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An insider view of the hybrid organisation: How managers respond to challenges of efficiency, legitimacy and meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2015

Svein T. Johansen ,
Trude H. Olsen ,
Elsa Solstad  and
Harald Torsteinsen
Svein T. Johansen
Affiliation:
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Harstad University College, Harstad, Norway
Trude H. Olsen
Affiliation:
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Harstad University College, Harstad, Norway
Elsa Solstad*
Affiliation:
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Harstad University College, Harstad, Norway
Harald Torsteinsen
Affiliation:
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Harstad University College, Harstad, Norway
*
Corresponding author: elsa.solstad@hih.no
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Abstract

In this paper we look at how managers perceive and manage meetings between different institutional logics in three types of hybrid organisations; a savings bank, a municipality and a hospital. The paper contributes to our understanding of organisational hybridity in two ways: First, drawing on Scott’s three institutional pillars, the paper shows how meetings between different institutional logics involve not just the cultural–cognitive pillar, usually highlighted in work on hybrid organisations, but all of them, including the regulative and the normative pillars. Second, the paper suggests a hierarchical relationship between meetings and responses, ranging from less elaborate responses that primarily involve the regulative pillar to more complex and all-encompassing responses that include not only the regulative and the normative but also the cultural–cognitive pillar, triggering questions and issues about identity and purpose.

Keywords

managerial challengeshybrid organisationsinstitutional logicsmanagerial responses
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 21 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 725 - 740
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2015 

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Footnotes

Authors have contributed equally in this work and are listed in alphabetical order.

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