Being an employee-coworker: constructing one’s work identity in a coworking space
Résumé
The re-spatialization of work implies a hybridization of workspaces, inside and outside companies. Notably, a growing number of corporate employees have joined coworking space to work remotely from their companies for the last years. This experience is not neutral for the construction of their work identity. Our ethnographic research conducted in two networks of coworking spaces led us to observe and question remote workers about their experience and the evolution of their identity at work. Our findings show a process of continuous identity work, with four conscious and unconscious phases induced by using a coworking space. These phases include mechanisms of categorization, territoriality, and social regulation which support employees-coworkers’ identity work. This research contributes to the understanding of the unconscious dimension of identity work, particularly in a more flexible and hybrid work context. It also contributes to the literature on the re-spatialized organizational space.