Freelancers, entrepreneurs, new ventures, but also incumbent firms increasingly use coworking spaces (CWS). The alignment of work-space and social space can facilitate organizational empowerment supporting individual work satisfaction. Our mixed-methods study of 363 respondents from CWS in 26 cities in the USA, Germany, and China identifies configurations of institutional patterns on work satisfaction associated with a sense of community, autonomy, participation, linkage multiplicity and mutual knowledge creation. High work satisfaction can occur in three different configurations related to a) agility housing, b) knowledge housing, and c) social housing. Our findings contribute to how incumbent firms and CWS can influence work satisfaction and empower towards innovation and entrepreneurial performance.

Research Summary Modern audio‐visual digital technology enables the immediate exchange of explicit, but also of tacit knowledge worldwide. Still, when not embedded in strong ties, the international exchange of tacit and proprietary knowledge becomes risky. Our flexible pattern matching qualitative research approach develops new theory and finds that in the nascent 3D printing industry firms exchange explicit and tacit knowledge globally, even in weak ties. The exchanges seem to be grounded in identification processes with digital technology forming a shared digital identity. We conceptualize the shared digital identity as the collective self‐concept(s) of an in‐group towards the creation, emergence, application, and development of digital technology built on a sense of community, enthusiasm, being part of something special as well as common values and norms. Managerial Summary Firms in the nascent digital industry of 3D printing share knowledge worldwide. Potentials of transferring tacit and proprietary knowledge by modern audio‐visual digital technologies increase constantly. However, so do the dangers of knowledge leakage and competitive risks. A resolution of this tension comes from a new phenomenon, the shared digital identity. A shared digital identity within and among firms enables and informally guards the sharing of tacit and proprietary knowledge via digital technologies. We conceptualize the shared digital identity by a sense of community, enthusiasm, being part of something special as well as common values and norms. The knowledge exchanges assisted by digital technology occur under the aegis of the shared digital identity and accelerate the emergence of digital technologies and so facilitate global business.

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Die Einführung digitaler Technologien führt dazu, dass Unternehmen aller Größen und Industrien sich drastisch verändern. Die Integration digitaler Technologien bietet ihnen dabei die Möglichkeit Prozesse, Produkte und Dienstleistungen sowie Geschäftsmodelle zu erneuern. Während der Weg zur digitalen Transforma­tion für große und mittelständische Unternehmen bereits erforscht wurde, bleibt unklar, welche Fähigkeiten in kleinen Unternehmen sowie Unternehmen, die eine Dienstleistung direkt am Kunden anbieten, notwendig sind und wie diese Fähigkeiten entwickelt werden. Basierend auf einer qualitativ empirischen Studie zeigen wir die entscheidende Rolle der Geschäftsführung im Prozess der digitalen Transformation. Weiterhin zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, wie Geschäftsführinnen und Geschäftsführer kleiner Unternehmen das eigene Sozialkapital, die Erneuerung der eigenen Denkbilder sowie die Entwicklung der organisationalen Digitalisierungskompetenz nutzen, um eine digitale Transformation zu durchlaufen. The advent of digital technologies is causing companies of all sizes and industries to change dramatically. The integration of digital technologies offers them the potential to renew processes, products and services, as well as business models. While the path to digital transformation has already been researched for large and medium-sized companies, it remains unclear which capabilities are necessary in small companies and companies that offer a service directly to the customer. Further, it remains unclear how these capabilities are developed. Based on a qualitative empirical study, we show the decisive role of the manager in the process of digital transformation. Furthermore, our results show how managers of small companies use their own social capital, the renewal of their own managerial cognition and the development of organizational digitalization skills to go through a digital transformation.