The Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review

October 7, 2015     In a Common Work Space, Mess Begets Mess When people notice that others have violated the social norm of keeping a common work area neat, they become much more likely to litter that space, according to João Ramos of PwC Australia and Benno Torgler of Queensland University of Technology. In their study of professors, postgraduate students, and a departmental common room at a university, the researchers found that 59% of people littered when the room was already disordered, as compared with 18% when it was neat. The findings suggest that eliminating signs of disorder may be an effective method of maintaining workplace compliance. SOURCE: Are Academics Messy? Testing the Broken Windows Theory with a Field Experiment in the Work Environment

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