Hybrid organizations in the public services including public-private partnerships, social enterprises, and collaborations are an increasingly prominent in many countries throughout the world.  These arrangements can range from very informal relationships to formal, binding agreements among organizations such as partnerships between government and nonprofit organizations, public and nonprofit organizations with substantial earned income from market activities, and “design-build” agreements between government and large for-profit construction companies (Skelcher, 2005; Bovaird, 2006; Smith, 2010).

This study offers a framework for understanding the governance and management implications of these hybrid organizations with a specific focus on nonprofit organizations.  In particular, we plan to present the results of comparative research investigating hybrid organizations in the UK and the US in the policy field of social housing.

This research is an opportunity to explore the utility of the concept of “hybridity” in research on nonprofit management. We propose different models of hybridity within the context of nonprofit organizations and then propose specific propositions related to the management of different types of hybrids.  We will argue that different models of hybridity have important implications for organizational performance and leadership.  We employ the institutional logics framework to hybridity as the existence of plural logics within an organization.  This framework is especially helpful in understanding the management of hybrid organizations because it offers a theory of agency and our different models predict different consequences for practice of different hybrid models.

Our comparative study will also provide insights into the potential differences and similarities in hybrid organizations in the US and UK and the effect of different performance regimes and expectations.  This paper is especially timely given the widespread enthusiasm for social innovation, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.  Many leading nonprofit organizations in the US and abroad such as the Greyston Bakery or Share our Strength are hybrid organizations.  Many nonprofits have for-profit subsidiaries and complicated relationships with government funders and corporate partners. 

Despite the currency accorded to hybridity and the increasing adoption of hybrid structures (Smith, 2010; Skelcher and Smith, forthcoming), our understanding of hybridity and its implications for theory, policy and practice remains underdeveloped; our paper will thus be an important addition to the extant literature and research.  It will offer a theoretically rich analysis of an important policy field with direct implications for the management of nonprofit organizations and their effective performance.