Solidarity as a byproduct of professional collaboration: Social support and trust in a coworking space

This article investigates solidarity arising from economic exchange, by studying a multiplex network of collaboration, trust and social support. After a qualitative pre-study, we performed a full-network survey on a group of independent professionals sharing a coworking space and occasionally collaborating with each other. By running multivariate Exponential Random Graph Models, we showed that successful collaboration might not determine expectations of social support. However, these relationships were related to business-based trust ties, which were predicted by collaboration. Our results suggest that solidarity can emerge as a byproduct of peer economic exchange when trust mediates between professional relationships and expressive ties.