Trouble in Paradise? How Competition and Sense of Community Affect Satisfaction in Coworking Spaces

Coworking spaces allow collaboration, knowledge exchange, and offer opportunities to devel-op social and professional networks. Our study of 182 users across 39 coworking spaces indi-cates that competition among users predicts users' overall satisfaction embedded within the space. By using data from two different sources and using structural equation modeling, we show that the combination of competition, sense of community, and self-efficacy positively influences users’ satisfaction. In this paper, we contribute to the competition and sense of community literature by proposing how the reciprocal relationship with both factors can be crucial to user satisfaction and thus to the success of the CWS.