This article examines means to improve the ability of work organization development programmes to create and disseminate good practices. The article states that there is a growing need for strategies that understand good practices more as generative ideas than 'ready-made' objects, and in which the focus of attention is on the creation of interactive contexts between various players already at the project planning and implementation stage. The 'modules' of the Norwegian Enterprise Development 2000 Programme (1994-2001) and the 'network projects' and 'learning networks' of the Finnish Workplace Development Programme (1996-2009) are used as examples of the principles of the new strategy in practice.

This paper looks at the possibilities that a broad-based innovation policy contained by the national innovation strategy recently adopted in

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PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the dissemination of high‐involvement innovation practices at Finnish workplaces and to consider how their adoption can be promoted by means of a publicly‐funded R&D programme.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical material is based on a survey by the Finnish Workplace Development Programme TYKES. (TYKES is a governmental R&D programme for promoting simultaneous improvements in productivity and the quality of working life by granting funding to development projects at Finnish workplaces.)FindingsThe interim results of the survey provide a strong evidence‐based argument in favour of the supportive role of the programme.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests areas where governments might introduce support programmes to foster the spread of innovative activity.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights into support policy issues in Finland and will be of interest to those involved in that field.

This article provides an analysis of strategies aimed to promote workplace innovation in nine national and regional policy contexts in the last few years. Its conceptual objective is to elaborate a model, developed by Naschold, and assess its usability in the analysis of contemporary workplace development strategies. The empirical objective of this article is to assess strengths and weaknesses of the strategies and similarities and differences between them by means of the model. The comparison results in a map of profiles of the nine strategies. The policy objective of this article is to raise issues that can be considered crucial for promoting learning across national borders in workplace development. The study was implemented between 2005 and 2008 as part of the EU-funded WORK- IN-NET project (2004-9).