Combining Logics to Transform Organizational Agency

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractTo understand how organizations combine conflicting institutional logics strategically to create and pursue new market opportunities, we conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of the multiple efforts of the Italian manufacturer of household goods Alessi to combine the logics of industrial manufacturing and cultural production. Over three decades, Alessi developed three different strategies to combine normative elements of the two logics, using each strategy to envision and pursue different market opportunities. By combining the logics of industrial manufacturing and cultural production, Alessi was able to envision new possibilities for value creation and to enact them through innovation in product design. The three strategies triggered a common set of mechanisms through which the purposeful combining of logics enabled the pursuit of opportunity, while each strategy structured the process differently. We develop a theoretical model linking the development of recombinant strategies to the dynamic restructuring of organizational agency and the related capacity to create and pursue new market opportunities. Our findings and theoretical insights advance understanding of the processes through which organizations challenge taken-forgranted beliefs and practices to create new market opportunities, use logics as resources to enable embedded agency, and design hybrid organizational arrangements.Keywords: institutional complexity, multiple institutional logics, hybrid organizations, opportunity creation, design innovation, cultural production. 3Research on institutional complexity has revealed the tensions that some organizations experience as they become exposed to conflicting prescriptions from different institutional logics, reflected in the expectations of multiple constituents (e.g., Binder, 2007;Purdy and Gray, 2009;Reay and Hinings, 2009) and/or understandings of organizational members (Glynn, 2000; Zilber, 2002). This research has related institutional complexity to intra-organizational conflicts (e.g., Glynn, 2000), internal resistance to change (e.g., Townley, 2002), and loss of audience support (D'Aunno, Sutton, and Price, 1991).Institutional logics are socially constructed, coherent, and integrated sets of "assumptions, values, beliefs and rules" (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999: 804) that give actors "organizing principles" prescribing legitimate ends and "the means by which those ends are achieved" (Friedland and Alford, 1991: 248). Researchers have increasingly shown that multiple logics coexist, and often compete, in governing a particular domain of activity (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999;Lounsbury, 2002Thornton, 2002;Marquis and Lounsbury, 2007;Smets et al., 2015), and scholarly attention has turned to the study of institutional complexity defined as the simultaneous operation of different logics that impose contradictory demands on an organization (Greenwoo...

Alliance strategy: context, process, and requirements

“…One such example concerns manufacturing firms executing a service alliance stratgy to complement their traditional product offering (Neely, 2013). To increase understanding of the complexity of pluralistic strategizing, strategic management studies focusing on the intra-organizational unit of analysis explored among other things the management of strategic dualities (Birkinshaw et al, 2016), strategies for balancing intra-organizational tensions (Ansari et al, 2014), changes to organizational identity and knowledge (Corley and Gioia, 2004;, and combination of diverse strategic narratives within an organization (Dalpiaz et al, 2016).…”

“…Since organizational pluralism involves dealing with multiple contexts geared towards particular offerings (Dalpiaz et al, 2016), this management complexity also applies to alliancing.…”

“…Organizations increasingly explore multiple strategic logics (Dalpiaz et al, 2016) as they experiment in different markets with product-service combinations (Meier et al, 2010). Gone seems the era of organizations sticking to a single business model with a fixed set of value propositions and stable, transaction-oriented input and output relationships with the external world.…”

“…Fourth, organizational pluralism involves multiple contexts geared towards particular offerings, e.g. combining industrial and cultural products (Dalpiaz et al, 2016) or regulatory and market context (Jarzabkowski et al, 2013). Yet this challenge impacts alliancing as well.…”

“…This challenge of strategizing requires an active, context-aware and complex management process Jarzabkowski and Fenton, 2006). Research on strategizing so far has in particular focused on the organization as unit of analysis, exploring the management of strategic dualities (Birkinshaw et al, 2016), strategies for balancing intra-organizational tensions (Ansari et al, 2014), changes to organizational identity and knowledge (Corley and Gioia, 2004;, and combination of diverse narratives within an organization (Dalpiaz et al, 2016).…”