Les espaces de coworking, une alternative crédible au domicile comme lieu de télétravail ? Premiers éléments issus d’une enquête exploratoire par entretiens

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

“…Research has shown that a positive attitude toward a certain behavior does not mean that this behavior is feasible, for a variety of reasons (Ajzen, 1991 , 2020 ). In accordance with the literature on coworking spaces and our pilot study (Lescarret et al, 2022 ), we decided to test the influence of four factors that might moderate employees' intention to telework in a coworking space: (1) the ability to pay the access fee to the coworking space, i.e., budget, (2) the availability of a coworking space near home, i.e., localization, (3) the feasibility of carrying out work tasks in a coworking space, i.e., job compatibility, and (4), whether the management would agree to the employee teleworking in a coworking space, i.e., management agreement. As represented in Figure 1 , we expected these factors to moderate the effect of participants' attitude toward teleworking in a coworking space on their intention to telework in a coworking space in the future, in such a way that the positive effect of attitude on behavioral intention would be higher when perceived feasibility was high (e.g., having a sufficient budget to pay the access fees) but lower when perceived feasibility was low.…”

“…In order to assess the extent to which participants perceived their experience of teleworking from home as satisfactory (or unsatisfactory), a 16-item questionnaire was developed based on the interviews we conducted with teleworkers in our pilot study (Lescarret et al, 2022 ). The items tackled four dimensions: (1) perceived social isolation (e.g., “When I work from home, I tend to feel lonely”), (2) perceived decline in productivity (e.g., “When I work from home, I find it hard to concentrate on my work”), (3) perceived lack of working comfort (e.g., “When I work from home, my working comfort is insufficient”), (4) perceived lack of work-life separation (e.g., “When I work from home, I find it difficult to ‘switch off' from work”).…”

“…Research has shown that a positive attitude toward a certain behavior does not mean that this behavior is feasible, for a variety of reasons (Ajzen, 1991(Ajzen, , 2020. In accordance with the literature on coworking spaces and our pilot study (Lescarret et al, 2022), we decided to test the influence of four factors that might moderate employees' intention to telework in a coworking space:…”

“…In an exploratory study which remains, to our knowledge, the only one to have directly investigated teleworkers' opinions of coworking spaces (Lescarret et al, 2022 ), we conducted interviews with 20 employees teleworking on a regular basis (eight of whom were coworking space users) and questioned them on the perceived advantages and disadvantages of teleworking in coworking spaces. The results of these interviews showed that participants perceived coworking spaces as mainly useful for: (1) breaking the loneliness caused by teleworking at home and meeting new people, (2) improving productivity by eliminating sources of interruptions/distractions at home, (3) improving working comfort, and (4) separating private and professional life better.…”

“…Based on the literature on teleworking and our pilot study (Lescarret et al, 2022 ), we identified four negative aspects of teleworking from home that might affect employees' intention to telework in a coworking space: (1) perceived social isolation (Cooper and Kurland, 2002 ; Gajendran and Harrison, 2007 ; Boboc et al, 2014 ; Vayre and Pignault, 2014 ; Vayre, 2019 ), (2) perceived decline in productivity (Wang et al, 2021 ), (3) perceived lack of working comfort (Robelski et al, 2019 , 2021 ; Wang et al, 2021 ), and (4) perceived lack of work-life separation (Metzger and Cléach, 2004 ; Maruyama et al, 2009 ; Vayre and Pignault, 2014 ; Orel, 2019 ; Vayre, 2019 ). As represented in Figure 1 , we expected that teleworkers' experience of these negative aspects of teleworking from home would have a direct effect on their perception of the usefulness of teleworking in a coworking space, and an indirect effect on their intention to telework in a coworking space in the future, mediated by its effect on perceived usefulness and attitude toward teleworking in a coworking space.…”