Re‐imagining the workplace of the future: Key tensions in co‐creation

Abstract This editorial introduces the 12 papers of this Special Issue on the Workplace of the Future and organizes them into four thematic clusters, namely the changing architecture of work beyond firm boundaries; the expanded role of technology as teammate, infrastructure, and mechanism of control; the lived experiences of flexibility, fragmentation, and professional isolation; and the conditions under which agency, creativity, and care can rehumanize future workplaces. Across these papers, the workplace of the future emerges as a set of context‐dependent arrangements shaped through interactions among workers, managers, organizations, platforms, customers, and institutions. We draw on co‐creation as an integrative lens through which the contributions of this Special Issue can be read together. We argue that outcomes, such as well‐being, inclusion, coordination, creativity, and governance, are not delivered by technologies, spaces, or formal practices alone, but rather they are produced through ongoing interactions among workers, managers, organizations, platforms, customers, and institutional environments. At the same time, the papers also show that these processes are not uniformly positive: future workplaces may reproduce exclusion, intensify surveillance, and distribute voice and value unevenly. We conclude by outlining a research agenda structured around four tensions surfaced by the collection: technology as driver versus technology‐in‐use, place as location versus place as inclusion infrastructure, firm‐level Human Resource Management (HRM) versus ecosystem governance, and co‐creation versus co‐destruction.