Sacred and/or Profane? Contesting Commercialization in China’s Emerging Civil Sector

Abstract

To what extent will hybrid organizational forms and practices, such as the commercial activities of non-profits, become institutionalized? In this article, we call for attention to the dual system of human morality—consequentialism and deontology—to examine the cultural foundations underlying the tensions in the development of organizational hybridity. On the one hand, the consequentialist moral culture catalyzes the emergence and institutionalization of hybrid organizational forms and practices when hybridity offers instrumental benefits. On the other hand, the deontological moral culture emphasizes purity and inhibits the institutionalization of hybridity, regardless of its costs and benefits. We provide quantitative and qualitative evidence to support our theory by examining how multi-level factors that influence the prevalence of consequentialist and deontological moral culture will either facilitate or hinder the institutionalization of nonprofit commercialization in China. Thus, our study contributes to filling the undertheorized lacuna for the cultural-structural antecedents and the moral foundations underlying the emergence of and potential upper limits for the institutionalization of hybrid organizational forms and practices.