Geographies of New Ways of Working
Guest editors:
Grzegorz Micek (Jagiellonian University, grzegorz.micek@uj.edu.pl)
Carles Méndez-Ortega (Open University of Catalonia, cmendezor@uoc.edu)
Martijn J.Smit (Utrecht University, m.j.smit@uu.nl)
Recent years have brought enormous changes in the organization of work and particularly the places where it is carried out. The pandemic provided a huge boost to remote working and forced even old-fashioned organizations to allow their workers more freedom (Adrjan et al., 2021). On the office side, we see a continuous reorganization and modernisation where the building becomes a meeting place with hybrid facility, often with a smaller floor size (Boland et al., 2020). More work is performed from home, recreation and entertainment areas, and collaborative spaces. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic we saw an upsurge of new working spaces, such as coworking spaces, makerspaces, hackerspaces and creative hubs. Moreover, cafes and libraries have also become working places (Bilandzic & Foth 2013; Bilandzic & Johnson, 2013; di Marino & Lapintie, 2015). In addition, the number of digital nomads (Hensellek & Puchala, 2021) is increasing, and activities combining leisure with work are gaining popularity, leading even to ‘workations’ (Voll et al., 2022). So far, very few quantitative large scale studies of location factors of new working spaces have been conducted in peripheral areas. There is still a dominance of qualitative case-based research. The main aim of this Special Issue is to gather current research on the changing spatial distribution of work places and arrangements, the underlying and resulting policies, and the social and economic consequences of these spatial dynamics. We would like potential contributors to map changing location patterns, reveal spatialities of remote work, identify location factors of new working spaces, and define their economic and social effects across space. We encourage contributions who not purely apply statistical models, but also help to understand the context in which models are being applied.
This Special Issue is based upon work from COST Action CA18214 ‘The geography of New Working Spaces and the impact on the periphery', supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation. Some suggestions of research questions papers might address:
where and why do we see shifts in the spatial organization of work? (RQ1)
what new equilibria are evolving between working at the office, working at home, and working at new spaces? (RQ2)
what are the factors behind the emergence of new spaces and working models? (RQ1)
how important are agglomeration and co-agglomeration with other economic activities for new working spaces? (RQ2)
do new workspaces serve to strengthen or eliminate existing socio-economic inequalities? (RQ3)
what are the local effects of the new workspaces, for local consumption, for local innovation and creativity? To what extent are these effects permanent? (RQ4)
how does the emergence of new workspaces impact regional and local policies? And, vice versa: how do regional and local policies affect the location patterns of new workspaces? (RQ5)
The abstracts (max. 250 words) should be sent to Grzegorz Micek (grzegorz.micek@uj.edu.pl), Carles Méndez-Ortega (cmendezor@uoc.edu), and Martijn J. Smit (m.j.smit@uu.nl) by 15 April 2023. Should you have any inquiries, do not hesitate to contact us.
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