To read this content please select one of the options below:

Heterogeneity in Organizational Hybridity: A Configurational, Situated, and Dynamic Approach

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises

ISBN: 978-1-83909-355-5, eISBN: 978-1-83909-354-8

Publication date: 7 December 2020

Abstract

As complex, intractable social problems continue to intensify, organizations increasingly respond with novel approaches that bridge multiple institutional spheres and combine forms, identities, and logics that would conventionally not go together, creating hybridity. Scholarly research on this phenomenon has expanded in tandem, raising questions about how the concept of organizational hybridity can maintain analytical clarity while accommodating a diverse range of empirical manifestations. Reviewing and integrating extant literature, the authors argue that to achieve both analytical rigor and real-world relevance, research must account for variation in how hybridity is organizationally configured, temporally situated, and institutionally embedded. The authors develop a framework that captures this heterogeneity and discuss three key implications for hybridity research: drawing on multiple theoretical lenses, examining varied empirical contexts, and adopting multi-level and dynamic perspectives.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank series editor Mike Lounsbury for his support and developmental feedback. We thank Marc Ventresca for his keen observations and thought-provoking questions on an earlier version of this chapter.

Citation

Besharov, M.L. and Mitzinneck, B.C. (2020), "Heterogeneity in Organizational Hybridity: A Configurational, Situated, and Dynamic Approach", Besharov, M.L. and Mitzinneck, B.C. (Ed.) Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 69), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20200000069001

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited