Reflections on a retrofit: Organizational commitment, perceived productivity and controllability in a building lighting project in the United States

The luminous environment affects how office workers perceive their work setting. However, research on how the lighting commissioning process associates with psychosocial variables relevant to office settings is lacking. This case study explored the extent to which employees working on a recently retrofitted floor of an administrative office building believed they could control the new lighting system. It also measured their levels of perceived productivity and affective organizational commitment to examine correlations between these variables and levels of satisfaction with the lighting commissioning process. Satisfaction with the commissioning process did not significantly correlate with perceived productivity, controllability, affective organizational commitment, or the average number of productive work hours reported after the retrofit. However, perceived productivity significantly and positively associated with perceived controllability and affective organizational commitment. Also, controllability and affective organizational commitment both significantly correlated with the number of productive work hours perceived. Results support interdisciplinary studies emphasizing the importance of lighting controllability in improving employees' perceived performance and satisfaction at work. Results also offer practical suggestions concerning the commissioning process used in the case study.