Breaking the Mold! How Hybrid Partnerships Attain Institutional Change Through Paradoxical Frames

Abstract

Hybrid partnerships that engage directly in both social and commercial objectives face the particular challenge of mobilizing social activists as well as commercial actors, who adhere to seemingly incompatible logics. The question of how actors in hybrid partnerships try to deal with this ‘incompatibility’ to attain institutional change has remained largely unconsidered. In a three- year case study of two regional hybrid partnerships, we study different symbolic and substantive actions performed by members of these partnerships in a multi-level process model across micro-, field-, and societal levels over time. The actions performed across these different levels of analysis are interlinked and eventually result in institutional change in HR policies at the societal level. We demonstrate that embracing the tensions around logic incompatibility enables hybrid partnerships to attain two different interrelated states of institutional change: emergent and planned institutional change. This paradoxical perception enhances the ability of individuals to integrate contradictions of the seemingly incompatible logics, which in turn increases the likelihood of planned institutional change. We discuss the theoretical implications and open up avenues for future research.