Accounting, performance and accountability challenges in hybrid organisations: a value creation perspective

PurposeDrawing upon theoretical insights on value creation perspectives, the authors aim to advance the understanding of performance and accountability in different hybrid organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conceptualise common theoretical origins of hybrid organisations and how they create and enact value, by reflecting on the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) special issue articles. Furthermore, the authors propose an agenda for future research into accounting, performance and accountability for hybrid organisations.FindingsHybrid organisations can be conceptualised through their approaches to value creation (mixing, compromising and legitimising). This article provides a more detailed understanding of accounting, performance and accountability changes in hybrid organisations.Practical implicationsThis contribution also has relevant practical implications for actors, such as politicians, managers, professionals, auditors, controllers and accountants, encased in various hybrid organisations, policy contexts and multi-faceted interfaces between public, private and civil society.Originality/valueHybridity lenses reveal novel connections between different types of hybrid organisations and how they create and enact multiple values.

Unpacking B Corps’ Impact on Sustainable Development: An Analysis from Structuration Theory

With Our Common Future and the United Nation’s global call to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030, public policies increasingly emphasise the need for various actors to contribute to a global transformation and a more sustainable future. Despite growing research on hybrid organisations and their contributions to sustainable development, their impact on accelerating this transition might be faulty. Looking at a type of hybrid organisation, Certified B Corporations (B Corps), this article draws on a multiple case study of nine B Corps in a developing country in Latin America, Colombia. The study builds on the Structuration Theory to examine to what extent and how B Corps impact sustainable development. The article empirically shows that B Corps focus on four categories of sustainable development: considering future generations; enhancing human development; encouraging new mindsets, behaviours, and lifestyles; and promoting socio-political engagement. The findings suggest that B Corps develop communicative and narrative discourses and symbolic schemas as means of signification and follow norms and moral rules to exert legitimation and utilise authoritative resources to exercise power. The article contributes to research on hybrid organisations, sustainability transitions, and business models.

Making a hybrid out of a crisis: historical contingency and the institutional logics of London’s public transport monopoly

Purpose Literature seldom admits the importance of historical contingency and politics in the creation of hybrid organisations. Nevertheless, the circumstances of their creation play a pivotal role in the subsequent operation, priorities and success of these prolific organisations. Through a single case study, this paper aims to explore the connection between the multiple and concurrent crises that created London Transport and the subsequent balance of its institutional logics. Design/methodology/approach This case study uses in-depth data collection from multiple archival and public sources to offer quantitative and qualitative analysis of the priorities, logics and services offered by London Transport before and after its transition from a private to a hybrid organisation. Findings Providing London’s transport via a quasi-autonomous non-governmental monopoly was justified as being more efficient than competition. However, by applying accounting ratios to the archival records from London Transport, the authors find that there were few decisive efficiencies gained from amalgamation. Instead, the authors argue that the balance of institutional logics within the new, unified organisation showed a political response outwardly addressing market failure but primarily concerned with marginalising democratic control. This reality was obscured behind the rhetoric of rationality and efficiency as politically neutral justifications for creating a public service monopoly. Originality/value This paper challenges supposedly objective systems for judging the effectiveness of “hybrid” organisations and offers an alternative political and historical perspective of the reasons for their creation. The authors suggest that London Transport’s success in obscuring its enduring market-based institutional logics has wider resonance in the development of municipal capitalism.

Ambidextrous sustainability, organisational structure and performance in hybrid organisations

PurposeDrawing on paradox theory, this study explores how ambidextrous sustainability relates to organisational performance in hybrid organisations represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations, and how this relationship is contingent on the organisational structure of these organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe study relies on the data collected from Swedish municipal housing corporations. These data sources consist of a survey sent to the management team members in Swedish municipal housing corporations, financial and non-financial archival data on these corporations, interviews with the management team and board members, and observations of meetings involving the management team and board of directors at a Swedish municipal housing corporation. Quantitative data of the study were analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and linear multiple regression analysis. Qualitative data were analysed employing deductive thematic analysis and were used to illustrate and discuss the results of the quantitative analysis.FindingsThe quantitative findings show that ambidextrous sustainability, i.e. the alignment between an explorative orientation and an exploitative orientation towards sustainability, has a weakly positive relationship with financial performance and a positive relationship with social performance in hybrid organisations represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations. The study further shows that a high level of the structural element “connectedness” weakened the relationship between the ambidextrous sustainability and financial performance of the organisation in the study. In contrast, a lower level of connectedness reinforced and strengthened this relationship. Our qualitative material illustrates how the quantitative findings could be explained by the interaction between the board of directors and the management team of these hybrid organisations.Originality/valueThe study shows how ambidextrous sustainability, employed for conceptualisation of the sustainability strategy in hybrid organisations, represented by Swedish municipal housing corporations, can impact on facets of performance (i.e. financial, social and environmental) differently. The study further highlights the importance of organisational structures in these relationships in a hybrid context.

The Role of Social Enterprise Hybrid Business Models in Inclusive Value Chain Development

This study contributes to the growing interest in hybrid organisations, sustainable business models and inclusive value chain development (IVCD). Recent work has identified that of some 570 million farmers in the world, more than 475 million farmers are smallholders in low-middle-income countries experiencing increasing food insecurity and rural poverty. Research argues that there is a lack of research that provides work on appropriate solutions for smallholders. This paper answers this call by a qualitative study of ten case studies, which draws on hybrid organising, sustainable business model and IVCD research to identify the novel business model characteristics that hybrid organisations use to create and manage more inclusive value chains for smallholders. These hybrid organisations are designed to create a value proposition that delivers sustainability upgrading for smallholders via both product, process and governance upgrades, empowers smallholders to achieve development goals and creates multiple value for social impact. We therefore identify the important characteristics of the hybrid business model to provide appropriate solutions for smallholders and overcome the challenges identified in the inclusive value chain development literature.

The three logics of sustainability-oriented hybrid organisations: a multi-disciplinary review

Given current limitations of global and national governance arrangements in redirecting economic globalisation towards a climate-safe and sustainable world, it is crucial to understand how organisations that aim to tackle social and environmental problems using market mechanisms can contribute to fostering sustainability transformations. This review identified 60 different terms or concepts for hybrid organisations aiming to solve social and ecological problems through market related activities, reflecting a high degree of discontinuity and inconsistency in the literature. To assess the contribution to societal transformations of this array of innovative ventures, we introduce and operationalise Sustainability-Oriented Hybrid Organisations (SOHOs) as an umbrella concept to carry out a comprehensive review of 126 scientific articles that discuss them. Unlike traditional enterprises who apply one logic (commercial) and social and environmental enterprises who combine two logics (social–commercial or environmental–commercial), SOHOs unite commercial, social, and environmental logics, beliefs, and practices simultaneously—thereby adopting a higher level of organisational hybridity. SOHOs are oriented towards achieving net-positive sustainability and consider future generations and global socio-ecological systems which makes transforming enterprises towards SOHO models a potentially significant intervention point for promoting sustainability transformations. However, the narratives and actions of SOHOs can perpetuate rather than ameliorate the underlying causes and differential impacts of complex problems like climate change, unless the organisations adopt systemic, global, long-term, and socio-ecologically embedded strategies.