“Coworking Is About Community”: But What Is “Community” in Coworking?

Clay Spinuzzi The University of Texas at Austin ; Zlatko Bodrožić University of Leeds ; Giuseppe Scaratti University of Milan ; Silvia Ivaldi Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Abstract

Coworking spaces are shared working environments in which independent knowledge workers gather. Coworking is consistently described in terms of community and collaboration—yet these terms are defined inconsistently in the coworking literature. This study reviews the literature on coworking to better examine how community relates to collaboration. To anchor a more systematic analysis of community in coworking, the authors introduce Adler and Heckscher’s typology of communities; apply it to a study of six coworking spaces in the United States, Italy, and Serbia; and develop the typology to better understand coworking.

Journal
Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published
2019-04-01
DOI
10.1177/1050651918816357
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Cited by in this index (4)

  1. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Communication Design Quarterly
  3. Communication Design Quarterly
  4. Technical Communication Quarterly

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