Hlavní práce68083_hohs00.pdf, 6.2 MB Stáhnout

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University of Economics, Prague

Faculty of Business Administration

Master´s Field: International management

Title of the Master´s Thesis:

Collaboration in coworking spaces and the role of community managers. A comparison between

coworking spaces in Prague and Munich

Author: Simon Hohage

Supervisor: Marko Orel, Ph.D.

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D e c l a r a t i o n o f A u t h e n t i c i t y

I hereby declare that the Master´s Thesis presented herein is my own work, or fully and specifically acknowledged wherever adapted from

other sources. This work has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree programme.

Prague, 15^th May 2019 Signature

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3 Title of the Master´s Thesis:

Collaboration in coworking spaces and the role of community managers. A comparison between coworking spaces in Prague and Munich

Abstract:

This thesis aims to explore the social and efficiency aspects of coworking while focusing on the role of the community managers in it. Building on existing research of the topic, this thesis asks: What role community managers play in facilitating social interaction and how do they support their users. Furthermore, it investigates whether coworking triggered higher productivity and inspiration amongst coworkers. The analysis is based on an in-depth literature review and a mixed method research design analyzing six coworking spaces in Prague and Munich while surveying twenty-six coworkers. The findings demonstrate that community managers play a key role in facilitating social interaction and supporting users by organizing social events and maintaining a fruitful workplace and community. Coworkers confirm higher productivity in coworking space while remaining neutral about being more inspired.

Key words:

Community Management, Social Interaction, Productivity, Management Support

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Table of Figures

Figure 1: Number of coworking spaces worldwide 2005-2019 ... 14

Figure 2: Worldwide Coworking growth rate ... 15

Figure 3: Reasons for joining a Coworking space ... 27

Figure 4: Laid out questionnaire at Locus ... 36

Figure 5: Locus coworking space Prague ... 40

Figure 6: Locus Prague - Event Schedule for one week ... 42

Figure 7: Impact Hub D10 coworking space Panorama ... 45

Figure 8: Café area at Impact Hub ... 46

Figure 9: Members Wall - Impact Hub D10 Prague ... 48

Figure 10: Coworking area at Paper Hub ... 50

Figure 11: Coworking Area at Mindspace ... 52

Figure 12: Kitchen area and interview location at Design Offices ... 56

Figure 13: Workspace at Design Offices ... 58

Figure 14: WERK1 Coworking area ... 60

Figure 15: AfterWERK community event ... 62

Figure 16: Employment status mentions ... 66

Figure 17: Interaction with other workspace users ... 67

Figure 18: Type of conversation with workspace staff ... 68

Figure 19: Supportiveness of workspace staff ... 70

Figure 20: Perceived productivity ... 71

Figure 21: Perceived workspace inspiration ... 72

Table of Tables

Table 1: Comparison of Community Manager Job Post Requirements ... 19

Table 2: Types of data collection ... 31

Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of different types of data collection ... 31

Table 4: Thesis timeline ... 39

Table 5: Comparison of workspace findings ... 64

Table 6: Number of survey responses per coworking space ... 65

Table 7: Perceived existence of a community ... 67

Table 8: Level of interaction compared to other workspace users ... 68

Table 9: Support activities offered by the community managers ... 69

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1 Introduction

With the turn of the millennia, not just a new generation of highly educated and independence seeking professionals entered the labor market, but the digitization of work fundamentally changed the way companies conduct their business. While in most of the 20^th century, employees were working in open-plan offices and rigid hierarchical structures, the introduction of computers and digitalization triggered a new trend towards decentralized working. Simultaneously, communication shifted from personal conversations to voicemail and e-mail resulting in a sheer virtualization of work (Caulkin, 2015; Handelsblatt, 2017; Spreitzer et al., 2015). Digitization broke down barriers for the new creative class to work from anywhere they desired and the new trend of companies to outsource projects to such professionals enabled thousands of creative workers to be independent of typical employment. While public libraries, cafés, and the private kitchen table provided the freelancing and self-employed industry with the desired work-life balance and flexibility, it also decreased their productivity and drove them into working in isolation (Garrett et al., 2017; Rus & Orel, 2015).

Rus & Orel (2015, p. 1019) argue that this new reality has triggered a re-thinking of how work should be organized. „What is needed are places and spaces that enable the various entities to get together on a regular basis and liberate their respective skills in order to favor exploitation as well as exploration mechanisms” (Grandadam, Cohendet, & Simon, 2013, p. 1712). Judging by the astonishing success of coworking spaces in recent years (Statista, 2017c), hosting record numbers of freelancers and self-employed professionals (Statista, 2017a), it may be concluded that this form of workspace and working has found an answer to the needs of thousands of independent workers of our time.

As a large number of the first coworking space providers were activists of the open source movement, coworking went beyond the mere purpose of spreading fixed costs (Rus and Orel, 2015, p. 1020) and “working alone together” (Spinuzzi, 2012).

Coworking is better described as a community that is founded on five values:

community, collaboration, openness, diversity and sustainability, which distinguishes coworking spaces from other models of flexible workplaces like satellite offices, coffee shops and business incubators (Merkel, 2015, p. 124). Besides serving as a demarcation to the aforementioned shared spaces, these values also provide the foundation for this thesis to explore the collaboration, social interaction and productivity gains associated with coworking spaces. Yet, simply co-locating professionals who work on completely different topics is not enough to generate social interactions and collaboration (Cabral & Van Winden, 2016; Capdevila, 2014; Merkel, 2015a; Rus &

Orel, 2015; Spinuzzi, 2012). What is needed is someone to mediate between strangers and entirely different professionals, to create a community with the aforementioned values; a community manager (Merkel, 2015a, p. 212).

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This thesis aims to explore the role community managers play in facilitating social interaction and investigates the tools community managers use to support the coworkers. Additionally, it investigates the coworkers’ perspective on community management and productivity as well as inspirational gains from working in a coworking space. While research has found out the general importance of community management and outlined the tasks suitable for community management (Cabral &

Van Winden, 2016; Capdevila, 2014; Merkel, 2015a; Parrino, 2015; Spinuzzi, 2012), this thesis ads a detailed analysis from a sample of six coworking spaces in Prague and Munich focusing entirely on the strategies employed by community manager and the coworking space. In addition, a sample of twenty-six coworkers was surveyed to gain insights into their perspective about the experienced support, productivity and inspiration gains as well as community management.

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2 Purpose of the Study

The phenomena of coworking and the skyrocketing number (Statista, 2017c) of coworking spaces around the world has attracted a lot of attention by researchers around the world like Bouncken & Reuschl (2018), Capdevila (2013), Merkel & Oppen (2013), Spinuzzi (2012) and Spreitzer et al. (2015), to name a few.

Yet, due to its rather recent emergence, scientific research seems to have not fully penetrated and analyzed this industry and its roaring success and further research is still required (Gruen, 2017; Kojo & Nenonen, 2015). Particularly interesting for managerial studies, is the apparent fact that in coworking spaces productivity, social interaction and collaboration seem to be much more widespread than in traditional open-plan offices in companies (Spreitzer et al., 2015). Coworking spaces frequently advertise the community aspect and the potential for collaboration within them (Impact Hub Prague, 2019; Mindspace, 2019b; WERK 1, 2019; WeWork, 2019b). The motivation of this thesis is to learn more about the strategies employed by community managers to foster collaboration as well as productivity and whether the aforementioned promises materialize in reality, and if so, how the coworking space staff, particularly the community managers, affect social interactions as well as collaboration and potentially even steer it.

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3 Theoretical framework & research questions

3.1 Overview of the study

As the key role of community managers within coworking spaces has only been sparsely investigated (Bouncken et al., 2018; Garrett et al., 2017; Spreitzer et al., 2015) an inductive research design was chosen to further investigate their role using a mixed method research approach. Since this thesis focuses on understanding how community managers facilitate social interactions and support the users and if coworkers experience a change in productivity, the first step is a thorough literature review, explaining the main concepts of the topic and providing the reader with an overview of the status quo of research about it.

Next, the methodological approach to the empirical research and analysis of this thesis will be outlined, explaining the research methods employed as well as the data analysis procedures leveraged to answer the research questions at hand. Both community managers and coworking space users were researched on a sample of six coworking spaces equally distributed in Prague and Munich using expert interviews and a questionnaire respectively.

The empirical findings section sets out to present relevant findings from the expert interviews of each visited coworking space while putting them into a theoretical perspective. The second part of this section deals with analyzing the results of the surveyed coworking space users, in order to shed light on their perspective on the topic. In the discussion in section 5.9, all relevant empirical findings will then be used to answer the research questions found below.

3.2 Research Questions

Research Question 1: What is the role of community managers within coworking spaces when it comes to workspace interaction amongst its members?

The goal of this research question is to shed light on the thesis topic from the side of the community manager and understand how their role shapes the interaction and collaboration within the coworking space. In order to answer this question, published research about the role of community managers was thoroughly analyzed. Additionally, six expert interviews with community managers in Prague and Munich were conducted to fully understand the different strategies implemented by them to facilitate and foster workspace interaction.

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Using an interview guideline, the research question is explored by asking each interviewed community manager the following:

• What is your role as a community manager within this coworking space?

• What kind of community building efforts do you employ?

Research Question 2: What is the role of community managers within coworking spaces when it comes to supporting the users?

This research question aims to research the different tasks of community managers to support their coworking space members. A combination of thorough desk research, analyzing literature dealing with the responsibilities of a community manager, and empirical research focusing on their role in supporting the users is employed to answer this question.

Research Question 3: What level of supportiveness by the workspace staff is experienced?

This particular research question aims to understand the perspective of the coworking space users and how they experience the supportiveness of the coworking space staff.

This question is answered by the findings of the questionnaire distributed amongst coworkers from the analyzed coworking spaces. Particularly Part 3 of the questionnaire further explores the perceived supportiveness of the workspace staff.

Research Question 4: Do the workspace users perceive the workspace as a location of productivity and inspiration?

With this research question, this thesis attempts to find out how the coworking space users judge their work efficiency and inspiration using the workspace and if it increased since the joined a coworking space. To answer this question, the findings of the user questionnaire were analyzed combined with a desk research about inspiration and productivity in coworking spaces.

3.3 Key concepts of the thesis

To understand the key concepts of this thesis, the following sections will explain the background of the terms coworking space, collaboration, community manager as well as productivity and inspiration as a result of coworking.

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3.3.1 Emergence of coworking spaces and its definition

While at the end of the 1980s employees had been working mostly in open-plan offices in rigid and hierarchical structures, the introduction of computers and digitalization triggered a new trend. Workers were no longer required to be working in close proximity to their colleagues and superiors, teamwork across the globe became more and more possible while complicated office hierarchies declined. At the turn of the millennium, laptops and mobile phones allowed mobile working, creating the home office.

(Handelsblatt, 2017).

Already prior to the last big recession resulting from the economic crisis in 2008, traditional employment, which was characterized in long employment on a standardized nine-to-five workday, had been replaced by the way startups and self- employed professionals conducted business (Schuermann, 2014). Rus & Orel (2015, p. 1017) built on this, arguing that outsourcing was the main influencing factor in this transition of work which led to an increased dependency of larger companies on external labor markets (Cappelli, 1995). The shift towards external labor was also supported by online platforms where the industry’s needs for external labor were met by a new generation of highly educated professionals who meet old structured corporations with skepticism and prefer being self-employed or working in a startup- like environment where they are able to perform the outsourced work on their own terms (Caulkin, 2015).

The growing number of outsourced jobs paired with the new possibilities of working remotely, due to technological change, have thoroughly transformed the world of work and have led to a decrease in traditional employment relations. A so-called knowledge economy spanning around the globe was created and is more and more integrated into the global economy. It consists of millions of highly educated and independent workers that are connected to each other as well as to large corporations that rely on outsourced labor (Cooke, 2014; Dolfsma & Soete, 2006; Powell & Snellman, 2004).

According to Davies & Tollervey (2013),one of the main aims of these highly educated professionals in the pursuit of accomplishing a work-life balance between formal responsibilities and their social lives. These professionals are searching for alternatives in the way they can conduct their businesses responsibly by looking for work environments that are also utilized by other innovative professionals recognizing the value of shaping informal communities and the power that arises from collaboration and interaction (ibid).

A large number of the first coworking space founders were activists of the open source movement. This idea of free information flow and collaborative value creation is implanted into the coworking movement which set out to offer a solution to the freelancers and self-employed professionals working from secluded places and in isolation from their peers (Rus and Orel, 2015, p. 1020).

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Rus & Orel (2015, p. 1019) argue that this new reality has triggered a re-thinking of how work should be organized, inspiring corporates such as Telenor or ING to experiment in designing a workspace that suits this new generation of the creative class (Waber, Magnolfi, & Lindsay, 2014). Judging by the astonishing success of coworking spaces (Statista, 2017c) in recent years, hosting record numbers of this new knowledge economy (Statista, 2017a) one might come to the conclusion that this form of workspace and working has found an answer to the needs of the new generation of professionals.

What defines a Coworking Space

The question that remains is, what defines a coworking space? While coworking appears in many companies and many places that are not officially called coworking spaces, the institutions calling themselves that are different (Merkel, 2015a, p. 124).

So, what sets them apart from other institutions that also enable and experience coworking? Coworking spaces can be described as something novel as they are distinctly different from shared office spaces due to the flexibility in how quickly a member can join and the duration of their access to a workspace. In coworking spaces, desks can be rented per day, per week or months at a time (Merkel, 2015, p. 124).

Additionally, coworking spaces are deeply rooted in the sharing economy and so-called collaborative consumption, which makes them unique in their kind (Botsman & Rogers, 2011). Thus, coworking is not just “working alone together”, as Spinuzzi (2012) puts it, or alongside each other but rather a community that is founded on five values such as community, collaboration, openness, diversity and sustainability, which distinguishes coworking spaces from other models of flexible workplaces like satellite offices, coffee shops and business incubators (Merkel, 2015a, p. 124).

Spinuzzi (2012) argues that a coworking space is an “open-plan office environment in which they [the creative professionals] work alongside other unaffiliated professionals for a fee…” (Spinuzzi, 2012, p. 1). Capdevila (2013), on the other hand, emphasizes that a community of professionals and the sharing of resources constitutes a coworking space. Bilandzic and Foth (2013) go even further and highlight the fact that a community is not enough to make a coworking space but interaction that yields learning, teaching, sharing and discussing is what defines a coworking space. Kenline, (2012, p. 1) saw coworking as an ecosystem and came up with the definition stating that coworking spaces are “community-based sociocultural ecosystem of exchange where people are linked together by shared social networks and shared resources”

(Kenline, 2012, p. 1). Kenline argues that coworking spaces are not only locations for professionals to carry out their tasks but rather an organism where “social networks and resources are linked together forming a collaborative economy” (ibid). Uda (2013, p. 2) reasons in a similar way by saying that coworking is a way of working for the self- employed, freelancers and entrepreneurs while forging a social bond through communication and cooperation.

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Although all these definitions exist, the founders of coworking spaces and their members struggle to agree on one definition, as they host such a large variety of different self-employed or freelancing individuals as well as organizations and small startups with completely different needs. As a result, there are diverse views on the defining characteristics of coworking among them (Rus and Orel, 2015, p. 1021). While work in traditional companies offers employees a variety of opportunities for formal as well as informal learning and training, freelancers must create an environment for themselves in which they can develop professionally. Coworkers, therefore, describe coworking spaces not only as places of work but also as places of learning. Working together side by side enables them to exchange ideas spontaneously and support each other. Coworkers can give each other advice, look over each other's shoulders and receive feedback for their work. Due to the physical concentration of different professions, practice and knowledge cultures, coworkers learn to take on different perspectives, develop empathy and gain access to new problem solutions (Merkel &

Oppen, 2013, p. 5).

Current Situation and Statistics on Coworking

Coworking spaces and the Coworking industry have come a long way from 2005 when the coworking movement was created (Botsman & Rogers, 2011). The following graph shows the exponential-like growth it has experienced in the past thirteen years.

Figure 1: Number of coworking spaces worldwide 2005-2019

Source: (Statista, 2017c)

From merely 3 recorded coworking spaces in 2005, the industry has risen to a total of almost 19.000 coworking spaces around the world in 2018. This statistic cements the

3 30 75 160 310 600 1.1302.0703.400 5.780

8.900 12.100

15.500 18.900

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000 20000

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018*

Number of coworking spaces

Number of coworking spaces worldwide 2005-

2019

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growing importance of this relatively new phenomenon and may provide a reason for the growing interest of researchers, like myself, into the topic.

Worldwide, a decline in the number of coworking spaces is currently not in sight, but many operators expect consolidation and specialization of coworking spaces on certain industries.

Five other major trends were identified:

1. Operators expect more coworking spaces that focus on niches and differentiate themselves more clearly from competitors.

2. They expect more large companies (corporates) to use coworking spaces and increased cooperation between them.

3. However, the tougher competition will lead to a consolidation in which more coworking spaces will seize operations.

4. To escape this fate, many coworking spaces will focus more on sustainable community building and

5. Organize even more (community) events.

(deskmag, 2018a)

By the end of 2018, 1.7 million people worked in almost 19,000 coworking spaces worldwide and the absolute trend is pointing upwards (deskmag, 2018b). However, when looking at the annual growth rates, a different trend emerges:

Figure 2: Worldwide Coworking growth rate

Source: Data retrieved from deskmag (2018b)

63%

43%

36% 33%

28%

22%

49

74

82

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

70%

2016 2017 2018

Number of members

Growth Rate

Growth rate of coworking spaces and members worldwide

Number of Members Number of Coworking Spaces Average number of members

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The growth rate of coworking was 33% in 2018, 42,7% in 2017 and 63,3% in 2016.

This shows that the annual growth rate is slowing down and has almost halved.

However, considering the large number of people involved in coworking, an annual growth rate of 33% is still enormous. The number of coworking spaces as shown above in Figure 2 display a similar growth pattern.

When it comes to the average number of members per coworking space, we see a completely different picture. The number almost doubled in three years and almost tripled in six. This shows that although the marginal number of coworking spaces decreases, they are still growing in average number of users and therefore in size.

When analyzing the average number of members per coworking space, the trimmed mean was used where the lowest and highest 5% were excluded neglecting the super small and super large coworking spaces in order to have a less diluted picture (deskmag, 2018b).

Coworking in Munich

Munich offers a fruitful environment for coworking spaces, due to its large number of self-employed and freelancers in the city, if only there were not the high costs of renting (deskmag, 2014). As many of those freelancers struggle to afford a professional workspace, a very differentiated range of 44 coworking spaces has already developed with numerous big players on the market such as WeWork, Impact Hub or Mindspace (Muenchen.de, 2019).

Coworking in Prague

Since the creation of the first coworking space in Prague in 2009, the industry has experienced substantial growth and development. Up until May 2018, 26 coworking spaces were established in Prague (Šindelářová & Kubíková, 2018, p. 3). A large majority of these coworking spaces are operated by local entrepreneurs with some of them having multiple locations throughout Prague or the country (Šindelářová &

Kubíková, 2018, p. 6). On the other hand, international Chains like Impact-Hub or WeWork have either already established a strong presence in the Prague and the Czech Republic or are setting up their services while this thesis is being written, as in the case of WeWork with their new coworking space in Prague (WeWork, 2019b).

3.3.2 Collaboration & social interaction as a result of coworking

Schuman (2006, p. 83) defines collaboration being “… the process of two or more people or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal” which implies that social interaction occurred beforehand. In a work environment social interaction can lead to collaboration and cooperation (Apaolaza, He, & Hartmann, 2014). Social interactions, however, first require a shared vision, as well as trust between two parties in order to be fruitful and thriving (Zeydanli & Tumen, 2016).

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Gerdenitsch et al. (2016) conclude that social interactions, particularly in coworking spaces, can be classified into two kinds:

1. Casual interactions: Coworkers may engage in casual chatting as they work in close proximity and pass each other on the hallways.

2. Deliberate interactions: Social interactions can be far more deliberate and goal oriented, for example when coworkers join networking events, ask for feedback from fellow coworkers or even collaborate on projects.

Merkel (2015, p. 122) emphasizes that coworking spaces, in particular, can facilitate social and professional interaction by offering “community-oriented workspaces” that

“facilitate encounters, interaction and fruitful exchange between diverse work, practice, and epistemic communities and cultures” (ibid). The design of the workspace should not be underestimated as positioning coworkers face-to-face with each other, allocating the break rooms and kitchens throughout the space so coworkers can easily transition from one to the other are highly important factors to consider since they have a direct impact on the people’s flow within a workspace (Doorley & Scott Witthoft, 2012;

Sailer & McCulloh, 2012). By physically separating members from each other, community and knowledge flows can be interrupted resulting in less interaction and collaboration. (Cabral & Van Winden, 2016, p. 28) A properly designed workspace can

“… facilitate communication and interaction between coworkers, promoting workplace satisfaction and teamwork effectiveness” (Kim & de Dear, 2013, p. 18).

A common tool to encourage social interactions and collaborations is the organization of social and education events where coworkers meet in an easy-going atmosphere and environment. (Cabral & Van Winden, 2016, p. 28; Capdevila, 2014, p. 20; Spinuzzi, 2012, p. 20) In order to create collaboration, social platforms work particularly well.

These platforms can be online in form of social networks or offline with a strategically positioned community board (Cabral & Van Winden, 2016, p. 28). In fact, Castilho and Quandt (2017, p. 32) concluded that coworking spaces offer their members great potential for collaboration. Also Bueno et al. (2018, p. 11) found out that indeed, the environment of coworking and coworking spaces in particular foster social interaction and ultimately also collaboration. But the question remains if these two occur on their own or as a result of the workspace staff facilitating social interaction and collaboration? The next section will elaborate on this.

3.3.3 Community management in coworking spaces

Community management is the term for all methods and activities related to the conception, development, management, operation, support and optimization of communities. As this definition is rather general and often associated with online community management (Fuchs, 2017), the following paragraphs will demonstrate how community management in coworking spaces differs.

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18 Responsibilities of the community manager

Capdevilla (2014), Merkel (2015), and Parrino (2015) believe that the main responsibilities of community managers are encouraging social interaction, co-learning and creating an atmosphere of belonging to a community and therefore creating a supportive environment where interaction and collaboration come naturally and the entrepreneurial activities of its members are supported.

Within this framework the managerial duties consist of maintaining the workspace, which may include changing the decoration and electronic infrastructure of the space, and the encouragement as well as strategic planning of social interaction and collaboration within the workspace users and with external professionals (Gerdenitsch, Scheel, Andorfer, & Korunka, 2016; Parrino, 2015). However, simply putting professionals who work on different topics into close proximity to each other is not enough to generate social interactions and collaboration (Cabral & Van Winden, 2016;

Capdevila, 2014; Merkel, 2015; Rus & Orel, 2015; Spinuzzi, 2012). In fact, Community managers play an integral role in supporting the users (Merkel, 2015, p. 212). She describes her experiences from visiting several coworking spaces in her research ranging from feeling anonymous to instantly being part of a strong community stating that it all depended on the community managers involvement and actions (ibid).

Merkel (2015, p. 129) describes a number of policies a community manager can install to accomplish collaboration and social interactions. To achieve the latter, they can organize social or educational events either exclusively for the members or open to the public. Furthermore, creating an onboarding procedure for new members introducing them to the community using either including online blogs in which new members can introduce themselves, social platforms where new members are highlighted and introduced, blackboards strategically positioned in the workspace where the newest members have a space for their introduction or in person through an announcement by the workspace manager (ibid).

Two types of community managers

Janet Merkel (2015, p. 129) identifies two types of community managers according to how they see themselves in the workspace: the ‘service provider’ and ‘the visionary’.

Community managers that fall under the ‘service provider’ category focus on providing the members with a good working environment by offering attentive service and maintaining the space. The ‘visionary’ type of community manager, on the other hand, is occupied focusing on the ‘co’ in coworking, community as well as collaboration and is therefore much more dedicated to the interpersonal relationships than the ‘service provider’ type. They make sure the values of the coworking space are reflected in their day-to-day work (Merkel, 2015, pp. 127–128).

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In order to get an overview of the responsibilities of community managers in practice, the career websites of two large coworking spaces and one small coworking provider were analyzed and the job postings for community managers were compared in Table 1:

Table 1: Comparison of community manager job post requirements

Workspace

Provider Mindspace (large) WeWork (large) Locus, Prague (small) Community Be the go-to-person

of the community Develop community

initiatives Strong emphasis on community

Customer focus

Creating an

amazing customer experience

Ensure the highest level of member satisfaction

Make members feel welcome

Interaction / Social

Establishing a strong network

Create connections between members

Frequent member events

Operational Ensure entire

location is functional Manage all building

operations Maintenance like changing light bulbs Sales Generate leads and

close deals

Ensure 100%

building occupancy X Collaboration X

Help members reach their business objective

Help with

matchmaking upon request

Events Events planning and networking efforts

Oversee events (educational &

member acquisition)

Event management Personnel

Management X Supervise sales

goals / Performance reviews

X

Other

Establish the

Mindspace brand in your city

Taking care of members not in the best interest of the community

Accounting, graphic design & social media Sources: For Locus, Erasmusintern (2019); Mindspace (2019a) and WeWork (2019a) Note. Fields marked with X indicate that those job ads did not mention responsibility in this field. An exception was made for Locus where also aspects from the interview conducted with the community manager were taken into account.

All in all, it can be concluded that it is difficult to precisely describe the role of a community manager in a coworking space which is reflected by the variety of tasks encountered while researching. It will be interesting to see how, later in this thesis, the interviewed community managers themselves describe their responsibilities and tasks.

The research will contribute to the understanding of the role of community managers in supporting the members and facilitating workplace interactions and collaboration by offering unique insights into six coworking spaces across two cities.

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3.3.4 Productivity & inspiration as a result of coworking

Do the aforementioned community building efforts in coworking spaces also impact inspiration and productivity of its users? The status quo of current research about this topic is being analyzed in the following paragraphs which investigates how productivity emerges, and which environments positively influence inspiration and productivity. On the one hand, this analysis provides a general understanding of the topic but on the other hand, it also enables us to better understand the findings of the survey about perceived workspace productivity and inspiration in order to answer research question number four.

Spreitzer et al. (2015) have studied this field of employee motivation and productivity management for years. They found that coworking space users yield very high “levels of thriving”, which average 6 of a 7-point scale, much higher than the average employee working in a more traditional working environment. The reason being that coworkers face almost no direct competition and are therefore less pressured by office politics and internal career pressures than people working in traditional companies and working environments face. They do not have to “put on a work persona to fit in” but are rather encouraged in their own individuality by working amongst people with various different jobs (ibid).

Conclusively, since there is usually no-one doing exactly the same thing, they are the expert in their field and are not as contested by their surroundings. Since coworkers have to frequently explain what they are doing, they tend to be much more enthusiastic about their work and achievements, according to the researchers. This proved to be also true for those coworkers that interact with fellow coworkers only on rare occasions.

When it comes to inspirational work and innovative ideas, the researchers found out that people who frequently work outside their offices, for example working at a coworking space, have that flash of inspiration more often than others and can, therefore, deliver more innovative results while solving issues in potentially more efficient ways than before (ibid).

According to Haynes (2007), the main influencers of productivity are workplace comfort, office layout and distractions. Besides the design of the environment, the infrastructural facilities of a coworking space can have a huge impact on the productivity of its coworkers (Haynes, 2008; Palvalin, Van der Voordt, & Jylhä, 2017).

Fassoulis & Alexopoulos (2015) add the component of workspace design to have a positive influence on the attitudes of its users to sharing knowledge, inspiring others and increasing productivity, while Kim & de Dear (2013, p.18) found out that an appropriate workplace design also leads to “workplace satisfaction and team-work effectiveness.”In fact, many coworking spaces like ‘Think Space’, ‘Hub’ or ‘Affinity Lab’

deliberately chose their names to indicate that within their coworking space, the workplace atmosphere is fostering ideas or increases productivity. (Merkel, 2015, p.

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122) The sample of coworking spaces analyzed in this thesis probably had the same in mind by branding themselves ‘Mindspace’ or ‘Impact Hub’.

As coworkers can actively choose the community and environment they want to work in, they can deliberately choose the workspace that yields them the highest payback in terms of productivity and inspiration. During their workday, they may select different areas of the workspace, for example the collaborative workspace where most workstations are shared tables and interaction between the coworkers is welcomed, or a quiet corner to work, in order not to be disturbed when the tasks at hand require it.

This freedom, according to the researchers, results in higher productivity than the traditional office layout allows. Many companies recognized the potential of coworking and introduced workstations in more shared settings that often even equal in number with desks in the traditional fixed setting. The employees are therefore enabled to choose whether they want to work in a more collaborative environment suitable for teamwork or if they prefer to be in a quieter area for tasks that require full attention (Spreitzer et al., 2015).

Paradoxically, however, too much freedom and autonomy can actually impair a coworker’s productivity. People need routines, and therefore complete freedom can be counterproductive. Yet, how do freelancers and coworkers who are often completely free overcome the lack of structure and routine? The community of a coworking space supports its members to be more disciplined than they would be working from home by creating structures and routines (ibid). Furthermore, coworkers may encounter much more recognition and appreciation while working in coworking spaces than from home. Peers in coworking spaces can provide feedback on one’s work as well as trigger inspiration for future tasks (Becker, 2008).

In conclusion, a properly designed work environment with both traditional and quiet coworking areas is the main reason why workers who use coworking spaces display higher productivity and are more innovative and inspired than workers in traditional offices. Another factor that gives them an advantage is the fact that coworkers are far more autonomous in their work and can be truly themselves without caring for office politics which is something that is much harder for companies to adopt.

One thing that should be stated is that all those phenomena of increased inspiration and productivity are not restricted to work environments that call themselves a

“coworking space” or shared space but can also partly be experienced in new office and working arrangements often described as ‘agile’ working (Rigby, Sutherland, &

Takeuchi, 2016).

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3.4 Literature Review

This chapter includes an identification of different types of coworking spaces and their impact on coworkers. Furthermore, it investigates what motivates coworkers to join a coworking space and the importance of community for them. Moreover, the theory behind knowledge management is introduced in order to understand and classify the tools community managers utilize to foster social interaction, collaboration and a knowledge sharing culture within their workspaces. The aim of this section is to provide a platform through which the selected and surveyed coworking spaces can be classified and potential collaboration can be explained in order to find answers to the research questions of this thesis.

3.4.1 Identification of different types of coworking spaces

Coworking spaces can be created and run by different entities and for various reasons.

They can, for instance, be run by designated coworking space companies like Impact Hub or Mindspace with potentially several different locations, or they can be run by public institutions such as a chamber of commerce or libraries, but also by universities like the “UnternehmerTUM” of the Technical University in Munich. They can also be integrated into existing companies that run them next to their core business for the purpose of taking advantage of the creative environment and the people it attracts (Bouncken & Reuschl, 2018, pp. 322–323).

There are several different types of coworking spaces and their classification offered by a number of researchers (Bouncken et al., 2018; Ivaldi, Pais, & Scaratti, 2018;

Silicon Sentier, 2009; Spinuzzi, 2012). This section aims at providing an overview of different classifications of coworking spaces and simultaneously explores their different types.

The four types of coworking spaces of Ivaldi et al.

During the research of Ivaldi et al. (2018) four different types of coworking spaces were found and classified as follows:

Infrastructure coworking

In this kind of coworking, the coworking space offers professionals a low-cost place to work that provides them with all the amenities they could find in a ‘real office’ that they require to conduct their business. The focus lies on the physical infrastructure supporting the members in their work while the coworking space managers see themselves playing only a marginal role within the coworking space. As Ivaldi et al.

(2018, p. 226) put it, “… the role of the [community] manager is to maintain the economic sustainability of the space …” (ibid).

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Social interactions are viewed as being beneficial for the creation of business opportunities within the workspace and the social life of the workspace members.

However, they are not actively promoted by the workspace staff and consequently need to occur naturally through physical proximity of the users within the workspace.

Those workspaces are often created by pragmatism and fix-cost distribution attitude of the owner and operator (Ivaldi, Pais, & Scaratti, 2018, pp. 226-227).

Relational coworking

In relational coworking, the most important feature is the active encouragement of knowledge sharing between its members. The owners of such workspaces believe that their space enables and encourages a vibrant community with frequent interaction and innovation (Ivaldi, Pais, & Scaratti, 2018, pp. 228-229). As agreed by several authors (Capdevila, 2014; Merkel, 2015; Rus & Orel, 2015; Spinuzzi, 2012) this does not simply occur with physical proximity but needs to be promoted and facilitated by the workspace staff. Therefore, the encouragement of social interaction and community building is a big part of the community managers’ responsibilities. A tool for enabling this is the organization of events and activities that bring the community together as well as active knowledge creation for example by offering training (Ivaldi et al., 2018, p. 228).

Network coworking

The main goal of network coworking spaces is the active encouragement of professional interaction between its members and with other professionals or organizations outside the coworking space. In order to reach this goal, the community managers forge cooperation with external institutions and companies that could benefit its members. Furthermore, new members are partially selected to secure a vibrant and successful community and to enable collaboration and cooperation between like- minded members and facilitate the same with external partners. This fact is the most important differentiator to ‘relational coworking’. Therefore, such coworking spaces are usually specially designed in order to match the spirit of the community and the industries represented therein. Usually, large coworking spaces fall under the network model as they can afford to employ staff with different roles such as community managers as well as marketing or project managers in order to maintain the level of networking possibilities the users expect (Ivaldi et al., 2018, pp. 228–229).

Welfare Coworking

The fourth type of coworking space identified by the researchers is ‘Welfare Coworking’. Coworking spaces belonging to this type prescribe themselves a purpose they promote to outsiders as well as to their own members. In practice, it can mean that a coworking space supports ‘women in technology’ or hosts mainly smart sustainability startups. The owners and operators make sure that those values are

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maintained and lived within the community. A selection of the members who can join is very widespread in this type of coworking space (Ivaldi et al., 2018, pp. 229–230).

Silicon Sentier’s three models of coworking

Silicon Sentier (2009, pp. 15–16) offers a way to classify coworking spaces into three models: the franchise-, the cooperative-, and the community model. A short description of each can be found below:

The Franchised coworking space

In coworking spaces that are run by the franchise model, the profitability and commercial success of the coworking space is the most important goal and in the focus of the providers. Most users of this model are using coworking spaces only because the alternatives are financially not possible (ibid).

The Cooperative coworking space

For those providers and managers of workspaces who are using the cooperative model, the “internal social dynamic” is highly important. The coworking spaces invest heavily into conditions necessary for an innovative working environment, providing the community with suitable space for collaboration and cooperation. Collaboration is encouraged and sometimes even guided by the staff of the coworking space. The profits of the coworking space are often directly reinvested into improving the space and facilitating cooperation (ibid).

The community workspace

Under the community model, each member is regarded more as an owner of the space rather than a customer which results in a strong sense of ownership and community amongst the users. Collaboration and a thriving social life are predominant as well as actively encouraged by management. Some coworking spaces that are run on this model specialize in a certain technology or industry and become a hub of innovation in its industry (ibid).

Bouncken’s classification of coworking spaces

Bouncken et al. (2018, p. 7) focus more on the business model behind the coworking spaces rather than on how they are run and the level of involvement of the workspace staff.

The corporate

Organizations such as Google or Facebook use the benefits of coworking spaces by creating coworking-like environments where employees do not have a fix workstation

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and project teams can freely collaborate. The corporate coworking spaces usually occur in addition to the standard offices of the companies and are used to foster creativity and more intense collaboration amongst their project teams. (Bouncken et al., 2018, pp. 11–13)

The open corporate

Open corporate coworking spaces share many similarities with the ‘normal’ corporate coworking spaces but differ in the aspect that they allow external talents to use the workspaces as well. The reason for companies like TUI to open their corporate coworking space to outside talent is their ambition to learn from and integrate them into their ecosystem and innovation. (Bouncken et al., 2018, pp. 14-15)

The consultancy

Consultancies like PricewaterhouseCoopers offer their clients a coworking space office environment and the network of internal PWC consultants and external experts to foster collaborative innovation. Those workspaces are fully equipped and can be used by selected third parties, also for their own projects. The community managers’ main focus is facilitating collaboration between the clients and the consultants. Community building is less of a focus in this type of coworking space. (Bouncken et al., 2018, pp.

16–17)

The independent coworking space

Freelancers, startups, and self-employed professionals find a professional environment for innovation, collaboration and social interaction in this type of coworking spaces. Particularly, the potential for innovation and a tight community arises in such open and flexible coworking spaces. Networking and eventually collaboration are stimulated by the usually modern design of the space. Changes in the community are very common, as members in this type of coworking space may only join for short periods of time before changing workspace or even cities. Both social enterprises and business-focused enterprises can be found in coworking spaces of this type (Bouncken et al., 2018, pp. 17–18).

Spinuzzi’s three types of coworking spaces

Spinuzzi (2012, p. 409) offers another approach to define coworking spaces and how to differentiate between the different types. In his study, he analyzes several coworking spaces and classifies them into three kinds: the community workspaces, the unoffices and the federated spaces.

A Community Workspace offers a group of coworkers an environment in which they can concentrate on their own work, but no longer have to work alone. Spinuzzi (2012, p. 410) also refers to this as "working alone together". An example would be a

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coworking space which provides workstations for software developers in an open office environment where the workstations are suitably equipped but there are no rooms for social exchange or events.

With the second kind of coworking spaces called “Unoffices”, Spinuzzi (2012, pp. 410–

411) describes flexible working environments in which the opportunity for interaction between members is offered and consciously encouraged.

Ultimately, in Federated Spaces the concept of interaction is even more central.

Networking, interaction and collaboration are important components of this kind of coworking space. Cooperation and business relationships among the members are actively promoted by using specially designated personnel (Spinuzzi, 2012, p. 413).

The next section will elaborate on the motivations behind joining a coworking space and introducing the theory of knowledge management in connection with coworking spaces. Last but not least, it will attempt to define the role of community managers by benchmarking their tasks with current job descriptions.

3.4.2 Motivation behind joining a coworking space

Coworking space provide freelancers with the chance to be recognized and appreciated for their work by their peers while social networking can be leveraged to receive feedback and build a reputation (Becker, 2008). Next to the social benefits of coworking, joining a coworking space can also have financial advantages as office costs can be dramatically decreased compared to running one’s own office, particularly, when considering the currently inflated real estate market in many cities which drives more and more freelancers and self-employed professionals into isolation and home office (Merkel, 2015, p. 127).

But what are the motives of coworking space users for joining a coworking space?

What did they believe they could gain by becoming a member while paying a substantial fee every month? The Global Coworking Survey of 2017 and 2018 provides answers to this question and can be found in Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Reasons for joining a Coworking space

Source; (Statista, 2017b)

The prime motivations of coworkers changed from 2016 to 2017 i.e. in 2016, a majority of users could agree on “Interaction with others” being the most important factor to join a coworking space closely followed by “a community”. Yet, one year later, only about half of the respondents signaled these two motives to be the main reasons for them to join a coworking space (Statista, 2017b). The empirical part of this thesis will later analyze how the coworking space users from sampled coworking spaces assess the social atmosphere within their workspaces and whether they experience a community within their workspace.

In consequence, if coworking spaces fail to deliver the hopes and objectives of their members, their members will quickly leave again after having joined. About 18% of respondents said that they would leave the coworking space after just three months if there was a “lack of interaction with other members”. Workspace managers must be aware of this fact and adjust their strategy accordingly in order to retain this almost one fifth of new coworking members (deskmag, 2018b).

3.4.3 Knowledge management in coworking

Knowledge management refers to the management of the knowledge base of a person or company (Brücher, 2004, p. 11). Knowledge is the most important production factor before labor, capital and raw materials today. Knowledge management, therefore,

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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

A social and enjoyable atmosphere Interaction with others A community A close distance to my home Like-minded people Good transport connections nearby Good value for money Basic office infrastructure Knowledge sharing A big open workspace

Main reasons why coworking spaces were chosen worldwide 2016-2017

2017 2016

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represents a considerable factor in increasing the quality of products and production (Bullinger et al, 2003, p. 362).

According to Probst et al. (1998), the concept of knowledge management is divided into six interconnected core processes.

• Knowledge identification: The aim of knowledge identification is to create appropriate transparency of internally and externally available know-how (Probst et al., 1998, pp.

99-102).

• Knowledge acquisition: The acquisition of knowledge predominantly includes measures in which significant external knowledge potential is purchased from third parties, by collaborating for example, on a knowledge market which the company or person could not have acquired itself (Probst et al., 1998, p. 52).

• Knowledge development: In this component of the knowledge management process, skills that are not yet available are developed through research and development or targeted training of individuals (Probst et al., 1998, p.216).

• Knowledge sharing: The tasks of knowledge sharing consist of multiplying knowledge by passing it on to other employees and coworkers, securing skills and experience, and bilateral knowledge exchange, which in turn, can generate new knowledge (Döring, 2010, p. 40).

• Use of knowledge: While the sharing of knowledge should focus on user-friendly implementation and targeted access to company-relevant information, the knowledge use phase focuses on implementing the newly learnt (ibid).

• Knowledge retention: Once knowledge is available in a company or coworking space;

it should be made available as needed. Therefore, companies (and coworking spaces) should not forget to utilize its knowledge base and maybe even set up an internal knowledge hub where existing knowledge is categorized and saved (ibid).

In terms of knowledge transfer and innovation potential, coworking spaces offer clear advantages: The exchange with a heterogeneous and inspiring community can motivate coworkers to develop common ideas and support each other with experiences, tips and feedback. Alternative working models cannot keep up with this dynamic. All too often, homeworkers get lost in their ideas without being able to make them happen (Schuermann, 2013, pp. 56–57).

In coworking spaces, personal contacts are formed, allowing users to informally exchange interesting and relevant information (knowledge identification &

knowledge acquisition). Through cooperation and collaboration between coworking users, new solutions, ideas and projects can be developed (knowledge development). Knowledge sharing is positively influenced by social events which sometimes offer presentation rounds, informal face-to-face contacts and pure social networking. The possibility of asking questions at any time when working together

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makes it possible to exchange implicit and unstructured knowledge. In addition, ambiguities in the application of newly acquired knowledge (use of knowledge) can be quickly resolved through the good networking of the coworking community because questions can be resolved both online and within the coworking space at any time (Döring, 2010, p. 43).

The fear of ideas being stolen from each other within a coworking space cannot be completely dismissed. Nevertheless, experienced coworkers consider the risk to be rather low as the community attaches great importance to adhering to the core values of coworking and is used to dealing professionally with sensitive data (Schuermann, 2013, p. 57).

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4 Research Design

In the following paragraphs, the reader is provided with the methodology used while conducting this research and why the chosen tools are most suitable is explained.

4.1 Methodological ramework

The aim of this chapter is the description of the methodological approach within the framework of this thesis. A mixed method research design with both qualitative and quantitative analysis in a two-study design using an inductive research approach was chosen in order to empirically investigate the research questions of this thesis. When using the two-studies design, the data is gathered and analyzed separately, either consecutively or at the same time (Arora & Stoner, 2009, p. 274). In this thesis, both qualitative and quantitative data were collected simultaneously, since the coworkers were surveyed the same day and location where the expert interview was conducted.

The analysis, on the other side, was then performed consecutively.

In the quantitative research, Likert scales in combination with multiple choice questions and short open-end questions were employed to research the coworkers perspective on the topic. The quantitative research method contributes a rational perspective to the research at hand as its design and results are transferable and scalable to other research in this field (Mayring, 2001).

The qualitative method is particularly suitable for understanding phenomena that are new or not yet extensively researched (Eisenhardt, 1989, pp. 532–550). Since only a few studies about the influence of community managers on collaboration in coworking spaces have been published so far (Bouncken et al., 2018; Garrett et al., 2017; Merkel, 2015; Spreitzer et al., 2015), the inductive approach offers the optimal framework to gain a deeper understanding of a new context, attempting to define impact and role of community managers when it comes to workplace interactions and supporting the users (Staudinger, 2018, p. 17).

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4.2 Types of data collection

There are several different techniques to collect data varying vastly in their format, content and execution. This thesis will only explore 2 of the techniques, including:

Table 2: Types of data collection

DISTANCE BASED CLOSE PROXIMITY BASED INTERVIEWS Telephone interviews Face-to-face interviews QUESTIONNAIRES Web-based questionnaire Paper-pencil questionnaire Source: Author

These tools were examined, and the pros and cons weighed in order to assess whether or not they are suitable for the purpose of this thesis.

Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of different types of data collection

TYPE OF DATA

COLLECTION ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

TELEPHONE INTERVIEW

• Clearing up misunderstandings before they skew results

• Follow-up questions possible

• Not very time consuming

• Inexpensive

• Independent of distance restrictions

• Little potential to build relationship and trust between respondents and interviewer

• Lower willingness to cooperate leading to lower response rate

• Non-verbal clues cannot be detected

FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEW

• High potential to build trust between respondents and interviewer

• Understand non-verbal communication