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

Abstract

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.

Conceptualising a chameleon: social enterprise as a public provider

“…Gebreiter and Hidayah (2019) examine conflicting institutional demands on employees within hybrid public sector organisations, illuminating the individual responses to accountability pressures. Sætre (2022) observes compartmentalisation as a pragmatic choice for social enterprises managing the contradictory demands of multiple logics, whereas Alexius and Grossi (2018) and Rozenfeld and Scapens (2021) explore and refine concepts of selective (de)coupling in connection with hybrid organisations and institutional complexity. Maran and Lowe (2022) too, examine the competing logics within a hybrid ex-state-owned enterprise urging caution for organisational reorganisation in light of challenges to effectiveness resulting from the layered synthesis of institutional logics ( RQ2 ).…”

Exploring how institutional trajectories and political controversies influence policymaking for SE: the case of Norway

“…Typically, they seek to include those affected by social problems in co-creation more often than they seek to implement solutions to problems defined in public procurements (Defourny and Nyssens, 2006). In the Norwegian context, several SEs have stated their ambitions to reform the welfare state through their innovative solutions (Schei and Rønnevig, 2009), yet due to their dependence on public support, they often have to juggle activities defined or procured by the public sector with their own solutions, which can lead to mission drift (Saetre, 2022).…”