The social participation and integration of older adults are important aspects of healthy aging. However, in general, older adults have smaller social networks than their younger counterparts due to changes in their life cycle stage, such as retirement or age-related losses, along with a declining health and increasing mobility limitations. Consequently, with increasing age, an increasing proportion of older people experience feelings of loneliness and social isolation. Previous studies that have analyzed the relationships between loneliness, social networks, and the living environment have often been based on bivariate relationships or included only a limited number of variables. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze multiple relationships in a more comprehensive framework. Data were collected using a survey among 182 adults aged 65 years and over in the Netherlands. A Bayesian belief network (BBN) modeling approach was used that derives all direct and indirect relationships between the variables. The results showed that feelings of loneliness are directly related to satisfaction with one’s social network and neighborhood attachment and are indirectly related to perceived safety and satisfaction with local amenities and services. This knowledge is relevant to urban planners and policy makers who focus on creating livable and healthy social neighborhoods for the aging population.

Over the past decades, the use of mobile technology has increased and the attitude towards work has changed, making it possible to work anywhere at any time. However, workers still seek work environments that stimulate networking and collaboration possibilities. This has led to the growing popularity of co-working spaces. However, little is known about the specific preferences of co-working space users. The aim of this research is to analyse user preferences for co-working space characteristics. Stated choice data were collected by means of a questionnaire which was completed by 219 respondents of 25 co-working spaces in the Netherlands. A mixedmultinomial logit model was used to analyse the user preferences. Results show that the main motivations for co-workers to work in a co-working space were that they were looking for a workplace outside their home that allows them to work in an inspiring work environment where the accommodation is affordable. Accessibility and atmosphere/interior are the most important characteristics when choosing a specific co-working space. These results provide owners or managers of co-working spaces with clear insights about how to cope with co-worker preferences by offering co-working spaces with good accessibility by car and public transport, a semi-open layout and a homelike interior.

Employee satisfaction is pivotal for companies as it enhances perceived productivity and organizational performance. Office concepts and their workspaces can affect employee satisfaction. However, these effects are still ambiguous, particularly regarding the activity-based concept. Therefore, in this study employee satisfaction with the work environment is investigated from a holistic approach. The effects of both personal characteristics and workspaces used by the employee on work environment satisfaction are described and measured, including mediating effects of the perceived importance of employee needs. Data was collected using an online questionnaire among 327 employees of 13 knowledge-based organizations. Path analysis was used to determine the direct and indirect effects of personal variables, environmental variables and perceived importance of needs on satisfaction. It demonstrated that both personal and environmental variables affect satisfaction, and that a considerable number of these effects are indirect through the perceived importance of needs. In particular, the effects of used workspaces were extensive.

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Coworking spaces have become a central component of new work environments, with large international chains. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether user preferences for the physical workspace design are consistent across countries, which the uniformity of such chains seems to suggest. A comparison between the user preferences of coworking spaces between the Netherlands (n = 219), Germany (n = 98) and the Czech Republic (n = 79) is performed using a mixed multinomial logic model for each country. Besides statistical utility of attributes, also motivations for working in coworking spaces are analysed. The findings show that there are some consistencies in preferences across countries. Typical real estate characteristics like accessibility and contract options came forward to be the most important attributes in choosing which coworking space to work at in all three countries. However, significant differences in the desired quality levels of specifically these attributes were found between the countries as well, and only the less important attributes showed similar preferences internationally. This suggests that identical world-wide implementations of the same concept, might serve multi-nationals but possibly will not attract local users. The identified differences in preferences can help to position more specific, dedicated coworking spaces within local markets.

Purpose -This paper aims to analyze the objectives, tenants, spaces and services of different business center concepts and test whether the existing classifications in literature and in the real estate market draw on significantly different concepts.

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