Hybridity and Institutional Logics: Framing a Comparative Study of UK and US Nonprofits

Despite extensive scholarly attention to the concept of hybridity, our understanding of this concept and its implications for public and nonprofit management remains underdeveloped. We draw on the institutional logics approach to theorise hybrids as entities that face a plurality of normative frames. Such plurality is generative of contestation as the organisation seeks to negotiate its relationships with its environment and actors internally seek to negotiate the multiple identities supplied by competing logics. We propose five theoretically-derived ways in which hybrids may be structured – segmented (layered and parallel), symbolic, blocked, and blended – and illustrate these through nonprofit examples. Propositions for future empirical research are generated in relation to institutional turbulence, strength of normative obligation, internal structuring, and actor identity.