Cooperative space
Introduction
coworking,[1] cooperative work, shared work, cooperative work or integrated office work (from English coworking) is a form of work that allows independent professionals, entrepreneurs, and SMEs from different sectors to share the same workspace, both physical and virtual, to develop their professional projects independently, while promoting joint projects. The neologism "coworking"[1] is the Spanish translation of the term coworking.[2] In this model, companies move from a private or exclusive place to a shared one.
Coworking allows you to share an office and equipment, and is a more elaborate proposal than, for example, Internet cafes, environments in which there is also an Internet connection.[3][4][5].
Cooperative work fosters stable relationships between professionals from different sectors that can lead to new client-supplier relationships as well as horizontal exchanges and collaboration between the coworkers themselves. In any case, it is common for a feeling of belonging to a community to be generated, beyond the effective links established between the workers who frequent coworking spaces.[6].
Cooperative work centers aimed primarily at Internet professionals, designers, programmers, architects, photographers, writers, journalists, and professionals from other disciplines, generally provide an individual desk or sometimes even an office for exclusive or shared use, as well as Internet access, and various other services.[7].
Linked to this concept of permanence within a coworking space, the geographical factor has an important although not definitive role in choosing the most appropriate space. Saving time in transportation and its associated cost are benefits that coworking brings to users in the area where their home is located.[8].
Until 2013, business incubators and business centers did not seem to fit too much into the cooperative work model, since they often did not promote collaborative social-work life, nor management practices close to those of a cooperative, including special attention to the community.[9] However, today the gaps have disappeared and in Chile since 2014 the work of Start-ups in coworks has been favored.
Cooperative work offers a solution to the problem of isolation that the experience of working at home represents for many independent workers, or even micro-businesses. Today, and after a , coworking spaces are specializing, for example, particularly focused on women, oriented towards creativity and futuristic projects, focused on problems linked to energy and the natural environment, etc.[10].