ABSTRACT

With a rising globalization of the economy and society, the digital transformation, and the economic downturn started in 2008, working is becoming less dependent on distance, location, and time. These are some of the reasons that have fostered the development and diffusion of new working spaces like coworking spaces. The paper aims at exploring the location determinants of coworking spaces, an issue that has been less developed by the literature up to now. By focusing on the 549 coworking spaces located in Italy at the year 2018, the paper investigates the location factors of such workplaces, and the attractiveness of large cities as well as peripheral areas. The results of the descriptive statistics and the econometric analysis (a Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial model is applied) confirm that coworking is mainly an urban phenomenon, since coworking spaces tend to be knowledge-intensive places for creative people. Specifically, the municipalities showing higher innovation and entrepreneurial environment (i.e. major cities) are preferred locations. Besides, it is discussed whether coworking spaces may contribute to fostering the development of peripheral and inner areas in Italy, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic where the share of teleworkers outside metropolitan areas has massively increased.

摘要

随着经济和社会的日益全球化、数字化转型以及 2008 年开始的经济衰退，工作对距离、地点和时间的依赖性越来越小。这些是促进新工作空间（如联合办公空间）的发展和传播的一些原因。本文旨在探讨联合办公空间的选址决定因素，这是迄今为止文献中较少研究的问题。通过关注 2018 年位于意大利的 549 个联合办公空间，本文调查了此类工作场所的区位因素，以及大城市和周边地区的吸引力。描述性统计和计量经济学分析（应用零膨胀负二项式模型）的结果证实，联合办公主要是一种城市现象，因为联合办公空间往往是创意人士的知识密集型场所。具体来说，创新创业环境较好的直辖市（即大城市）是首选的选址地。此外，还讨论了联合办公空间是否有助于促进意大利周边和内陆地区的发展，尤其是在 Covid-19 大流行期间，大都市以外的远程工作人员的比例大幅增加。