“The idea is simple: that independent professional and those with workplace flexibility work better together than they do alone… Coworking spaces are built around the idea of community-building and sustainability. Coworking spaces agree to uphold the values set
forth by those who developed the concept in the first place: Collaboration, community, sustainability, openness and accessibility.”
- Coworking Wiki (Wiki, 2013)
According to Deskmag’s Global Coworking Survey in 2012, they found that 94% of their respondents seek to be part of a community where they can freely interact with others, have flexible work styles and serendipitous encounters, discoveries and opportunities. Like every organization, there is a need for a set of identifiable attributes for organizational members to abide by (e.g. a common culture) (Hatch and Schultz 1997, 2002).
20
From the definition above, it clearly states that coworking spaces agree to uphold the values
‘collaboration’, ‘community’, ‘sustainability’, ‘openness’ and ‘accessibility’. As there is limited academic literature in regards to coworking, it would be hard to pin-point the values of a coworking space without solid literature backing. So far, the only scholarly reading that focuses on the culture as well as the values of coworking spaces belongs to Kwiatkowski and Buczynski in their book, Coworking: How Freelancers Escape the Coffee Shop and Tales of Community from Independents around the World. While there are other sources such as Deskmag (an online coworking magazine), Cowiki (Wikipedia for Coworking) do provide similar interpretations of what the values of coworking are, it will not be included in this study as the evidence is seen as unsupported. Therefore, the use of Kwiatkoski &
Buczynski’s values will be used in this research as there is supported and constructive evidence conducted on the values and culture of coworking.
In their book, Kwiatkowski & Buczynski (2011a, 2011b) lists the values and attributes based on the research done in regards to coworking spaces:
Coworking Values
Description
Collaboration In a space filled with freelancers and entrepreneurs, collaboration is much emphasised within a coworking space. The core value here is the individual’s willingness to work with other members. According to Kwaitkowsky 2011b, collaboration includes sharing the sense of collaborative consumption and the spreading belief that access is more important than ownership (pg. 33) Community The most important aspect of a coworking space is belonging to a
community. Relationship building between coworkers is often fostered by community catalysts/community managers of a coworking space.
21
In community building, formal and informal interactions are often transpired between coworkers (e.g. lunches, social gatherings, going to coffee, etc.) However, it is important that the individual has to be willing to build and develop relationships with his/her surroundings.
Sustainability Coworkers are encouraged to be sustainable in the sense of sharing resources (shared office space). Also, sustainability can be seen as the community being able to sustain itself by finding new members, take part in managing the space, actively propose and help implement improvements.
Openness Openness is in reference to the coworker’s willingness to take in new ideas and difference in opinions. According to Kwaitkowsky (2011a), the perquisite for openness is trust. Without trust and openness, the benefits of coworking, like quality feedback, cannot be realized (Kwiatkowski &
Buczynski 2011a).
Accessibility Most coworking spaces open their doors to different groups of people and often use the term ‘diversity’. One of the unique elements of coworking is that anybody who can work from anywhere can do it. Kwaitkowsky (2011b) also mentions that accessibility can be seen from a financial point as well, meaning that the price for membership should be reasonable and affordable (Kwiatkowski & Buczynski 2011b).
Creativity The alluring attribute of coworking spaces is the lack of a routined workspace. In other words, there is a ‘freedom to express’ their creativity seeing that majority of coworkers come from creative Backgrounds.
Expression and sharing of ideas are often encouraged in order to allow creative juices to flow (Kwiatkowski & Buczynski 2011b).
22
Communication The willingness to communicate and share knowledge is essential in a coworking space. It is only through communication that promotes the generation of ideas.
Table 2.3: Values of a Coworking Space
From the literature, it may seem that the key emphasis of coworking is the community aspect of the space as well as its collaborative and communicative advantages (Foertsch & Cagno 2013; Hurry 2012; Tadashi 2013). However, participatory ethnography by Butcher (2013) has recently determined that even though the emphasis does lie within the walls of being a collaborative workspace, or ‘community’ through their structural environment and culture (e.g. casual dressing, communal dining area etc.), the social interaction among its members makes it questionable. Conformity issues and organizational behaviour have established the similarities between the coworking space and that of a traditional workspace. It may seem that its members are unknowingly put into an environment in which they are oblivious to the reality that they are somehow still part of a conventional organizational space (Butcher 2013).
This finding makes us question whether the notion of community life is really evident within the walls of a coworking space or whether it is just the rhetoric of the organisers that engenders social interactions that construct the symbolism of community.