Curated informality in corporate coworking

In corporate coworking, corporate teams enter coworking spaces, deliberately seeking informality for stimulation, inspiration, and novelty. Formal organizational rules still exist for such coworkers and intersect with the informality of the coworking space. Based on 36 semi-structured interviews with eight teams, we examine how corporate coworkers experience and navigate the interplay between formality and informality, and the resulting tensions. We draw upon Luhmann’s concept of decision premises to theorize formality/informality as (un)decided expectation structures. Using abductive reasoning, we refer to curatorial practices in the arts and suggest the concept of curated informality as a complementing analytical lens through which to interpret how informality is perceived and enacted. We empirically identify six dimensions of curated informality and demonstrate that tensions stem from persistent formalities, mismatched expectations, and informal adjustments. The study contributes to the understanding of corporate coworking dynamics and to debates on the (purposeful) cultivation of informality within formal organizations.