Regionala och kommunala strategier för coworkingföretag
A mapping of the occurrence of coworking spaces (CWS) in Sweden outside the metropolitan regions, and their growth and functions, was carried out during the winter/spring of 2022 on behalf of Tillväxtanalys.
Project title: Regionala och kommunala strategier för coworkingföretag
Project leader:
Hans Westlund
Participating company/organization:
The Remote Lab
Financed by: Länsförsäkringar (
Stiftelsen Länsförsäkringsgruppens Forsknings- & Utvecklingsfond
)
Project duration: 2024-04-01-2025-09-30
Among many interesting results, several examples were discovered of CWS:s acting as informal "business incubators" when companies seek to establish themselves in a new region, often with the aim of eventually growing and creating an office of their own. Based on this, a follow-up study was carried out in the spring of 2023 on behalf of Tillväxtanalys, which was specifically aimed at mapping the extent to which CWS:s is used by established companies to create new nodes in other cities. That study also found that there are a large number of companies that use CWS as landing places when expanding their operations outside the place of origin. The total number of new establishments via CWS in the country was calculated to be just over 900, with over 3,000 employees. However, this "tacit" spread of growth companies is largely unknown to municipalities and regions. As a next step in the investigation of CWS's role for local and regional growth, this project aims to investigate municipalities' and regions' awareness of and possible collaborations with CWS, and what strategies or models municipalities and regions have developed to benefit from CWS as part of the local expansion work. In Sweden, there is a lack of systematic knowledge about this.