Hybrid Organizations Research Articles

Construction and demolition waste recycling in developing cities: management and cost analysis

In Bolivia, construction and demolition waste (CDW) is unmanaged. The current research implemented a CDW flow analysis and a cost assessment in the city of La Paz, aiming to compare future recycling scenarios. Lack of data is challenging; therefore, a review of 31 international studies has been conducted. Results report that the waste generation rate (WGR) of concrete residential buildings can be of about 91.9–113.3 kg m−2 for construction and about 867.2–1064.8 kg m−2 for demolition. In addition, positive correlation was found in national WGR with number of inhabitants and the GDP. By these results, it was estimated that about 271,051–349,418 tonnes of CDW are potentially generated yearly in La Paz, about two times more than the CDW projected by local authorities. By the scenarios analysis, it was estimated that 56.1–71.1% of the inert aggregates can be recycled. The cost of the system is estimated between 7.8 and 31.1 USD tCDW−1, for a total annual cost (20 years horizon) of about 2.3–9 million USD y−1 depending on the management scenario. In the best scenario, an average fee of less than 1% of the current costs of a flat in La Paz can be required, potentially affordable for the local economy. The most attractive scenario involves the source separation of recyclable materials and the hybrid organization of stationary and mobile recycling facilities. Results show that a CDW management can be implemented in La Paz to foster a circular economy in developing cities.

How a Government Organisation Evolved to Embrace Ethnographic Methods for Service (and Team) Resilience: The Case of the Canadian Digital Service

Government websites and online services are often built with limited input from the people they serve. This approach limits their ability to respond to ever changing needs and contexts. This case study describes a government digital team built from the ground‐up to embrace ethnographic methods to make government services more resilient.The case study begins by tracing the organisation's origins and relationship to other research‐driven parts of its government. Then it shows how the organisation's structure evolved as more projects included ethnography. It describes various approaches to locating skilled researchers within bureaucratic confines, as well as what responsibilities researchers took on as the organisation grew. It then summarises researchers' experiences with matrixed, functional and hybrid organisation schemes.The case study concludes explaining how embracing ethnographic approaches (and values) increased not only online service, but also organisational resilience. Teams who embraced ethnography had deeper and more thoughtful responses to the pandemic, and inclusivity challenges in the organisation. Lessons learned for other organisations attempting to scale an ethnographic research practice, and seize its benefits for resilience.

Connecting Social Enterprises and Sustainable Consumption: Systematic Review, Bibliometric Analysis, and Conceptual Framework

The purpose of this study is to explore the meeting point between social enterprises (SEs) and sustainable consumption, given the proven potential of these hybrid organizations in the achievement of sustainable development. Paradoxically, scholarly attention has been scarce to this field of research, particularly from the perspectives of SE products and (potential) customers. Aiming to shed some light, a systematic literature review was conducted, resulting in 24 scientific publications descriptively and thematically explored based on a bibliometric analysis. The findings show that the link between SEs and sustainable consumption is very recent and that empirical articles using quantitative methodologies prevail focused on the analysis of capabilities and performances of SEs aiming to positively influence customers’ response. Nevertheless, the attention to the identification of product attributes and the individual determinants effective enough to press the buy button is still limited. In response to this shortcoming, the originality of this study consists of assembling the findings in this regard into an integrated conceptual framework that paves the way for future analysis in this field of study.

To be more different or just the same? Means versus ends in hybrid organizational legitimacy

PurposeThis paper aims to consider the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, examining the narrative strategies hybrids use in responding to these challenges and offering a framework for managers to consider in their choice of narratives.Design/methodology/approachA narrative analysis of texts addressing the legitimacy of the business models used by four hybrid organizations is conducted.FindingsThe results of the analysis suggest that the nature of conflicting stakeholder demands – centered on goals or means – is an integral factor influencing hybrids’ choice of narrative strategies to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper adds to extant research examining the challenges hybrid organizations face and emphasizes that the choice of narrative strategies is an important factor hybrids must consider when managing legitimacy. Generalizability is a notable limitation of the case approach; the authors suggest areas for future research to address this limitation.Practical implicationsThe research offers a practical framework for hybrids’ leaders, as they manage legitimacy, choosing to emphasize distinctiveness or conformity in the face of conflicts regarding goals or means.Originality/valueBy studying the legitimacy challenges faced by hybrid organizations, this study can form a more complete view of legitimation, encompassing different types of enterprises offering distinct value propositions.

Academic stars and licensing experience in university technology commercialization

AbstractResearch SummaryWe examine the process by which university technology transfer offices (TTOs) allocate internal resources, which provides insight into technologies offered for commercialization to the private sector. Using detailed administrative records of patenting decisions and outcomes by one prominent U.S. research‐based university's TTO over a 30‐year period, we analyze the performance of invention disclosures by academic stars and by inventors with prior licensing experience. We find that the lead inventor's academic prominence (but not licensing experience) predicts patent application filing, while licensing experience (but not academic prominence) predicts patent impact and commercialization success. We supplement this descriptive analysis with follow‐up interviews and empirical evaluation of possible mechanisms for this seemingly outsized role of academic stars.Managerial SummaryIncreasingly prevalent hybrid organizations are expected to fulfill multiple objectives. University technology transfer offices (TTOs) are an example of a hybrid organization and are charged with disseminating academia‐originated technology for the public good as well as for economic benefit. We study how one TTO allocates internal resources, using comprehensive in‐house administrative data over a 30‐year span. We find that while the TTO tends to put resources behind inventions by academic stars, the commercial returns from licensing inventions from such individuals are no different than inventions by non‐stars. By contrast, inventors' prior licensing experience highly predicts commercial returns. These results illustrate the challenges inherent in internal resource allocation inside a complex hybrid organization.

Hybrid organization deconstructed: A bibliographic investigation into the origins, development, and future of the research domain

AbstractResearch on hybrid organization (HO) has grown rapidly over recent decades, yet the conceptualization and research structure remain fragmented. In this paper, we employ a combination of bibliometric analysis and a structured review of recent influential articles to evaluate the domain of HO. As part of the bibliometric analysis, we analysed 676 documents containing 51,014 references by applying citation, co‐citation, and social network analysis (SNA) techniques. Based on our analysis, we identified the 108 most influential works shaping the domain and explored the linkages between them to uncover the intellectual structure of the domain. Specifically, we observed five different clusters that depicted the intellectual structure of the HO domain. Our result further clarified the overall centrality features of the HO research network. Further, the structured review resulted in the identification of six different themes: impact of organizational actors on HO, impact of the external environment on HO, hybridization process and organizational response, organizational structure and governance, organizational strategy, and organizational performance. Building on our results, we propose a framework and explicate the gaps for future HO research.

Sustainable transition and food democracy: The role of decision making process in Solidarity Purchasing Groups

This study investigates how the decision making process in Solidarity Purchasing Groups (SPGs), intended as hybrid organizations, supports the sustainability transition in food systems. The process of sustainability transition in food systems involves many kinds of tensions, especially in the process of pursuing a multiplicity of economic, social and environmental objectives. This study focuses on the SPGs in Italy and study how they organize their internal decision-making process and their search for the group objectives. This paper argues that the decentralization of the decision rights in SPGs sustains the integration of such different objectives and coordinates efficiently the multifaceted values of their members. The empirical analysis shows that the decision rights are decentralized and that the decentralized decision rights positions in solidarity purchasing groups are associated with the pursuing of different objectives. Our findings indicate that SPGs contributes to the transitions toward sustainability in food systems by using organizational democracy mechanisms to coordinate tensions among social, market and environmental values.

The creation of public value from the action of hybrid organisations

The creation of public value from the action of hybrid organisations

The SDGs: A change agenda shaping the future of business and humanity at large

The <scp>SDGs</scp>: A change agenda shaping the future of business and humanity at large

Performance of Hybrid Organisations. Challenges and Opportunities for Social and Commercial Enterprises

Growth is a key dimension of organisational performance, and innovativeness has been identified as one of its most important predictors in commercial enterprises. But does this also hold for the growing number of social enterprises and so-called “hybrid” organisations? Whereas neo-institutional accounts emphasise the legitimacy premium and performance benefits that come with hybridity, category signaling approaches stress the downsides and negative performance effects of blurred categories. Introducing the neglected distinction between category hybridity and goal hybridity and adopting a multilevel perspective on hybrid organisations, the present study develops and empirically tests competing for hypotheses with data from the 2009 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Multilevel analysis of 2,606 social and 10,133 commercial enterprises, obtained from 150,721 respondents in 42 countries reveals a significant and positive association between organisation-level innovativeness and growth expectations for both commercial and social enterprises. The effect of organisational innovativeness on growth expectations is stronger positive for social compared to commercial enterprises, and higher levels of goal hybridity increase growth expectations for commercial, but not for social enterprises. No moderating effects of country-level differences were found.

Bibliometrics of social entrepreneurship research: Cocitation and bibliographic coupling analyses

The purpose of this paper is to provide conceptual structure, explore current research directions, and suggest emerging trends in social entrepreneurship. The authors ultilize co-citation analysis as well as bibliographic coupling analysis to analyze 1122 social entrepreneurship publications thought VOS Viewer software. Co-citation analysis was used to explore the structure of the research topic, while bibliographic coupling analysis was used to identify potential research topics. Based on themes from co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling analysis, the authors compared similarities and differences between themes to explore potential research groups in SE, for instance, hybrid organizations, social value creation, dimensions, and measurement of social goals. This is the first study using co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling analysis to review publications related to social entrepreneurship. This research study contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature by enhancing the understanding of the structures in social entrepreneurship through citations, as well as can be employed to support scholars in other for recognizing future research directions.

University Science Parks as an Innovative Tool for University-Business Cooperation

Collaboration between universities, business and government is important in creating innovation, but often they face barriers which block the successful cooperation among institutional spheres. To improve and strengthen collaboration and overcome existing barriers were created hybrid organizations (like university science parks, research centres or incubators) to address innovation blockages. With the growing popularity of this tool among regional policy makers, there is a need to specify their roles and functions in regional innovation systems. The main goal of our paper is to examine the contribution of university science parks and research centres in Slovakia, which were built thanks to financial support from European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). University science parks (USPs) and research centres (RCs) are tools for connecting the university, industry and government sector in a Triple helix framework. They create a suitable space for generating innovation with existing resources at universities, research institutes, research departments of companies and governments, and improve them through mutual interactions. We applied the method of quantitative research – an online questionnaire survey complemented with interviews, which we used to collect basic data on all science parks in Slovakia. The key question in the article is whether research infrastructures represent effective investment with long-term sustainability. We evaluated the current functioning of the parks in terms of fulfilling the functions that contribute to innovation creation, because quality and modern infrastructure is a prerequisite for the implementation of research, the results of which have a high development and innovation potential. We found that the research infrastructure doesn’t perform the required functions, which were declared during their creation. The main barriers to development include insufficient funding for research, technological infrastructure and long-term financing of professional staff. Unclear conditions for the continued operation of parks and uncertain position of government support shows that these investment projects financed by the European Funds are not independently viable after the end of the sustainability period.

Open Innovation for Sustainability in the Social Enterprises: An Empirical Evidence

Social enterprises are currently receiving significant attention from academics and practitioners because of their hybrid nature to achieve profit while achieving the planned social mission. To achieve their social mission as well as financial sustainability, social enterprises need to have the ability to carry out innovation for sustainability which helps them balance these two goals. In hybrid organizations, such as social enterprises, priorities in financial and social missions may conflict, resulting in managerial tensions and stakeholder pressure, making open innovation (OI) by involving external parties essential. This paper aims to explore OI for sustainability in social enterprises. The research question posed is: what innovation for sustainability practices do social enterprises implement and, how does the mechanism of OI for sustainability work in social enterprises? A multiple case study approach is used by taking four leading social enterprises in the education sector located in West Java, Indonesia. Our findings indicate that sustainability innovation is practiced by social enterprises in the form of providing social benefits such as paying for the education costs of their students and providing social services for the surrounding community. Beyond that, ecological benefits are provided in the form of reducing waste and using unproductive land in a productive manner. Innovation is performed with a different approach from one case to another. All cases studied collaborate with parties external to the organization to be able to implement sustainability innovation. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical research on sustainability innovation in the context of social enterprises, which is still rarely found in the literature.

Academic entrepreneurial hybrids: Accounting and accountability in the case of MegaRide

The current paper focuses on how multiple values shape accounting and accountability practices in hybrid organizations. It concentrates on the complex domain of academic spin-offs, more fully described as hybrid knowledge-intensive organizations, aiming to understand how accounting and accountability practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurial logics and identities and how these, in turn, favor the development of accounting and accountability practices. The study employs a theoretically informed in-depth single case study of the academic spin-off MegaRide of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) for the period January to May 2021. The findings show how, in MegaRide, hybrid academic entrepreneurial identities emerged at both the individual and organizational levels, leading to successful technology transfer, with an undeniable impact on the local context and society.

What Drives Social Enterprises to Form Sustainable Values? The Effects of Normative Identity and Social Performance

This study investigates the relationship between the social enterprises’ normative identity and social performance. Social enterprises are considered hybrid organizations that simultaneously pursue economic value and social value. To meet an SE’s mission and objectives, they need to build a normative identity and normative networks. This study examines how an SE’s normative identity and normative networks influence its performance. In particular, this study focuses on social performance. To test our hypotheses, we used survey data from CESE in Korea. The survey included samples from 1437 social enterprises that are certified by the government as social enterprises. Our dataset was constructed by sampling 300 social enterprises that attained the social incentive from the CSES. Social incentives are the reward for social performance. The findings suggest that while an SE’s normative identity orientation does not affect social performance, normative activity influences social performance. In addition, the legitimacy of an SE moderates the relationship between the normative network and social performance. These findings contribute to our understanding of an SE’s identity and social performance.

Building a Taxonomy of Hybridization: An Institutional Logics Perspective on Societal Impact

The hybridization movement reflects the shift and convergence of market-focused corporations on the one hand and social oriented organizations on the other towards more integrated value-creating hybrid arrangements. Hybridity is usually defined as the combination of two different and usually contradicting institutional logics. However, the hybridity literature is incongruent, inconsistent and seemingly addressing different spheres of hybridity, rendering the institutional construct ineffective for empirical analysis between organizations of varied natures. The purpose of this study is to arrive at a conceptualization of hybridity from an institutional perspective that allows for empirical analysis and comparison of the hybrid nature of organizations across time and contexts. Adopting a taxonomical approach based on the societal triangle, a systematic review (n = 109) is conducted to identify characteristics, issues and challenges of eight archetypical hybrid and non-hybrid organizations. Consequently, the authors propose a thematic mapping of relevant issues into five clustered themes. This thematic map can be helpful in guiding the analysis of and comparison between a broad range of different hybrid organizations. This study adds to the existing definitional and terminological debate in the hybridity literature by shifting the focus from a typological classification towards a taxonomical approach of hybridity.

Optimizing Business-Nonprofit Hybrid Organizing to Support Health and Social Initiatives

Business-nonprofit hybrid organizing – i.e., moving beyond inter-organizational collaboration to combine for-profit and nonprofit organizational elements within a single organization in unconventional ways - offers a novel approach to supporting health and social initiatives. What form of hybrid organizing is optimal remains elusive, however. We conducted three, qualitative case studies of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing to identify lessons for optimizing this approach to supporting health and social initiatives. Data comprised 114 interviews with case study organization members, collaborators and local leaders, and observations, analyzed thematically. We characterized two forms of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing – an Appended form where a nonprofit unit is embedded within an established business, and a Blended form where a nonprofit entity functions as a revenue generating retail store. Each form engendered both benefits and costs for supporting the initiatives. Significance of these costs and benefits shifted over time contingent on initiatives’ changing strategic priorities and dimensions of local and wider contexts. Optimizing hybrid organizing entails an ongoing process of assessing and seeking fit between form and context in ways that allow the form to evolve. We elaborate implications for theory and for practitioners looking to harness the potential of hybrid organizing to support initiatives targeting social drivers of health.

Globalization in Social-Commercial Tensions: The Case of Nepalese Microfinance

Hybrid organizations that simultaneously pursue social and commercial objectives often experience tensions. Yet such tensions can arise from contradictory global and local demands. This study focuses on how individual actors' relations with macro-level institutions construct social and commercial objectives, which, in turn, shape tensions. We apply the qualitative case study method to investigate how the translation process from the global to the local informs the experience with tensions among leaders of hybrid organizations. We analyzed interviews and archival data on 26 microfinance organizations in Nepal, where both the traditional (local) model of microfinance and the global model of microfinance are practiced. We compare the microfinance leaders who belong to global professional networks with those embedded only in local professional networks. We find that the managers embedded in global professional network exposed to and embraced more expansive meanings of social and commercial activities and goals in microfinance. Moreover, social-commercial tensions were more pronounced among globally embedded leaders than locally embedded leaders. Our findings contribute to the hybrid organization literature and paradox theory by illustrating the role of globalization and global networks in shaping leaders' conceptualization of commercial and social objectives, which in turn give rise to tensions and hybrid organizational practice.

Hybrid Logics and Organization: A Framework to Identify Conflicts Between Institutional Logics

Hybrid organizations are arenas of conflict when they combine elements from different institutional logics. These conflicts, however, are largely unknown, or at best vaguely explained. We propose a framework to identify conflicts in hybrid organizations. We introduce this framework and apply it to unveil conflicts in organizations that combine commercial and public-sector logics. We show that combining these logics gives rise to three conflicts—managerial locus of attention, redeployment of idle resources, and regulatory oversight. Then, we analyze the impact of these conflicts on different dimensions of governance. Our application results in sets of practices capable of mitigating the impacts of conflicts, preserving organizational efficiency and public interest. We generalize the use of this framework to compare other institutional logics. Our work strengthens the analytical properties of research in institutional logics and provides actionable insights to manage hybrid organizations.

How Hybrid Organizations Respond to Institutional Complexity: The Case of Norway

In past decades, hybrid organizations and institutional complexity have received growing attention, yet questions remain about how hybrids manage institutional complexity in the Nordic welfare states. This article investigates how Norwegian social enterprises (SEs), a subset of hybrid organizations, internally manage contradictory demands when externally engaging with multiple logics. The data consists of interviews of leaders and staff members from five SEs, and the findings show that most institutional referents hold a public-sector logic which may crowd out the hybrid nature of SEs. Depending on the conflicting demands, SEs mix decoupling and selective coupling when responding to them. Some were also found to rely on the structural responses of organizational compartmentalization. Compared to the blended hybrids, the structural hybrids experience less internal tension when managing institutional complexity since logic compartmentalization allows the organizations to attend both to their in-use logic and at-play demands. The data yield compelling insights into how the Nordic welfare state may incite a specific configuration of SE where logic compartmentalization appears as a pragmatic choice.