Managing boundaries between work and non-work domains in a coworking space

Even though CWs are believed to promote work-life balance (Kojo & Nenonen, 2014) there is still little knowledge about exactly how this happens (Smékalovà et al., 2022). This paper is an attempt to overcome this gap, by observing how freelancers, who usually work from home (especially in the first steps of their career) or detached from traditional organizational workspaces, and employees who may work remotely manage the different boundaries (e.g., physical/spatial, temporal, social, mental) between work and non-wok domains through their experience in a CW space. The paper is based on a case study conducted in a CW space that has been recently established in a community center located in a very distinctive neighborhood near the historic center of a medium-size city in North Italy. Preliminary results suggest that both freelancers and employees leverage on the distinctive characteristics of the CW space to engage in a boundary work aimed at managing the boundaries between their work and non-work. However, while freelance manage their boundaries basically to find in the CW space a surrogate of a traditional organizational workspace but looking for an integration between the work and the non-work spheres of their life, remote workers manage a boundary work aimed to overcome the limits of working exclusively from the employer or from home but maintaining the separation between work and non-work domains. In this different boundary work the urban area in which the CW space is located and policies by local institutions play a crucial role.