The long-term outcomes of reform processes in the public sector remain understudied inthe literature. This study investigates the Swedish Transport Administration (STA)employees’ and managers’ translation and internalization of their new role as societaldevelopers. Since the STA’s founding in 2010 and until 2018, the STA head officeneither guided nor centrally determined how to define and understand the STA’s role as asocietal developer. We examine this internalization process through the lens ofCzarniawska’s translation model of the distribution of ideas as a collective creationthrough local translation and adaptation. The study shows that the ongoing friction thatoccurs when the concept and role of a societal developer are discussed and disseminatedwithin an organization is influenced by prevailing identities and local action nets. It alsoshows that the translation of this new role eventually failed, due to either it beingsubmerged within already-existing concepts or it having a perceived lack of relevance.We conducted this mixed-method study over six years (2016–2021) using documentaryanalysis, workshop participation, interviews and a survey.