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Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2020

Marya L. Besharov and Bjoern C. Mitzinneck

As complex, intractable social problems continue to intensify, organizations increasingly respond with novel approaches that bridge multiple institutional spheres and combine…

Abstract

As complex, intractable social problems continue to intensify, organizations increasingly respond with novel approaches that bridge multiple institutional spheres and combine forms, identities, and logics that would conventionally not go together, creating hybridity. Scholarly research on this phenomenon has expanded in tandem, raising questions about how the concept of organizational hybridity can maintain analytical clarity while accommodating a diverse range of empirical manifestations. Reviewing and integrating extant literature, the authors argue that to achieve both analytical rigor and real-world relevance, research must account for variation in how hybridity is organizationally configured, temporally situated, and institutionally embedded. The authors develop a framework that captures this heterogeneity and discuss three key implications for hybridity research: drawing on multiple theoretical lenses, examining varied empirical contexts, and adopting multi-level and dynamic perspectives.

Details

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5

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Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2020

Tobias Hahn

Business sustainability urges firms to simultaneously address economic, ecological, and social concerns. It innately combines different potentially competing organizational

Abstract

Business sustainability urges firms to simultaneously address economic, ecological, and social concerns. It innately combines different potentially competing organizational elements. Therefore, sustainability represents a suitable context for the study and practice of hybridity. Based on an understanding of hybridity as a continuum, in this chapter, the author distinguish between four different forms of hybridity for business sustainability, depending on the degree of integration and autonomy of sustainability initiatives in business organizations. With ceremonial hybridity, businesses only leave the impression to pursue business and sustainability goals but focus their practices on conventional business priorities. Contingent hybridity denotes an approach where ecological and social concerns are only pursued to the extent that they align with business goals. With peripheral hybridity, firms pursue sustainability initiatives in their own right but do not integrate them with core business activities. Full hybridity puts both business as well as sustainability at the core of the organization without emphasizing one over the other. These different forms of hybridity in business sustainability are illustrated with examples from various business organizations. By characterizing different degrees of hybridity in business sustainability, the argument and the examples highlight how organizational hybridity and business sustainability can fruitfully inform one another. The author develop research opportunities for using business sustainability as a context for studying different degrees as well as the dynamics of hybrid organizing and for using different degrees of hybridity for achieving a better understanding of different pathways toward substantive business contributions to sustainable development.

Details

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5

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Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2020

Guillermo Casasnovas and Myrto Chliova

Hybrid organizations face particular challenges and opportunities due to combining different logics within one organizational structure. While research on hybrid organizing has…

Abstract

Hybrid organizations face particular challenges and opportunities due to combining different logics within one organizational structure. While research on hybrid organizing has advanced considerably our understanding of how these organizations can cope with such tensions, institutional theory suggests that organizational legitimacy and success will also depend on processes that take place at the field level. We connect these two perspectives to examine how field hybridity influences organizational legitimacy. Specifically, we consider both a field’s maturity and its degree of hybridity as two important variables that determine the effects that field hybridity has on organizational legitimacy. Drawing from extant research and leveraging our empirical work in the fields of microfinance, social entrepreneurship and impact investing to provide illustrative examples, we propose a framework that considers both positive and negative effects of field hybridity on organizational legitimacy. We contribute to the literature on hybrid organizing in two ways. First, we show that hybrid organizations face different challenges and opportunities depending on the stage of development and degree of hybridity of the field they operate in. Second, we suggest that the effects of field hybridity on organizational legitimacy can be understood as trade-offs that organizations need to understand and approach strategically to leverage opportunities and mitigate challenges.

Details

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

James M. Mandiberg and Seon Mi Kim

We explore a case example of hybridity between a large worker-owned cooperative and a union through three lenses: organizational forms, multiple institutional logics, and…

Abstract

We explore a case example of hybridity between a large worker-owned cooperative and a union through three lenses: organizational forms, multiple institutional logics, and organizational identity. We delineate three types of organizational hybridity: (1) stretching an existing organizational form; (2) creating a new organizational form; and (3) and retaining multiple discrete organizational forms in a common venture. The cooperative–union hybrid shares members from the two contributing organizations, and so can be classified as a matrix sub-form of multi-organizational hybridity. This study describes how the coop-union hybrid manages the multiple logics and identities retained from both contributing organizations. It considers the hazards of combining these logics and identities, and offers some suggestions on how to avoid potential difficulties. Finally, given the complexity and inefficiencies of the matrix form, we explore whether matrix hybridity is a transitional or permanent form in this particular instance of a cooperative–union venture.

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

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Article
Publication date: 9 October 2017

Hans Knutsson and Anna Thomasson

The purpose of this paper is to explore if the application of a framework building on organisational learning focusing on organisational processes can increase our understanding…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore if the application of a framework building on organisational learning focusing on organisational processes can increase our understanding of how hybrid organisation develops over time and why they fail to live up to external expectations.

Design/methodology/approach

The aim of this study is descriptive and explorative. It is accordingly designed as a qualitatively oriented case study. To capture the process of forming and developing hybrid organisations, the study takes a longitudinal approach. The case chosen for the study is a municipally owned company in Sweden providing waste management services. The study revolves around empirical data gathered in official documents and in face-to-face interviews. All the data concern the time span between 2004 and 2016.

Findings

The analysis of the case studied provides us with insights into how hybridity manifests itself in mind-set and processes. There is a need for individuals within and around the organisation to be aware of and accept new goals and strategies to change their behaviour accordingly. The result of this study thus shows that contrary to findings in previous research on hybrid organisations, merely changing the structure of the organisation is not sufficient. Instead, learning is key to the development of hybridity and to overcome goal incongruence and conflicts of interest in hybrid organisations. However, this takes time and is likely to be dependent on individuals’ willingness to accept and adapt these new strategies and goals.

Research limitations/implications

The result of this study is based on one single case study in one specific hybrid context. No empirical generalisation is aspired to. Instead, the aim has been to – through an explorative approach – make an analytical contribution to the knowledge about hybrid organisations. Further studies are thus necessary to deepen the understanding of the hybrid context and the situations under which hybrid organisations operate and develop.

Practical implications

Based on the result from this study, it seems that an organisation needs to learn how to be a hybrid organisation. There are no isolated structural solutions that can create a hybrid organisation other than in a formal sense. New ways to exploit organisational resources and the hybrid context are necessary to find new and innovative ways of how to use the hybrid context in a way that improves service sector delivery.

Originality/value

Predominately, research on hybrid organisations has until recently been working with the premise that hybrids are not a breed of its own but a mix of two or several ideal types. Consequently, the result from this type of research has often landed in a conclusion regarding the complexity of combining what often is considered contradictory and conflicting goals. In this paper, a different and novel approach is taken. The paper illustrates how hybrid organisations develop over time, and it suggests that hybridity manifests itself in mindset and processes. The main contribution is an exploration and illustration of how organisational learning may be considered as the missing link between the structural orientation of previous explanations of hybrid organisations and the organisational property of hybridity. Hybridity is the result of exposure to, acceptance of and adaptation to new goals and strategies and expresses itself in “hybrid behaviour”.

Details

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, vol. 14 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1176-6093

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Content available
Book part
Publication date: 7 December 2020

Abstract

Details

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5

Article
Publication date: 9 October 2017

Martin Powell and Michele Castelli

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore hybrid organisations in health care. It examines the broad literature on hybrids focusing on issues of perspective, definition…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore hybrid organisations in health care. It examines the broad literature on hybrids focusing on issues of perspective, definition, sub-type and level. It then presents the results of the literature review of hybrid health care organisations, exploring which organisations have been viewed as hybrids, and then examining studies in more detail with respect to the research questions.

Design/methodology/approach

It critically explores the literature on hybrid organisations in health care through a structured search.

Findings

It is found that a wide variety of hybrid forms exist, but not clear what they combine or how they combine it. However, the level of depth from some of these studies is rather limited, with little consensus on definition, and relatively few drawing on any explicit conceptual perspective. It seems that the wider hybridity literatures have limited influence of studies of hybrid health care organisations.

Originality/value

As far as the authors are aware, this paper is the first attempt to critically review the literature on hybrid organisations in health care. It is concluded that it is difficult to define and explain hybrid health care organisations. Health care hybrids appear to be chameleons as they appear to be able to change their form to different observers.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 31 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

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Article
Publication date: 23 July 2021

Agathe Morinière and Irène Georgescu

This study aims to understand whether and how the use of performance measures in the context of healthcare organizations facilitates the dynamics of compromise or whether it…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to understand whether and how the use of performance measures in the context of healthcare organizations facilitates the dynamics of compromise or whether it creates moral struggles among a wide variety of actors. It offers novel insights into the concept of hybridity by investigating its underlying moral dimension. Drawing upon the sociology of worth theory (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991, 2006), this paper examines how actors negotiate and compromise over time concerning issues of justice, involving the use of performance measures on a day-to-day basis.

Design/methodology/approach

The article presents a single case study of a medical unit in a French public hospital. Data were obtained through the ethnographic method, semi-structured interviews and internal financial and accounting documents.

Findings

Unlike earlier accounting studies, the authors analyze whether, and how, accounting, on one hand, contributes to the dynamics of compromise between actors with divergent values that characterize hybrid organizations, and, on the other hand, increases tensions among actors with convergent values involved in caregiving. This offers practical insights into three relational mechanisms underlying the dynamics of compromise and their limits through the time dimension.

Research limitations/implications

The authors use a single case study in a country-specific context.

Practical implications

This study helps managers of healthcare organizations to understand the relationships between the use of performance measures and their impact on the evaluation of worth in practice.

Originality/value

In terms of theoretical contribution, the authors show how the sociology of worth (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991, 2006) complements the analysis of hybridity and develop an original approach to understanding the ambivalent role of performance measures in bringing together divergent values within French public hospitals.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2013

Anne-Claire Pache and Filipe Santos

In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics…

Abstract

In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics. Starting with the premises that these responses are driven by the individuals’ degree of adherence to each competing logic (whether novice, familiar, or identified), and that individuals may resort to five types of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination or, compartmentalization), we develop a comprehensive model that predicts which response organizational members are likely to activate as they face two competing logics. Our model contributes to an emergent political theory of institutional change by predicting what role organizational members are likely to play in the organizational battles for logics dominance or in organizational attempts at crafting hybrid configurations.

Details

Institutional Logics in Action, Part B
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-920-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 January 2013

Anne-Claire Pache and Filipe Santos

In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics…

Abstract

In order to advance the micro-foundations of institutional theory, we explore how individuals within organizations experience and respond to competing institutional logics. Starting with the premises that these responses are driven by the individuals’ degree of adherence to each competing logic (whether novice, familiar, or identified), and that individuals may resort to five types of responses (ignorance, compliance, resistance, combination or, compartmentalization), we develop a comprehensive model that predicts which response organizational members are likely to activate as they face two competing logics. Our model contributes to an emergent political theory of institutional change by predicting what role organizational members are likely to play in the organizational battles for logics dominance or in organizational attempts at crafting hybrid configurations.

Details

Institutional Logics in Action, Part B
Type: Book
ISBN:

Keywords

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