New work design for knowledge creation and sustainability: An empirical study of coworking-spaces

Abstract

New Work, such as in coworking-spaces, offers greater task autonomy alongside permeable spatial, task, team, and leadership boundaries as compared to traditional work structures. New Work in coworking-spaces provides several advantages for sustainability and knowledge creation, yet it also faces competition and knowledge leakage risks. To understand the nexus of knowledge transfer and sustainability in New Work, we study the processes in coworking-spaces through interviews, observations, and secondary data. We compare environments with low- and high-sustainability targets of coworking-spaces. The results reveal that coworking-spaces can prime their audiences by exposing sustainability in their manifestos, communities, and physical spaces. Knowledge-sharing occurs in different zones of coworking-spaces in the forms of inspiration, problem-solving, synthesizing, and co-creation. The sustainability of coworking-spaces and knowledge-sharing therein is influenced by a shared community nested in the local environment. We develop a model of knowledge creation processes depending on the exposure of a coworking-space’s sustainability targets.