Post-Office - Spatio-temporal Transformation Processes in Knowledge-generating Forms of Cooperation

Digitalisation has fundamentally changed the organisation of work processes and collaboration modes in creative and knowledge work. New spatial solutions such as collaborative work and living spaces and the growing role of digital technologies, which enable collaboration practices across spatial and organisational distances, have a significant influence on how and in which spatial constellations collaborative knowledge work takes place (Grabher et al. 2018; Bürgin et al. 2022). The Covid-19 pandemic also accelerated these processes, as established offline collaboration routines and practices were abruptly interrupted and had to be adapted and changed within a very short timeframe.
The lead project “Post Office” of the Research Area "Economy and Civil Society" addresses the associated transformation processes. For example, innovations in digital technologies, often referred to as disruptive, are accelerating the change in collaborative knowledge work practices, resulting in previously unknown on/offline collaboration arrangements. In addition, knowledge workers have recently established or have been using novel spaces for their (un)paid) work, which is significantly changing the organisation and multilocality of work in rural and urban regions. As a result, spatial constellations of collaboration are increasingly emerging in which physical-spatial as well as digital-spatial work contexts are closely intertwined and their interplay is constantly being renegotiated.
The lead project "Post-Office" aims to understand the time-spatial knowledge dynamics in knowledge-generating collaborations with its disruptive elements and to discuss the resulting consequences for urban and rural regions. Using qualitative interviews and participant observations in collaborative workspaces (such as coworking spaces or collaborative living spaces), the project team investigates the extent to which the combination of different on/offline work and living spaces affects creative collaboration and the local socio-spatial fabric.