Local Office With Soul: Business Models of Coworking Spaces in Switzerland

Abstract

In recent years, coworking spaces have not only rapidly increased in cosmopolitan cities, they have been also emerged in rural areas. At the same time, the research interest in coworking spaces privileges cities and urban centres. That means existing research leaves the phenomenon coworking spaces in rural areas largely unexplored. Moreover, in the current scholarship discourse, there is little known about how business models of coworking spaces in rural areas work, given their location disadvantages. Therefore, to fill in this gap in the literature, this current paper adopts a mixed method approach to investigate the similarities and differences of business models in rural and urban areas, with a special focus on value creation, the roles of community hosts, and the evolution of business models. Drawing upon a case study of coworking spaces in Switzerland, our findings highlight that coworking spaces in rural areas adopt different positioning strategy and revenue generation to exploit the advantages of their location.