Hybrid organization

A hybrid organization is an organization that mixes elements, value systems and action logics (e.g. social impact and profit generation) of various sectors of society, i.e. the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector. A more general notion of hybridity can be found in Hybrid institutions and governance.

According to previous research, hybrids between public and private spheres consist of following features:

Value creation in hybrids proceeds through three mechanisms:

Mixing distinct value categories may take several forms. One common feature of these forms is the act of combining existing value categories to contribute novel variants of value. Compromising concern solving grievances among the interacting parties. From the legitimization point of view, hybrids are attuned to catering to the demands of multiple audiences: the government, citizens and clients, as well as the competitive markets.

The discussion of relational aspects of hybridity among nodes, dyads and networks raises number of questions. Sometimes governing hybridity necessitates a balancing act among parallel and opposing forces. In other instances, hybridity represents an effort to build genuinely new interaction patterns to settle the issues at hand, but it is also the case that hybridity brings out restrictions on interaction patterns.

The hybridity can be studied across levels of society in micro, meso and macro settings. However, aggregation of institutions follow different patterns within government, business and civil society.

Hybrid organization can achieve a competitive advantage because it can easily adapt into rapidly changing business environment. Organizational hybridity refers to an ability to blend features from different organizations or cultures to create solutions which suits organization's needs. In addition, hybrid organizations can achieve long-term sustainability by blending social and economic imperatives and engaging with diverse stakeholder groups.

In hybrid organizations there are private, public and non-profit organizations collaborating together. All these organizations have their own knowledge strategies and the hybrid organization needs to manage a comprehensive knowledge strategy of the entire hybrid organization. This makes the challenges of the hybrid organizations interdependent and multidimensional. In order for a hybrid organization to succeed in creating a knowledge strategy, it must pay attention to the following three things in particular: