Gottlieb, S C; Frederiksen, N; Koch, C and Thuesen, C (2018) Institutional logics and hybrid organizing in public-private partnerships. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
Cross-sectoral collaboration has been touted as a solution to a range of problems in various sectors. In the construction context, strategic partnerships have recently given promises of increased productivity and innovative solutions through business models combining logics and governance structures from both the public and private sectors. Very little is, however, known about how partnerships respond to the competing institutional demands they face in an attempt to deliver. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of a municipality’s efforts to create cost efficient services, we explore the establishment and early years of two strategic partnerships as emerging hybrid organizations, asking what is a hybrid organization? Throughout three analytical phases, we illustrate how the partnerships develop different strategies and responses to cope with the multiple demands from their institutional environment. We show how the partnerships in the first phase respond to the institutional pluralism in the early establishment of the partnerships by mobilizing an institutional logic that constitutes a legitimate alternative to the given dominant constellation of conflicting institutional logics in the field. We then shed light on the incompatibilities between logics that occurred in the second phase, where partnership ideals and operational concerns and routines had to be balanced. Finally, we illustrate how the partnerships in a third phase of reorientation and consolidation developed divergent strategies for coping with the institutional complexity based on a blending respectively segregation of logics. On the back of the analysis, we discuss how the partnerships' responses to the competing demand entail institutional work aimed at shaping field structures. In conclusion, we argue that characteristics associated with field structure and particular organizational attributes (e.g. size and composition of the portfolio of projects) play a prominent role in explaining the differences in organizational responses, and hence the hybrid form of the partnerships.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | complexity; hybrid organizations,institutional logics; partnerships |
| Index terms: | governance, routine, case study, institutional logic, private sector, partnership, face, strategy, institutional work, productivity, drawing, business model, collaboration, coping, municipality, complexity |
| Subjects: | psychology, technical documentation, data collection methods, business, partnership management, sociology, administrative law, industry analysis, behavioral psychology, systems engineering, management, theoretical framing |
| Topics: | Stakeholder Management, Governance, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Engineering Principles, Organizational Design, Legal Issues, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here