This article investigates the role of practices in sustainability transitions. Employing a social practices approach, we analyze the reproduction of car-sharing practices and discuss its role in transitions to sustainable mobility. We assemble data from interviews with 39 households using car sharing in Oslo, Norway, and show three specific ways of reproducing car-sharing practices: (a) FUSS: Frequent, Unplanned, Short-term, and Small-car use, (b) POLL: Planned, Occasional, Longer-term, and Larger-car use; and (c) PERC: Purpose Elected from Range of Cars. After examining contributing factors, especially the role of provider and user contexts, we turn to how car sharing relates to other household practices. We highlight how car-dependent activities and substitutes for daily car use contribute to the reproduction of car-sharing. We then discuss how the reproduction of a new practice can help to explain the process through which a niche-based practice becomes a regime-based practice in the transition from one mobility regime to a new one. The article shows that by understanding the reproduction of practices as several different performances, a social practices approach can contribute to understanding the normalization of new mobility practices in sustainability transitions.

Social practice theories can be useful for studying changes in mobility systems as regards automobility practices. However, many studies address the demand side and the user practices of consumers, without examining the supplier side. This Norwegian study focuses on the role of providers in car-sharing practices, using data from household interviews with car-sharing users, stakeholder workshops, and interviews with providers of car-sharing services. How are car-sharing providers shaping car-sharing practices, and with what implications? How do business models and platform technologies affect car-sharing practices? The results show how new car-sharing service companies, in addition to established firms such as car dealers and car rental companies, affect car-sharing practices by offering several alternatives for accessing cars. The implications of this are discussed, noting how car-sharing practices are shaped by car-sharing providers in the recursive relationship between practice-as-entity and practice-as-performance. The conclusions offer a critical view of how the providers contribute to various kinds of car-sharing understandings, as well as the implications for policy and practitioners.

Car sharing could support a transition away from private vehicle ownership and use. Attempts to understand participation in car sharing have primarily focused on minor and major disruptions which catalyse change in practices. This paper examines how processes of entering, continuing or exiting car sharing systems unfold in Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Car sharing is conceptualised as an arrangement of elements assembled, adjusted and supported by events, practices and habits. Drawing on biographically-oriented household interviews, we build on and extend existing understandings of change and stability in car sharing in four ways. First, by focusing on households rather than individual users, the paper complements recent attempts to understand the decoupling of family and private-car-based mobility. Second, under-examined processes of exiting, alongside entry and continuation are considered. Third, it highlights the importance of recognising more imperceptible, gradual and continuous changes which might not necessarily coincide with a disruptive event. Fourth, habits of shared car arrangements are demonstrated to be fragile and not as deeply ingrained as those associated with ownership. Existing household practices and habits thus raise further questions about the potential for shared mobility services to disrupt the primacy of the car.

Creating a culture for social innovation in universities can involve formalising and internalising processes that aim to support efforts towards using research results in society. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion on how the present higher education institution system promotes work with social innovation. The paper presents lessons from efforts to establish a (social) innovation programme in a university. The data used for this qualitative case study are board documents, motivation letters, evaluation forms, reports from working groups and a workshop with a survey. The paper approaches two research questions: (1) How can a (social) innovation programme operate within a university’s existing managerial, financial and social structures to facilitate researchers’ work with social innovations? (2) How can a (social) innovation programme that facilitates researchers’ work with social innovation at a university contribute to building a physical, intellectual, managerial, and logistic environment that can create a culture for innovation? With the first research question, the paper maps work on the pilot projects with initial motivations, early engagements in the programme, and future participation expectations. This connects to how the programme operates within the university’s existing structures. The second research question shows the implications of this work, looking at how the innovation programme contributes to creating a culture for social innovation at the university. The results show how the programme can contribute to a) support researchers in their own work by further developing their research results into actions of societal usefulness and b) establish an arena that can contribute to creating a culture for working with social innovation within the university. How this can be conceptualised as ‘social innovation-as-practice’ is then discussed. Based on the findings, suggestions about how the present system can be improved are offered.