Experiencing a New Place as an Atmosphere: A Focus on Tours of Collaborative Spaces

In this article, we ethnographically explore how tour guides convey different embodied experiences of space and place during tours of collaborative spaces. These tours draw on participants' embodied experience and emotions in order to reveal the invisible dimensions of everyday activities of collaborative spaces, in particular their different organizational atmospheres. By systematically coding 110 tours of such spaces, we identify four emotional registers - "initiation," "commodification," "selection," and "gamification," which are used by tour guides to produce a particular atmosphere. We feel that the concept of "atmosphere" is a powerful means of exploring the unbounded and fluid spatiality, the quasi-materiality, and the temporality of the work practices that individuals are likely to experience if they become members of these collaborative spaces. We conclude our analyses by considering the implications of this study for the management of collaborative spaces and new work practices more generally.