Institutional logics and organizational filters: Differential responses to innovation and environmentalism in China’s cleantech sector

Abstract

While the institutional logics perspective has been applied to explore various empirical contexts, less is known about how different organizations respond differentially to the pressures that are imposed by logics. We investigate how different organizational attributes moderate institutional logics differently by using a proprietary dataset of venture capital and private equity (VC/PE) investment in cleantech startups in China. We first delineate two distinct logics—market and proenvironmental—that shape VC/PE investment across different regions. Moreover, we identify two organizational attributes—state ownership and business model—which moderate the two logics differently. Whereas the business model of venture investment firms (VC vs. PE) effectively resonates with the market logic, state ownership fails to make a firm more attentive to either of the logics. We contribute to the logics perspective by complementing our understanding of organizational filters, showing the relationships between two distinct logics and cleantech investment, and extending the study of logics to authoritarian contexts.