Studying Hybrids: Sectors and Mechanisms

Abstract

The present paper introduces and compares two alternative perspectives on hybridity. One is the perspective of hybrids being located at the interface of dominant 'sectors' such as the private for-profit sector, the public sector and the civil society or nonprofit sector. The alternative perspective focuses on a combination of sector-specific governance mechanisms. The paper discusses the characteristics as well as the advantages and disadvantages of those two perspectives and what a combination of both implies for further research with an emphasis on the analysis of organizational pathologies and managerial coping.

Editorial

“…A well-known typology of hybrids differentiates among different societal sectors (Seibel, 2015). A hybrid can be allocated within the space of a triangle enclosed by the public sector, the private for-profit sector and the third sector covering various activities and institutions of civic society.…”

“…Denis et al (2015) proposed, for instance, four dimensions of hybridity: structures, institutional dynamics, Theme: Performance measurement of hybrid organizations-emerging issues and future research perspectives practices, and identities. Others have differentiated between hybrid organizations and hybrid modes or mechanisms (for example Seibel, 2015), as well as between governance modes, as for example, dimensions of accountability (Grossi and Thomasson, 2015).…”

Balancing a Hybrid Business Model: The Search for Equilibrium at Cafédirect

“…A hybrid is the offspring of two different species, or varieties, and is produced when elements from the two different species are combined into one unit or organism. Hybrid organizations thus bridge, or straddle, the conventional categories of private, public, and non-profit sectors (Austin et al 2006;Battilana and Lee 2014;Billis 2010;Seibel 2015). Each of these sectors has a dominant logic (Thornton et al 2012) and organizing template (Billis 2010), and most organizational forms can be readily identified as belonging to one of these sectors (Billis 2010;Haigh and Hoffman 2014;Seibel 2015).…”

“…Finally, non-profit sector logic is characterized by philanthropy, advocacy, and participation (Hansmann 1980). Organizational forms that straddle institutionalized sectoral logics are labelled 'hybrid' and are found in a range of constellations such as private-public (Jay 2013;Lehner and Nicholls 2014), private-non-profit, and public-non-profit hybrids (Seibel 2015). Social enterprises, such as Cafédirect, are a classic hybrid (Battilana and Lee 2014;Dees and Elias 1998;Billis 2010) and are found in many industries such as, microfinance (Khavul 2010), energy (Rogers et al 2012), retailing (Wilson and Post 2013), food (Doherty and Tranchell 2007), housing (Mullins et al 2012), and health care (Santos et al 2015).…”

Welfare Mixes and Hybridity: Analytical and Managerial Implications

“…After all, just in accordance with Merton's fundamental definition, latent functions and mechanisms are the ubiquitous ingredient of any type of social structure so that defining hybridity based on latency alone would necessarily make it a quasiubiquitous and, consequently, unidentifiable phenomenon. Therefore, I have been advocating a ''middle ground approach'' to the analysis of hybridity (Seibel 2015). On the one hand, the study of hybrids should not be restricted to formal cross-sectoral arrangements since that would neglect the role of informal institutional effects and latent combinations of sector-specific governance mechanisms.…”