Unpacking Variation in Hybrid Organizational Forms: Changing Models of Social Enterprise Among Nonprofits, 2000–2013

Litrico, Jean-Baptiste; Besharov, Marya L.

doi:10.1007/s10551-018-4047-3

Cited by 56 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…From the perspective of organizational goals, SEs focus on creating social value, which is in line with our interpretation of NPOs being social mission-driven organizations (Bull and Ridley-Duff 2019;Weerawardena and Mort 2012). However, unlike NPOs that traditionally rely on private donations and government funding, SEs focus on generating incomes from commercial activities (Defourny and Nyssens 2017;Litrico and Besharov 2019). Thus, we define a SE as a form of NPO that makes use of productive activities to generate commercial revenue in support of its social mission.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 71%

The Transformation from Traditional Nonprofit Organizations to Social Enterprises: An Institutional Entrepreneurship Perspective

Liu

2020

J Bus Ethics

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The development of commercial revenue streams allows traditional nonprofit organizations to increase financial certainty in response to the reduction of traditional funding sources and increased competition. In order to capture commercial revenuegenerating opportunities, traditional nonprofit organizations need to deliberately transform themselves into social enterprises. Through the theoretical lens of institutional entrepreneurship, we explore the institutional work that supports this transformation by analyzing field interviews with 64 institutional entrepreneurs from UK-based social enterprises. We find that the route to incorporate commercial processes and convert traditional nonprofit organizations into social enterprises requires six distinct kinds of institutional work at three different domains; these are-"engaging commercial revenue strategies", "creating a professionalized organizational form", and "legitimating a socio-commercial business model". In elaborating on social entrepreneurship research and practice, we offer a comprehensive framework delineating the key practices contributing to the transformation from traditional nonprofit organizations to social enterprises. This extends our understanding of the ex-ante strategy of incorporating commercial processes within social organizations. Furthermore, the identification of these practices also offers an important tool for scholars in this field to examine the connection (or disconnection) of each practice with different ethical concerns of social entrepreneurship in greater depth.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 71%

The Transformation from Traditional Nonprofit Organizations to Social Enterprises: An Institutional Entrepreneurship Perspective

Liu

2020

J Bus Ethics

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“…In social-business hybrids more generally, tensions are likely to emerge around the divergent goals, structures, practices, and identities associated with social and business missions (Smith, Gonin, and Besharov, 2013). The specific content of tensions varies based on where in the organization the social mission is embedded—for example, who is employed versus what is produced versus who is served (see Litrico and Besharov, 2017). Structured flexibility starts with leaders’ responses to these tensions.…”

Section: Theoretical Model: How Structured Flexibility Sustains Hybrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Bowing before Dual Gods: How Structured Flexibility Sustains Organizational Hybridity

Smith

Besharov

2017

Administrative Science Quarterly

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407

492

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Organizations increasingly grapple with hybridity—the combination of identities, forms, logics, or other core elements that would conventionally not go together. Drawing on in-depth longitudinal data from the first ten years of a successful social enterprise—Digital Divide Data, founded in Cambodia—we induce an empirically grounded model of sustaining hybridity over time through structured flexibility: the interaction of stable organizational features and adaptive enactment processes. We identify two stable features—paradoxical frames, involving leaders’ cognitive understandings of the two sides of a hybrid as both contradictory and interdependent, and guardrails, consisting of formal structures, leadership expertise, and stakeholder relationships associated with each side—that together facilitate ongoing adaptation in the meanings and practices of dual elements, sustaining both elements over time. Our structured flexibility model reorients research away from focusing on either stable or adaptive approaches to sustaining hybridity toward understanding their interaction, with implications for scholarship on hybridity, duality, and adaptation more broadly.

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“…In addition, extant literature has emphasized that different logics can co-exist or be combined within a field (Ansari, Wijen, & Gray, 2013;Goodrick & Reay, 2011), pointing to different types of field hybridity. More recently, researchers have identified how field hybridity can remain stable or increase over time (Litrico & Besharov, 2019), or can also decrease (Grimes et al, 2018), suggesting the importance of adopting a dynamic perspective when studying field hybridity.…”

Section: Field Maturity and Degree Of Hybriditymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grimes et al, 2018) and mature fields where hybridity has remained stable or increased since their emergence (e.g. Litrico & Besharov, 2019).…”

Section: Positive Effects Of Hybridity In Emerging Fieldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We show that hybrid organizations face different legitimacy challenges depending on whether the field they are positioned in is emerging or has reached maturity, that is, depending on whether the relations and interactions among actors have stabilized into recognizable and stable patterns . In addition, our analysis factors in the degree of hybridity of a field, which as previously acknowledged can vary across a field's trajectory (Grimes, Williams, & Zhao, 2018;Litrico & Besharov, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legitimacy Trade-Offs in Hybrid Fields: An Illustration Through Microfinance, Impact Investing and Social Entrepreneurship

Casasnovas¹,

Chliova²

2020

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

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Unpacking Variation in Hybrid Organizational Forms: Changing Models of Social Enterprise Among Nonprofits, 2000–2013

Cited by 56 publications

References 59 publications

The Transformation from Traditional Nonprofit Organizations to Social Enterprises: An Institutional Entrepreneurship Perspective

The Transformation from Traditional Nonprofit Organizations to Social Enterprises: An Institutional Entrepreneurship Perspective

Bowing before Dual Gods: How Structured Flexibility Sustains Organizational Hybridity

Legitimacy Trade-Offs in Hybrid Fields: An Illustration Through Microfinance, Impact Investing and Social Entrepreneurship

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