We have a Vested Interest.
We, of course, want to dedicate time and talk about how much we love coworking spaces and how Flock provides multiple resources and advantage points as opposed to closed-office spaces.
But instead, we want to share some articles that we found that endorse the coworking space both as a concept and impacting specific markets.
Additionally, we want to make a clarifying point about the nature of the articles we chose. We specifically segmented articles based on time/date and specifically filtered out articles pertaining to 'open working spaces.'
While we have partially open working spaces in our specific area, we feel the sample sizes and audiences include typical office spaces and standard working environments that might skew the results to one way without being impartial.
Finally, we encourage everyone to do their own research before investing in a coworking space; all of our sources came from Google Scholar, and we have shared links for each of the sources we reference.
There is a Body of Coworking Studies since the early 2010s
We have a few citations mentioning the origins of 'flipped classrooms' in the '90s and the surge of coworking spaces during the '00s, and most of our articles stem from ~2012 to the present day. While we all have a modern understanding of it and some of us have different moments where we realized they are 'things,' we wanted to share a declaration from an article dating back to 2012 regarding Coworking spaces:
"Coworking spaces (CS) are regarded as "serendipity accelerators," designed to host creative people and entrepreneurs who endeavor to break isolation and to find a convivial environment that favors meetings and collaboration." (Moriset)
Since then, there have been numerous articles that focus on various aspects and ideas about approaching this academically and economically, and we'd like to share some of our findings with you.
Some of the Most Important Takeaways from Recent and Lasting Studies on Coworking
Alone, Together (2012)
This article primarily focuses on assessing the value of what you get with a coworking space. One of the biggest takeaways is the benefits of collaborating and interacting with other people, not only of similar fields but of dissimilar fields, and how the swapping of information can help bolster the process creatively. (Spinuzzi)
Fab Labs and the Impact on Robotics (~2018)
This article posits that in order to keep up with the demand in robotics and ensure a faster turnover for high-education, we need to add in coworking spaces.
"What sets robotics apart from other disciplines, and makes roboticists highly desirable employees in any industry, is the wholistic nature of the skill sets. Robotics requires both theoretical and practical knowledge, and hands on experience is essential. The flipped classroom concept is ideal for practical robotics learning, but requires the availability of group spaces where individual robotics students can come together to work on real robots." (Keay)
Job Mobility (2020)
This article focuses on the socio-economical impacts that coworking spaces provide for those who have it at their disposal.
"(...)focuses of job-mobility biographies have been entry into the labour market, changes to jobs and incomes, and retirement. However, the commitment to work within a coworking space context can also be understood as a key event, potentially affecting both short-term and long-term mobility decisions." (Ohnmacht, Thao, and von Arx)
Correlation With Improvement in Networking (2020) [Brazil]
While for years people have touted that they are able to maintain better networking relationships and attain a higher output of work, this article sought out to quantify how much of an improvement, if any, coworking spaces provided.
"The main goal of the study was to analyze the potential advantages for the EaD professionals when working at coworking spaces. It was possible to verify a main advantage to the professionals/users: possibility of establishment and maintenance of network of relationships." (dos Santos)
Coworking Critical Involvement in the Development of Startups (2020) [Germany & WeWork]
This article pulls empirical evidence from 7 regions within Germany about how coworking spaces both ease the financial strain while improve the likelihood for new funding for startups.
"We find a hump-shaped relation of coworking space supply and founding activity, reflecting maturity effects of the corresponding coworking space market. In addition, we find a positive relation between the coworking space supply and funding activity of start-ups. A European study with WeWork data supports our findings and a difference-in-differences approach mitigates endogeneity concerns." (Gauger)
Are Coworking Spaces Worth a Shot?
We think so. While admittedly, they aren't for everyone, and if you're a bit of a wallflower instead of a social butterfly, you might not reap all of the networking opportunities. But the idea of mandating a space for you to do work versus having it invade your home life is something we often cite. So we recommend taking a shot; we can work together to make it work for you.
Citations
(dos Santos) Faria Lopes dos Santos, Mariana Aparecida Cubilia Lopes dos Santos, Marcos Araújo Balzano. Coworking Spaces: Potential Advantages For Distance Education Professionals. 2020. [Link]
(Gauger) Gauger, Felix and Pfnür, Andreas and Strych, Jan-Oliver, Coworking Spaces and Start-ups: Empirical Evidence from a Product Market Competition and Life Cycle Perspective (2020). [Link]
(Keay) Andra Keay. Classrooms can not meet the needs of the new robotics industry. We need more cowork spaces. 2018. [Link]
(Moriset) Bruno Moriset. Building new places of the creative economy. The rise of coworking spaces. 2013. ⟨halshs-00914075⟩
(Ohnmacht, Thao, and von Arx) Timo Ohnmacht, Vu Thi Thao and Widar von Arx. Job-mobility biographies in coworking spaces: a theoretical contribution to new social and spatial restructurings. 2020. [Link]
(Spinuzzi) Clay Spinuzzi. Working Alone Together: Coworking as Emergent Collaborative Activity. 2012. [Link]
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00914075/
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1050651912444070
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781789907803/9781789907803.00016.xml
https://periodicos.unisanta.br/index.php/ENPG/article/view/1538