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The purpose of this paper is to shed light on co-creative approaches for place innovation in an Arctic town, based on the relocation of Kiruna’s city center in northern Sweden. Three cases of co-creative innovation processes in Kiruna are investigated and compared: an R&D project about local perceptions and visions of attractive urban environments; an R&D project about norm-creative design principles for inclusive and attractive urban design; and an R&D project about cross-industrial synergies for city center attractiveness.

The study’s research design encompasses a comparative and participatory approach. The comparative approach implies investigation and comparison of three cases of co-creative innovation processes in Kiruna. The participatory approach implies joint development of new knowledge by researchers and local actors. The data consists of participatory observations of workshops and qualitative interviews with local actors.

The study reveals that the studied processes have harnessed the city center relocation as an opportunity to make Kiruna more attractive to residents and visitors, by using the co-creative approaches of Living Lab, Now-Wow-How and Norm-creative design. These approaches have enabled experts and local actors to jointly identify excluding patterns and norms in the relocation process and to envision inclusive and attractive (re-)configurations and (re-)conceptualizations of the future Kiruna.

The results add to the academic strand of inclusive urban transformation, by providing insights into co-creative approaches for re-imagining an Arctic town in times of industrial and social change. New insights are provided regarding how the geographical, industrial and cultural identity of an Arctic town can be harnessed to envision new configuration, content and communication that is attractive and accessible for a diversity of residents and visitors.

The results highlight the potential to harness Arctic and rural characteristics in the promotion of urban attractiveness and public well-being, especially when combined with co-creative identification and transformation of excluding norms and patterns.

The results provide new insights into how co-creative approaches may facilitate innovative and inclusive renewal of towns and cities in the Arctic and beyond.

There are not many answers to the question of how the development projects launched to improve business performance in SMEs have succeeded. This study focuses on business development success in SMEs. The main objective is to structure and model the success dimensions that contribute to and can be used in evaluating the business development success in SMEs.

The study utilises multiple case study methodology, following the replication approach. The empirical evidence is based on data from four SMEs that have implemented a business development project. Two of the projects were perceived as successful and the other two as unsuccessful.

This study builds a framework for a business development project success in a SME context. In the SME context the business development project success seems to be dependent on several interrelated dimensions. Success in one area leads to success in other areas, and so creates an upward success spiral. Failure in one area seems to lead to failure in other areas, too, thus creating a downward failure spiral.

The results provide a basis for benchmarking one's business and evaluate how well one's own firm meets the success dimensions and its focus areas.

The framework for success dimensions has been developed providing a systematic way to analyse the business development project and its impact on the performing company. A setting for analysing the project success from different time perspectives in a SME context has been produced.