Digitization as a Driver fur Rural Development—An Indicative Description of German Coworking Space Users
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Synopsis:
The manuscript presents new and interesting descriptive data on rural co-workers in Germany based on own survey data. Determining aspects such as length of commitment to a coworking space (CWS), frequency of use, mode of transport used for the commute and money spent in the community, the authors can derive insights into “habits and demands” of users of rural CWS in Germany. Finally, the results are used to discuss three main questions: 1) what is desired to work in a third place? 2) Who is working there? 3) What is the consequence of the usage of this facility?
Recommendation:
The manuscript falls topic-wise into the scope of the journal “Land”, is well-written at the beginning and presents some exciting new data that were collected and analyzed in a simple descriptive manner.
However, the main point of concern I have is the use of the results for generalizations.
First, I would start to change the title.:
“Digitization as a Driver fur Rural Development – An indicative Description of German Co-Workers” (or: “Coworking space users”, if the Authors want Coworking in the title). In changing the title the reader receives in the manuscripts what the title says.
Second, I would suggest splitting the “Introduction” into a real “Introduction” and a “Literature Review”. Section 1 is the strongest part in the manuscripts and highlight many interesting thoughts and research streams. However, the authors forgot to introduce the concept of “Coworking “in this part. Based on the urban and rural divide and the pull and push factors for migration they present in an interesting historical context they should not miss the point that on top of this development, in recent days coworking has evolved, even in German rural areas. At the end of the “Introduction” they can present the part on p. 4 “The structure of this article is as follows:”. So far, it is uncommon to read that, we “first descriptive…” and this part was already read before this reader guideline.
Third, it is common that the research question (RQs) will be presented after the presentation of the new phenomenon of coworking in German rural areas. However, the authors present 8 RQs (!) that they barely addressed in their following data analysis section. Furthermore, only the 8th RQ is covering a direct link to coworking. In order to avoid that the paper falls apart, the authors should present their three core questions that they try to answer later in Section 5 “Discussions”.
1) what is desired to work in a third place?, New Suggestion:
Which amenities co-workers asked for in rural coworking spaces?
2) Who is working there? New Suggestion:
How can co-workers in rural-coworking spaces be described according their personal and professional characteristics?
3) What is the consequence of the usage of this facility? New Suggestion:
How do coworking facilities in rural areas and their users influence local offers, services for mobility, consumption, shopping, catering, social and cultural life?
By focusing on these three basic questions, line 175, 176 and 177 work pretty well.
Forth, after presenting the three RQ the authors should present their own Methodology to shed light on the three RQ. I would suggest to use the term “Methodology”.
The authors should begin to present the regional space they are try to analyze. In line 183 to 187 they present their definition. Question: Do they really select rural areas based on the governmental definition? It looks like they have a look on cities with less than 100 000 inhabitants. Is this really rural? Perhaps they should present the towns where their coworkers are from/work to give better insights in their understanding of rural Germany.
Table 1 presents the survey questions. For me it is too much details to read the survey questions. The authors should present their questions in a reduced way. I suggest to couple them to the three research questions presented above. How can your survey items be of use for your RQs?
Before the authors present their results, it is somewhat disappointing that they only have answers from around 30 co-workers. This is no problem at all since rural co-workers are hard to survey and proper research samples are not easy to draw. However, the authors should address this issue that they focus on a new phenomenon of work in rural areas and empirical investigations are not easy to carry out.
4.1 Response Rate: A response rate is a ratio between brutto-sample and netto-sample, say 20%. Can the authors present a response rate. Say, within the 13 operators that have distributed the survey they have 100 coworker in total and 36 persons answered which makes a response rate of 36%?
4.2 The authors should introduce their results as an indicative description of German Co-Workers as suggested for the new title. It is very informative to go through the numbers. However, the presented figures have no axis description and the “n” should be presented. I would suggest deleting the Figures. Figure 4 is not useful, please present a cross tabulation of the data (number of coworking spaces vs. modal slit of the modes of transport).
- After presenting the descriptive data the discussion can begin and the authors can elaborate their results according to their 3 RQs. Please do not present new data here, just link Section 4 and 5.
- Conclusions
At the end of the mansucripts the readers have the impression, that the manuscript present to many questions and to less answers. Please delete the six questions at the end because they are to similar with the questions on page 4.
I would be happy to see a new version of this mansucript.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Synopsis:
The manuscript presents new and interesting descriptive data on rural co-workers in Germany based on own survey data. Determining aspects such as length of commitment to a coworking space (CWS), frequency of use, mode of transport used for the commute and money spent in the community, the authors can derive insights into “habits and demands” of users of rural CWS in Germany. Finally, the results are used to discuss three main questions: 1) what is desired to work in a third place? 2) Who is working there? 3) What is the consequence of the usage of this facility?
Recommendation
The manuscript falls topic-wise into the scope of the journal “Land”, is well-written at the beginning and presents some exciting new data that were collected and analyzed in a simple descriptive manner.
However, the main point of concern I have is the use of the results for generalizations.
First, I would start to change the title.:
“Digitization as a Driver fur Rural Development – An indicative Description of German Co-Workers” (or: “Coworking space users”, if the Authors want Coworking in the title). In changing the title the reader receives in the manuscripts what the title says.
Response to the reviewer 1:
We changed the title as it is recommended from reviewer 1, by using the term coworking spaces. That is for the focus on the possible spatial consequences.
Second, I would suggest splitting the “Introduction” into a real “Introduction” and a “Literature Review”. Section 1 is the strongest part in the manuscripts and highlight many interesting thoughts and research streams. However, the authors forgot to introduce the concept of “Coworking “in this part. Based on the urban and rural divide and the pull and push factors for migration they present in an interesting historical context they should not miss the point that on top of this development, in recent days coworking has evolved, even in German rural areas. At the end of the “Introduction” they can present the part on p. 4 “The structure of this article is as follows:”. So far, it is uncommon to read that, we “first descriptive…” and this part was already read before this reader guideline.
Response to the reviewer 1:
We divided the introduction in two parts as recommended. We add a section on “coworking spaces”. We moved the description of the structure of the article above the introduction, because here are described how the following article is structured.
Third, it is common that the research question (RQs) will be presented after the presentation of the new phenomenon of coworking in German rural areas. However, the authors present 8 RQs (!) that they barely addressed in their following data analysis section. Furthermore, only the 8th RQ is covering a direct link to coworking. In order to avoid that the paper falls apart, the authors should present their three core questions that they try to answer later in Section 5 “Discussions”.
1) what is desired to work in a third place?, New Suggestion:
Which amenities co-workers asked for in rural coworking spaces?
2) Who is working there? New Suggestion:
How can co-workers in rural-coworking spaces be described according their personal and professional characteristics?
3) What is the consequence of the usage of this facility? New Suggestion:
How do coworking facilities in rural areas and their users influence local offers, services for mobility, consumption, shopping, catering, social and cultural life?
By focusing on these three basic questions, line 175, 176 and 177 work pretty well.
Response to the reviewer 1:
Thanks for these constructive comments, which we followed up. We reduced the number of research questions to the three main questions and moved the eight questions to the conclusion as a kind of outlook with further research questions to be answered in coming researches.
Forth, after presenting the three RQ the authors should present their own Methodology to shed light on the three RQ. I would suggest to use the term “Methodology”.
Response to the reviewer 1:
Point is acknowledged and adopted. We changed the title to “Methodology”
The authors should begin to present the regional space they are try to analyze. In line 183 to 187 they present their definition. Question: Do they really select rural areas based on the governmental definition? It looks like they have a look on cities with less than 100 000 inhabitants. Is this really rural? Perhaps they should present the towns where their coworkers are from/work to give better insights in their understanding of rural Germany.
Response to the reviewer 1:
We added a text to the manuscript where we described why we do not use the definition of the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development.
for two reasons: 1th we want to exclude in our survey only the typical environment of coworking space which are usually to find in major cities and 2nd we want to include as much as potential respondents as possible. This also considers that user of coworking spaces tend to not respond on surveys, because they feel to be over investigated. Due to that we chose a simple and short online survey to repel as few respondents as possible.
Table 1 presents the survey questions. For me it is too much details to read the survey questions. The authors should present their questions in a reduced way. I suggest to couple them to the three research questions presented above. How can your survey items be of use for your RQs?
Response to the reviewer 1:
For a maximum rate of transparency we decided to show all aspects, from the category, by aim, until the real questions. That was the path we developed the questions and how the survey was structured. We can add a fourth column where we can match the questions of the survey with the research questions. Maybe the page with is too narrow, so we can add another table, where we can allocate the survey questions to the research questions.
Before the authors present their results, it is somewhat disappointing that they only have answers from around 30 co-workers. This is no problem at all since rural co-workers are hard to survey and proper research samples are not easy to draw. However, the authors should address this issue that they focus on a new phenomenon of work in rural areas and empirical investigations are not easy to carry out.
Response to the reviewer 1:
We acknowledge this point and have also addressed this in the text. Right. We added section where we describe, that it is not easy to survey coworkers, especial in the beginning of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic break out.
4.1 Response Rate: A response rate is a ratio between brutto-sample and netto-sample, say 20%. Can the authors present a response rate. Say, within the 13 operators that have distributed the survey they have 100 coworker in total and 36 persons answered which makes a response rate of 36%?
Response to the reviewer 1:
We do not know to how many coworkers the operators of the coworking space forwarded, due to that we can not calculate a tipical respond rate. We described that in a section.
4.2 The authors should introduce their results as an indicative description of German Co-Workers as suggested for the new title. It is very informative to go through the numbers. However, the presented figures have no axis description and the “n” should be presented. I would suggest deleting the Figures. Figure 4 is not useful, please present a cross tabulation of the data (number of coworking spaces vs. modal slit of the modes of transport).
Response to the reviewer 1:
We can not provide a typical respond rate, because we do not know to how many tenants the operators of the coworking spaces forwarded our survey request. We note this fact in the manuscript.
- After presenting the descriptive data the discussion can begin and the authors can elaborate their results according to their 3 RQs. Please do not present new data here, just link Section 4 and 5.
- Conclusions
At the end of the mansucripts the readers have the impression, that the manuscript present to many questions and to less answers. Please delete the six questions at the end because they are to similar with the questions on page 4.
Responds to the reviewer 1:
The questions at the end of the manuscript are intended as an outlook for further research.
I would be happy to see a new version of this mansucript.
Responds to the reviewer 1:
We worked on that, hopefully to meet the needed impovements.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Please find attached my suggestions
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
I recommend the paper for publication but suggest some revisions. See below.
Overall: The topic is original, and I like the topic very much as rural coworking spaces will even be more relevant for workers of any kind for many reasons.
Although the paper needs proofreading as there are too many small errors in language.
Introduction: although the paper is about coworking spaces, there is now mention at all in the intro part what coworking is, why is it important in rural parts of a country/ Germany. I would mention coworking spaces in the intro part, or even dedicate a whole section to it, highlighting the relevant literature. Although the authors mention that there is a trend of people preferring and moving to rural areas, I miss mentioning that since the beginning of covid we experience an increase of people moving out of highly dense urban areas to rural places. I think it’s worth mentioning the effect of covid: people want to leave the city, want a better, healthier, more balanced life, bigger houses now that they don’t need to commute to the offices every day and can settle down for that reason in more relaxed rural areas (I saw in the discussion that the authors are referring to this, but I think it’s worth to mention that it already started). Internet helps being connected to colleagues but ultimately, people will need interaction from time to time for brainstorming, collaborating and socializing. And that’s where coworking spaces in rural areas will have a big part to play in. I suggest connecting these dots, and also talk about coworking spaces in the intro or in a separate lit review section as already mentioned.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We added a section on coworking spaces to literature section regarding also the social aspects of working in a coworking space. Like wise we added a section about the impact of Covid-19 on people moving to rural regions.
I’d also suggest to make a distinction between remote working and home working by definition. I appreciate that in Germany, home office is used for remote working but it’s important to differentiate it, especially for the sake of the paper (i.e. coworking as a “third” place between home and the office so it is a place for remote work).
Response to the reviewer 2:
We added a section about the use of the term “home office”, remote work and “mobiles arbeiten” as it is used in Germany.
Research questions: For the first read, because of the way it was presented, I was not sure why these questions were listed. Did the authors want to cover all in the paper? Or will they do it as we progress with reading? I would suggest reframing the “currently…” if the intention was to cover all. It seems question 6 was not covered in the paper but it’s certainly and interesting one to do in the future.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We reduced the research questions to the 3 main questions from section 5.
- Which amenities co-workers asked for in rural coworking spaces?
- How can co-workers in rural-coworking spaces be described according their personal and professional characteristics?
- How do coworking facilities in rural areas and their users influence local offers, services for mobility, consumption, shopping, catering, social and cultural life?
And move them to the end of the introduction.
We moved question 6 “How can a growing number of rural coworking space users bring greater vibrancy to the central locations of smaller towns and cities?” to the further research questions as an outlook at the end of the conclusion.
Materials and Methods: The authors say that the first phase of the research was a literature review but no such section is presented in the paper. There was no mention about the types of questions used in the survey: all the questions listed were open-ended, multiple-choice, rating scale, etc type of questions? I suggest to elaborate on it.
Response to the reviewer 2:
In the revised version we divided the introduction in to an introduction and a literature section.
We added a section, where we described the kind of question we used und why we used them.
Results: I suggest to make figures a but nicer and add labels to them so it will be easier for the reader to understand what they illustrate.
We enlarged the font size of the legends.
I also suggest reference it in the text which figure the authors are referring to.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We added references to the figures in the text.
The text above figure 1 is hard to understand and it isn’t connected to the figure. I suggest rewriting it.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We changed the text and linked It to the figure.
I also suggest having the relevant text above each figure, for instance, the text above figure 2 is a different result, so I suggest to move it
Responds to the reviewer 2:
We have changed order from the text and figure, to have the related text above the figure..
under figure 2. I think an interesting result is when the authors talk about whether users have a dedicated desk or instead do hot-desking. It’s now broken into three types but it is actually two: hotdesk and dedicated desk so I suggest to combine the latter two into one if there is no specific reason to keep all 3 types.
Responds to the reviewer 2:
We add an explaining text. We think the main point is that a majority want to have a fixe dedicated desk.
Figure 4 is hard to understand and I don’t understand why a third space is added when in text it’s only said that people use different spaces.
Response to the reviewer 2:
Nearly a quarter of the respondents are using two coworking spaces, some are using up to five coworking spaces. They changing the means of transportation depending where they are working or on the weather. That is the reason for figure 4.
I suggest to switch figure 5 and the text below, makes more sense the other way around.
Responds to the reviewer 2:
Okay. We acknowledge and accept this comment. That’s reasonable. We have changed the order.
Discussion: I like that the authors connected their results to the literature in the discussion part. I like the topics the discussion is organized around; maybe I would add a separate discussion for the positive effects coworkers make for the local economy by working in cw spaces and spending their money locally.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We would like to have this already as a research result, but we can not prof it yet. We can only indicate that there is a potential. We want to investigate the contribution from coworking space users to the local economy.
I appreciate that the authors connected the literature and results in the discussion part but I still would rethink to add a separate section overviewing the relevant literature after the intro part.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We have split the introduction into a real introduction with the research question and a literature review in order to address this point.
Conclusion: I would elaborate more on how coworking spaces support the rural economy.
Response to the reviewer 2:
We added some aspects and potentials of the local spending capacity.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a topical paper when considering the renewed interest in distant work due to COVID-19 crisis. The paper itself is a concise. Yet, it has both language and methodological challenges that should be addressed in the revision. Detailed comments can be found below.
The title is probably too broad when contrasting it with the content of your analysis. I suggest that you narrow it down a bit, especially as your empirical evidence is extremely limited.
Introduction to the topic works properly. However, starting from the introduction, the proficiency of English is not sufficient. Let me points only to a few sentences in the intro: “Most prominently in the urban-rural divide discourse is however the demographic disparity [5,6].” --- “Cities and urban agglomerations are growing and the number of their inhabitants are increasing since the first wave of industrialization, faster and faster in the last decades in nearly every part of the world – the so called urbanization process [10]. Forced by the agriculture science, mechanization and industrialization the workforce which is needed, to feed the population, is shrinking [11].” --- “Yet, in several fields of society (economy, democracy, science etc.) it exhibits an advanced stage in rural-urban disparity as well.” This kind of writing does not suffice with the text that is intended for an academic audience. You must improve the English throughout the manuscript in order to make the paper publishable.
Research problem should be expressed more accurately. You have collected a list of questions of matters that we do not have enough knowledge (“Currently we do not know enough about"), but your research problem statement remains a rather vague: “The research aims to detect the habit and demands of users of rural coworking spaces and estimate and assess the influence on local offers and services for mobility, consumption, shopping, catering, social and cultural.” For example, in the discussion section you focus on three particular questions: “1) what is desired to work in a third place, 2) who would work there and 3) what is the consequence of the usage of this facility?” Why are not these three elements included explicitly in your problem statement, if you devote much space for them in the discussion of your empirical results? In all, try to make your research problem as nuanced as possible, so that it guides your research and serves as questions to which ultimately answer with your empirical research.
Chapter 3 (Materials and Methods) could be simply entitled ‘Methodology’. Before going into details, you could very briefly explain why you chose survey method and what characterises it. Brief description with adequate reference is enough, as you apply a conventional methodology in your paper. The other matter to be explicitly addressed is how to deal with the small sample data affects your analysis, which relies mainly on descriptive statistics. You must be explicit about this aspect of your methodology, including its limitations.
Do check the discussion about response rate, for it is supposed to be a percentage which indicates the number of respondents divided by the number of people who make up the total sample group. You mention that 13 operators distributed the survey to their clients, and you got replies from 12 of them, which implies that you do not know the size of your actual sample. The point is that you cannot say what your response rate is if you do not have the required information. A better estimation of your response rate would be if you can check the number of tenants/users of all those 13 operators (minus possible overlaps), and use that as a number indicating your total sample group. Anyway, be more accurate with such basic methodological matters.
Your discussion section should be about assessing your own empirical results vis-à-vis the existing research. However, you refer to your own results rather vaguely. This sections should, in any case, highlight the role of your own results and their relationship with the results of prior research, and address also the relevance of your results. You may, of course, raise a few issues as a spin-off of your analysis and theoretical discussions, but that is better to present after the discussion of your own empirical results. In any case, the discussion section includes a few interesting points, which are worth presenting to the research community and a wider audience.
There were a few careless mistakes in the text. Check once more that such errors are omitted, including such as line 187 (a technical problem); Figure 1 (years should be from earlier in the left to more recent in the right; e.g. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 etc.); Figure 3 (by feed -> by feet); etc.
In all, your paper discusses an interesting topic and it contains many interesting points. Yet, its language should be improved and it would benefit from a higher level of academic rigor.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This is a topical paper when considering the renewed interest in distant work due to COVID-19 crisis. The paper itself is a concise. Yet, it has both language and methodological challenges that should be addressed in the revision. Detailed comments can be found below.
The title is probably too broad when contrasting it with the content of your analysis. I suggest that you narrow it down a bit, especially as your empirical evidence is extremely limited.
Responds to the reviewer 3:
We changed the title as it is recommended from reviewer 1 to “Digitization as a Driver fur Rural Development – An Indicative Description of German Coworking Space Users”
Introduction to the topic works properly. However, starting from the introduction, the proficiency of English is not sufficient. Let me points only to a few sentences in the intro: “Most prominently in the urban-rural divide discourse is however the demographic disparity [5,6].” --- “Cities and urban agglomerations are growing and the number of their inhabitants are increasing since the first wave of industrialization, faster and faster in the last decades in nearly every part of the world – the so called urbanization process [10]. Forced by the agriculture science, mechanization and industrialization the workforce which is needed, to feed the population, is shrinking [11].” --- “Yet, in several fields of society (economy, democracy, science etc.) it exhibits an advanced stage in rural-urban disparity as well.” This kind of writing does not suffice with the text that is intended for an academic audience. You must improve the English throughout the manuscript in order to make the paper publishable.
Response to the reviewer 3:
We will go through an English editing process after the revision of the content.
Research problem should be expressed more accurately. You have collected a list of questions of matters that we do not have enough knowledge (“Currently we do not know enough about"), but your research problem statement remains a rather vague: “The research aims to detect the habit and demands of users of rural coworking spaces and estimate and assess the influence on local offers and services for mobility, consumption, shopping, catering, social and cultural.” For example, in the discussion section you focus on three particular questions: “1) what is desired to work in a third place, 2) who would work there and 3) what is the consequence of the usage of this facility?” Why are not these three elements included explicitly in your problem statement, if you devote much space for them in the discussion of your empirical results? In all, try to make your research problem as nuanced as possible, so that it guides your research and serves as questions to which ultimately answer with your empirical research.
Responds to the reviewer 3:
We reduced the research questions to the 3 from the discussion.
Chapter 3 (Materials and Methods) could be simply entitled ‘Methodology’. Before going into details, you could very briefly explain why you chose survey method and what characterises it. Brief description with adequate reference is enough, as you apply a conventional methodology in your paper. The other matter to be explicitly addressed is how to deal with the small sample data affects your analysis, which relies mainly on descriptive statistics. You must be explicit about this aspect of your methodology, including its limitations.
Response to the reviewer 3:
We changed the title to “Methodology’” and added a rationale for the methods and the type of questions.
Do check the discussion about response rate, for it is supposed to be a percentage which indicates the number of respondents divided by the number of people who make up the total sample group. You mention that 13 operators distributed the survey to their clients, and you got replies from 12 of them, which implies that you do not know the size of your actual sample. The point is that you cannot say what your response rate is if you do not have the required information. A better estimation of your response rate would be if you can check the number of tenants/users of all those 13 operators (minus possible overlaps), and use that as a number indicating your total sample group. Anyway, be more accurate with such basic methodological matters.
Response to the reviewer 3:
We do not know to how many coworkers the operators of the coworking space forwarded, due to that we can not calculate a typical respond rate. Even we don’t have the number of the coworking space tenants. We described that in a section.
Your discussion section should be about assessing your own empirical results vis-à-vis the existing research. However, you refer to your own results rather vaguely. This sections should, in any case, highlight the role of your own results and their relationship with the results of prior research, and address also the relevance of your results. You may, of course, raise a few issues as a spin-off of your analysis and theoretical discussions, but that is better to present after the discussion of your own empirical results. In any case, the discussion section includes a few interesting points, which are worth presenting to the research community and a wider audience.
Response to the reviewer 3:
After showing an describing our findings in the literature (Section 2) and from the survey in section 4. We discuss them in section 5 and formulate conclusions in section 6, supplemented with limitations and an outlook for further research with questions, which are still unanswered.
There were a few careless mistakes in the text. Check once more that such errors are omitted, including such as line 187 (a technical problem); Figure 1 (years should be from earlier in the left to more recent in the right; e.g. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 etc.); Figure 3 (by feed -> by feet); etc.
Responds to the reviewer 3:
We have taken care of that, reversed it to order of years, the previous line 187 and addressed the mistake in figure 3.
In all, your paper discusses an interesting topic and it contains many interesting points. Yet, its language should be improved and it would benefit from a higher level of academic rigor.
Response to the reviewer 3:
We will go through an English editing process after the revision of the content and hope to meet the needed improvement.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors have responded sufficiently to the points raised in the first review round. Paper fullfils in its current form minimum criteria for an academic publication. A quick check of the final outcome is always worth doing, but in general this can be published after such a check.
Author Response
We reworked the manuscript regarding the last comments, hoping to fulfil the demanded improvement.
