Scholars have long upheld the notion that exposure to nature benefits individuals. Recently,
organizational researchers have theorized that these benefits extend to the workplace, leading to
calls for organizations to incorporate contact with nature into employees’ jobs. However, it is
unclear whether the effects of nature are strong enough to meaningfully impact employee
performance, thereby justifying organizations’ investments in it. In this research, we draw on
self-determination theory to develop a theoretical model predicting that exposure to nature at
work satisfies employees’ psychological needs (i.e., needs for autonomy, relatedness, and
competence), and positively affects their subsequent task performance and prosocial behavior. In
addition, we theorize that the effects of nature on need satisfaction are weaker in employees
higher on speciesism (i.e., the belief that humans are superior to other forms of life). We test
these predictions with a mixed-method approach comprised of an online experiment in the
United States (Study 1), a field experiment in Hong Kong (Study 2), a multi-wave, multi-source
field study in Taiwan (Study 3), and a multi-wave, multi-source field study (with objective
performance scores) in New Zealand (Study 4). Overall, our findings largely support our
theoretical model
