Understanding the Role of Top Management Practices in Organizational Hybridization

Abstract

Hybrid organizations is a well-studied field, known for being challenged by tensions of competing and rivalling logics, causing cognitive confusion, mission drift and loss of performance (Boone, Özcan, & Li, 2021). We investigate how a top management team (TMT) navigate an organizational transformation from a not-for profit to a hybrid form, initiated by a deregulation of the energy industry in Europe. Surprisingly, we found that apparently conflicting logics may not always be the victim of competition and compromise, often suggested in literature, but can become “enveloped”, forming a hybrid of both logics. “Enveloping logics” is a concept of one logic framing another logic, embracing both equally. We conducted a qualitative case study, analyzing intimate interviews of TMT members and archival data over a period of 20 years. In that period the company developed from a regulated monopoly, dominated by a not-for profit-logic into a hybrid organization. TMT practices, adopted from outside the company, and from acquired and merged companies, was found to play a central role in creating hybrid logics. We developed a grounded theory process model explaining how the TMT enveloped logics over a period of 6 years, and what role adapting and deploying TMT practices played herein.