Favours within 'the tribe': Social support in coworking spaces

Abstract

Emerging from the changing social, technological and cultural changes to work, coworking has been positioned as a new economic engine composed of collaboration and community, providing support for entrepreneurship, innovation and soft infrastructure for economic development. However, an alternative interpretation of coworking suggests it responds to the isolation and insecurity of self-employment by the formation of 'community' to provide mutual support to navigate precarious work conditions. Faced with contrasting accounts of coworking, using in-depth interviews and ethnography of a coworking space, this paper explores the support members of the community offer by drawing on the concept of social support. It contributes to our understanding of social support in an entrepreneurial context and explores a more nuanced and darker side to social support in coworking spaces. While coworkers engaged with others to provide emotional, informational and instrumental support, social support also revealed exchange relationships underpinned by reciprocity, which reinforced precarious work conditions.

Coworking spaces vs. home: Does employees' experience of the negative aspects of working from home predict their intention to telework in a coworking space?

“…As expected, the experience of a feeling of social isolation when working from home positively (and strongly) impacted how useful participants perceived teleworking in a coworking space to be, and indirectly how inclined they were to telework in a coworking space in the future. These results are particularly interesting in that they support the claim that perceived social isolation constitutes an important predictor of employees' intention to telework in a coworking space (Boboc et al, 2014 ; Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ; Bianchi et al, 2018 ; Lashani and Zacher, 2021 ; Rådman et al, 2022 ; Wright et al, 2022 ). Since perceived social isolation had the strongest effect on perceived usefulness (and indirectly on behavioral intention) out of the four predictors investigated in our study, the prospect of feeling less lonely when teleworking and having more social interactions at work appears to be the main benefit perceived by employees of teleworking in a coworking space, in the same way as identified for self-employed workers (Boboc et al, 2014 ; Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ; Lashani and Zacher, 2021 ; Rådman et al, 2022 ).…”

“…While coworking spaces are open to all workers, regardless of their status and sector of activity, self-employed workers in the sector of ICT, marketing or consulting remain their primary users (Deskmag, 2019 ). According to several studies, the main reason for this population's interest in coworking spaces is to overcome a feeling of socio-professional isolation and to find social support (Spinuzzi, 2012 ; Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ; Bianchi et al, 2018 ; Robelski et al, 2019 ; Spinuzzi et al, 2019 ; Lashani and Zacher, 2021 ; Rådman et al, 2022 ; Wright et al, 2022 ). Self-employed workers are at risk of experiencing a pronounced feeling of socio-professional isolation in the absence of colleagues to lean on if difficulties are encountered in the course of their work (Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Self-employed workers are at risk of experiencing a pronounced feeling of socio-professional isolation in the absence of colleagues to lean on if difficulties are encountered in the course of their work (Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ). Joining a coworking space can help to break this feeling of isolation, by finding social support from other users of the space (occasional help with a task and collaboration) and regain the feeling of belonging, if not to a work group, at least to a community of users (Gerdenitsch et al, 2016 ; Bianchi et al, 2018 ; Lashani and Zacher, 2021 ; Wright et al, 2022 ). In this regard, Gerdenitsch et al ( 2016 ) found that perceived social support from other coworking space users improved self-employed workers' job satisfaction and reduced their intention to quit their job.…”

‘It's like, instant respect’: Coworking spaces as identity anchoring environments in the new economy

“…Operators of enterprise‐scale coworking spaces promote a sense of community as a defining feature, and several academic studies have explored how coworking spaces enable a sense of community to develop and flourish among members (Butcher, 2018; Garrett et al, 2017; Merkel, 2015). Other recent studies have taken a critical stance on the community aspects of coworking by framing the coworking experience in exploitative terms that benefit the operators and fuel their growth at the expense of individual members working precariously (de Peuter et al, 2017; Gandini & Cossu, 2021; Spinuzzi et al, 2019; Wright et al, 2022). Though these findings are somewhat divergent, collectively, this body of research frames coworking as an embedded feature of the new economy.…”

“…Members of coworking spaces mutually participate in an experience that creates what urban geographers refer to as ‘buzz’ (Storper & Venables, 2004) or concentrated face‐to‐face interactions within an in‐group set of participants. Members participate in the experience, exerting a kind of emotional labour through their participation (Baldry & Hallier, 2010; Cockayne, 2016; Hochschild, 1983) that becomes the ‘product’ sold by coworking operators (Wright et al, 2022). ‘A commodified service, coworking invites disembedded workers to buy back access to the resources, including workplace community, from which they have been dispossessed’ (de Peuter et al, 2017, p. 691).…”