Muslim community-based health organisations: a hybrid of voluntary, religious and healthcare logics

Abstract

Muslim community-based health organisations (MCBHOs) represent a new wave of non-profit organisations outside of mosques and Islamic community centres. In this article we examine MBCHOs’ core management competencies because they are instantiations of institutional logics, which result in different forms of organisational hybridity within the third sector. Theoretically, we focus on the instantiations that are associated with a societal institutional logic (religion) and two organisational field logics (voluntarism and healthcare). Empirically, we draw from a survey, maps, tax filings and strategic plans. We observed convergences in financial and human resource management and divergences in community engagement and patient assessment among 110 MCBHOs located in the United States. Volunteering and patient care hold the meaning of faith. Our findings suggest that most MCBHOs resemble an assimilated hybrid, characterised by managerial practices that adhere to the core logics of healthcare and voluntarism, with traces of the Islamic religious logic. We thus introduce the concept of ‘faithwashing’.