Sustainable Governance In Hybrid Organizations

In Sustainable Governance in Hybrid Organizations the author Linne Marie Lauesen explores how businesses that have succeeded in conducting sustainable governance, manage and govern their sustainable performance: in other words, how they manage to be economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. In this respect, hybrid organizations that are formed as businesses with a mission to be sustainable and to provide services for society - such as water companies - are a good point of departure. Water companies are highly regulated whilst working primarily for the betterment of society and on behalf of generations to come, for whom clean and plentiful water and the preservation of nature is a must. Linne Marie has dug deep into these types of hybrid organizations in order to reveal which mechanisms of organizational governance for sustainability are at play, and how these organizations manage to balance their triple bottom lines in order to survive financially, socially, and environmentally and make a business out of their conduct. Balancing these three bottom lines in a sustainable way is explained in a clear and accessible way and the juxtaposition between non-profit and for-profit water companies will show how this model can be transferred to other business spheres.

The era of hybrid governance is here. More and more organizations occupy a position between public and private ownership. And value is created not through business or public interests alone, but through distinct forms of hybrid governance. National governments are looking to transform their administrative systems to become more business driven. Likewise, private enterprises are seeing value gains in promoting public interest in their corporate social responsibility programs. But how can we conceptualize, evaluate and measure the value and performance of hybrid governance and organizations? This book offers a comprehensive overview of how hybrids produce value. It explores the drivers, obstacles and complications for value creation in different hybrid contexts: state-owned enterprises, urban policy-making, universities and non-profits from around the world. The authors address several types of value contents, for instance financial, social and public value. Furthermore, the book provides a novel way of understanding multiple forms of doing value in hybrid settings. The book explains mixing, compromising and legitimising as important mechanisms of value creation. Aimed at researchers and students of public management, public administration, business management, corporate social responsibility and governance, this book provides a theoretical, conceptual and empirical understanding of value creation in hybrid organizations. It is also an invaluable overview of performance evaluation and measurement systems and practices in hybrid organizations and governance.

A much-needed addition to literature, this timely edited collection aims to provide clarity and understanding on how modern organizations work. The authors explore the characteristics of hybrid organizations in contemporary society, taking into account the complex societal challenges that face businesses today. Arguing that hybrid organizations are in fact not a new phenomenon, this thought-provoking collection goes beyond existing research and re-evaluates our traditional understanding of this concept. Scholars of organization, management and innovation will find this book an insightful read, as it sheds light on the fundamental aspects that shape today’s hybrid organizations.

"This book offers a glimpse into the future. The companies it describes are pioneers, the first-movers in market shifts that will eventually become mainstream. These "hybrid organizations" - or what others call "values-driven" or "mission-driven" organizations - operate in the blurry space between the for-profit and non-profit worlds. They are redefining their supply chains, their sources of capital, their very purpose for being; and in the process they are changing the market for others. Using a combination of high-level survey analysis and, more importantly, in-depth executive interviews, the book helps fill the present gap in literature on environmentally focused and financially driven for-profit businesses. Moreover, it highlights key trends and critical themes that enable this new wave of socially conscious and fiscally minded enterprises to be successful in meeting both sets of goals. The takeaway for readers of this book is not only an appreciation for common business practices that hybrid organizations adopt, but also an understanding of the complexity of the integration of such adoption that allows them to successfully achieve both mission- and market-driven goals. The book begins with key definitions to establish the scope of this new sector, including explicit definitions for hybrid organizations, environmental sustainability missions, as well as specific criteria to create useful boundaries for the field of hybrid organizations. Building on prior work conducted by researchers on corporate social responsibility, sustainable entrepreneurship, and social enterprise, the book catalogues the best practices within this growing sector, helping others to learn from both the successes and failures of those that are choosing this strategy. The core of the book is built on an analysis of survey data from 47 hybrid organizations, investigating their business models and strategies, finances, organizational structures, processes, metrics, and innovations. The organizations represent a cross-section of size, age, industry, and geography, although the sample set is biased towards young, small, U.S.-based hybrids. Based on analysis of the survey data, five best-in-class companies were selected for in-depth case studies in order to provide instructive lessons for hybrid practitioners and researchers alike. In short, this book presents research that shows hybrid organizations to be a practical and feasible organizational model for contributing solutions to global environmental issues. The lessons in this book will help other social entrepreneurs, business managers, non-profit leaders, or students interested in careers that fuse profitability and responsibility do it even better."--Provided by publisher.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the increasingly complex, interdependent nature of societal and environmental issues for governments and business. Tackling such "grand challenges" requires the concerted action of a multitude of organizations and multiple stakeholders at different levels in the public, private, and non-profit sector. Organizing for Sustainable Development provides an integrated and comparative overview of the successes and failures of organizational efforts to tackle global societal issues and achieve sustainable development. Summarizing years of study by an interdisciplinary board of authors and contributors, this book provides readers with an in-depth understanding of how existing businesses and new hybrid organizations can achieve sustainable development to bring about an improved society, marking a key contribution to the literature in this field. Combining theoretical views with empirical approaches, the chapters in this book are highly relevant to graduate and undergraduate (multidisciplinary) programs in sustainable development, organization studies, development economics, development studies, international management, and social entrepreneurship.

This book offers a glimpse into the future. The companies it describes are pioneers, the first-movers in market shifts that will eventually become mainstream. These "hybrid organizations" – or what others call "values-driven" or "mission-driven" organizations – operate in the blurry space between the for-profit and non-profit worlds. They are redefining their supply chains, their sources of capital, their very purpose for being; and in the process they are changing the market for others. Using a combination of high-level survey analysis and, more importantly, in-depth executive interviews, the book helps fill the present gap in literature on environmentally focused and financially driven for-profit businesses. Moreover, it highlights key trends and critical themes that enable this new wave of socially conscious and fiscally minded enterprises to be successful in meeting both sets of goals. The takeaway for readers of this book is not only an appreciation for common business practices that hybrid organizations adopt, but also an understanding of the complexity of the integration of such adoption that allows them to successfully achieve both mission- and market-driven goals. The book begins with key definitions to establish the scope of this new sector, including explicit definitions for hybrid organizations, environmental sustainability missions, as well as specific criteria to create useful boundaries for the field of hybrid organizations. Building on prior work conducted by researchers on corporate social responsibility, sustainable entrepreneurship, and social enterprise, the book catalogues the best practices within this growing sector, helping others to learn from both the successes and failures of those that are choosing this strategy. The core of the book is built on an analysis of survey data from 47 hybrid organizations, investigating their business models and strategies, finances, organizational structures, processes, metrics, and innovations. The organizations represent a cross-section of size, age, industry, and geography, although the sample set is biased towards young, small, U.S.-based hybrids. Based on analysis of the survey data, five best-in-class companies were selected for in-depth case studies in order to provide instructive lessons for hybrid practitioners and researchers alike. In short, this book presents research that shows hybrid organizations to be a practical and feasible organizational model for contributing solutions to global environmental issues. The lessons in this book will help other social entrepreneurs, business managers, non-profit leaders, or students interested in careers that fuse profitability and responsibility do it even better.

By conceptualizing the rise of the hybrid domain as an emerging institutional form that overlaps public and private interests, this book explores how corporations, states, and civil society organizations develop common agendas, despite the differences in their primary objectives. Using evidence from India, it examines various cases of social innovation in education, energy, health, and finance, which offer solutions for some of the most pressing social challenges of the twenty-first century.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Sustainable Business Models" that was published in Sustainability