We assess conditions that explain plural forms of public and private action using a comparative study of 24 public initiatives in Brazil, India, and South Africa. Measuring performance as evidence of positive outcomes to their target populations, we compare cases of high and low performance. Our configurational approach examines combinations of conditions leading to positive outcomes: public operational capacity, diverse collaborations nurtured by public units (with for-profit firms, with nonprofit organizations, and with other units in the public bureaucracy), and stakeholder orientation (permeability to multiple sources of input to design and adjust the project). We apply fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to unveil configurations consistent with high performance. Our configurational analysis reveals two distinct paths to high performance. A path with higher private engagement involves concurrent collaborations with for-profit and nonprofit actors, whereas an alternative path with higher internal (public) engagement relies on collaborations within the public bureaucracy complemented by high permeability to inputs from multiple stakeholders. Our results also confirm that strong public capacity is necessary in all high-performance configurations. An important implication is that externalization and multiple forms of collaboration are not substitutes for weak governments. Furthermore, our configurational perspective contributes to the literature by operationalizing a multiple-actor, multiple-logic perspective describing alternative paths to high performance.

Evolução na utilização e nos gastos de uma operadora de saúdeEvolution in the use and the expenditures of a healthcare provider

Recent interest in the multimodal accomplishment of organization has focused on the material and symbolic aspects of materiality. We argue that current literature invokes diverse "multimodal imaginaries", that is, ways of conceiving the relation between the material and the conceptual, and that the different imaginaries support a plurality of perspectives on materiality. Using the empirical case of a large urban renewal project in São Paulo, Brazil, we illustrate three different multimodal imaginariesthe concrete, the semiotic, and the mimetic and indicate how each imaginary determines the way in which the site in question is discursively constructed. After outlining the different approaches, we discuss their theoretical implications, advantages, and constraints, setting an agenda for future studies of materiality in organizational and institutional contexts.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent HYBRIDS OF HYBRIDS? PLURAL FORMS OF COLLABORATION AND THE SOCIAL VALUE OF PUBLIC INITIATIVES AbstractAlthough public initiatives often involve multiple collaborative (hybrid) arrangements between for-profit, nonprofit, and public actors, we still lack a consolidated framework explaining how a single public initiative can involve multiple types of collaboration in tandem. We examine three concurrent hybrids-public collaborations with for-profit firms, with non-profit organizations, and between units of the public bureaucracy-and use fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to unveil configurations consistent with social value creation (evidence of social impact) based on a unique set of 24 public initiatives in Brazil, India, and South Africa. We find configurations involving multiple or plural types of collaboration ("hybrids of hybrids") and inductively propose theoretical mechanisms explaining contingent synergistic effects of those hybrids as a function of their resource complementarity and perceived legitimacy.

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