Purpose: Using a large-scale school improvement program in Sweden as a case, this article aims to explore the state governance of a large-scale school improvement program in Sweden and how officials at the state agency level made sense of the reform ideas and operationalized them in policy actions. Design/methodology/approach: Data were integrated from Swedish Government Official Reports and formal directives from the Ministry of Education. Officials of the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) were also interviewed. Data were analyzed to identify how regulatory rules, professional norms and cultural-cognitive beliefs shaped SNAE's design of the program. Findings: The article shows how different types of governance (i.e. regulatory rules, professional norms and cultural-cognitive beliefs) set the direction for managing large-scale school improvement. In particular, in the studied case, the lack of clear regulatory directives enabled sensemaking processes clearly influenced by normative ideas and cultural-cognitive beliefs. Research limitations/implications: The findings are mostly presented from the perspective of managers, so further study is required to attain a broader understanding of the state agency level's role and function. Practical implications: By illustrating the strengths of understanding various dimensions of educational governance, the findings are highly relevant to both policymakers and educational managers at different levels of school systems. Originality/value: The article offers a valuable perspective on large-scale school improvement and educational governance by focusing on a level that has hitherto received little attention.