Abstract

This article outlines a theoretical framework to be used in the analysis of sport programme implementation. The need for such a framework resides in the increase in government interest in sport during the last decades, expressed in various top-down programmes positioning voluntary sports clubs as intended implementers, and in recent calls for a theoretical grounding of implementation analysis. The framework consists of two main parts. One is the translation perspective, proposed as an approach to understand sport programmes as open to (re)construction. The other is the organizational identity concept, proposed as a tool to understand how and why implementing organizations interpret and act upon, i.e., translate sport programmes. It is argued that the use of the framework, in tandem with the proposed methodological approach ‘follow the actor’, will provide new insights into the sport programme implementation analysis. An analysis of a national initiative on organized spontaneous sports, part of the Swedish government’s programme ‘The Lift for Sport’, is used to illustrate the proposed framework. Verf.-Referat