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This paper aims to inform design strategies for smart space technology to enhance libraries as environments for coworking and informal social learning. The focus is on understanding user motivations, behaviour, and activities in the library when there is no programmed agenda.

The study analyses gathered data over five months of ethnographic research at The Edge – a “bookless” library space at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, that is explicitly dedicated to coworking, social learning, peer collaboration, and creativity around digital culture and technology.

The results present five personas that embody people's main usage patterns as well as motivations, attitudes, and perceived barriers to social learning. It appears that most users work individually or within pre‐organised groups, but usually do not make new connections with co‐present, unacquainted users. Based on the personas, four hybrid design dimensions are suggested to improve the library as a social interface for shared learning encounters across physical and digital spaces.

The findings in this paper offer actionable knowledge for managers, decision makers, and designers of technology‐enhanced library spaces and similar collaboration and coworking spaces.

The rise of knowledge work has entailed controversial characteristics for well-being at work. Increased intensification, discontinuities and interruptions at work have been reported. However, knowledge workers have the opportunity to flexibly adjust their work arrangements to support their concentration, inspiration or recuperation. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the experienced well-being of 46 knowledge workers was subject to changes during and after a retreat type telework period in rural archipelago environment.

The authors conducted a longitudinal survey among the participants at three points in time: one to three weeks before, during, and two to eight weeks after the period. The authors analyzed the experienced changes in psychosocial work environment and well-being at work by the measurement period by means of repeated measures variance analysis. In the next step the authors included the group variable of occupational position to the model.

The analysis showed a decrease in the following measures: experienced time pressure, interruptions, negative feelings at work, exhaustiveness of work as well as stress and an increase in work satisfaction. There were no changes in experienced job influence, clarity of work goals and work engagement. Occupational position had some effect to the changes. Private entrepreneurs and supervisors experienced more remarkable effects of improvement in work-related well-being than subordinates. However, the effects were less sustainable for the supervisors than the other two groups.

This paper provides insights into how work and well-being are affected by the immediate work environment and how well-being at work can be supported by retreat type telework arrangements.

The paper aims to explore the issues surrounding the user conceptualisation of academic libraries. The paper will solidify the role of academic libraries as learning spaces and problematise how libraries are conceptualised by users.

The paper is a literature-based conceptual paper and draws on a wide range of literature to challenge the concept of academic libraries and presents how they are becoming reframed as different spaces.

The paper argues that the concept of a library is at risk. While libraries have undergone substantial changes, the concept of a library has lingered. This paper demonstrated that libraries need to proactively engage users in this debate.

The spatial approach taken by this paper demonstrates the complicity behind the user conceptualisation of libraries. Developing an understanding of this process is an important foundation for libraries to develop their user engagement.

Purpose: The first objective is to explore how narcotelenovelas and news can be compared in their representation of drug violence and figures. The second is to explore a method which identifies intertextual references in fiction by contrasting them with journalistic reports. Methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis is of three narcotelenovelas: El Señor de los Cielos, El Chapo, and Narcos: México. After documenting clear historical references and figures, a search was made through news engines and portals to make a comparison of the fictional versus journalistic representation of such references. Findings: Many elements of narcotelenovelas such as events and public figures are highly comparable to those described in news. While producers openly warn that they changed facts for dramatic purposes, it’s possible to propose hypotheses in which audiences construct their historical memories based on fictional narratives. Research limitations: This chapter does not offer an exhaustive list of intertextual references from all three narcotelenovelas. Originality/value: This type of comparative analysis between fiction and journalism hasn’t been explored for the study of narcoculture media products. The author poses a hypothesis, in which fiction contributes significantly to collective memories and imaginaries, especially when it appeals to historical references audiences might identify.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the topic of parents who work on a flexible basis and use coworking facilities to find a work–life balance and overcome work–family conflicts.

The author uses a qualitative approach to explore the research questions. The first part of the empirical research undertakes an ethnographical approach in carrying out the unobstructed participant observation within five European coworking spaces targeted at improving comprehension of the spaces’ mediation mechanisms and development of supportive interactions. The second part traverses into conducting unstructured interviews with parents who work on a flexible basis and use a coworking space as their daily workplace.

This research paper reveals that flexible workers who found themselves juggling work tasks and family obligations tend to seek better conditions that assist them in tackling conflictual situations and, in addition, enhance their social lives to create further career opportunities. Coworking spaces are thus perceived as optimal workplaces by working parents in that they can find stability and scale their social networks within. Moreover, the continually evolving user interactions resulting from effective mediation mechanisms let these individuals find emotional support, increase productivity and exchange knowledge.

While the coworking industry is rapidly evolving and the academia is keener on investigating the field, the subcategory of work–life and family care within these collaborative environments is virtually unresearched. This paper provides valuable insight into the topic and serves as a knowledge base for the future exploration of this field.

Recognising the growing importance of environmental and sustainable activities and the role of communication strategies in soliciting their financing, this work investigates the influence of message framing, green emphasis and quantitative information on the probability of green crowdfunding campaigns' success.

This analysis is based on crowdfunding campaigns published between 2015 and 2020 on the Indiegogo platform in the category “Community projects – Environment”. The study develops an in-depth qualitative content analysis of the projects before performing an empirical examination to determine funding causes.

Communication strategies (message framing, green emphasis and quantitative goals) affect funding success. However, project category moderates the impact of message framing and green emphasis on campaign success. While positive framing increases agri-food campaign success, negative framing is more effective for clean energy and climate preservation projects. Moreover, indication of a quantitative goal and a marked green emphasis in a project's presentation increase campaign success, but a too marked green emphasis is only effective for agri-food projects.

Green entrepreneurs and campaign managers must work carefully on their projects' communication, accounting for the type of product proposed, emphasising green components in its description and utilising quantitative information to present future goals. These strategies maximise backers' responses and enable entrepreneurs to obtain funding. The authors’ findings may be extended to other contexts, including the banking sector, to craft effective communication strategies for green financial products.

By applying framing theory in a new context (i.e. the online financing of green entrepreneurs), this study identifies new campaign success determinants and provides evidence for the moderating role of project category. Furthermore, the study highlights the need to develop different communication strategies for social and environmental-oriented projects.

A growing number of consumers expect brands to take a stand on social issues. When Gillette launched its video with a social message in 2019, the popular press described it as divisive and controversial. This study aims to examine themes behind the polarized consumer response, aiding brands in the development of social narrative videos.

The authors use an existential-phenomenological approach to investigate the meaning behind consumers’ reactions to the Gillette video. Empirical data collection consisted of 24 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the hermeneutic method.

By viewing the Gillette video through the lens of a story, this research uncovers how marketing stories can lead to different interpretations. Specifically, the roots of polarization lie in perceived realism activation and character activation. Additionally, product placement may activate persuasive intent, interrupting immersion into the story.

Brand managers should consider the potential for alternative interpretations when using storytelling. By measuring a viewer’s narrative transportation, it is possible to identify different interpretations. From a tactical standpoint, brand managers should be cautious about using celebrity endorsers and prominent product placement in social narrative videos. These cues activate persuasive intent, leading to alternative interpretations.

While marketing research has tended to focus on storytelling’s positive outcomes, this research considers how stories can result in polarizing outcomes for brands. The concept of social narrative videos is introduced and a framework is presented that outlines facilitators and inhibitors for this type of brand communication.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question, “Can particular types of altruism influence people to make unethical decisions?” The purpose of seeking to answer this question is to better understand those cases in personal, public and commercial life whereby a decision-maker is influenced by what is widely perceived to be a positive thing – altruism – to make unethical choices.

An experiment was designed to test the influence of different categories of altruism on decision-making about whether to find another guilty for a regulatory transgression. This involved the establishment and running of a student panel at a UK university, which was given the task of determining the guilt or otherwise of two students accused of plagiarism – one from a poor background; one from a rich background. Through a survey of both the decision-makers and their judgments, and by analyzing the data using t-tests and Mann–Whitney tests, the associations between different categories of altruism and the decisions made could be ascertained.

A total of 70.7% of the participants voted “not-guilty” for the poor student, whereas 68.3% voted “guilty” for the wealthy student. This indicated that self-interested, namely, egoistic altruism complemented by social and self-esteem needs gratification was significantly associated with violating foundational ethical principles.

This is the first study to be done that attempts to evaluate the relationships between different categories of altruism and ethical decision-making. The findings here challenge aggregating all forms of empathy together when exploring the antecedents of unethical behavior.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between coworking spaces and productivity.

A research model was designed to carry out the analysis. Specifically, this model attempts to reveal the influence of social interactions and the coworking environment on productivity. Furthermore, three moderated variables were incorporated into the model: gender, age and level of education. A Web-based survey was conducted.

The findings confirm the positive influence of social interactions and coworking environment on productivity.

There are two limitations. First, it is based on the perception of coworkers. It would be interesting to add the perception of coworking space managers to provide more solid findings. The second limitation is that it has not suggested any additional potential factors which could affect productivity.

Implications of this study are grouped into two categories. First, from an academic perspective, it contributes to the development of knowledge about the increasing use of coworking spaces. Second, from a managerial perspective, this paper highlights how environmental factors and the facilities of a workplace can help to achieve better conditions for productivity, in particular in coworking spaces.

Furthermore, the use of social interactions in professional relationships can be understood as an alternative way to carry out new ways of doing business.

This paper contributes to the enrichment of knowledge-concerning coworking spaces developed a pioneering study.