Coworking Spaces Research Articles

Agglomeration and coagglomeration of co-working spaces and creative industries in the city

ABSTRACT The present paper investigates the location patterns and the effects co-working spaces (CWS) generate on the urban context. The focus is on Barcelona, one of the most important creative hubs in Europe in terms of knowledge-based, creative, digital, and sharing economy, and the city hosting the largest number of co-working spaces in Spain. The paper addresses three main questions: (1) Which are the location patterns of co-working spaces in Barcelona? (2) Do CWS agglomerate in the same areas? And, (3) Do CWS coagglomerate with the creative industries (CIs)? To do that, this paper uses open data on Barcelona neighbourhoods’ socioeconomic composition provided by the Statistics Department of the Council of Barcelona and micro-geographic data of private CWS and creative labs in Barcelona. By using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Kd functions of agglomeration and coagglomeration, results show that CWS are highly concentrated in central areas of Barcelona where there are greater chances to meet customers and suppliers, the proximity to urban amenities and the fact of being associated to a specific place-image. Moreover, they coagglomerate with CIs firms, especially with symbolic and synthetic knowledge-based CIs. These results are relevant when assessing the actual goal of urban policies in Barcelona.

Pengembangan Taman Kota dengan Outdoor Coworking Space Pasca Pandemi Covid-19

<p><em>In the state of the covid 19 scourge currently sweeping the world, adaptation is a concern for any element especially in public activity space and room. This study addresses to obtain research results regarding an urgency of need for public space with all its elements and facilities that support productive culture of students & workers in the industrial world 4.0, especially in Indonesia. This study uses descriptive qualitative methods with analysis of field observations, questionnaires, descriptive, and literature studies. The statistical method used is using ordinal variable measurement. These results and research are the basis that it is necessary and urgent of outdoor coworking space to carry out further and in-depth research on contextual and cultural appropriateness so that it is appropriate to be applied and become a support in Indonesia's preparation to compete with the global world in the 4.0 Industrial Revolution Era and post-covid adaptation of social interaction in Nganjuk City Park.</em></p>

The digital transformation of work is here – how scientists and practitioners can work together to manage needed workplace changes

Organizations across Europe are reinventing their structures and processes in the quest to become more “agile”. To facilitate these changes methods like “Design thinking”, “Bar Camps” or “Working out loud” are becoming mainstream, no longer only used in hip start-ups and communication agencies. Traditional working environments, typically associated with rules, routines, and regulations are now transformed into open (co-working) spaces. Something big is going on and we wanted to find out about it by holding an interactive discussion. In this panel discussion we invited scientists and practitioners to engage in a conversation about future directions of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) with the aim of keeping education, research and practice relevant to contemporary working practices. We want to look into the current state of co-operation and cocreation within WOP and examine what needs to change and how this will be achieved. Together, we would like to figure out how research can support practitioners in their work with organizations and how to manage the digital transformation. As part of the scientist – practitioner collaborative stream (that has become known as Co-op Friday) this panel discussion compliments the conference theme of Working for the Greater Good by looking into future directions of organizational development and how to use evidence-based practices to help individuals to adapt to change. The aim of the session was to have an active debate between panelists and the audience generating ideas and activities to improve co-operation. We used an innovative process method called “Bar Camp” to encourage presentation and review. This resulted in interactive discussions with panel members and participants working in small groups (see Figure 1) discussing particular issues (see further detail in the following report). Each discussion session was followed by a brief summary that was shared across the groups.

Coworking spaces: Understanding, using, and managing sociomateriality

Companies increasingly embrace the new types of work associated with coworking spaces. Coworking spaces started with the idea of a melting pot of open social interaction, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and innovation for freelancers, new ventures, or solo entrepreneurs. Companies may use coworking spaces to invigorate targets and further motivate and inspire their employees. Fundamental to achieving those targets is the coworking space’s interior design and architecture that incorporates emotional and social values that may benefit companies. Our sociomateriality perspective helps to analyze conditions in coworking spaces and guides suggestions on how companies revitalize by using coworking spaces. The purposeful design of the different social and work areas in coworking spaces can improve communication, collaboration, and innovation in companies.

Coworking space as a practised place between welfare working and managerial challenges

Purpose The paper aims to analyse a specific configuration of coworking space that emphasises the production of social value in the territory (resilient/welfare-oriented coworking). This kind of space represents the current evolution of coworking that recovers the original meaning of coworking space to promote social changes, questions the role of the physical space and brings to the fore its connections between the internal (space) and the external (territory). Design/methodology/approach The paper presents an action research on a rising network of coworking spaces. The action research was based on qualitative interviews of the founders and main stakeholders of the network and monthly meetings discussions with the steering committee of the coworking spaces. Findings The paper provides some key elements that highlight different meanings related to the value produced by the coworking spaces and related interpretations of the material and immaterial characteristics of the spaces. The results also highlight different managerial challenges connected with these interpretations. Originality/value The main results of the study shed light on the fact that it is not enough to focus on material aspects of the coworking space, such as the design and the dispositions of furniture and the curatorship of the relationships among coworkers, if the desired outcome is a reinterpretation of work against the consolidated individualistic paradigm. Rather, the boundary work is the condition that permits to sustain and maintain the evolutionary trajectory of coworking in the most innovative direction. Inside a network of different stakeholders, aimed at integrating individual and collective needs, the constant crossing of boundaries between people, relationships and contexts is the process that permits to generate new meanings and possibilities of action (affordance), holding a transformative potential.

User preferences for coworking spaces; a comparison between the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic

Coworking spaces have become a central component of new work environments, with large international chains. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether user preferences for the physical workspace design are consistent across countries, which the uniformity of such chains seems to suggest. A comparison between the user preferences of coworking spaces between the Netherlands (n = 219), Germany (n = 98) and the Czech Republic (n = 79) is performed using a mixed multinomial logic model for each country. Besides statistical utility of attributes, also motivations for working in coworking spaces are analysed. The findings show that there are some consistencies in preferences across countries. Typical real estate characteristics like accessibility and contract options came forward to be the most important attributes in choosing which coworking space to work at in all three countries. However, significant differences in the desired quality levels of specifically these attributes were found between the countries as well, and only the less important attributes showed similar preferences internationally. This suggests that identical world-wide implementations of the same concept, might serve multi-nationals but possibly will not attract local users. The identified differences in preferences can help to position more specific, dedicated coworking spaces within local markets.

Visual Encounters in Global Shanghai. On the Desirability of Bodies in a Coworking Space

The rise of Shanghai as a global city prompts the question: to whom does it belong? This article addresses the issue by examining the desirability of bodies in one of the city’s cosmopolitan spaces: a coworking space patronised by an international clientele. Drawing on an analysis of visual encounters in both physical and virtual spaces, it shows that the logic of belonging in the coworking community is based on the distinction between two kinds of bodies: the desirable one of the transnational professional and the undesirable one of the rural-urban migrant worker. While the latter is reduced to its working function, the former appears as a body complete with desires, whose interactions with others blur the separation of the professional and the intimate in line with the new spirit of capitalism. This visual ethnography provides insights on how economic changes reshape Shanghai’s urban life not only by reproducing local patterns of social exclusion, but also by encouraging racialised desires suited to capitalist accumulation on a global scale.

Coworking spaces: An exploratory study to identify the challenges and different business models in Egypt

Coworking spaces: An exploratory study to identify the challenges and different business models in Egypt

Penerapan Service Excellence Sebagai Upaya Peningkatan Kualitas Layanan Humas Pemerintah Kota Surabaya (Studi Pada Koridor Co-Working Space)

In this increasingly advanced era, the more needs and broad selection of jobs that can be accessed by all levels of society, the obligation to work in balancing humas needs in unaviodable. Therefore, there are many ways in which companies provide their best services, one of which is by changing the work system like at home, but in a unique way Hibbert. Previously Co-working Space was known as SOHO (Small Ofiice Home Office) a place for freelancers if they were bored working at home. The same thing is also felt by the people of Surabaya, which have increasingly established the establishment of Co-working Space from the private sector. The emergence of problems that became the basis of the Surabaya Citu Government established the Co-working Space Corridor because startup founders, freelancers, and creators who could not continue renting tp private companies. This study aims to describe the application of service excellence as an effort to improve the quality of public relations services of the Surabaya City Government. This type of research is descriptive with a qualitative approach, the subjects in this study were the Head of Information Services Sub-Section, Information Service Section Staff, and Corridor employees. And the object of his research is the application of service excellence as an effort to improve the quality of public relations in the city government. Data collection techniques used were interviews, observation, adn documentation. Data analysys techniques used consist of data reduction, data presentation anad drawing conclusions with data validity techniques using source triangulation. The result showes that the application of the concept of service excellence in the corridor carried out by the Public Relations has been running well and maximally and in accordance with the objective of the Surabaya City government by taking into account the values of the Co-working Space: 1) community; 2) accessibility; 3) collaboration; 4) communication; 5) openness; and 6) creativity.

Cross-Pollinating in the Beehive: Embracing Hybridity at a Social Entrepreneurship Coworking Space

How does participating in a coworking space enable entrepreneurs to embrace plural institutional logics and engage in “hybrid venturing”? To explore this question, our research draws on a longitudinal study of a French coworking space gathering entrepreneurs who seek to reconcile social and commercial logics in the context of a socially entrepreneurial project. As social entrepreneurs generally lack pre- established patterns specific to this “hybrid” venturing mode, we show that the interactions at the coworking space help them embrace hybridity through (1) identifying with a community of peer, like- minded entrepreneurs; (2) collectively learning about and experimenting with this venturing mode, through their own projects but also through the coworking space as a hybrid venture in itself; and (3) connecting with and contributing to building the emerging ecosystem around hybrid venturing. The perception of the coworking experience, however, varies depending on the previous background of the entrepreneurs and in particular their familiarity with each of the logics at play. These findings contribute to the literatures on hybrid venturing and organizing, coworking spaces, and social entrepreneurship.

How Co-working Spaces Self-Organize to Novel Outcomes?

Previous studies on co-working spaces mainly focus on their spatial functions, while the investigation concerning the unique operation of co-working spaces is still nascent. To fill this gap, this study explores the self-organizing mechanism of two types of co-working spaces from an ecosystem perspective. Our findings reveal that within a co-working space: (1) at individual level, users’ working, leisure and social activities may interweave to enhance their working efficiency and satisfaction; (2) at organization level, incumbent enterprises may reconstruct their boundaries to maintain their continuous innovation capabilities. This study mainly contributes to ecosystem self-organization theory. We not only develop a three-layer model to exhibit the similar self-organizing mechanism of co-working spaces, but also highlight the impacts of initial conditions and path dependency on two different self-organizing outcomes namely entrepreneurial ecosystem and innovation ecosystem.

Hybrids and Hybrid Organizing for Sustainability

It is notable to see how management scholars have started to investigate sustainability issues. With regard to the history of management research, this phenomenon is very recent and, thus, there is much to investigate. In particular, we do not know how organization and management theories can help to address the grand challenges of modern times. Reversely, it is still unclear how sustainability issues question and help improve managerial practices and theories. At the intersection of these two questions, this symposium aims to start a discussion on the role of hybrid organizations in the context of sustainable development, and on the strategies making hybrid organizing work. Hybrid organizations are part of new organizational forms that replace “or” by “and”, create bridges and outreach traditional organizations that prove their failure to meet social and environmental requirements. This symposium brings together theoretical and empirical researches reflecting the diversity of grand challenges with data from renewable energy cooperatives, local food hubs, microfinance organizations, social entrepreneur coworking spaces, cooperative platforms and public-private partnerships. They not only critically examine the concept of hybridity in various empirical contexts but also highlight in how far hybrid organizing may contribute to develop solutions for sustainability challenges of modern times, and where this analytical framework needs to be improved. The Restoring of Institutional Logics and the Engagement of Grand Challenges Presenter: Ali Aslan Guemuesay; U. of Hamburg Presenter: Laura Claus; U. College London Presenter: John Matthew Amis; U. of Edinburgh Transforming from Within or Building an Alternative? Presenter: Marya Besharov; Oxford U., Saïd Business School Presenter: Bjoern C. Mitzinneck; Groningen U. (RuG) Inside Hybrid Organizations: The platform Cooperatives Presenter: Mélissa Boudes; Institut Mines-Telecom Business School, LITEM, U. Paris-Saclay, France Cross-pollinating at the Beehive: Embracing Hybridity at a Social Entrepreneurship Coworking Space Presenter: Julie Fabbri; Cnrs - Ecole Polytechnique of Paris Presenter: Benjamin Huybrechts; EMLYON Business School Employee Tenure and Staff Performance: The Case of Social Enterprise Presenter: Naome Otiti; U. of Adger Presenter: Cécile Godfroid; UMONS-CERMi Presenter: Roy Mersland; full professor Cross-sector Collaboration to Tackle Grand Challenge? Presenter: Martin Sievert; U. of Mannheim Presenter: Alexander Pinz; U. of Mannheim Presenter: Bernd Helmig; U. of Mannheim

How Does Perceived Interpersonal Justice Affect the Creativity of an Entrepreneur

Drawing on the intersection of self-determination theory and fairness theory, we investigated how entrepreneurs’ perceived interpersonal justice, depicting their perception of others’ politeness, propriety and respect, affect their creativity. Experience-sampling data collected from 201 entrepreneurs operating in the coworking spaces in Singapore and Beijing indicated that entrepreneurs’ perceived interpersonal justice predicted their everyday creativity at both between-person and within-person levels. The results of our multilevel modelling analysis show that entrepreneurs’ psychological needs satisfaction and intrinsic motivation fully mediate the relationship between their perceived interpersonal justice and creativity on the same day.

Entrepreneurship of an institutional field: the emergence of coworking spaces for digital business models

Coworking spaces have been proliferating world-wide in urban and rural areas while facilitating entrepreneurship and new, especially digital business models. Our research analyzes the worldwide expansion by drawing upon mechanisms from institutional theory. We argue that the sense of community, emotional activation, the local communities together with the digital linkages and the open office allowed coworking spaces to evolve as a real space for entrepreneurship. The common lifestyle and the high digital identity of the users further explain the emergence of this entrepreneurship field that shows high convergent forms of coworking spaces. The key divergence comes with different ownership models.

Studies of Proximity in Coworking Spaces: the Basic Conceptual Challenges

The article aims to identify main research challenges in studying coworking spaces (CSs) within the field of economic geography. It combines the perspective of proximity economics with the growing body of papers about spatial aspects of the operations of CSs and their role in stimulating collaboration. Based on a review of literature, the author identified the characteristic features of CSs and the corresponding proximity dimensions. He further assessed the significance of various dimensions of proximity in CSs. The article reveals how various proximities differ between CSs. It also distinguished the research strands referring to the spatialities of CSs. Next, it discusses the conceptualisation and operationalisation of proximity. Then, it applied it in the micro-scalar context of coworking spaces. The paper sheds a new light on ‘real CSs’ as physical spaces of strong institutional, cognitive and social proximities. It has been argued that even if organisational proximity in CSs is taken for granted, there is a heterogeneity amongst their users.

Coworking Spaces as a Driver of the Post-Fordist City: a Tool for Building a Creative Ecosystem

Collaborative places nurture creativity and efficiency of cultural and creative industries. Research in collaborative places revealed they are essential for networking and cooperation in the creative ecosystem. The results of studies focusing on competitiveness of coworking spaces and their effect on boosting entrepreneurship are rather vague. Furthermore, an awareness of how coworking spaces stimulate coworkers to engage in urban regeneration through local community initiatives is limited. Hence, this study seeks to provide an insight into coworking spaces from the organizational perspective devoted to entrepreneurship and competitiveness. Simultaneously, the paper aims to reveal synergies between creative communities and local development. The method of data gathering consists of semi-structured in-depth interviews with managers and entrepreneurs from selected countries of the EU applying the grounded theory for their analysis. The results suggest that coworking spaces indicate a boosting of the entrepreneurship of the creative class through collective projects. These activities tend to stimulate knowledge creation and open innovation in the creative ecosystem that benefit local development. Coworking spaces also represent a driving force to initiate and maintain a dialogue between the creative ecosystem and local authorities for culture-led urban development.

Exploring Proximities in Coworking Spaces: Evidence from Italy

Since the mid-2000s, the rising phenomenon of coworking spaces (CSs) has provided a flexible and mainly affordable solution for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small firms and start-ups, which may had experienced the issues of isolation when working from home, to work in a shared workplace, interact, socialize and share knowledge. This article explores the phenomenon of CSs within the theoretical framework of proximity measures a là Boschma (2005) – cognitive, organisational, social and institutional – that underpin the aspects of innovation, interaction and knowledge exchange. Though some studies on CSs have indirectly studied the different aspects of proximity, only a few of them focused on the importance of proximity measures at the workspace. With the aim to fill the gap in the literature, an empirical study was applied to Italy with 549 active CSs in 2018. The data was collected through an on-line questionnaire, addressed to a sample of 326 coworkers, focusing mainly on the set of questions devoted to understanding whether coworkers have exploited the proximity typologies in their CSs, have experienced increases in their revenues and well-being. The results are critically discussed, and some insights on policy implications are proposed.

The Rise of Creative Hubs in Istanbul

This study investigates the emergence and the rise of Creative Hubs (CHs) in Istanbul, which as Turkey’s economic capital contains most of its creative workforce and the largest number of its CHs. In the last 10 years, the number of co-working spaces (CWSs), incubation centres (ICs), labs, and makerspaces in the city has rapidly increased, following a global trend. This study aims to better understand the changing working forms of the city by investigating the motivations behind the emergence of CHs. 46 CH examples, consisting of CWSs, ICs, makerspaces, and labs, have been examined for this purpose. The study is structured around the four main categories that highlight the different aspects of CHs: structure (establishment structure and community structure), focus (sectors and professions), services (physical and social facilities), and values (motivation). The findings of the study demonstrate that members of CHs are mostly freelancers, entrepreneurs, micro SMSs, and start-ups, consisting mostly of members of Generation Y. They work predominantly in creative sectors and tend to look for flexible and cost-saving solutions, support mechanisms, and new connections for their work. The research revealed that CHs are distinguished through the services that they provide. Having emerged as new forms to respond to the distinctive needs of emerging jobs in the creative economy era, they can be considered a new landscape of the post-industrial city.

Role of Co-Working Spaces’ Services in Entrepreneurs Growth in Upper Egypt: The Case of Step Co-Working Space

Co-working spaces are a new concept in Upper Egypt; Step co-working space is the first co-working space in Assiut governorate. Through co-working spaces services and facilities, this paper developed a new operationalization of the entrepreneurs’ growth. This research design resulting conceptual framework proposes that certain combinations of cost-sharing concepts, entrepreneurial awareness, NGO support, Mentoring, and Networking activities would increase the expectation of challenging entrepreneurial growth in Upper Egypt.A survey of unstructured interview and questionnaire used two data collection methods as a research instrument and was applied to the owner managers of Egyptian enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurs’ growth expectations and cost sharing, awareness, NGOs support, Mentoring, Networking, gender, facilities, and unemployment in Upper Egypt.

Supporting work–life balance with the use of coworking spaces

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the topic of parents who work on a flexible basis and use coworking facilities to find a work–life balance and overcome work–family conflicts.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses a qualitative approach to explore the research questions. The first part of the empirical research undertakes an ethnographical approach in carrying out the unobstructed participant observation within five European coworking spaces targeted at improving comprehension of the spaces’ mediation mechanisms and development of supportive interactions. The second part traverses into conducting unstructured interviews with parents who work on a flexible basis and use a coworking space as their daily workplace.FindingsThis research paper reveals that flexible workers who found themselves juggling work tasks and family obligations tend to seek better conditions that assist them in tackling conflictual situations and, in addition, enhance their social lives to create further career opportunities. Coworking spaces are thus perceived as optimal workplaces by working parents in that they can find stability and scale their social networks within. Moreover, the continually evolving user interactions resulting from effective mediation mechanisms let these individuals find emotional support, increase productivity and exchange knowledge.Originality/valueWhile the coworking industry is rapidly evolving and the academia is keener on investigating the field, the subcategory of work–life and family care within these collaborative environments is virtually unresearched. This paper provides valuable insight into the topic and serves as a knowledge base for the future exploration of this field.