New Public Management (NPM) is one of the most significant reforms in public welfare in recent times. Making individual civil servants more dependent on the directions of the local manager than on common professional standards, previous sociological research argues that NPM results in a ‘deprofessionalization’ of civil servants. Taking a somewhat different approach, recent public administration research indicates that NPM may, at the same time, enhance the professional status of welfare managers. By integrating the literature on the sociology of professions and public administration, this article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the influence of NPM using the example of a professional project for school principals in Sweden. Taking a process‐oriented methodological approach, the result shows that Swedish school principals gained increased support for their professional project by the introduction of NPM. The article argues that NPM can function as a catalyst for welfare managers' professional projects.

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Deliberately set school fires cause significant economic, material, and social damage to society. This article aims to contribute to a sociological understanding and explanation of school fires set by juveniles and to the development of effective prevention strategies based on the results obtained. The study draws upon comprehensive empirical data from qualitative and quantitative research consisting of a questionnaire survey, substantive interviews, and document analysis. The findings show firesetting to be a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, which calls for a diversified approach to prevention relying on structural, situational, and social interventions. While juveniles setting schools on fire appear in many respects to be similar to other youths engaged in delinquent behaviours in society, the fires they set can be internally categorized according to firesetting motive, offender characteristics, and modus operandi. The implications of the resulting typology of six main types of school fires for prevention work are discussed, with practical suggestions for effective countermeasures offered.

Background Pursuing the vision ‘for a good life in an attractive region,’ the Region Jönköping County (RJC) in Sweden oversees public health and health-care services for its 360 000 residents. For more than three decades, RJC has applied ‘quality as strategy,’ which has included increasing involvement of patients, family and friends and citizens. This practice has evolved, coinciding with the growing recognition of co-production as a fundamental feature in health-care services. This study views co-production as an umbrella term including different methods, initiatives and organizational levels. When learning about co-production in health-care services, it can be helpful to approach it as a dynamic and reflective process. Objective This study aims to describe the examples of key developmental steps toward co-production as a system property and to highlight ‘lessons learned’ from a Swedish health system’s journey. Method This qualitative descriptive study draws on interviews with key stakeholders and on documents, such as local policy documents, project reports, meeting protocols and presentations. Co-production initiatives were defined as strategies, projects, quality improvement (QI) programs or other efforts, which included persons with patient experience and/or their next of kin (PPE). We used directed manifest content analysis to identify initiatives, timelines and methods and inductive conventional content analysis to capture lessons learned over time. Results The directed content analyses identified 22 co-production initiatives from 1997 until today. Methods and approaches to facilitate co-production included development of personas, storytelling, person-centered care approaches, various co-design methods, QI interventions, harnessing of PPEs in different staff roles, and PPE-driven improvement and networks. The lessons learned included the following aspects of co-production: relations and structure; micro-, meso- and macro-level approaches; attitudes and roles; drivers for development; diversity; facilitating change; new perspectives on current work; consequences; uncertainties; theories and outcomes; and regulations and frames. Conclusions Co-production evolved as an increasingly significant aspect of services in the RJC health system. The initiatives examined in this study provide a broad overview and understanding of some of the RJC co-production journey, illustrating a health system’s approach to co-production within a context of long-standing application of QI and microsystem theories. The main lessons include the constancy of direction, the strategy for improvement, engaged leaders, continuous learning and development from practical experience, and the importance of relationships with national and international experts in the pursuit of system-wide health-care co-production.