Impact of workplace fun in a co-working space on office workers' creativity

Purpose Fun at workplace is considered an important initiative to build co-working communities, and this study aims to study its role in promoting the innovative behaviour of co-workers [members of co-working spaces (CWS)] and the mechanism of its influence. Design/methodology/approach Based on the theory of social exchange and resource conservation, the authors conducted a qualitative study to explore the four dimensions of workplace fun and a quantitative study to empirically analyse the relationship between community embeddedness, organisational embeddedness, workplace fun and creativity of co-workers, taking K-space as an example. Findings Workplace fun is positively correlated with co-workers' creativity. Community embeddedness plays a complete mediating role between workplace fun and organisational embeddedness. Community embeddedness and organisational embeddedness play a chain-mediating role between workplace fun and creativity. Originality/value This study explores the process and impact of fun on employee creativity in a shared office environment by clarifying the composition of fun in CWS workplaces and the transmission mechanism of fun through informal community embeddedness and formal organisational embeddedness, expanding the research perspective on the factors influencing employee creativity in the new office model and enriching the research findings on the impact of fun at work on job performance.