Towards a Multi-Level Understanding of the Strategies Employed in Managing Hybridity: A Systematic Review

Michele Bianchi (), Michael J. Roy and Simon Teasdale
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Michele Bianchi: Department of Economics, University of Parma, Via J. F. Kennedy 6, 43125 Parma, Italy
Michael J. Roy: Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Rd., Glasgow G4 0BA, UK
Simon Teasdale: Management School, Queen’s University Belfast, 185 Stranmillis Road, Riddel Hall, Belfast BT9 5EE, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: This article aims to investigate the scientific literature on the management of tensions and trade-offs in hybrid organizations. These can arise from the hybrid nature of these organizations and involve diverse aspects relevant for their management. From our corpus of 16 papers, we assessed as being of ‘high quality’, we categorized different types of tensions and the solutions put forward to manage or mitigate those tensions. The systematic literature review is subdivided into five categories: (1) framing the question(s); (2) identifying relevant works; (3) collecting data; (4) analyzing evidence; (5) interpreting the findings. An iterative process of discussion about codes helped us to compose the final categories for analysis. Our results explain how hybrid organizations go through a constant process of balancing various logics, and how this balancing works to address issues that are both endogenous and exogenous to the organization. We identify two strategies that organizations employ to manage hybridity—decoupling logics and logic shifting—and each strategy has different effects at different levels of the institutional context. Because we focus only on the literature assessed as being of ‘high quality’ this inevitably leads to many excluded articles.

Keywords: hybridity; trade-offs; tensions; institutional logics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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