Coworking Spaces and the Transcendence of Social Innovation Knowledge in the Smart Territory

Abstract

Smart territories favor social entrepreneurship, which develops in a collaborative effort requiring networking and skilled facilitation. Coworking spaces (CWS) advance as mediating organizations that bring together entrepreneurial communities in smart territories. This chapter develops a practical framework for knowledge dissemination in CWS. It bases this framework on the analysis of three spatial characteristics that allow for the assessment of the knowledge transcendence originating in CWS, namely, physical, social, and informational spaces. To test this framework, the authors analyze the Roma-Norte corridor in Mexico City, whose results indicate the presence of two models: one constituted of private organizations that place collaboration as a secondary value, subject to their office rental services, and an umbrella model that clusters other social innovation facilitators that transcend their territorial strip. This latter meta-space model expresses positive effects in terms of knowledge spillover, suggesting the concentrated bottom-up construction process of a smart territory.