Changes of collaborative workspaces before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in inland China: The case of Chengdu City

Abstract

The recent rise of the sharing economy and collaborative workspaces (CWS) in China has challenged traditional working models (Bouncken, Qiu, and Clauss 2020; Wang, Liang, and Niu 2022). Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when labors’ physical mobility is limited, flexible and virtual/hybrid co-work styles prevail, thereby affecting the demand for office spaces and the organization of CWS. Existing literature presents a bias toward researching developed coastal regions and lacks temporal and actor perspective analysis on CWS in China, where public and private sectors often coexist.

Chengdu is a booming innovation hub (Yin 2022) and one of the most vibrant cities in the global market to encourage technological and cultural collaboration (Derudder and Pain 2018). It can be a good example to observe CWS development in inland China. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 31 operators of selected CWSs in 2016 and 2023 (before and after the pandemic), we examine the impacts of the pandemic on operating modes and social performance in terms of operating sectors and industrial types.

Preliminary findings show that,

(1) the operating modes and social performance of government-led CWSs were less affected by the pandemic than those run entirely by the private sector;

(2) more flexible operating modes were observed in private-led CWSs after the pandemic, and it is more pronounced in collaborative works such as art creation and E-commerce than in software development and high-tech manufacturing, and

(3) differentiated social performance in private-led CWSs is related to their adaptation to the pandemic, such as hybrid working styles in cooperating, training, presenting and investing.

Ultimately, this paper provides implications for different industries’ public- or private-led CWSs to respond to the new co-working styles.