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Contemporary organisational landscapes offer opportunities for hybrids to thrive. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are one thriving hybrid form incorporating the use of resources and/or structures from both public and private sectors. The study examines the impact of such a hybrid structure on governance and accountability mechanisms in a context of institutional complexity.

This study uses an approach that draws on institutional logics and hybridity to examine governance arrangements in the PPP policy created for the delivery of UK schools. Unusually, it employs a comparative case study of how four local governments implemented the policy. It draws on a framework developed by Polzer et al. (2017) to examine the level of engagement between multiple logics and hybrid structures and applies this to the delivery of governance and accountability for public money.

The Polzer et al. framework enables a study of how the nature of hybrids can vary in terms of their governance, ownership and control relations. The findings show how the relationships between levels of engagement of multiple logics and hybrid structures can impact on governance and accountability for public money. Layering and blending combinations led to increased adoption of private sector accountability structures, whilst a hybrid with parallel co-existence of community and market logics delivered a long-term governance structure.

The paper examines the operation of hybrids in a complex education PPP environment in only four local governments and therefore cannot provide representative answers across the population as a whole. However, given the considerable variation found across the four examples, the paper shows there can be significant differentiation in how multiple logics engage at different levels and in varying combinations even in the same hybrid setting. The paper focuses on capital investment implementation and its evaluation, so it is a limitation that the operational stage of PPP projects is not studied.

The findings have political relevance because the two local government bodies with more robust combinations of multiple logics were more successful in getting funds and delivering schools in their geographical areas.

The study extends Polzer et al.'s (2017) research on hybridity by showing that there can be significant differentiation in how multiple logics engage at different levels and in varying combinations even in what was planned to be the same hybrid setting. It shows how in situations of institutional complexity certain combinations of logics lead to differentiation in governance and accountability, creating fragmented focus on the related public accountability structures. This matters because it becomes harder to hold government to account for public spending.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between the existence of asset specificity and the architecture of the hybrid governance structures adopted by horticultural smallholders from the Brazilian region of Serra Fluminense.

This paper uses a negative binomial regression model to analyze 567 transactions carried out by horticultural smallholders from the Brazilian region of Serra Fluminense. Starting from the insights of Oliver Williamson’s transaction cost economics, an indicator is constructed with the goal to capture the degree of intensity of coordination from the adoption of diverse bundles of coordination mechanisms in a governance structure.

The results show that higher levels of human and physical asset specificity affect the intensity of coordination of the transactions in the sample, leading to the adoption of hybrid forms with more complex bundles of coordination mechanisms.

This paper adds to a growing literature that studies the architecture of complex governance structures. However, its empirical conclusions are exploratory.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, quantitative empirical studies that analyze the diversity of hybrid forms in the same industry are relatively rare. This contribution also presents a theoretical discussion that might inform scholars dealing with similar research challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which transaction cost theory on hybrid governance structures can explain hybrid personalities observed in the South African sugar industry.

Three governance structures used simultaneously by the same company to purchase sugar cane from small-scale growers are described in detail. One of these structures is close to a market arrangement, the other two are hybrids. The discriminating alignment hypothesis and more recent work on hybrid models are used to explain the factors driving the choice for a hybrid arrangement and determining their specific form. Factors not covered by theory are identified.

At least two areas would need to be included to explain the specific form taken by the studied governance structures: production characteristics and financial constraints of the transacting parties. Furthermore, the importance of national and local regulations in affecting organizational form by determining what is and is not possible is demonstrated.

This case study highlights limitations of current theory in fully explaining the “personality” of governance structures. Future work should not shun the finer details of governance structures and their interaction with the institutional environment.

Inclusive business models are promoted as tools for poverty alleviation and economic development. Public involvement plays an important role, however, more research is required to understand its reach and leverage its full potential.

This paper is the first to rigorously apply transaction cost theory to inclusive business models in agricultural sourcing, an area which is rapidly gaining prominence on the development agenda. It shows that a complete understanding requires going beyond current theory.

Relationship learning is a topic of considerable importance for industrial networks, yet a lack of empirical research on the impact of relationship governance structures on relationship learning remains. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of relationship governance structures on learning in partnerships.

This paper contributes to the closure of the research gap by examining sample data drawn from 42 interviews on the subject of 199 customer‐supplier relationships within the Finnish metal and electronics industries. As a method, the paper applies cluster analysis and analysis of variance mean‐comparison.

The results of this paper show that balanced hybrid governance structures explain learning in partnerships, which suggests that certain combinations of relationship governance mechanisms (price, hierarchical, and social mechanism) produce the best learning outcomes in partnerships. Results suggest that managers should use hybrid relationship governance structures when governing their supplier partnerships.

The paper has some limitations such as limited sample size, cross‐sectional data, and difficulties due to measuring social phenomenon such as learning. Owing to the interview method being applied, research is bound to apply a sample data drawn from companies that operate in the west coast in Finland. These limitations need to be considered when applying the results.

The results encourage managers to use different governance mechanisms simultaneously when managing their company's supply chain partnerships. The result emphasizes the role of active relationship management.

The paper is one of the first to empirically show that relationship learning is best facilitated by using various relationship governance mechanisms simultaneously. Trust needs to be complemented by hierarchical and possibly by price mechanism.

Following a negative attitude of consumers toward genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the spaces left by the labeling legislation on GMOs of different countries, some retailers and processors introduced their own non-GMO standards, with the intention of avoiding the presence of GMOs in their products. This paper aims to understand how the implementation of these new retailer-driven standards affects governance structures along the supply chain and the determinants of such change focusing on transaction cost approach (TCA) vs resource-based view (RBV).

The non-GMO introduction is investigated as a case study in the poultry industry of France and Italy. The case relies on data primarily collected from interviews with the main actors at five stages of the supply chain from the retailer up to animal feed and crop production.

Findings indicate that the introduction of non-GMO products had different impacts on the transactions along the supply chain, generally leading to more integrated relationships. Theoretical relevance depends on the observed transaction and the type of governance structure considered. Interestingly, only RBV explains the shift toward hierarchical governance when this is observed.

This paper contributes to the empirical literature highlighting the upstream effects caused by the adoption of new standards. On the theoretical side, building on Conner and Prahalad’s (1996) seminal work and leveraging on the concepts of opportunism, “potential” superior knowledge and strategic importance of an activity, this research suggests a comparative framework for identifying governance structures and their determinants under TCA and RBV.

Practitioners often are confused by theories that offer ambiguous prescriptions for designing the institutional forms or governance structures in which business activities are conducted. Unclear prescriptions for organizing tasks within the main governance alternatives leave key design decisions unguided: which tasks to perform in‐house (hierarchy), which to contract to outside agencies (market), and which to perform jointly by economic units within and outside the firm (hybrid)? A popular current theory ‐ transaction cost analysis ‐ suggests that governance structures should be aligned to tasks in a “mainly transaction cost economizing way.” Argues that the importance of transaction costs is overstated, and that observed patterns of firms’ governance structures suggest that firms also account for other theoretical issues ‐ production costs and strategic considerations ‐ in determining efficient boundaries. Begins by illustrating that transaction costs are not always primary. Then discusses the factors that impact production costs and transaction costs, and reviews certain strategic considerations that impact the choice of governance structure for a task. Offers practitioners guidance in choosing governance structures through a contingency analysis that examines the interaction of production costs, transaction costs, and strategic considerations. Illustrates normative implications for designing governance structures through corporate examples that are driven by both cost and strategy considerations.

This paper aims to explain why Fairtrade International (FI), an organization committed to empowering the producers of Fairtrade certified products, at times (paradoxically), excluded them from its highest bodies of governance. A within-case study of Fairtrade’s inclusive and exclusive reforms over 25 years, along with insights from the social enterprise, hybrid governance and political sociology literatures, is used to generate several propositions about how voluntary sustainability standards-setting organizations (VSSSOs) engage stakeholders – especially producers – in governance.

This study uses process-tracing methodology, which focuses on the sequential, intervening processes that link potentially important variables within a single case. It draws on data from over 100 interviews and nearly 6,000 archival documents collected from FI and its member Max Havelaar Netherlands. Causal process observations were extracted from the documents and compiled to create a 68,000-word chronological narrative used to evaluate six potential explanations of Fairtrade’s governance reforms: legitimacy, resources, identity, oligarchic tendency, leadership and producer mobilization.

This study finds that Fairtrade’s inclusion/exclusion of producers reflected its desire to increase its moral legitimacy among external actors and understanding of how to signal legitimacy. The discussion proposes that VSSSOs, especially in times of heightened competition, leverage their comparative advantages to differentiate themselves from other organizations. In cases (like FI) in which the advantage is legitimacy, changing notions of legitimacy may have a destabilizing effect on governance.

This evidence-based account of FI’s governance decisions should help resolve some debates about the nature of FI’s relationship with producer groups. The broader propositions offer guidance for future cross-case research aiming to explain VSSSOs’ governance structure and hybrid governance, more generally. Because FI includes producers in governance to a much greater extent than most VSSSOs, it is an important case.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional context of the entrepreneurial discovery of blockchain applications.

This paper draws on institutional and entrepreneurial theory to introduce the economic problem entrepreneurship in the early stages of new technologies, examines the diversity of self-governed hybrid solutions to coordinating entrepreneurial information and draws policy implications.

To perceive a valuable and actionable market opportunity, entrepreneurs must coordinate distributed non-price information under uncertainty with others. One potential class of transaction cost economising solution to this problem is private self-governance of information coordination within hybrids. This paper explores a diverse range of entrepreneurial hybrids coalescing around blockchain technology, with implications for innovation policy.

This paper points to the problem of how the defining of the innovation problem as either choice-theoretic or contract-theoretic changes the remit of innovation policy. Innovation policy and blockchain policy should extend beyond correcting sub-optimal investments or removing barriers to action, to incorporate how polices impact entrepreneurial choices over governance structures to coordinate information.

The chapter aims to clarify the relationship between corporate governance structure and corporate subscription to Global Compact standards. Part one of the chapter looks at the relationship between different models of board governance and active Global Compact participation by publicly listed companies. Part two of the chapter examines a number of external mechanisms aimed at bringing corporate behavior in line with Global Compact principles, and argues that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between internal governance structures and external provisions aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

Part one of the chapter uses an independent T-test to compare the average (mean) proportion of publicly listed companies from unitary board countries with an active Global Compact Communication on Progress status with the average proportion of publicly listed companies from two-tier/hybrid corporate governance systems listed as active Global Compact participants. Part two of the chapter uses primary and secondary sources to examine external mechanisms operating across national borders aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

The chapter finds that a higher proportion of public companies from countries with two-tier/hybrid corporate governance structures have become active Global Compact participants compared to public companies from legal systems with unitary board corporate governance structures. Part two of the chapter examines the potentially mutually reinforcing relationship between internal governance structures and external mechanisms for modifying corporate behavior.

While external codes and standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises appear to be influencing corporate behavior worldwide, quantitative data confirming and recording the extent and nature of this influence (if any) remains limited.

The chapter provides useful insights for policy makers and corporate leaders into the relationship between internal corporate governance structures and external codes, standards and guidelines aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

This chapter provides original insights into whether and how internal governance structures can complement and reinforce social standards regarding global corporate citizenship, and the legal guidelines reflecting those standards.

The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate the effective governance structure in early stage of offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), especially in the case where service provider's language is different from client's language, and second, to explore some of the conditions at the adoption of BPO that are likely to influence the shape of the governance structure.

Ground theory building methodology that builds theory in a grounded and inductive fashion is used for this study. First, a genetic framework to analyze offshore BPO governance structure is derived from extant literature. Then, the framework is applied to an exploratory case analysis to explore an effective form of the governance mechanism.

The hybrid governance structure consists of inter‐organizational coordination mechanisms, inter‐organizational systems and social control. Companies that wish to offshore their business process should select the service providers that can facilitate setting up such hybrid governance structure.

As offshore BPO is expected to be booming in the next few years, this study helps both academics and practitioners to understand the effective governance structure of offshore BPO.