In her 18 years as a designer and illustrator at American Greetings Corporation in Cleveland, Ohio, Lynn Gaines』s cubicle has undergone several renovations: for a few years it was a garden, complete with an arch of fake ivy, pink silk roses and sparkly little lights. Last month she went retro, festooning the arch with rainbow-color fringe and lights-reflecting colored plastic disks.

「It』s an extension of who you are,」 Ms. Gaines said of her work space. Her company, she said, advocates office personalizing for its 2,200 employees (who include designers of greeting cards, gift wrapping and party favors) to encourage creativity and productivity.

But American Greetings is apparently in the minority. A national telephone survey of 640 office workers ─ conducted by Steelcase, the office furniture maker, and Opinion Research, and released in August ─ found that only 40 percent of American companies encourage employees to personalize their work space. That number fell from 56 percent a decade earlier.

Office workers are taking the hint: Only 59 percent said they personalize their work space, compared with 85 percent who did so in 1996.

Employees said they didn』t want to bother coworkers with whom they share office space, didn』t have enough space or a permanent space or wanted to avoid seeming unprofessional.

Sometimes, it isn』t their choice. The Hearst Corporation, the media giant that owns Cosmopolitan, Harper』s Bazaar and Country Living, among other magazines, limits personal knickknacks and vacation photos in the new Hearst Tower designed by Norman Foster on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.

The policy, which was e-mailed to the 2000 employees who relocated to the tower, specifies limiting 「the amount of personal items, stacks of paper and other materials」 kept in the blond-wood and gray-metal work spaces.

David Masello, the articles editor at Country Living, says his small mew cubicle has less room for 「things that five me comfort and inspiration.」

「It』s things like pictures, postcards and paintings,」 he said. 「In my old office, I had a wall of them. Now, I have one-tenth of that.」

At Calvin Klein, the company』s minimalist aesthetic prevails over employee style. In July 2004 executives decreed there could be no displays of photographs, mementos, toys, awards, plants or flowers, other than white ones.

Even personal photographs can be anathema. After her second child was born, Kelly K. Welter, who worked for an accounting firm in Salem, Oregon, had to jettison her older children together, because her employer allowed only one personal picture to a desk. 「I was told that the office had to be extremely professional because clients came in,」 recalled Ms. Welter, 34.

Ms. Welter is still keeping it simple. After toiling more than a decade in strictly regulated settings, she said she has few personal items on display, even though she now works from an office in her Las Vegas home.

「It was so ingrained in me,」 Ms. Welter said, laughing, besides, she said, as a perky blonde she already has trouble being taken seriously in her professional life. 「And how your office looks affects that.」