content of
a given job.
Biophilic Work Conditions
The effects of biophilia on employees can be un-
derstood through the lens of contextual work design
in general, and the work conditions subdimension of
that domain in particular. That is, whether or not
employees come into contact with nature is a result
2021 Klotz and Bolino
of their work conditions, such that their job either
requires them to be in contact with nature to complete
their tasks,2 or it places them in a natural setting. As
such, the extent to which jobs place employees in
contact with nature is largely determined by the pres-
ence or absence of two work conditions—whether job
tasks require interaction with nature and whether work
takes place in a natural setting. As shown in Figure 2,
by considering these two biophilic work conditions
in tandem, jobs can be divided into four categories.
The work lives of some individuals, such as farmers
and forest rangers, are suffused with contact with
nature, such that their job tasks necessitate interac-
tion with natural elements; in addition, much of
their work takes places in natural outdoor settings.
For other employees, such as florists, or biologists
working in labs, their job tasks bring them in contact
with nature, but this contact largely occurs in man-
made physical spaces. These employees’ work con-
ditions can be contrasted with those of construction
workers and package deliverers who spend a great
deal of their workdays outdoors, often surrounded
by nature, but whose work tasks primarily involve
interaction with other people or with manmade ob-
jects. The final, and largest, group of workers in-
habits work lives that are largely devoid of contact
with nature. For many manufacturing line workers,
restaurant servers, warehouse forklift drivers, retail
workers, and office dwellers, neither their work set-
ting nor the content of their jobs puts them in touch
with nature.
To the extent that employees’ work context or job
tasks provide regular contact with nature, their bio-
philic desires should be satiated. Conversely, the
biophilic desires of employees whose work settings
and job tasks do not place them in contact with na-
ture should be largely unfulfilled. Therefore, the ef-
fects of contact with nature will be strongest for those
in indoor jobs without job tasks that bring them into
regular contact with nature. For this reason, our
theorizing speaks most directly to employees in this
quadrant. Importantly, this quadrant represents the
majority of workers in the United States, and includes
those working in jobs involving production, office and
administrative support, business and financial opera-
tions, health-care support, food service, and sales, who
2 periencing nature through a physical barrier, and (d)
Within contextual work design, some research has in-
cluded “equipment use” as a separate contextual element
(Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). For the purposes of parsi-
mony, we treat contact with nature via one’s job tasks as a
work condition that involves job tasks, rather than invok-
ing another aspect of contextual work design.
235
spend the majority of their workday inside (U.S.
Department of Labor, 2017).
Although our arguments speak most directly to the
many employees who work mainly indoors without
contact with nature via their job tasks, they are also
pertinent for workers who regularly work outdoors
or perform work tasks that involve contact with na-
ture. Even outdoor workers must sometimes work
indoors, separated from the natural world. Thus,
forest rangers sometimes must fill out paperwork at
their desk, office workers are sent out on sales calls,
and construction workers move from working out-
doors as they frame a house to indoors once the roof
is completed. Moreover, within the same profession,
employees based in different locations may experi-
ence differing levels of nature—consider firefighters
who work in forests, compared to those who work in
rural settings, compared to those who work in cities.
In other words, in most jobs, there is variation in the
extent to which employees encounter nature, and so
the implications of biophilic contact at work are
relevant for almost all employees.
Types of Contact with Nature at Work
Workers who spend most of their workdays in-
doors may have contact with nature at work either
directly (e.g., office plants, open windows) or indi-
rectly (e.g., pictures of landscapes, exposed natural
materials) (Cramer & Browning, 2008; Kellert &
Calabrese, 2015). In addition, employees may also
experience nature via features of space and place
that mimic the natural world (e.g., a wandering
pathway through a cubicle maze). Applying Kellert
et al.’s (2008) taxonomy of biophilic design elements
(e.g., direct and indirect contact) to the work context,
in part by considering the literature on workday de-
sign (e.g., Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006), we identified
four types of contact with nature at work that capture
a range of biophilic contact—from contact that en-
gages all or nearly all of the five senses (i.e., highly
multisensory) to contact that engages only one sense
at a time. Specifically, employees should be able
to experience biophilia while on the job through
(a) outdoor breaks during the workday, (b) natural
elements that have been incorporated into indoor
workspaces (i.e., outdoors brought indoors), (c) ex-
representations of nature, such as artificial plants or
pictures of nature. Thus, whereas outdoor breaks
provide direct opportunities to engage multiple senses,
representations of nature have sensory effects that
are indirect and more limited. These four types of
236 Academy of Management Review
FIGURE 2
Biophilic Work Conditions and Examples of Jobs with Different Levels of Each
HIGH CONTACT
WITH NATURE VIA
JOB CONTEXT
CONSTRUCTION WORKER
PACKAGE DELIVERER
CAR SALESPERSON
LOW CONTACT
WITH NATURE VIA
JOB TASKS
OFFICE WORKER
WAREHOUSE FORKLIFT OPERATOR
MANUFACTURING LINE WORKER
LOW CONTACT
WITH NATURE VIA
JOB CONTEXT
contact are intended to be illustrative, not exhaus-
tive; nevertheless, they represent types of contact
with nature that are common in workplaces, acces-
sible to many employees, and considered elements
of the natural world. As such, they provide a foun-
dation for understanding how biophilic elements of
employees’ work contexts affect them at work.
Table 1 presents examples of the presence of each
of these four types of biophilic contact in workplaces
around the world. As highlighted here, many orga-
nizations have used principles of biophilic design to
create opportunities for contact with nature for em-
ployees who work indoors and whose jobs do not
involve nature. Next, we describe each of these four
types of contact with nature at work in more detail.
Many employees can go outdoors and experience
nature during breaks in their workday. Indeed, al-
though the majority of workers spend most of their
workdays indoors, there is also evidence that nearly
half of all employees spend at least some time out-
doors during their workday (at least in the United
States [U.S. Department of Labor, 2017]). This type of
contact with nature, “outdoor breaks,” is the most
direct because many of the five human senses—taste,
touch, smell, sight, and sound—are engaged when
outdoors. For example, a walk across a corporate
campus from one building to another could engage
April
FOREST RANGER
FARMER
STORM CHASER
HIGH CONTACT
WITH NATURE VIA
JOB TASKS
FLORIST
BIOLOGIST
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
an employee’s senses via the sound of birds chirping,
the feel of cool air on the skin, the sight of changing
leaves, and the smell of rain in the distance. Even a
short “smoke break” on a concrete patio may provide
employees with the sight of the sky, the feel of the air,
and the sound of the breeze.
Employees will also encounter nature at work to the
extent that elements of nature are incorporated into
their indoor workspace. For instance, the presence of
vegetation around a conference room facilitates bio-
philic contact that reflects the “outdoors brought in-
doors.” An office with a fireplace provides employees
with the sight, sound, and feel of fire on a cold day. A
water feature in a company’s atrium can give employees
the sight and sound of a small waterfall while being
inside. Even some company policies, such as allowing
employees to bring pets to work, are means by which
workers can be brought into direct contact with natural
elements while remaining indoors. As these examples
show, when employees are brought into contact with
nature by working in a setting in which the outdoors is
brought inside, it allows them to directly experience
nature via multiple senses, but in a constructed en-
vironment. In other words, outdoors brought indoors
facilitates relatively deep contact with nature.
In addition, employees may experience the “out-
doors via a physical barrier.” Windowed offices may
2021 Klotz and Bolino 237

TABLE 1
Examples of Four Types of Contact with Nature at Work
Outdoor breaks
c The middle of Apple’s new headquarters comprises parkland with an orchard, meadows, and a pond.
c Software company Lettuce offers a rooftop lounge with ocean views for employees to work outdoors.
c A 600-foot-long water fountain and outdoor path connect the two main clusters of buildings on VMWare’s campus in Palo Alto.
c Microsoft built tree houses at its headquarters for employee meetings and to provide outdoor workspaces.
c Open-air office spaces were incorporated into the renovation of Adobe Systems’ headquarters in San Jose.
c Rodale has an employee garden club that grows organic fruits and vegetables.
c PMBC Group organizes outdoor brown bag lunches for its employees once per week.
Outdoors brought indoors
c Amazon’s new headquarters in Seattle features an indoor creek running through it.
c Etsy’s new Brooklyn headquarters includes living plant walls throughout.
c A fireplace was incorporated into the café space of the new headquarters for Clarks Americas in Waltham.
c Integrative Nutrition provides fresh flowers on every employee’s desk.
c Purina allows employees to bring pets to work.
Nature via physical barriers
c Large windows and clear walls in Expedia’s Vancouver office provide views of the ocean and mountains throughout the building.
c The roof on the new U.S. Bank football stadium in Minneapolis is translucent to provide natural light.
c CookFox architects’ Manhattan offices pump in fresh air when carbon dioxide or pollutant levels are too high.
Representations of nature
c The redesigned Te Whare Toa Takitini/Burwood Hospital in New Zealand uses a massive timber stairwell in its atrium.
c Green and bluish hues were heavily used in the redesign of the Swedish Ballard Behavioral Health Unit in Seattle.
c The S. C. Johnson Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin, is designed with columns that mimic shade trees.
c Clif Bar’s new bakery in Idaho features extensive use of reclaimed materials (e.g., recycled barn wood).
c Second Home’s coworking spaces in Europe are designed with no straight lines on the interior.
c The Seattle headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers is U-shaped, mimicking the original course of the waterway on which it sits.
c Rather than straight hallways, meandering paths wind through the new Westin Doha Hotel in Qatar.

be the most common example of this type of contact,
allowing natural light to stream in and giving em-
ployees a view of the outdoors. Other examples of
experiencing nature via a physical barrier include
the sound of rain on the roof of a warehouse, or the
feel and smell of fresh air when customers enter and
exit via a door to the outside. As highlighted by these
examples, contact with nature at work through some
sort of barrier directly engages at least one of the
senses; thus, while it allows for some direct contact
with nature, it is a more limited experience than
outdoor breaks or outdoors brought indoors.
Finally, companies may incorporate “representa-
tions of nature,” such as a timber stairwell, simulated
natural light, natural paint colors, pictures of the out-
doors, or artificial plants, into work settings. Natural
shapes, such as contoured walls and winding walk-
ways, are also representative of elements of the natural
world, as are other shapes and forms that mimic
those found in nature (e.g., botanical or animal motifs,
arched doorways with curves, support columns that
mimic trees, and spiral staircases) (Ryan, Browning,
Clancy, Andrews, & Kallianpurkar, 2014). However,
because representations of nature are artificial and are
largely seen in the background of indoor settings, they
typically only engage one of the senses, and only pro-
vide employees with indirect contact with nature.
In sum, biophilic work conditions vary to the ex-
tent that employees’ contact with nature is direct
rather than indirect, based on the sensory engage-
ment associated with that contact. Next, we use ART
(Kaplan, 1995) to explain how contact with nature at
work relates to increased employee energy.
CONTACT WITH NATURE AND
EMPLOYEE ENERGY
Building on Williams James’s (1892) observation
that attention is effortful and purposeful, ART reiter-
ates that, in the modern age, people are regularly re-
quired to focus on mundane tasks and resist their
desire to focus on more interesting aspects of the larger
world around them (Kaplan, 1995). In the context of
work, this means that employees must attend to tasks
that demand their attention, which is depleting and
makes it difficult for them to stay focused in order to
solve problems, control themselves, make and follow
plans, take action, and feel calm and positive
(Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998).
ART contrasts this kind of purposeful attention with
the less intense attention required to enjoy nature. ART
goes on to posit that natural environments are restor-
ative because they can be enjoyed in an indirect way,
leaving ample cognitive bandwidth for restorative
238 Academy of Management Review
processes to take place (Basu, Duvall, & Kaplan, 2019).
For example, whereas listening to an interesting pre-
sentation by a colleague may be enjoyable, it also re-
quires effort to elicit comprehension. In contrast, the
sounds of birdsong, running water, or rustling leaves
are alluring and pleasant, but they can be enjoyed with
minimal attentional effort.
Overall, according to ART, exposure to nature can
counteract the depleting effects of focused attention
by giving people a pleasantly captivating yet subtle
target for their attention. As such, natural elements
can loosely hold people’s attention, allowing them
to experience nature’s benefits while expending far
less energy associated with the focused attention
demanded by other aspects of their lives, including
restorative activities such as reading (Kaplan, 1995).
Although ART concentrates on the potentially re-
storative effects of nature (Kjellgren & Buhrkall, 2010;
Ratcliffe, Gatersleben, & Sowden, 2013), we apply this
theory to the organizational context, where natural
elements often contrast with the built work environ-
ment and demanding job tasks. In the workplace,
then, contact with natural elements should be espe-
cially restorative and energizing. For example, when
managers walk into a boardroom with a view of a
forest, they should experience heightened feelings of
energy relative to a similar room with a view of a
parking lot. This prediction aligns with research in
other fields that has linked exposure to nature with
feelings of vitality (e.g., Ryan et al., 2010).
In the organizational literature, energy has often
been described as the fuel for employee engagement;
that is, in order to engage in their work, employees
need energy to direct toward job tasks (Christian,
Garza, & Slaughter, 2011; Kahn, 1990; May, Gilson, &
Harter, 2004). The problem with this conceptuali-
zation is that it fails to distinguish between energy
that is available, but not currently in use, and energy
that is activated and currently being used to drive
employee behavior. To address this issue, Quinn
et al. (2012) developed a unified framework of hu-
man energy that distinguishes between two distinct
forms of human energy: potential energy and in-use
energy. Whereas “potential energy” refers to reserves
or supplies of energy that have yet to be directed
toward behaviors and tasks, “in-use energy” is the
resource that is being directed by motivation toward
task accomplishment (Quinn et al., 2012). Empirical
findings indicate that these two forms of energy are
distinct from each other, and from motivation, and that
each form of energy has significant within-person vari-
ance (Christian, Eisenkraft, & Kapadia, 2015). In another
important contribution to our understanding of energy,
April
Kruglanski et al. (2012) developed cognitive energetics
theory (CET), which proposes that the amount of energy
and effort that individuals direct toward pursuing their
goals is a result of the sum amount of energy they are
willing to invest in pursuit of a given goal (i.e., potential
driving force) and how much they actually invest when
engaging in that pursuit (i.e., effective driving force).
Subsequent research supports the key tenets of CET; for
example, Lanaj et al. (2019) found that a restorative in-
tervention increased leaders’ ability to invest energy in
subsequent leadership efforts and the amount of effort
they actually put into those tasks.
When viewed through the lens of the unified
framework of human energy, ART proposes that
natural elements in the workplace passively restore
employees’ potential energy, even as their in-use
energy is invested in, and depleted by, work de-
mands and tasks. In the language of CET, contact
with nature at work should increase the potential
driving force associated with the pursuit of work
goals, leaving employees with the ability to increase
the effective driving force they direct toward achieving
their objectives. In other words, employees’ contact
with nature at work should increase their potential
energy, or the potential driving force that can be di-
rected toward work pursuits. However, whereas Quinn
et al. (2012) suggested that specific domains of poten-
tial energy do not exist, research outside of the orga-
nizational sciences indicates that contact with nature
can leave people feeling restored in at least four key
ways: cognitively, emotionally, prosocially, and physi-
cally (Keniger, Gaston, Irvine, & Fuller, 2013). Integrat-
ing these lines of research, it may be inferred that people
can experience different levels of potential energy in
these four areas. For example, it is not hard to imagine
that, after concentrating on a demanding task all morn-
ing, an employee would feel cognitively drained but
remain physically energized, and could use that physi-
cal potential energy to go for a jog during the lunch hour.
As such, biophilic contact should have the potential to
independently boost employees’ cognitive, emotional,
prosocial, and physical potential energies. Next, we ex-
plain how contact with nature can provide employees
with potential energy that is particularly suited to be
converted to these four types of potential energy.
Cognitive Potential Energy
Lykken (2005: 331) defined “mental energy” as
“the ability to persist for long periods thinking about
a problem, the ability to focus attention, to shut out
distractions, to persist in search of a solution.” Thus,
we conceptualize “cognitive potential energy” as the
2021 Klotz and Bolino
pool of energy that individuals have at their dis-
posal to regulate their thoughts. ART posits that,
whereas directed attention drains cognitive resources
(Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007), contact with nature
allows these same resources (i.e., cognitive potential
energy) to be restored and reenergized by providing
a pleasant and non-depleting target for individuals’
attention. This prediction aligns with studies finding
that viewing images of nature improves executive at-
tention (Gamble, Howard, & Howard, 2014), and is
perhaps most strikingly seen in research showing that
exposure to nature reduces attention deficit symp-
toms in children (Taylor & Kuo, 2009; Taylor, Kuo, &
Sullivan, 2001).
In the workplace, then, where employees are often
faced with cognitively taxing demands, the presence
of biophilic work conditions should help restore
employees’ potential cognitive energy, even as their
in-use energy is being depleted. The potential cog-
nitive energy generated by contact with nature helps
explain why people in offices with greenery perform
better on cognitive tasks and report greater concen-
tration than those in offices without natural elements
(Nieuwenhuis, Knight, Postmes, & Haslam, 2014;
Raanaas, Evensen, Rich, Sjøstrøm, & Patil, 2011).
Thus, the more employees have contact with nature,
the more cognitive potential energy they will have to
direct toward cognitive tasks.
Emotional Potential Energy
“Affective energy” refers to an experience of pos-
itive arousal that can last for short or long periods of
time (Cole, Bruch, & Vogel, 2011; Quinn & Dutton,
2005). Building on this definition and contextualiz-
ing it to the workplace and to potential energy,
“emotional potential energy” refers to positive af-
fective resources that employees possess that can be
used to fuel enthusiasm and excitement at work and
to more effectively express and control their emo-
tions in performing their jobs. In this way, “emo-
tional exhaustion” (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998),
which is sometimes described as occurring when
one’s batteries are drained (Maslach, 1982), can be
thought of as the absence of emotional potential en-
ergy. As such, when employees experience high
levels of emotional potential energy, they can put
this energy to use in meeting the emotional demands
of the workplace—for instance, through the expres-
sion of positive feelings while on the job (Smith,
Rasmussen, Mills, Wefald, & Downey, 2012).
Studies have consistently shown that contact with
nature is associated with elevated mood (Mayer,
239
Frantz, Bruehlman-Senecal, & Dolliver, 2009; Thompson
& Bruk-Lee, 2019), indicating that there are biologi-
cal reasons that exposure to nature at work should
contribute to employees’ emotional potential energy.
For example, plants create air that is fresher to
breathe (Larsen, Adams, Deal, Kweon, & Tyler, 1998)
and sunlight triggers the release of serotonin (Lambert,
Reid, Kaye, Jennings, & Esler, 2002), both of which
relate to positive arousal. This may explain the find-
ings of studies demonstrating that the availability of
natural light and windows significantly improves
employees’ moods (Zadeh, Shepley, Williams, &
Chung, 2014).
In addition, in studies that ask individuals to de-
scribe their most and least favorite places, natural
settings are the most commonly described type of
favorite place, and they are very rarely listed as un-
pleasant places (e.g., Korpela, Hartig, Kaiser, &
Fuhrer, 2001); this is in stark contrast to how em-
ployees often feel about the workplace, where un-
pleasant situations and people are a regular part of
organizational life (Sakurai & Jex, 2012). As such,
when employees encounter nature at work, it is
likely to prime favorable arousal associated with
pleasant natural settings, especially relative to the
workplace. Taken together, then, contact with nature
at work should increase employees’ emotional po-
tential energy.
Prosocial Potential Energy
“Prosocial motivation” refers to “the desire to
protect and promote the well-being of others” (Grant
& Berg, 2012: 28). Beyond the desire to help others,
though, individuals must have the energy to put to-
ward helping others; however, people with high
levels of prosocial motivation can expend all of their
energy in service to this motive and experience
compassion fatigue (Figley, 2013) and citizenship
fatigue (Bolino, Hsiung, Harvey, & LePine, 2015).
When individuals experience these types of fatigue,
they feel like they cannot give of themselves to others
anymore. However, this does not necessarily mean
that they lack the energy to perform other tasks
(e.g., physical, cognitive). Indeed, Bolino et al. (2015)
argued that, while citizenship fatigue is likely to re-
sult in decreased citizenship performance, it is un-
likely to affect in-role task performance. Therefore,
prosocial potential energy is a distinct store of re-
sources that people have at their disposal to invest in
the well-being of others.
Human evolution explains why exposure to nature
should increase individuals’ prosocial potential
240 Academy of Management Review
energy. Specifically, humans have evolved to live in
groups, in part because their physical attributes—
such as being weak, lacking fur, and having a long
infancy—have left humans largely incapable of sur-
viving on their own in the wild (Brewer & Caporael,
2006). Accordingly, humans have traditionally
needed to connect with others to survive; even in the
modern age, the quantity and quality of their social
relationships is related to their health and mortality
(House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). As such, contact
with nature at work should elicit feelings of con-
nectedness with coworkers that manifest in the form
of prosocial potential energy. In support of this no-
tion, MRI scans of individuals viewing scenes of
nature versus city settings have revealed that natural
scenes enhance activity in the parts of the brain as-
sociated with caring about others (Kim et al., 2010).
Additional studies provide evidence that people
become more empathetic, trusting, generous, and
cooperative after being exposed to nature (Weinstein,
Przybylski, & Ryan, 2009; Zelenski et al., 2015; Zhang,
Piff, Iyer, Koleva, & Keltner, 2014). Finally, common
spaces containing natural elements facilitate greater
social cohesion than spaces devoid of nature (Kuo,
Sullivan, Coley, & Brunson, 1998), suggesting that
contact with nature may increase the resources to bond
with others. Collectively, these findings support the
proposition that contact with nature at work should
boost employees’ prosocial potential energy.
Physical Potential Energy
“Physical energy” refers to the physiological re-
sources that individuals possess to invest in purposeful
behavior (Cole et al., 2011), often experienced as
physical strength (Shraga & Shirom, 2009). When em-
ployees have high levels of physical potential energy at
work, they should feel physically healthy and strong,
and able to invest their energy into performing work
tasks in a vigorous manner. Unlike the daily demands
associated with organizational life, which are often
depleting (Lian, Yam, Ferris, & Brown, 2017), natural
elements are typically characterized as sources of
physical energy for humans—the sun provides
warmth, water provides hydration, and air provides
oxygen. To the extent that people come into contact
with these sources of physical life and thriving, they
should feel physically invigorated.
Research examining the effects of a variety of types
of contact with nature on individuals’ physical en-
ergy and well-being provide support for this asser-
tion. Most directly, Ryan et al. (2010) found that
people generally have greater physical energy when
April
they are outdoors and closer to nature. Contact with
nature is also associated with lower levels of harmful
hormones and higher levels of hormones associated
with physiological energy (Haluza, Schönbauer, &
Cervinka, 2014), as well as higher adrenaline (Li
et al., 2007); moreover, patients in hospital rooms
with plants and flowers have better physical recovery
following surgery than those in rooms without foliage
(Park & Mattson, 2008). Regarding the workplace in
particular, employees who spend more time in nature
outside of work report greater feelings of vitality at
work—up to a year later (Korpela, De Bloom, Sianoja,
Pasanen, & Kinnunen, 2017). In sum, when workers are
exposed to nature while on the job, they should expe-
rience a boost in physical resources to subsequently
invest in work-related activities.
Together, biophilic work conditions should relate
to employees’ cognitive, emotional, prosocial, and
physical potential energy. Moreover, as we describe
in more detail in subsequent sections, these effects
should occur on both between-persons and within-
persons bases. That is, all else equal, employees
whose jobs bring them in contact with nature on a
regular basis should have higher levels of potential
energy than those with less frequent contact with
nature at work. In addition, workdays in which em-
ployees have substantial contact with nature should
be more restorative than days when those same em-
ployees have less contact with nature.
Proposition 1. Contact with nature at work will posi-
tively relate to employees’ (a) cognitive, (b) emotional,
(c) prosocial, and (d) physical potential energy.
Depth and Scope of Effects of Contact with Nature
at Work on Potential Energy
As described earlier, the ways that employees ex-
perience nature at work ranges from shallow to deep,
and at least some studies have suggested that this
contact may be more impactful according to the
extent that it engages more of employees’ senses
(i.e., greater scope). Specifically, architectural theo-
rists argue that physical spaces are more meaningful
when they provide a multisensory experience for
those who inhabit those spaces (Pallasmaa, 2012),
including workplaces (Clements-Croome, 2006),
and some marketing theories suggest that customer
experiences with brands can be deepened via the
engagement of multiple senses (Hultén, 2011;
Lindstrom, 2005). Thus, employees’ contact with
nature should be more impactful in relation to both
the depth and scope of that contact. At work, then,
the more suffused a setting is with natural elements,
2021 Klotz and Bolino
the more employees may benefit. Indeed, when people
experience nature through being in a forest, they feel
less stressed to the extent that the trees are dense (Jiang
et al., 2016), and when people visit urban parks, they
find them more restorative to the extent that the area is
biodiverse (i.e., contains a larger variety of species
[Wood et al., 2018]). In short, biophilic work conditions
should be more restorative in terms of both the number
of forms of potential energy that are replenished, and
the overall amount of potential energy that is restored,
based on the number of senses engaged and the depth
of this engagement.
Based on the multisensory-based depth of the
biophilic work conditions that employees experi-
ence during their workdays, there should be within-
person variance in the restoration of their potential
energy, both in terms of the amount and forms of
potential energy. As an example, consider an em-
ployee who, in four consecutive afternoons, experi-
ences the four types of contact with nature outlined
in this paper. On the first day, this employee spends
the afternoon on their company’s outdoor patio,
discussing work-related matters with a colleague.
This contact with nature is quite immersive, pro-
viding a pleasant but non-depleting setting, breaths
of fresh air, connectedness cues, and a respite from
the built environment, and should therefore have the
capacity to substantially boost the employee’s cog-
nitive, emotional, prosocial, and physical potential
energies. The next day, this employee attends a
presentation in the company’s atrium, which houses
indoor flowers and a water fountain. This exposure
to nature is multisensory in character (i.e., involving
sounds, sight, smell), but more limited than the prior
day’s experience; as such, it is unlikely to offer the
kind of biophilic contact (i.e., in terms of scope and
depth) that provides, for instance, the enhanced
physical energy that outdoor breaks can provide. On
the third day, this person works at their desk, adja-
cent to a large window with views of a greenspace,
thereby allowing them to see a vast natural setting,
but not to experience it beyond sight and the slight
feel of the sun. Therefore, although still restorative, it
may not be immersive enough to provide meaningful
restoration across multiple forms of potential energy.
On the final day, the employee has a meeting in a
windowless conference room with walls adorned
with large photographs of the coastline. These rep-
resentations of nature, which engage the sense of
sight, should give employees a mildly pleasant target
for their attention and provide employees with some
additional potential energy; however, this boost is
likely to be somewhat limited.
241
As this example illustrates, as biophilic work
conditions increasingly bring employees more
deeply into contact with nature, the effects of that
contact should increase not only in terms of the ab-
solute amount of potential energy that is generated,
but also the number of different types of potential
energy that are replenished.
Proposition 2. The amount and types of potential
energy generated through employees’ contact with
nature at work will increase as a function of the depth
and scope of their contact.
BOUNDARIES OF THE ENERGIZING EFFECTS
OF CONTACT WITH NATURE
As proposed above, contact with nature at work
creates potential energy in employees; however, the
main effect of biophilic work conditions on potential
energy will be shaped, in part, by situational and
individual factors. Indeed, ART proposes that natu-
ral contexts differ in their potential to be restorative
for those who inhabit them, based on four factors:
fascination, being away, extent, and compatibility
(Kaplan, 1995). First, natural settings suffused with
elements that are subtly “fascinating,” such as the
feel of a breeze, the sight of clouds, or the sound of
birds chirping, are more restorative than natural
contexts that are dull or abrasive, such as a field of
grass, a dirt lot, or the scorching sun (Hartig, Korpela,
Evans, & Gärling, 1997). Second, when aspects of the
natural world elicit the feeling of “being away,” in
that they cause an even momentary conceptual shift
toward nature and away from one’s current mindset
on work, they are more restorative. Third, settings
with natural elements are more restorative when
they signal “extent”—that is, that the natural ele-
ments are rich enough and complementary enough
to bring to mind a separate world from the built en-
vironment. Fourth and finally, natural settings are
more energizing when they are “compatible” with
the individual occupant’s values and inclinations.
Research indicates that these four components pos-
itively relate to the restorativeness of a given setting
(Felsten, 2009; Jones, 2018). Below, we explain how
each component may also shape the effects of contact
with nature on employees’ potential energy.
Fascination and Cognitive Potential Energy
According to ART, a hallmark of restorative natu-
ral settings is that they include “soft fascinations”
(Kaplan, 1995: 174) that are capable of catching and
maintaining, but not overwhelming, the attention of
242 Academy of Management Review
individuals. Because it focuses on gently holding
one’s attention, the influence of soft fascination
should amplify the effect of contact with nature on
employees’ cognitive resources. Therefore, when
employees’ contact with nature at work elicits feel-
ings of mild fascination and wonder, it should be
particularly restorative for their cognitive potential
energy. In other words, fascination will moderate the
relationship between contact with nature and cog-
nitive potential energy. All four forms of contact with
nature that we have discussed have the potential to
provide employees with an array of soft fascinations
that increase their cognitive potential energy. For
instance, the feel of a light rain shower could enchant
an employee on a break outdoors, as could the smell
of blooming flowers on office plants. Employees
working near windows with views of the sky are
likely to find themselves gazing at clouds during
periods of their workday, which are soothing to ob-
serve. And representations of nature, such as the
recorded sound of birdsong, may effortlessly enthrall.
However, while fascination has the potential to
increase the impact of biophilic work conditions on
employees’ cognitive potential energy, when this
fascination is absent, the effects of contact with na-
ture on cognitive potential energy may be weak. To
wit, more novel experiences with nature tend to be
more restorative than repeated encounters with the
same type of nature (Petherick, 2000/2001). Bio-
philic work conditions that are static (e.g., a mural of
a natural setting), then, are much more likely to fade
into the background and cease to fascinate than those
that are more dynamic. When the fascination asso-
ciated with contact with nature at work wanes in this
manner, the beneficial effects of nature on em-
ployees’ cognitive potential energy will be reduced.
Accordingly, when employees experience new
forms of the outdoors at work, which occurs when
they are organizational newcomers or when a natural
element is first introduced into a workspace, nature’s
effects on cognitive potential energy should be more
pronounced. In contrast, the energizing effect of ex-
periencing nature at work on employees’ cognitive
resources will diminish as employees’ fascination
with natural elements fade over time.
Whereas a variety of types of contact with nature
should elicit the mild fascination that fosters cogni-
tive restorativeness, some aspects of nature can also
place cognitive demands on employees that will
drain, rather than restore, their cognitive potential
energy. Like other contextual characteristics of work
design (e.g., ergonomics, physical work conditions),
biophilic work conditions can contribute to unsafe
April
and stressful work environments (Morgeson &
Humphrey, 2006) that necessitate employees’ di-
rected attention. Indeed, although some aspects of
nature are fascinating, others can be aversive. For
example, a package deliverer who must drive in a
snowstorm and make treacherous walks during their
deliveries will have to use a great deal of focus to deal
with this contact with nature, and the cognitive drain
associated with this attention will outweigh any gain
in potential energy elicited by fascination with the
snow. Moreover, on days in which there is severe
weather, such as tornados or floods, dealing with
these dangerous forms of nature will likely be dis-
tracting rather than cognitively energizing. When
nature has the potential to harm or agitate em-
ployees, then, contact with it should drain workers’
cognitive potential energy.
Proposition 3. The effect of contact with nature on
cognitive potential energy is moderated by the degree
to which this contact elicits soft fascination versus
directed attention. Specifically, the relationship will
be positive when it elicits soft fascination, will weaken
as fascination dissipates, and will be negative when it
demands directed attention.
Being Away and Emotional Potential Energy
ART proposes that getting away from everyday
settings is appealing and energizing because it al-
lows people to experience the pleasantness of a
preferred setting (e.g., forest, seaside, mountains),
thereby giving them a brief escape from the typical
settings in their daily lives (Kaplan, 1995). In support
of this notion, natural elements can give people the
feeling of being in a preferred world away, such as a
forest or beach (Herzog, Maguire, & Nebel, 2003). For
employees, vacations provide the ultimate opportu-
nity to get away by allowing them to leave their work
and home demands behind (Fritz & Sonnentag,
2006). Vacations from work are associated with
sharp decreases in emotional exhaustion in the
weeks following the time away (Kühnel &
Sonnentag, 2011), and so it stands to reason that
contact with nature will have a stronger positive ef-
fect on employees’ emotional potential energy when
it facilitates a shift in employees’ perspectives away
from their current everyday setting toward a restor-
ative setting.
At work, then, biophilic work conditions should
be particularly restorative to employees’ emotional
potential energy when they allow employees to ex-
perience the feeling of being away, in a pleasant
setting. However, the ability to be away is not only
2021 Klotz and Bolino
likely to be affected by biophilic work conditions,
but also by other aspects of employees’ tasks and
jobs. That is, there are trade-offs when multiple job
characteristics conflict with one another; for exam-
ple, the presence of mechanistic job characteristics
may impinge on the benefits of motivational job
characteristics (Morgeson & Campion, 2002).
Therefore, when other contextual work conditions
are deficient, such as when the physical demands of
the job are exhausting, the work conditions are
dangerous, or the ergonomics create discomfort, they
will detract from employees’ ability to get away via
contact with nature. Likewise, if job tasks are
designed in such a way that they lack motivational
potential, such as when they do not provide em-
ployees with autonomy to perform their work
(Hackman & Oldham, 1976), they may inhibit
workers from temporarily shifting their mindset
away from work and toward nature. Finally, when
the social characteristics of employees’ jobs are in-
adequate, such as when working for a manager who
does not care about their well-being (Morgeson &
Humphrey, 2006), employees’ ability to emotionally
escape from work via contact with nature may be
thwarted. In these ways, the emotionally restorative
aspects of biophilic work conditions may be made
inaccessible in the presence of other deficient as-
pects of work design.
In other words, we propose that biophilic work
conditions are not a substitute for other inadequate
work conditions. On the contrary, when managers
provide employees with contact with nature but
withhold other desirable work conditions, biophilic
aspects of work may actually make unpleasant or
toxic aspects of jobs even more salient. To wit, when
managers use positive workplace advances (e.g.,
employee empowerment) without rectifying the
underlying deficiencies in work conditions, these
acts of “therapeutic fiction” often leave employees
feeling manipulated (Fineman, 2006: 277). More-
over, ruminating on what could be perceived as us-
ing biophilia as a managerial smokescreen is likely to
be emotionally exhausting for employees (Grant &
Sonnentag, 2010). Therefore, we propose that con-
tact with nature will only enhance employees’ po-
tential emotional energy when it occurs in the
context of other favorable work conditions, and that,
to the extent that it is combined with particularly
unfavorable work conditions, it will result in lower
levels of emotional potential energy. In other words,
employees’ inability to get away due to negative
work conditions is likely to reverse, rather than en-
hance, the energizing effects of biophilia.
243
Proposition 4. The effect of contact with nature on
emotional potential energy is moderated by the de-
gree to which employees are constrained from men-
tally getting away from their current work setting.
Specifically, whereas the effect will be positive when
employees’ work allows them to get away, the effect
will be negative when they are unable to do so.
Extent and Prosocial Potential Energy
ART proposes that natural elements are more re-
storative to the degree that they possess the quality of
extent, such that the natural element not only calls to
mind the grandiosity of natural settings, it also im-
bues individuals with a sense of connectedness to
the larger world (Kaplan, 1995). Because of the re-
storative effects that connectedness can provide,
when employees experience connectedness, it
should enhance the amount of prosocial potential
energy they gain from biophilic work conditions.
Importantly, even small or artificial natural ele-
ments, such as a carpet design meant to mimic a
wandering stream, can allow individuals to experi-
ence a sense of extent and its associated feelings of
connectedness (Kaplan, 1995). At work, then, when
employees encounter natural elements that provide
them with a sense of extent, they should feel more
connected to the larger world and those within it,
which should be especially restorative to their pro-
social potential energy.
Whereas the quality of extent should strengthen
the relationship between contact with nature at work
and prosocial potential energy, employees’ prosocial
potential energy is likely to be diminished in the
absence of extent. In particular, when stark re-
minders of the non-natural world intrude, individ-
uals’ ability to experience natural elements as
symbols of larger natural settings may be thwarted,
thereby undermining their sense of community and
connectedness with others. Of course, workplaces
are filled with artificial sounds, smells, and objects
that may intrude on employees’ ability to experience
contact with nature as a world apart from the orga-
nizational setting. More generally, research has
highlighted the negative effects of manmade intru-
sions on the five senses, such as motorized sounds
(Weinzimmer et al., 2014), aircraft noise (Evans,
Bullinger, & Hygge, 1998), and air pollution (Fehr,
Yam, He, Chiang, & Wei, 2017). Thus, noise pollu-
tion, air pollution, and light pollution—which are
more common in cities and undermine extent—may
weaken the energizing effects of contact with nature
during outdoor breaks or even result in negative
244 Academy of Management Review
experiences and reactions by reducing the likelihood
that employees will be able to experience a sense of
connectedness in spite of their contact with nature.
As a result, contact with nature in these contexts may
undermine, rather than enhance, employees’ proso-
cial potential energy.
Proposition 5. The effect of contact with nature on
prosocial potential energy is moderated by extent.
Specifically, whereas the effect will be stronger when
employees experience extent, it will be weaker, and
potentially negative, when contact with nature occurs
in settings that do not allow employees to experience
extent.
Compatibility and Physical Potential Energy
Kaplan (1995: 174) argued that restorative envi-
ronments exhibit “compatibility,” or a “special res-
onance between the natural setting and human
inclinations.” This notion of compatibility suggests
that employees who are dispositionally drawn to
nature should find biophilic work conditions par-
ticularly restorative. In support of this notion, re-
search on “restorative niches” indicates that, to the
extent that a setting’s characteristics complement
an individual’s personality traits, it will be restor-
ative (Little, 2008). For example, the ideal setting
for introverts to recharge their energy is likely to be
characterized by solitude and tranquility. In the
workplace, then, those with strong biophilic desires
will be particularly energized when their job brings
them in contact with nature.
The concept of biophilic desires as an individual
difference has been operationalized in several dif-
ferent ways (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones,
2000; Luo & Deng, 2007; Mayer & Frantz, 2004;
Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, & Khazian, 2004). In
general, these variables are trait-like constructs that
describe the relationship between a person and the
natural world. More importantly, research on the
outcomes of such traits, like nature relatedness, in-
dicates that they positively relate to both time spent
outdoors and feelings of physical vitality when in
contact with nature (e.g., Nisbet, Zelenski, &
Murphy, 2009, 2011). In other words, people differ
in the extent to which they feel a union with the
natural world, and those with a stronger connection
to nature are more attuned to its presence and ex-
perience higher levels of vitality from natural ele-
ments (Nisbet et al., 2011). Given that vitality
encompasses feelings of physical health and energy
(Kark & Carmeli, 2009), we propose that employees
who feel a bond with the natural world will be more
April
likely to feel physically invigorated from contact
with nature at work more than those who feel no
connection to nature.
Conversely, employees who have relatively little
desire for contact with nature are likely to feel
physically depleted as a result of the presence of
biophilic work conditions. Indeed, surveys of hikers
using trails that have been specially designed to
maximize nature’s benefits have shown that 15% to
20% of individuals “simply can’t relax in nature”
(Williams, 2017: 145). When employees cannot relax
at work, because their work area and break rooms are
suffused with natural elements, they should experi-
ence lethargy, or the opposite of the physical vitality
experienced by those who desire communion with
nature. For these employees, then, not only will their
physical potential energy not be replenished, but it
is actually likely to be drained. As such, the rela-
tionship between contact with nature and physical
potential energy is likely to be positive when em-
ployees have an affinity for nature, to be weak when
employees are indifferent about having contact with
nature, and to be negative when employees are dis-
interested in having contact with nature or find it
difficult to relax in nature.
Proposition 6. The effect of contact with nature on
physical potential energy is moderated by employees’
desire for contact with nature. Specifically, the re-
lationship will be stronger when employees have
high compatibility with nature and will be weaker,
and even negative, when employees have low
compatibility.
DISCUSSION
Organizational leaders are increasingly consider-
ing the importance of nature at work, and this em-
phasis is perhaps most evident in recent decisions
regarding workplace design and corporate reloca-
tions. However, management researchers have
seldom considered the potential implications of
employees’ innate desire to commune with the nat-
ural world (i.e., the biophilia hypothesis), so we have
an incomplete picture of how exposure to nature
affects employees, the mechanisms through which
these effects occur, and the situational and individ-
ual factors that shape these effects. In this paper, we
have explained how employees’ jobs and physical
work context can place them in contact with nature
in four different ways. Further, we identified four
types of contact with nature at work that capture a
range of biophilic contact based on how many of
employees’ senses are engaged through that contact.
2021 Klotz and Bolino
Finally, we developed a conceptual model outlining
how work design that offers employees more direct
contact with nature will affect their potential energy
at work, and describing the contexts under which the
energizing effects of contact with nature at work will
differ in strength and direction. As explained below,
our theorizing increases our understanding of work
design, employee energy, and the implications of bio-
philia at work for both individuals and organizations.
Parker (2014) called for the development of new
models of work design to explore when, why, and
how it can be used for different purposes and result
in different outcomes. Our paper responds to this call
by developing a model that identifies four different
types of contact with nature at work and explains
how and when they will affect employees. Although
work conditions have been identified as a separate
subdimension of contextual work design (Morgeson
& Humphrey, 2006), our theorizing extends the reach
of contextual work design to include the presence or
absence of contact with nature in employees’ work
lives. More importantly, in doing so, we also high-
light the importance of more deeply investigating the
implications of employees’ physical work condi-
tions. That is, whereas prior examinations of the
physical work environment have largely focused on
the material objects (e.g., buildings, furniture),
stimuli (e.g., lighting, air quality), and the physical
arrangement of those material objects and stimuli
(Elsbach & Pratt, 2007), we explain how different
types of contact with nature at work are important for
fully understanding employees’ experiences.
This paper also contributes to the study of bio-
philia in the fields of architecture, neuroscience,
environmental psychology, social ecology, and
public health. First, by identifying the distinct ways
in which employees tend to come into contact with
nature at work, we highlight how context can change
and constrain the extent to which people interface
with nature in their daily lives. Second, by proposing
that individuals’ biophilic desires will be more sat-
isfied by some forms of contact with nature than
others, we provide meaningful grounding to litera-
tures that have sometimes failed to fully consider
nuances in potential types of contact with nature and
their associated effects. Third, by explaining why the
desire to be in contact with nature (biophilia) does
not meet the definition of a human need, we offer
some insight regarding the strength of overall effects
that biophilia will have on people; that is, given that
biophilia is more of a desire than a need, its fulfill-
ment may not have the powerful effects that are al-
luded to in some discussions on this topic. Fourth
245
and finally, we argue that, under certain conditions,
the effects of contact with nature will be weak or even
negative; thus, whereas previous research has em-
phasized the positive effects of biophilia, we de-
scribe how the strength and direction of these effects
are likely contingent on certain factors, which is
consistent with Fineman’s (2006) admonition to be
more critical of constructs that are generally pro-
moted as positive.
By using ART to describe how and when contact
with nature will affect employees’ potential energy,
we also contribute to the growing stream of research
on employee energy. Whereas scholars in this area
have theorized that people have a general reserve of
potential energy (Kruglanski et al., 2012; Quinn et al.,
2012), we propose that they possess distinct stores of
potential energy (i.e., cognitive, emotional, proso-
cial, and physical), and that contact with nature may
enhance one type of potential energy but not others,
particularly based on the context of that contact. In
doing so, we extend the current conceptualization of
potential energy and offer an avenue for other re-
searchers to further examine the dynamics of differ-
ent forms of employee potential energy, not only as it
relates to biophilia, but to other sources of energy as
well.
This paper also provides a theoretical basis for
more carefully evaluating the biophilic practices that
are being embraced by some of today’s most influ-
ential organizations. Most notably, our theorizing
suggests that organizations may not necessarily need
to relocate or completely redesign in order to benefit
from biophilic work design. Indeed, organizations
should benefit from even small steps that give their
employees more opportunities to connect with na-
ture. Bringing nature into the workplace in this way
is analogous to the notion of “rewilding,” in which
cities have sought to create animal habitats, rein-
troduce displaced species, and increase tree cano-
pies (Berg, 2016). Similar efforts can be undertaken
to make workplaces more natural. Of course, man-
agers must also be mindful of limitations and contin-
gencies regarding the effects of biophilia, especially
when incorporating biophilic work conditions with-
out first addressing deficiencies in other aspects of
the workplace.
Directions for Future Research
Beyond enhancing our understanding of biophilic
work design, this paper generates several avenues for
future research. Most critically, psychometrically
sound measures for the key constructs in our model
246 Academy of Management Review
are necessary for empirical research. Fortunately,
biophilic work conditions can be assessed with ob-
jective measures (e.g., do employees work in an of-
fice with windows?), and other variables that are
more subjective or attitudinal can effectively be
assessed by adapting existing scales. For example,
emotional potential energy shares some conceptual
overlap with positive affect, as does physical po-
tential energy with vitality. As these examples sug-
gest, established constructs and scales should
provide a reasonable starting point for testing our
predictions related to potential energy. Regarding
these tests, we also encourage researchers to inves-
tigate the direct relationships between different
types of contact with nature and the four forms of
potential energy; it may be that some biophilic work
conditions have particularly strong or weak effects
on some forms of potential energy, but not others.
By identifying four types of contact with nature at
work, this paper focused primarily on direct and
indirect ways that individuals can experience na-
ture. However, the experience of space and place
(i.e., the nature of the space [Ryan et al., 2014]) con-
stitutes a third element of biophilic design (Kellert
et al., 2008) that we did not fully explore. This aspect
of biophilic design refers to how different spatial
configurations represent nature in a way that is
meaningful to humans, and it includes the notions of
prospect and refuge, natural transitions, and cultural
attachments. For instance, a balcony with a view can
give prospect, whereas a sheltered space can provide
refuge, both of which are spatial elements that
humans have evolved to covet. People’s biophilic
desires can also be satisfied by other aspects of the
natural world related to spatial configurations, such
as natural transitions between different aspects of
the physical world (e.g., doorways to the outside,
hallways between offices), and pathways that facili-
tate effective movement between places (e.g., side-
walk) or contemplation and mystery (e.g., winding
path). Future research, then, should explore the ex-
tent to which work designs that incorporate natural
spaces and places may also fulfill employees’ bio-
philic desires.
In addition, whereas we argue that the amount and
types of potential energy generated through em-
ployees’ contact with nature at work increase as a
function of the depth and scope of their contact, it
would be useful to more precisely identify connec-
tions between specific types of contact with nature
and specific forms of potential energy. For example,
to increase potential physical energy, it may be
necessary for employees to have contact with nature
April
that engages most or all of their five senses; thus,
outdoor breaks or outdoor elements brought indoors
may enhance potential physical energy, whereas
representations of nature might not be restorative
enough to do so. That being said, photographs or
other representations of nature in the workplace may
provide higher levels of more subtle forms of po-
tential energy, such as potential prosocial energy.
Indeed, the findings of Weinstein et al. (2009) suggest
that employees who have contact with representa-
tions of nature should experience enhanced levels of
potential other-oriented energy relative to those
whose work conditions are primarily non-natural. In
order to specify these linkages, it is necessary to more
deeply understand the nature of different types of
potential energy and what factors drive their deple-
tion and restoration. For instance, it may be easier for
some people to restore their physical potential en-
ergy than their cognitive or emotional potential en-
ergy. Among such employees, then, experiencing
nature through a physical barrier may be sufficient
for them to feel physically energetic, but insufficient
for them to experience high levels of cognitive or
emotional potential energy. Additional theoretical
development on this point, then, is an important next
step for understanding the network of connections
between contact with nature and potential energy.
Finally, as we discussed, the effects of biophilic
work design may be more positive and powerful for
employees who have an innate desire for contact
with nature. However, there may be additional traits
that influence employees’ responses to biophilia on
the job. For example, employees with strong aes-
thetic sensibilities (i.e., openness to experience) may
find nature particularly appealing, and introverts
may be especially drawn to the restorative niches
that nature provides. In addition, emotionally reac-
tive and disagreeable employees may benefit more
than others from the stress-relieving and positive
social implications of contact with nature. On the flip
side, conscientious employees may sometimes see
contact with nature at work as a distraction, whereas
more spontaneous employees could be drawn to the
chance to engage with the natural world while on the
job. Accordingly, future studies should more fully
explore how individual differences could also in-
fluence how employees respond to contact with
nature.
CONCLUSION
More than a century ago, John Muir (1901) noted
the need for “over-civilized people” to be immersed
2021 Klotz and Bolino
in nature, and, since that time, scholars from a vari-
ety of disciplines have provided evidence to support
his recommendation. In an era in which individuals
find themselves spending more time working in a
built environment and less time enjoying the out-
doors, it is especially important to give greater con-
sideration to the ways that organizations can bring
the great outdoors into the workplace. Our hope is
that our theorizing about biophilic contact at work,
and the potential energy it can provide employees,
may be an impetus for future scholarly work on this
topic. Indeed, given that organizational leaders are
increasingly aware of the value of nature to their
employees, it is time for organizational scholars to
apply their own theoretical lenses and methodolog-
ical tools to more fully understand how employees
can fulfill their desire to have contact with nature
even while at work.
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Anthony C. Klotz (aklotz@mays.tamu.edu) is an associate
professor in the Mays Business School at Texas A&M
University. He received his PhD from the University of
Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. His research inter-
ests include how employees balance their good and bad
deeds at work, the ways in which employees resign from
their jobs, and the bright side of team conflict.
Mark C. Bolino (mbolino@ou.edu) is the David L. Boren
Professor and Michael F. Price Chair in International
Business at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of
Business. He earned his PhD from the University of South
Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. His research
interests include organizational citizenship behavior, im-
pression management, and global careers.
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