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In Norway, as in many other countries, professionalized elderly care faces a twin challenge: lack of competent labor combined with disinvestment in elderly care. Furthermore, while the number of elderly people in need of care is projected to rise over the coming decades, politicians are reluctant to commit more resources to the sector. Instead, innovation is seen as the solution. But in the policy debate on these issues, innovation is largely understood to be technological. This paper argues that the experience-based knowledge of assistants, healthcare professionals and nurses working in elderly care is an overlooked resource for innovation. By discussing three ways such knowledge is mobilized for innovation in nursing homes, we show that employee knowledge can help solve problems articulate under a logic of care, but also to solve problems traditionally thought of as belonging to the domain of management.

Schools play a central role in preventing mental health problems from affecting the development and educational opportunities of youth. While school health and social pedagogical support services have expanded in many countries, they are still not considered sufficient in meeting the needs of vulnerable youth. We find particular challenges in the development of sustainable collaboration to support the target group. In this article, we present and analyze empirical data from ongoing trailing research on an interprofessional team focusing on the health and psychosocial conditions of students in various upper secondary schools in Norway. In the article, we discuss what conditions need to be in place for inter-professional collaboration to succeed in the efforts to support students at risk of dropping out of upper secondary school. The article is theoretically influenced by boundary literature and analyzes challenges and opportunities in boundary crossing between different professions and service areas. In the article, we argue for the need to spend time on establishing a reflecting understanding of which qualities the various actors possess and what they should contribute with to create a collaboration that constitutes more than the coordination of what already exists, thereby creating intersecting practices; so-called third spaces.

This article analyses how public sport policy is made as a result of the interactions between the public sport administration, the political system and sport organizations, and discusses the relevance of three theoretical approaches — corporatism, policy communities and clientelism — for explaining policy-making within the Norwegian context. It builds on two case studies. The first case study concerns the process leading up to the adoption of Parliament's white paper on `Changing Sport Life', whereas the second case investigates the processes leading to the change in the law on gambling, which had a considerable impact on sport funding. These two cases cast light on different ways in which sport policy is made. The white paper on sport life is a central policy document that defines the objectives and means of public policies within sport, whereas the law on gambling has a determinant impact on the public funding of sport. The sport administration initiated the first case, whereas the Norwegian sport confederation initiated the second case. These two case studies suggest that the neo-corporatist model that was used to characterize the field of sport from 1946 onward has been undergoing transformations during the last decade, even if some neo-corporatist features persist.

Trond Bliksvær,1 Tilde Marie Bertelsen,2 Merete Kvamme Fabritius,1 Morten Balle Hansen,2 Bente Vibecke Lunde,3 Ragnhild Holmen Waldahl1 1Nordland Research Institute, Bodø, Norway; 2Center for Organization, Management and Administration (COMA), Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark; 3Faculty of Social Sciences, Nord University, Bodø, NorwayCorrespondence: Trond BliksværNordland Research Institute, Pb 1490, Bodø, 8049, NorwayTel +47 95075408Email tbl@nforsk.noIntroduction: Home-based reablement (HBR) has achieved significant international prominence in recent years. In the Nordic countries, HBR has been introduced as an innovative care model within the municipal health care sector that answers the need for better and more effective service delivery. But knowledge about how innovations can be spread in the municipal health care sector is scarce. We also know little about what role first-line managers (FLMs) may play for the diffusion of innovations.Purpose: To describe and explain adoption of HBR in municipalities in Norway and to explore if there is a relationship between early/late adoption and the FLM's perception of innovativeness in their organization. Such knowledge is valuable for the understanding of the role of FLM for the diffusion of innovations in the health care sector.Methods: A cross-sectional national online survey was carried out among FLM in the eldercare sector in 422 Norwegian municipalities. The response rate was 64%. The analysis was based on univariate and bivariate techniques, factor analysis, and multiple linear regression.Results: A bivariate analysis revealed that early adoption is associated with a high score on perception of innovativeness among FLMs. Innovators and early adopters scored highest (5.65) on perception of innovativeness, followed by early majority (5.31) and late majority (5.18). The lowest score was found among Laggards. A multiple regression analysis revealed that a substantial part of the positive relationship between early adoption and perception of innovativeness can be explained by FLMs' length of service in the organization and their educational level. Wealth of the municipality does not have an effect on innovativeness.Conclusion: An implication of the results is that mature and stable personnel in key positions in the organization, and personnel with higher education, can be positive for innovativeness in the municipal health care sector.Keywords: restorative care, innovativeness, diffusion of innovations, health care service, elderly care