Strategic programmes are frequently employed by organisations to drive transformational change, particularly when sectors pursue systemic shifts, such as the circularity transition. However, despite their potential, these programmes often fail to effect lasting change within their parent organisations, with outcomes remaining disconnected. This study examines how programme integration mechanisms shape organisational transformation in circularity-oriented change programmes. Several mechanisms were identified through a comparative case study of Dutch public construction clients. The findings suggest that isolating such programmes from the parent organisation hinders organisational transformation. Instead, the early incorporation of integration mechanisms is essential to facilitate both learning and unlearning processes, ensuring the effective and sustainable adoption of circular practices. Moreover, findings show that temporal alignment emerges as a decisive factor in a programme’s transformative capacity, as mismatches between programme and organisational learning trajectories can limit systemic impact. These insights contribute to strategic programme literature by demonstrating how these programmes can, depending on their formal and informal mechanisms, promote or stall transformative change.

The recent mission-oriented discourse in innovation policy increasingly recognizes the need for participatory, anticipatory, reflexive, and tentative governance modes to address the wickedness associated with societal challenges. In this paper, we introduce the Mission-Oriented Transition Assessment (MOTA) approach as a novel way to collectively anticipate and reflect upon current and future mission-oriented transition dynamics, and we subsequently demonstrate this approach in the context of the Dutch mission ‘Circular infrastructure by 2050’. Using socio-technical scenarios, we apply MOTA to support stakeholders, particularly policymakers, in governing missions. Stakeholders reflect on their role in transitions to collectively find ways to overcome transition barriers and address tensions between the current and future socio-technical systems. Results indicate various ways in which MOTA contributes to stakeholders' awareness and preparedness, as well as the social robustness and alignment of action perspectives in the transition towards a circular infrastructure sector. As such, MOTA helps reveal valuable strategic and actionable insights to better understand and address societal challenges and mission barriers.