CALL FOR PAPERS

XXVIII Annual Scientific Meeting
AiIG 2017

Special track:
Collaborative spaces as a new challenge for firms, accelerators, incubators,
and research labs

Bari, 19-20 October 2017

Nowadays, more and more organizations are designing their workspaces as collaborative spaces, where individuals (employees in case of firms, entrepreneurs and freelances in case of accelerators, incubators, and co-working spaces, researchers in case of university labs) can freely move and interact without pre-assigned workstations and/or working areas. A case in point is the tendency of organizations to re-design their internal physical spaces using open spaces. Such a tendency relies on the conventional wisdom that collaborative spaces have a positive influence on inter-personal interactions, thus being conducive to innovation and entrepreneurial behaviors, and, ultimately, to superior performance. Accordingly, we think that collaborative spaces are an interesting area for scholarly inquiring. To the best our knowledge, results on their effects are non-consistent and we need to learn more on them. In particular, does a dark-side of collaborative spaces exists in that new non-spatial boundaries emerge (relating for instance to gender, ethnicity, personality traits, and so on)? Do collaborative spaces reshape organizational structures, managerial practices and styles, decision-making processes, coordination and collaboration, and innovation processes? More generally, what challenges do collaborative spaces create to managers of firms, accelerators, incubators, co-working spaces, and research labs?

Currently, a growing community of scholars has started to investigate the aforementioned themes, thus giving birth to a new, still underdeveloped, research area. The literature on collaborative spaces is still nascent and it still leaves ample room for further research. Moreover, it is worth noting that this research area will benefit from the use of innovative methodologies (for instance, to keep track of interactions among individuals into collaborative spaces), thus calling for works focusing on what are the best practices in terms of research design.

Moving from these premises, this track intends to be a locus of debate on collaborative spaces in firms, accelerators, incubators, and research laboratories. This debate intends to take stock of the existing literature and to open discussions on both ongoing and future developments. Some examples of topics of interest for the track include (but are not limited to) the following topics.

ü  How does the creation of collaborative spaces affect organizational design? What are the implications for firms', accelerators', and incubators' organizational structures, managerial practices and style, decision-making processes, and coordination?

ü  One of the key elements for organizations' success is their innovativeness. In this respect, the need for stimulating both the efficiency and creativity of individuals is a crucial element: do these new ways of designing the workspace help in fostering innovation by stimulating individuals' efficiency and creativity?

ü  New research processes are witnessing a resurge of importance of the physical interactions among researchers. Specifically, universities and research centers are more and more redesigning their spaces to facilitate interactions among researchers studying diverse fields. Do collaborative spaces help fostering the generation of new research processes and breakthrough innovations involving knowledge from diverse discipline?

ü  There is a general convincement that collaborative spaces enable interactions among individuals: do real data confirm this? Or, on the contrary, do collaborative spaces render more likely that individuals cluster in groups (basing on ethnicity, gender, functional area, etc.), thus fostering intra-group collaboration and interactions, but hindering inter-group collaboration and interactions? Do specific groups of individuals suffer from segregation in these newly designed spaces? What are the effects on these individual dynamics on organizations' performance?

ü  How does individual wellbeing increase in collaborative spaces? Are individuals comfortable in open spaces where everybody can observe their work? How does this transparency affect individuals' behavior and performance? How do collaborative spaces affect employees' motivation and satisfaction?

ü  Provided that collaborative spaces may have positive effects on organizations, should policymakers design schemes for stimulating their creation? How should these schemes work?

ü  What are the impacts of collaborative spaces on the contexts in which the organizations operate (local areas, cities, ecosystems)? Do the alleged benefits of collaborative spaces spill over to these contexts, for instance by stimulating interactions between individuals and shareholders inside and outside the organizations?

This Special Track consists in a paper session where full papers relating to the track theme will be presented and discussed. Moreover, a practitioner will participate contributing with ax external viewpoint. Specifically, a manager of Microsoft Italy will present the case of the adoption of collaborative spaces in the Microsoft House, the new Milan Headquarter of the US technology company.

ü  Submission of extended abstracts/full papers                June 19th, 2017

ü  Notification of acceptance                                           June 30th, 2017

ü  Submission of full papers                                            September 12th, 2017

ü  Giovanna Lo Nigro, Università degli Studi di Palermo, giovanna.lonigro@unipa.it

ü  Emilio Paolucci, Politecnico di Torino, emilio.paolucci@polito.it

ü  Cristina Rossi-Lamastra, Politecnico di Milano School of Management, cristina1.rossi@polimi.it

ü  Paola Rovelli[1], Politecnico di Milano School of Management, paola.rovelli@polimi.it

Cristina Rossi Lamastra, PhD.

Associate Professor of Business and Industrial Economics

Politecnico di Milano School of Management

Via Lambruschini 4/b, 20156 Milan, Italy (office 3.10)

Mobile: 0039 3387159654

Office: 0039 0223993972

Skype: crossi73