Analysis of Attributes and Dimensions of the Built Environment Quality from the Perspective of Employees from Furniture Companies

The analysis of the attributes and dimensions of the built environment quality (workspace) of companies is relevant, because it is associated to the expectations and perceptions of their employees and related to its satisfaction, productivity and business performance. Thus a survey research was implemented in five furniture companies, located inside the Rio Grande do Sul state, focusing on identifying the dimensions of the quality of the built environments analyzed, and their respective attributes, using as a basis previous studies of the area. Unlike the literature, the study identified seven dimensions of the built environment quality (configuration, appearance, functionality, specific activities, personal relationships, company location and comfort), composed of thirty-one attributes. It was also observed the overall satisfaction of employees of these companies in relation to the work environment, which resulted in a rate of 66.00%.


INTRODUCTION
he city of Flores da Cunha, located in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), has an estimated population of 27,126 inhabitants, according to the 2010 census by IBGE -Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), and half of its economy is a result of the wine, beverage and furniture sectors.As an important source of employment and income, the furniture industry is a major source of growth, behind only the wine industries, which in quantity are the majority.Together, these industries employ hundreds of workers, which should be treated as valued internal customers by their employers (PINDER, 2003;FITZSIMMONS;FITZSIMMONS, 2010;ZEITHAML;BITNER;GREMLER, 2011).
In this context, the employees of these companies are the end users of the built environment, i.e., the physical infrastructure of companies or workspace that they offer to work productively, as it indeed have a direct impact on workers satisfaction, in their productivity and level of business competitiveness (HESKETT et al., 1994;Van der VOORDT, 2004;LEE, 2006).
It is noteworthy that, according to Ornstein, Bruna and Romério (1995) and Van der Voordt (2004), there is a strong relationship between the built environment and the behavior of employees (users of these resources and internal customers of organizations), and the first aspect affects the second and vice versa.Therefore, the central research question that this paper seeks to answer is: What are the attributes and dimensions of the built environment quality that are relevant in the performance of daily tasks of employees of five companies in the furniture sector of the city of Flores da Cunha (RS)?
As a result, the overall objective of the study was to identify the attributes and dimensions of the quality of the built environment that are relevant in the performance of daily tasks of employees related to their satisfaction for enterprises.For that, based on the evaluation of the expectations and perceptions of employees of the participating companies in their built environment, a scale was adapted in order to capture people's views regarding the quality and usefulness (PINDER, 2003;PINDER;WILKINSON, 1997) of their (built) work environment.
In addition, the following specific objectives were established: (i) raise the quality attributes inherent to the built environment; (ii) identify the dimensions of the intrinsic quality to the built environment, with its attributes; and (iii) assess the level of overall employee satisfaction (considering them as internal customers) of companies in relation to the built environment available.
Therefore, the model of evaluation of the built environment proposed by Pinder (2003) was used for serving routing to scale adaptation process and preparation of the research questionnaire, mainly to have potential application to inform and support to managers and other professionals involved (senior management, middle managers, architects and/or designers), providing robust information on the built environment available, which can affect productivity and business competitiveness.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
According to Pinder (2003), there is a consensus that a workplace accommodates the information and knowledge, processing activities and tasks of an organization, including archiving, planning, creation, monitoring, analysis, decision and communication.In accordance, Lee (2006) points out that the working environment is related to the built environment (physical space), which is understood as a determining element for companies to have more satisfied employees and produce more and better.Therefore, employee satisfaction, that are, users of available built environment, is recognized as a business success factor and thus can be considered as a performance indicator.The employee satisfaction with the built environment is directly related to their satisfaction with their work and the company as well as organizational commitment, increasing productivity, reducing turnover rates and increasing the quality of products and/or the service provided to customers (LEE 2006;HESKETT et al., 1994;Van der VOORDT, 2004).
According to Preiser (2002), POE is the systematic process of evaluation environments performance after some time that they have been built and occupied.The POE focuses on the requirements of the occupants of physical environments (known as "buildings"), including  1992).With that said, this work focused on behavioral assessment, from the point of view and judgment of the users of built environments evaluated, using the POE to serve as reference for future similar projects and how to control the overall quality of the built environment.
Of course, the quality of a building is related to a broader view of performance, is the ability of a particular "product" or characteristic or physical aspect (features) to satisfy its users now and in the future, which should be controlled (ORNSTEIN; ROMÉRIO, 1992;ORNSTEIN;BRUNA;ROMÉRIO, 1995).In the process of evaluating the performance of built environment, the POE is only one of the six stages of reviewing the building life (PREISER, 2002), which is illustrated in Figure 1.From the model of the POE process, should be given the priority to the needs of the occupants to ensure that their work environments allow develop the level of usefulness required to perform the service for which it is intended.According to Pinder (2003) and Price et al. (2004), the concept of usefulness regards the potential ability of a built environment to enable a service to occur or be performed properly.Therefore, the concept of usefulness of a built environment is related to its occupation and use.Its effectiveness should be judged according to the needs or expectations of its occupants, the company employees (PINDER; WILKINSON, 1997).
Therefore, Pinder (2003), Price et al. (2004) and Lee (2006) compare, similarly, the measurement of the value of an environment just as we measure the quality of a service, based on the judgment of users, related to their satisfaction with their work space.These same authors even suggest to use as a reference the structure of the SERVQUAL scale (PARASURAMAN; ZEITHAML; BERRY, 1985;1988;1991), one of the most used tools and with proven effectiveness in measuring services as a tool to measure a usefulness environment.This model is structured on the basis of the difference between the previous expectations for a particular service and the perceptions of service.The difference or gaps resulting from this comparative would result in the perceived quality.
Note that, Juran and Godfrei (1999) define quality as improving compliance of (technical) specifications with the fitness for use, providing the satisfaction of individuals from the conformity between the expected and actual performance.In addition, Grönroos (1984; 1998; 2009) presents two types of dimensions that incorporate quality services.The technical quality (what is delivered, that is, the technical result) and the functional quality (how is such a result delivered).Thus, the overall assessment about the perceived quality would rest in judgment between what is expected (expectations) and what is experienced (perceptions or perceived performance).
In a building, according to Pinder (2003), its usefulness is also due to the expectations and perceptions of its occupants/users about what is available to/experienced by them.
Moreover, the usefulness is considered a function of the attributes of a building, referred to as intrinsic aspects of quality (PINDER; WILKINSON, 1997).Thus, users of a built environment form an opinion on the usefulness of their work environment based on: (i)  2003;PRICE et al., 2004;NICOL;ROAF, 2005;CARTHEY, 2006).
But the divergence or discrepancy between the real usefulness (perceived) and the required usefulness (expected) presents two problems.The first, identify, and second, to quantify the difference (PINDER 2003).From the point of view of users of built environment, satisfaction is related to the confirmation or disconfirmation of their expectations (CHURCHILL Jr.; SURPRENANT, 1982;LEE, 2006;OLIVER, 1980;2010), and the satisfaction increases as the performance/expectancy increases (OLIVER, 1980;2010).If the perception reaches expectations, one is satisfied.If the experience is better than expected, then the perceived quality is high, and the person is overwhelmed.If the experience itself does not meet expectations, then the perceived quality is low, and the person will not be satisfied (JOHNSTON, 1994;1995;OLIVER, 2010).Thus, the building will become obsolete or inadequate when users have their built environmental quality expectations exceeding their perceived levels of quality, i.e., when some attributes of the built environment does not meet the real needs of its occupants (PINDER; WILKINSON, 1997), which in theory can decrease their productivity in the workplace (Van der VOORDT, 2004).Oliver (1980;2010) and Johnston (1994Johnston ( , 1995) ) relate the model of (dis)confirmation of expectations to three possible outcomes related to (dis)satisfaction: (i) "dissatisfaction", resulting perceived poor quality (negative disconfirmation) which does not meet the expectations of users; (ii) "satisfaction" when the quality is adequate (expectations met); (iii) "enchantment", high quality, resulting in perceptions that exceed expectations (positive disconfirmation).The authors consider that user satisfaction/dissatisfaction is related to the involvement and sensitivity even with the usefulness/quality of what is evaluated, justifying that the greater the degree of user involvement on the usefulness/quality of the environment, the greater the sensitivity of the person and their judgments regarding their (dis)satisfaction with the received and experienced environment.
Moreover, Johnston (1994) defines a person's state of satisfaction with regard to an object as a tolerance zone.The tolerance zone is also used to evaluate the pre-performance expectations, which can vary: Minimum tolerable for optimal, with deserved, desirable and adequate performance.The significance of the tolerance zone is that the user, in this case, a built environment, could accept a variation in performance and no increase in the performance would only have effect on perceptions, that is, only when the performance moves beyond this limit would have a real effect on the perceived overall quality.The author suggests that the tolerance zone can be used as a kind of unifying construct between expectations, performance (perceptions), and results, as shown in Figure 2. Thus, adequate performance is set to be within the tolerance zone performance overall about the evaluated object.Thus, when the utility of a built environment falls below the level required by the occupants, there is a risk that companies experience an increase in changes of work rates (staff turnover), reduced productivity, increased absenteeism (absence) of employees and even health care costs increase related to stress at work (PINDER, 2003;HUIZENGA et al., 2006;HADJRI;CROZIER, 2009).As a result, the present study explored the differences between expectations and perceptions of company employees on the aspects (attributes) quality inherent to the built environment, assessing the attributes and dimensions that best reflect the quality of the built environment under analyses.

RESEARCH METHOD
In this work, the research developed can be considered as quantitative character, operationalized through a survey, which is a research based on a structured questionnaire and directed to a representative sample of a population and intended to cause specific information from the perspective of respondents (MALHOTRA, 2006;FOWLER Jr., 2009; REMLER; VAN RYZIN, 2011).
The first step of this study was to identify the attributes and quality dimensions for the built environment to be evaluated.At this stage, were identified through literature review, 53 For each dimension, the attributes were listed, which led to a structured questionnaire, using a concordance of a Likert scale of five points (MALHOTRA, 2006), ranging from "1.
Strongly disagree" to "5.Strongly agree".In the data collection instrument, respondents were asked to indicate the degree of agreement with each statement related to quality attributes of the built environments under study (MALHOTRA, 2006;FOWLER Jr., 2009).
For an assessment of the representativeness of the content of the scales used in the measurement work that is proposed, Malhotra (2006) suggests that they should be evaluated according to their content.Content validity, also known as face validity, is to assess the comparability of variables and their conceptual definition aimed to evaluate the correlation between the individual items and concepts (HAIR Jr. et al, 2009;MALHOTRA, 2006).
Therefore, the questionnaire was analyzed and evaluated by five experts in the building and quality area (quality researchers and/or professionals involved in the area of building).The suggestions were similar between them, for the proposed changes were related to the same issues.Some attributes were considered repeated and combined into a single question (variable), as was the case of: Cleaning appearance and cleanliness, acoustic comfort and noise caused by work itself, ergonomic comfort and minimum areas.Two other attributes, personal satisfaction and hierarchy were excluded because they are considered not relevant to the study, the built environment.Suggestions have also been incorporated on the language settings, to facilitate understanding of the respondents.
Of the 53 attributes initially identified in the literature, after the validation of content, it came up with a list of attributes which combined 55 questions relating to employee expectations the other 55 questions regarding their perceptions.To facilitate such understanding, follows Figure 3, which shows the six dimensions of quality contemplated and their attributes.In order to identify and eliminate potential problems in the questionnaire, Malhotra (2006) suggests the application of the pre-test questionnaire.For this purpose, a pretest was implemented, applied to 14 employees of one of the furniture industry which also received the final questionnaire.There was no problem about the questions (attributes or variables to be assessed).It only has been made small improvements in the language (text) and questionnaire layout.It is worth noting that the questionnaires carried out from the pretest were not incorporated into the final sample.
For data collection, the questionnaire was structured in three parts, containing: presentation of research, objectives and completing guidelines, issues relating to quality attributes inherent to the built environment (measured variables) and issues concerning the characterization of the profile of respondents.The presentation aims to direct the respondent on the questionnaire.Regarding the data collection method the drop-off self-report method was used (HAIR Jr. et al., 2009), leaving the questionnaires in each of the five research participants furniture industries, under the manager's responsibility or responsible for Human Resources (HR), which distributed to the employees, collecting it back after completed and to then be delivered to researchers.
From the completion of the data collection process, they were checked and tabulated in order to be processed through Microsoft Excel software Office 2010 version and PASW® Statistics 18.0.At this stage, there was a consistent filling of the questionnaires, the incidence of missing responses or missing data (variables with more than 10% of non-responses were eliminated, while for presenting content below 10% of the mean answers were taken) (MALHOTRA, 2006;HAIR Jr. et al, 2009;ENDERS, 2010).
After the completion of the data processing, followed by the analysis and its interpretation.In order to check the dimensions of the intrinsic quality to the built environment, and its respective attributes, identified in the literature were converging with the present study, we used the Principal Component Analysis (also as factor loadings extraction method) to examine the set of interdependent relationships (MALHOTRA, 2006), explaining the existing covariance and correlations between variables (JOHNSON; WICHERN, 2007;HAIR Jr. et al, 2009;MULAIK, 2010), grouping them into factors (or dimensions).To obtain the factor that translate the attribute groups related to the constructs in question (MILAN; TREZ, 2005), the dimensions of the built environment quality, the standard eigenvalue equal to or greater than 1 was used (MALHOTRA, 2006;. HAIR Jr. et al., 2009), without previously defining the number of factors.
To facilitate the interpretation of dimensions,the non-orthogonal method of oblique rotation of Oblimin factors was used (HAIR Jr. et al, 2009;MULAIK, 2010).In addition, there was the Bartlett sphericity test and the measures sampling adequacy of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO), measures to ensure that there are sufficient correlations in the statistical data to  , 2006).
KMO is an index that compares the value of the correlations observed with the values of the partial correlations.KMO values less than 0.5 indicate that the correlations between pairs of variables cannot be explained by other variables and that factor analysis is not indicated (MALHOTRA, 2006;JOHNSON;WICHERN, 2007;MULAIK, 2010).
It was also analyzed the reliability of the scales, as of the Cronbach's alpha (MALHOTRA, 2006;HAIR Jr. et al., 2009; REMLER; VAN RYZIN, 2011).Cronbach's Alpha aims to verify the internal consistency of the data.This test has application in cases where the researcher needs to obtain a proper estimate of the magnitude of the measurement error.It is acceptable a value less than 0.70 (CHURCHILL Jr., 1979;MALHOTRA, 2006).
Finally, the overall employee satisfaction with the built environment provided by the companies was verified.Thus, in the end of the questionnaire, respondents attributed, in a Likert scale of five points, a level between "1.totally dissatisfied "to" 5. totally satisfied ", expressing their feelings about their overall satisfaction with the built environment.

RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
As shown in Table 1, 538 questionnaires were distributed in the five participating companies researched, resulting in a return of 350 valid cases.After the initial analysis of the data, the final sample included 318 valid cases, with a return of 59.10% on potential respondents (distributed questionnaires).With regard to sex (gender) of respondents, 146 (46%) are male and 172 female (54%).
Predominantly, they are married people (125 respondents or 39% of the sample).In relation to their level of education, 85 respondents (27%) have incomplete primary education.On past experience in the industry, 129 respondents (41%) said they had never worked on another furniture industry.

IDENTIFICATION OF QUALITY DIMENSIONS AND ATTRIBUTES OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT
In order to identify the dimensions of the intrinsic quality of the built environment, with its respective attributes, the AFE was proceeded , which indicated a better explanatory power reflecting in seven, rather than six, dimensions of built environment quality of the evaluated furniture industries, as suggested by the literature.In order to debug the scales, the attributes with factor loadings below 0.5 were removed (HAIR Jr. et al., 2009;JOHNSON;WICKERN, 2007).In the final extraction of factors (dimensions), thus, emerged seven dimensions, explained by a total variance of 70.14%.The results are shown in Table 2, which shows that both the factor loadings, the value of the commonalities are greater than 0.5, grouping in each identified dimension (or factors), their respective attributes.Of the six dimensions initially identified in the literature (appearance, comfort, configuration, functionality, type of work and personal relationships), data analysis resulted in seven factors (or dimensions of quality), eliminating one of the previously identified dimensions (type of work) and also adding two new dimensions, which have been termed "business location" and "specific activities".
The elimination of the dimension "type of work" can be attributed to the fact that, based on the analyzed results, the survey participants did not identify such dimension, and its attributes, as an intrinsic dimension of the built environment.Similarly, the attributes that gave rise to two new dimensions ("business location" and "specific activity"), were retained in these dimensions, different from what is in the literature, preserving the understanding of the respondents (on data analysis ).
And such a change regarding the dimensions (and their attributes) in the literature may be due to the specific features every built environment, the type of work, from work activities or tasks, and especially the perception of individuals, which are influenced by their experiences with the built environment in question, their level of information and requirements and even cultural aspects.
It is important to mention that, sparingly, the 55 attributes initially evaluated, 31 of them were kept.In order to facilitate the understanding of these research findings, Table 3 lists both the dimensions of the quality of the built environment identified as their respective attributes.

Functionality
CO7 -enough brightness.CO8 -suitable height of fixtures.CO9 -most appropriate fixtures position to the applied working.FU1 -enough space for materials' storage.FU5 -suitable place for loading and unloading material.

Specific activities
CG1 -space for meetings.FU4 -defined external paths for vehicles.

Personal relationships
RP1 -interaction among employees.RP2 -communication between employees.RP4 -employees' autonomy in the performance of their duties.
Company's location AP9 -located within easy access to employees.AP10 -located within easy access to customers.

Comfort
CO1 -pleasant temperature in summer.CO2 -pleasant temperature in winter.CO3 -possibility of temperature control.CO4 -good ventilation.CO5 -possibility of controlling the ventilation by opening or closing doors and windows.
Source: Result from the data analysis.
To analyze the internal consistency of the data for each of the seven dimensions identified, the results were analyzed from the Cronbach's alpha, which are shown in Table 4.   Source: Result from the data analysis.

GENERAL SATISFACTION OF EMPLOYEES ABOUT THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS
As for the overall satisfaction of the respondents in relation to the work environment (built environment) provided by the companies, , as shown in Table 5, a mean satisfaction of 3.64 was identified, which reflected in a general satisfaction score of 66, 00%.Although the vast majority of respondents (154 of them or 48.4%) feel "partially satisfied", which is an interesting result, the overall score found, it can be inferred that the companies in the study still have several opportunities for improvement to be incorporated into their work environments.
Figures for the Cronbach's Alpha were considered satisfactory, as are values between 0.803 and 0.932, above the minimum recommended in the literature.You can verify that the seven dimensions represent a total of 31 attributes, and there is a higher concentration of attributes in the Appearance Dimension (Factor 2), with eight attributes, then the Configuration Analysis of Attributes and Dimensions of the Built Environment Quality from the Perspective of Employees from Furniture Companies 68 BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 12, n. 2, Art. 4, p. 66 -86, mar.-apr.2015  www.bbronline.com.br environmental performance, in everyday usage, for the purpose of providing information about the actual capacity of this particular environment.As the main focus in terms of workspace, the POE has to evaluate adequate space for human needs, in this case, in McDougall et al. (2002)cts, safety, functionality, efficiency, comfort, aesthetics quality and user satisfaction.In a complementary way,McDougall et al. (2002)comment that the POE is the BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 12, n. 2, Art. 4, p. 66 -86, mar.-apr.2015www.bbronline.com.braccess to certain Analysis of Attributes and Dimensions of the Built Environment Quality from the Perspective of Employees from Furniture Companies 72 BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 12, n. 2, Art. 4, p. 66 -86, mar.-apr.2015  www.bbronline.com.br , divided into six dimensions of quality relevant to the built environment.The BBR, Braz.Bus.WAY;BORDASS, 2005)ine),Vitória, v. 12, n. 2, Art. 4, p. 66 -86, mar.-apr.2015www.bbronline.com.brattributese)Type of work: analyzes how the tasks individually affect users.The term task not only refers to the assignment of each one, but also all procedures with equipment necessary to perform it (ORNSTEIN; BRUNA; ROMÉRIO, 1995); and f) Personal relationships: analyzes how the built environment in all its variables affects existing relationships, collaborating, or not, for the elevation of personal satisfaction and productivity (ORNSTEIN;ROMÉRIO, 1995;WAY;BORDASS, 2005).

Table 3 -Built Environment Quality Dimensions Identified and its Respective Attributes Quality Dimensions Related attributes to Each Identified Quality Dimension
Dimension (Factor 1) with six attributes and Functionality and Comfort Dimensions (Factors 3 and 7), each with five attributes.

Table 5 -General Satisfaction Regarding the Built Environment
Source: Result from the data analysis