Coworking spaces and creative communities: making resilient coworking spaces through knowledge sharing and collective learning

Abstract

Sharing of spaces enhances networking and collaboration in cultural and creative industries on both formal and informal levels. Nevertheless, there is a lack of awareness concerning coworking spaces (CWS) and their resilience through knowledge sharing in communities, especially in space-community-coworker interactions. The aim is to identify how CWS enhance their resilience through knowledge sharing in communities and develop collective learning in local creative ecosystems to promote adaptation. A total of 34 in-depth face-to-face interviews with CWSs founders or managers and 17 creative entrepreneurs in selected CWS in Europe. Using content analysis by axial and selective coding of the collected primary data, groups of codes were eventually integrated to interpret the issue by its contextualization using grounded theory as a research approach in such qualitative study. Results suggest that CWS strengthen their resilience through cross-over innovation with diverse stakeholder engagement and spillover effects of knowledge sharing as a part of space resilience. These initiatives contribute to community resilience with a focus on entrepreneurial thinking and career development. CWS develop interactive learning models as initiatives to retain and attract creative entrepreneurs in communities. The paper concludes that CWS can develop a creative ecosystem with systematic collective learning engaging different stakeholders.