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Let’s Talk about Problems: Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing, Social Enterprises, and Institutional Context

Organizational Hybridity: Perspectives, Processes, Promises

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

Publication date: 7 December 2020

Abstract

Social enterprises have long been considered ideal settings for studying hybrid organizing due to their combination of social and economic goals and activities. In this chapter, the authors argue that the current research focus on hybrid organizing foregrounds the paradox, conflicting logics, and multiple identities associated with the pursuit of multiple goals but underappreciates the relationship between hybrid organizing and its institutional context. Recognizing that the primary objective of social enterprises is to tackle social problems, the authors introduce the social problem domain as an analytically useful and theoretically interesting meso-level to examine the role of context for hybrid organizing and to advance conversations on hybridity in organizational theory. Social problem domains offer insights into the political, cultural, and material differences in how various societies deal with social problems, which in turn affects hybrid organizing. The authors provide empirical insights derived from an analysis of social enterprises across three countries and social problem domains. The authors show how the institutional arrangements of social enterprises differ considerably across contexts, and how these arrangements affect how social enterprises become more or less similar compared to traditional ways of organizing in these problem domains. Based on these findings, the authors outline a research agenda on social enterprises that focuses on examining the nature, antecedents, and outcomes of hybrid organizing around social problems across multiple levels of analysis. With this chapter, the authors move the focus of social enterprise research in organizational theory from studying how these organizations cope with multiple logics and goals toward studying how they engage in markets for public purpose.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

This chapter was developed as part of the project on Social Entrepreneurship as a Force for more Inclusive and Innovative Societies (SEFORÏS) and received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 613500. The project involved research collaboration between the Hertie School and members of CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences. We thank the editors Marya Besharov and Bjoern Mitzinneck for helpful comments and suggestions.

Citation

Mair, J. and Rathert, N. (2020), "Let’s Talk about Problems: Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing, Social Enterprises, and Institutional Context", 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. 189-208. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20200000069009

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited