Organizational sustainability identity: ‘New Work’ of home offices and coworking spaces as facilitators

Abstract

Increasingly, firms need to cope with challenges related to sustainability and ecological transformation while also experiencing an ongoing transformation by implementing New Work forms, a trend even more accelerated by the Covid 19 pandemic. The current study submits the concept of an ‘Organizational Sustainability Identity’ (OSI). It represents a firm's holistic inclination toward sustainability and the ecological transformation. New Work, often understood to advance work satisfaction, creativity, and entrepreneurship might particularly facilitate the evolvement of an OSI, such as by providing more autonomous and humane work while lowering CO₂ emissions. We systematically examine New Work related to home offices, coworking spaces, and hybrid multilocal work at the backdrop of supporting the construction of an OSI. In essence, New Work can contribute to the evolvement of an OSI by improving humane work, bridging factual activities that reduce CO₂ emissions, and especially by supporting social interactions which facilitate the construction of a shared identity.