Nonprofit hybridity research has revealed how NPOs (nonprofit organizations) have adopted a wide array of hybrid organizational structures and practices. These combine public, nonprofit, and for-profit characteristics (Smith, 2010) in trying to balance their organizational commitment to social ends and values with financial imperatives (Green & Dalton, 2016). Examples include NPOs hybridizing their traditional social mission by becoming more managerialist and businesslike (Beaton et al., 2021a; Maier et al., 2016), by incorporating commercial operations through social enterprises (Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018; Litrico & Besharov, 2019), and by adopting diverse formal and informal partnerships and collaborations with government and private providers (Smith, 2010; Vickers et al., 2017). This prior research has opened up insights into the diverse ways that hybridity can play out in NPOs. However, more research is needed to better understand how NPOs can leverage hybridity to accomplish their vital work of providing social services to vulnerable people in a challenging world. As demographic and social changes, political events, and natural disasters are escalating demand for social services, communities are more reliant than ever before on NPOs to fill gaps in services provided by government and the market (Flanigan, 2022; Ko & Liu, 2021; Smith, 2017). Yet the funding environment for NPOs remains precarious as the availability of government grants and contracts and private donations becomes tighter and more competitive (Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Hwang & Powell, 2009). Thus, gaining deeper and more nuanced insight into NPO hybridity, how it can be navigated and with what consequences is important for business ethics research.

One promising line of inquiry that warrants further research applies the conceptual lens of institutional logics to NPO hybridity (e.g., Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018; Knutsen, 2012; Litrico & Besharov, 2019). Institutional logics are defined as “the set of material practices and symbolic systems including assumptions, values and beliefs” associated with key institutions that shape the cognition and action of individuals and organizations (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 1). Studies have examined, for example, how NPOs accommodate a social welfare logic with a commercial logic (Garrow & Hasenfeld, 2014; Litrico & Besharov, 2019; Skelcher & Smith, 2015) and have brought attention to the emergence of social enterprise activities within NPOs (Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018; Gillett et al., 2019; Ko & Liu, 2021). Notably, this research has tended to overlook other logics that can be associated with nonprofit organizing (Castellas et al., 2019), such as the logics of religion, family, and professions like community and social work (Beaton et al., 2021b; Binder, 2007). For the most part, the literature on institutional logics in NPOs has under-theorized the plurality of logics associated with the “state/business/community triptychs.” It has also under-examined the potential for actors to creatively manage logics within NPOs through variously segmenting, segregating, assimilating, blending, and/or blocking particular logics (Skelcher & Smith, 2015, p. 434).

To advance understanding of NPO hybridity, it is crucial for institutional logics research to move beyond the duality of commercial and social welfare logics and engage with the complexities of multiple logics inside NPOs and the implications of these inter-relationships. On the one hand, tensions between social welfare, market, managerial, professional, and religious logics can play out in “value conflicts” (Beaton et al., 2021a). On the other, “the possibility [exists] for social and commercial elements, when well-managed, to reinforce each other” alongside other logics (Mongelli et al., 2019, p. 302; see also Battilana et al., 2015). Scholars and practitioners know surprisingly little about the conditions under which combinations of institutional logics are likely to productively and unproductively harness tensions between them, especially under circumstances of higher degrees of institutional complexity than the literature has typically accounted for. Seeking to better understand the differences between NPO approaches for managing hybridity, we ask: What distinguishes NPOs that combine multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways?

We investigate this question through a qualitative inductive research design. We examine six case studies of NPOs in Australia that offer social services to the community. Our case study organizations were variously characterized by combinations of primary logics (social welfare logic, managerial logic) and subsidiary logics (market logic, professional logic, religious logic). In three of the case studies, multiple logics were harnessed in productive ways and in three case studies, the tensions between logics were managed unproductively. Our findings reveal that NPOs take a perspective on hybridity. We define this as a generalized view on combining logics that is held widely across the NPO’s organizational members and is anchored by four composite elements: motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitude, and governance orientation. Our findings show there are key differences across these four elements in NPOs that combine multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways. More specifically, we find that hybridity perspectives that harness tensions between multiple logics productively and unproductively, respectively, are characterized by (1) a compelling or confused motivational framing for combining logics; (2) organizational actors having active and shared, or passive and isolated, engagement with multiple logics; (3) coherent or competitive attitudes toward resource allocation among various logics; and (4) a general orientation among board members toward multiple logics as opportunities to leverage or problems to resist.

Our findings make three contributions to the literature. First, we reveal that an organization’s generalized perspective on its hybridity—and not only its specific organizational tactics involving material practices—can be a salient characteristic distinguishing NPOs leveraging their hybridity productively versus unproductively. Second, our study casts light on the interplay among broad “constellations” of logics in NPOs (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Waldorff et al., 2013), extending beyond pairs of logics to add nuance to scholars’ collective understanding of the factors helping or hindering the operations of NPOs. In doing so, our study provides one important answer to calls to address “questions of success and failure” in hybrid organizations (Castellas et al., 2019, p. 635). Finally, our study emphasizes the importance of the board’s views and attitudes as opposed to governance mechanisms themselves. The formulation and implementation of governance emerges from these views and attitudes. Furthermore, in addition to these three theoretical contributions, our study has ethical implications for NPOs’ achievements in society through improving their management. Specifically, our findings help attune NPO leaders to the complicated array of logics governing their NPOs and the views and attitudes of multiple groups of organizational members they must manage to productively leverage the organization’s hybrid nature. By doing so, NPOs can better accomplish their societal aims of delivering essential services to vulnerable populations and communities.

The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. We review the theoretical literature on multiple logics in NPOs before describing our research methods. Next, we present the findings of our case study analysis which show the variations in how multiple logics are combined in productive and unproductive ways. We conclude by discussing the theoretical contributions of our research and implications for future research and practice.

Institutional Logics and Nonprofit Organizations

Institutional logics have flourished into a core stream of literature in organization theory (Thornton et al., 2012). This work brings attention to how multiple logics or “constellations of logics derived from broader society” (Goodrick & Reay, 2011, p. 372) play out with and against each other inside organizations (Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008; Wright & Zammuto, 2013). Logics arise at the societal level from institutions such as the state, market, professions, and religion. Each institution has its “own central logic – a set of material practices and symbolic constructions” that create “distinctive categories, beliefs and motives” and are available to guide organizational and individual action (Friedland & Alford, 1991, pp. 248–52) and emotional displays (Jarvis, 2017). How multiple institutional logics manifest inside organizations depends on the centrality of multiple logics to organizational functioning and whether they provide contradictory or compatible prescriptions for action (Besharov & Smith, 2014). As such, institutional logics are a useful conceptual tool for understanding the organizing challenges of hybrid organizations (Pache & Santos, 2013) including NPOs.

Within the relatively limited empirical literature applying a logics approach to NPOs and similar hybrid organizations like social enterprises, two streams are apparent. One stream is focused on the negative effects of incompatibility between logics. The other engages with the possible “productive tensions” between logics that hybrids can leverage using certain material tactics.

The first stream most often emphasizes tensions specifically between social and commercial logics, incompatibilities which can be exacerbated as NPOs transition into social enterprises. That is, NPOs have often been shown to experience competing pressures on their structures (Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018), forms (Ko & Liu, 2021; Litrico & Besharov, 2019), and identities (Onishi, 2019) as a function of beginning to pursue commercial in addition to social ends. As two potential negative externalities of such hybridity, Fitzgerald and Shepherd (2018) showed how organizations may end up decoupling the practices implemented toward each respective logic or subordinating one logic to the other. Both decoupling and subordinating are potentially sub-optimal outcomes for an NPO or social enterprise which may, at an extreme, lead to organizational paralysis or breakup (Pache & Santos, 2010). Subsequent research on NPOs’ hybridity has supported these potentially maladaptive effects. Bromley, Hwang, and Powell (2012) observed NPOs decoupling practices and processes supporting commercial logics from those supporting social logics (see also Beaton et al., 2021b). In a related vein, Litrico and Besharov (2019) found that, early on in their life cycles, NPOs were likely to structure themselves in ways that emphasized either a social or commercial logic while subordinating the other (see also Hustinx & Waele, 2015).

Bolstering this first stream, other research on NPOs has suggested that such tensions and negative effects can arise from other pairings of logics, in particular spotlighting the incompatibilities between managerial and social logics. This tension arises when NPOs adopt managerialist practices that prioritize resource efficiency, administrative functions, and accountability (Beaton et al., 2021b). This can be done to gain legitimacy with stakeholders, including government and philanthropic bodies who influence contracting and funding arrangements (Maier et al., 2016; Meyer et al., 2013), and to rationalize charity (Hwang & Powell, 2009). Research points to a variety of practices carrying a managerial logic into NPOs, including financial audits, program logic development, quality assurance, performance measurement, impact evaluation, and recruitment of professionally trained managers knowledgeable in rational management tools and techniques (Beaton et al., 2021b; Hwang & Powell, 2009; Jönsson, 2019; Meyer et al., 2013). Insights from this research stream tend to emphasize how these managerial practices are an ongoing source of tension in NPOs because they are anchored in value conflicts (Beaton et al., 2021a; Green & Dalton, 2016) and motivate organizational actors to respond to situations according to the logic to which they are ideologically drawn (Jönsson, 2019). In some NPOs, there is “complete disdain of anything to do with managerialism” (Jackson, 2009, p. 443).

The assumption that hybridity is characterized primarily by negative externalities manifests in much of the broader literature on institutional logics in social enterprises specifically and hybrid organizing more generally (Gillett et al., 2019; Mair et al., 2015; Pache & Santos, 2013; Savarese et al., 2021). Offering a counterpoint to this assumption, research in the second stream suggests that multiple logics can successfully be balanced or may even provide synergistic effects as NPOs and social enterprises pursue their multiplex goals. Generally, this is described as a function of one or two material tactics the organization adopts toward navigating the complexities of hybridity. For example, Battilana and Dorado (2010) showed how successful hiring and socialization practices were integral to microfinance organizations’ ability to balance both their development and banking logics. Skelcher and Smith’s theorization suggests that these NPOs’ human resource practices might have had the effect of resolving “the multiple identities generated by institutional pluralism … through the incorporation of their synergistic elements into a new singular identity” (2015, p. 442). Battilana and colleagues found that the same synergistic ends might also be facilitated by implementing distinct teams. Each team is charged with the pursuit of one distinct goal, and there are designated “arenas of interaction that allow all staff members to discuss and agree on how to handle the daily trade-offs that they face across social and commercial activities” (2015, p. 1660; see also Castellas et al., 2019).

A small body of research in this second stream considers material tactics that can aid the organization’s hybrid nature. For example, Pache and colleagues (2024) examined “relational leadership processes” a tactic intended to manage and harmonize the views among diverse board members, and their importance in determining the viability of French work integration social enterprises. Mozier and Tracey (2010) similarly explored how, in social enterprises, the views of key stakeholders in the surrounding community impact specific strategies for redirecting resources garnered from business activities to social activities. Other studies have found that whether an organization’s hybridity is leveraged productively is affected by leaders’ efforts to empower staff (Vickers et al., 2017) and to structure collective sensemaking regarding what outcomes constitute “success” and “failure” given the organization’s multiple orientations (Jay, 2013). Hybrid organizations’ attempts to model the views and attitudes of external stakeholders through manipulating the specific mix of commercial and social activities have also been explored at some length (e.g., Maier et al., 2016; Meyer et al., 2013; Nicholls, 2010; Ruebottom, 2013).

These two streams, in aggregate, helpfully elucidate the potential positive and negative consequences of hybridity in NPOs and other similar organizations. Yet the cumulative literature still has shortcomings. Intuitively enough, the tendency of scholars has been to identify (1) the material tactic(s) organizations deploy to deal with the tension between an NPO’s defining social welfare objectives and (2) the commercial practices it must implement to sustain or grow the organization or the managerial processes needed to stabilize operations as the organization scales (e.g., Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Beaton et al., 2021a; Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018; Ko & Liu, 2021). As a result, the literature has generally under-theorized the plurality of logics associated with the “state/business/community triptychs” (Skelcher & Smith, 2015, p. 434), often preferencing analysis of simple pairs of logics operative in any given set of focal NPOs. However, NPOs generally operate in increasingly complex and resource-constrained environments in (Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Hwang & Powell, 2009). Thus, there is good reason to believe that management of these organizations involves balancing the simultaneous influences exerted by a much more complex constellation of logics.

Responding to the general paucity of research investigating the higher degrees of institutional complexity implicated in the operations of NPOs, we conducted an empirical study of six Australian NPOs. Our study investigated the approaches to managing the five distinct logics we found to influence their operations: the social welfare, managerial, commercial, professional, and religious logics. In particular, we focused our analytical efforts on discerning the defining characteristics of NPOs seemingly combining logics productively versus unproductively.

Methods

We investigated our research question using a qualitative research design involving multiple case studies, guided by an interpretivist paradigm and with the aim of building theory. Multiple case studies are a common approach for investigating logics in hybrid organizations such as NPOs (e.g., Binder, 2007; Castellas et al., 2019; Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018). Benefits for theory building include studying each NPO case “in depth and within its real-life context” (Yin, 2009, p. 14), allowing examination within NPOs for the presence of multiple logics over time (Reay & Jones, 2016) and enabling comparison across NPOs of approaches that combine logics in productive and unproductive ways (Castellas et al., 2019).

Data Collection

Guided by our research question and Eisenhardt’s (2021, p. 150) method of “choosing cases about the same focal phenomenon in purposefully different settings,” we sought access to different cases of NPOs that combined three or more logics. The first author gained access to an initial case study of an NPO in Australia through a university research partnership and then used her network in, and background knowledge of, the Australian social services sector to select five other cases of NPOs dealing with complex constellations of logics. Thus, our set of six NPO cases was selected for both “academic salience and practical relevance” (Pettigrew, 1990, p. 274), such that multiple logics were observable in each case and case data were accessible to the research team. Our six cases vary in age, size, geographic scope and span a variety of social service offerings, including community support services, animal welfare services, community and mental health support services, multicultural support services, and support for people living with disability. Table 1 presents summary information about the six NPO cases.

Table 1 Summary of case studies and data sources
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For each case, the first author collected both interview and documentary data sources. Primary data were collected through interviews with organizational representatives who were actively involved in formulating the NPO’s strategic plans and organizational practices and/or in implementing these plans through service delivery. Our participants included chief executives, senior and middle managers, and board members. Interviews were semi-structured and lasted 45 to 90 min in duration. A total of 23 interviews were conducted, ranging from 3 to 5 interviews per case study. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and were augmented by extensive notes and observations taken at each interview.

We also collected archival documents to gain more detailed information about NPO operations and to clarify and elaborate insights provided by interview participants. These documents included strategy-related internal documents, such as annual reports, strategic planning documents and meeting minutes, and documents for external audiences such as newspaper articles, press reports, and brochures. Collecting both interview and documentary data improved trustworthiness and rigor by allowing triangulation across data sources (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) and provided a rich database for the purposes of analysis (Yin, 2009). Table 1 summarizes the data sources for each NPO case study.

Data Analysis

Our analytical approach was informed by general methodological guidance on inductively coding qualitative data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) and building theory from case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989), as well as more specific methods for qualitatively analyzing institutional logics (Reay & Jones, 2016). Our analysis of the large volume of data was supported by data management tools, including NVivo software, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and visual-mapping (Langley, 1999). Analysis proceeded in three stages.

In the first stage, the first author wrote detailed narrative descriptions of each NPO case (approximately 25 pages per case) to better understand the operations in each case and how they evolved (Eisenhardt, 1989). We also drew on the institutional logics literature (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Jarvis, 2017; Thornton et al., 2012) to develop our thinking about the different ways in which ideal-type logics might be manifest in our nonprofit cases. After reviewing our case narratives and comparing them to ideal-type logics in the literature, we identified five logics that were present to varying degrees and in different combinations of primary and subsidiary logics. Two logics—a social welfare logic and a managerial logic—were present as primary logics in five case studies, with a market logic present as a primary logic on one case study. Other logics (professional, religious, and market) were also present as subsidiary logics. Table 2 summarizes these logics with representative data from our cases.

Table 2 Logics present in nonprofit cases and representative data
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In the second analysis stage, we compared within and across the six case narratives. We noticed that three NPO cases (Assist, Humane, WellbeingFootnote 1) seemed to have developed productive ways of combining multiple logics over time, while three NPO cases (Empowerment, Equity, Independence) seemed to be more unproductive in the way they combined logics. Having used the case narratives to tentatively distinguish cases of productive and unproductive logic combinations, we revisited the full data set of interviews and documents collected for the six cases to interrogate the similarities and differences.

We initially focused on coding the three cases with productive combinations of logics. We used Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) sensitizing questions of what, who, how, when, and why to interrogate the patterns in these data. As we compared within and across the data, we were struck by similarities across the three cases in the motivational framing for multiple logics (why), the scope of actor engagement with multiple logics (who), the resourcing attitudes for multiple logics (how), and the governance orientation in managing logics (how). We then turned our attention to the patterns in the data for the three cases which combined logics in unproductive ways. After applying the same sensitizing questions, we noticed differences between the productive and unproductive cases on these same four theoretical elements of motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitudes, and governance orientation.

In the third analysis stage, we speculated that these elements, when taken together, represented an organizational perspective, or generalized view, on hybridity and were important in distinguishing productive and unproductive ways of combining logics in response to our research question. Seeking to clarify and elaborate these distinctions, we began with the element of motivational framing. As we compared iteratively within and across the case data, we categorized NPOs as having a “compelling” (productive combinations) or “confused” (unproductive combinations) motivation for combining logics. We repeated this coding procedure for the other three theoretical elements. For the element of actor engagement, we identified that actors had what we labeled “active and shared” (productive combinations) or “isolated” (unproductive combinations) engagement with multiple logics. For the element of resourcing attitudes, we categorized attitudes based on “coherence” (productive combinations) or “competition” (unproductive combinations) between multiple logics. Finally, for the dimension of governance orientation, we categorized governance as primarily oriented toward multiple logics as “opportunities to leverage” (productive combinations) or “problems to resist” (unproductive combinations).

These steps in our analysis process required continuous revision and refinement of the codes, as well as combining and linking of the dimensions, until a coherent story emerged for our findings in response to our research question. While the first author served as primary researcher in terms of data collection and analysis, the emergent themes were critically discussed in meetings among the research team. The other authors asked challenging questions and acted as checks and probes on the emerging coding to increase reliability and reduce researcher bias (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

Findings

In this section, we present the findings of our analysis of our six case studies. In response to our research question, the NPOs that combined multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways are distinguished by differences in motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitude, and governance orientation as elements of the organization’s hybridity perspective.

Motivational Framing

Compelling Motivation

Case studies that combined multiple logics in productive ways were characterized by a compelling motivational framing for bringing in new logics to support historically entrenched logics, in essence “provid[ing] some over-arching coat-hanger” (I12). NPO-Wellbeing’s leadership framed a managerial logic as an innovative means for accomplishing the organization’s traditional social welfare and religious logics in the local communities it serviced. Interviews described how “we decided that we wanted to both utilize what capability and skills we have got to create some new ways of responding to the community” (I14) and to “support us to ensure integration of the church’s mission into our work” (I12). NPO-Humane envisioned that rationalist practices associated with a managerial logic could bolster what the organization had been striving to achieve with its historical prioritization of a social welfare logic and professional veterinary logic to protect animals. While “everyone was genuine about the cause [of animal welfare]” (I22), leaders noted that:

“In terms of animal care and welfare, it was fine. In terms of the administration of a business, very poorly done … The board of directors saw that there was an issue as the business was just meandering along … It was a [managerialist] decision to say we need somebody who can generate revenue and put in systems and processes and stop waste of money and also bring the organization together, tie all the strings together” (I24)

Finally, at NPO-Assist, senior leadership viewed a managerial logic as a means of improving organizational structures to support social welfare and religious logics. Consistent with the other two positive cases, a strong consensus on framing a managerial logic as supportive of traditional logics created a compelling motivation to combine multiple logics, as this quote from a new manager illustrates:

“Originally [a managerial logic] was initiated by a group from within [religious parent organization who] requested a review and a project to be set up to create a better structure, an improved structure … I think one thing that was on my side [was] that nearly everyone within [religious parent organization] acknowledged the need to change and improve and they were quite positive that something had to be done” [I6]

Confused Motivation

Case studies that combined multiple logics in unproductive ways were distinguished by a confused motivational framing for drawing on different logics and a lack of clear consensus on the position of managerial and market logics vis-à-vis social welfare and professional logics. In the cases of NPO-Equity and NPO-Empowerment, there was confusion about motives for adopting managerial approaches within the volunteerism of social welfare logics and professional logics of social work and nursing to assist vulnerable people in the community. Interviewees stated, “there is no clarity there as to what the role of management is” (I9) and “it’s sort of walking a jagged line … on how you’re going to interpret community development and everyone seems to do that in a different way” (I20).

At NPO-Independence, the charity’s founders viewed the disability sector through a market logic. Interviewees described how “they all came from very marketing media – they understood spin … they relied on a lot of corporate support and their networks, corporate support and events” (I4) and “were a bit entrepreneurial in their style” (I3). They adopted targeted marketing activities and events to raise a lot of donations as a “cool and groovy brand” (I4), creating confusion in the motivational framing of why, and to what extent, the market logic should dominate the social welfare logic both inside the organization and within the broader disability sector. Noting these discordant frames, a senior manager, who was employed to improve strategic planning by bringing in a managerialist logic to complement the market logic, said:

“I got a fair bit of this [gestures with middle finger] So then you have to get to the bottom of that why is this going on and how can we resolve that and how can we start working together and how are you trying to turn the ship around” (I1).

Actor Engagement

Active and Shared Engagement

In case studies that combined multiple logics in productive ways, actors associated with the NPO actively engaged with multiple logics in shared spaces. NPO-Wellbeing described how “strong engagement of staff” was facilitated through “storytelling sessions” (I12) about ways of working that integrate aspects of social welfare, religious and managerial logics in the delivery of a diverse range of services, including aged care, disability support, crisis support, children and family services, healthcare, and charity shops. Providing a forum for staff to share stories of engaging constructively with multiple logics aimed to ensure that “we have the same values that permeate right through the organization and … developed a set of theological underpinnings for the values” (I12). At its animal shelters, NPO-Humane encouraged staff and volunteers, “who are intrinsic to our organization” (I25), to “bridge the gap” (I24) between the financial acumen of a managerial logic, the community responsibility and volunteerism of a social welfare logic, and the veterinary care and evidence-based clinical practice of a professional logic. An interviewee explained, "we did that through a series of staff meetings, staff training courses, awareness sessions, information sessions for staff" (I24). Finally, NPO-Assist created shared consultation spaces for staff and community stakeholders to discuss “an integrated approach” (I7) for bringing a managerial logic together with social welfare and religious logics and to voice and resolve concerns:

"I was on the road a lot with the interim executive president and visiting different churches and getting a lot of input into what occurred and dealing with every single piece of input and giving individual feedback on what's being done with that. So having a fairly high degree of consultation … people felt really involved." (I6)

Passive and Isolated Engagement

In case studies that combined multiple logics in unproductive ways, actors associated with the NPO engaged with separate logics in isolated spaces. At NPO-Empowerment, the managerial logic required the staff involved in frontline service delivery provide regular written reports that evaluated activities: “they’ve sent us a template … basically its numbers” (I19). However, there was minimal effort to create shared spaces for dialog about how the reports connected with the values of improving “people’s health or their social inclusion or their sense of safety or community cohesion” (I20) within a social welfare logic and professional logics of social work and human services: “there is a disconnection” (I20). As a result, staff engagement with practices associated with different logics was largely passive and attended to aspects of different logics in isolation:

“I have never sat down with them and had a discussion … We were asked if we’ll come to the meeting and present out program or questions we have for management. … I’ve been once. … To me it feels more token than actually a conversation. I kind of feel like we’re quite alienated from the management committee (I19).

Actors’ passive engagement with multiple logics in isolated spaces is also evident in the views of two other NPOs’ members. When NPO-Equity developed its strategic plan, staff in different operating divisions were excluded from engaging in dialog with management about how professional and social welfare logics could be integrated with managerial logics:

“We needed to do more consultation with our staff because when this was put together, it excluded these and I think they've got their own strategic plan that nobody here knows about so that's just ridiculous … Decisions that are made in those operating divisions are really not shared by, or shared with the executive committee” (I9).

In the case of NPO-Independence, actors associated with the organization elected not to engage with the disability sector’s shared spaces for dialog about how to combine social welfare and professional logics with other more corporate-style logics. A new manager described how “the sector wouldn’t even talk to us when I came on board because we weren’t talking to it. We were just going off and doing our own thing [prioritizing a market logic] saying, ‘We don’t need to talk to you’ (I4).

Resourcing Attitude

Resourcing Coherence

Case study NPOs that combined multiple logics in productive ways tended to have members who generally felt that resource allocations to practices and processes supporting all the different logics present in the organization were coherent. That is, in their view, supporting all practices and processes were not misallocations but helped the organization achieve its goals. An example from NPO-Wellbeing illustrates this attitude. Members generally supported resource allocation decisions for the organization’s health services stream, which interweaved support for social welfare, religious, and managerial logics, ensuring “that is all coherent so you can get alignment through that” (I12). An interviewee approvingly discussed the synergistic effects of resourcing across the organization’s multiple logics:

“That would pick up missional and theological consideration as well as competencies and skills-based stuff [for healthcare accreditation and training] … and classic business methodology and thinking. … We have big capital needs … When you are talking social work or nurses or allied health professionals or psychologists etcetera, many of them go on to be managers but all of them have not had good orientation to that in their undergraduate degrees. So we have paid a lot of attention to our frontline managers and invested in significant leadership development … [around using resources with] that clear focus on mission and being vigilant around social impacts and social returns” (I12).

One member of NPO-Humane similarly suggested that resourcing across the organization’s managerial, social welfare, and professional logics helped the organization use grant funding and charitable donations prudently and meaningfully, and in the end was a function of “maximizing the chance of saving the lives of the animals that we are dealing with, and putting in place all of that mechanism” (I24). Another manager, connecting the approach to reducing waste, said “I hope that we don’t have wastage because I remember how hard that people work for that two dollars [they donate to us as a charity]” (I22). Reflecting on the coherence of resource priorities across multiple logics, an interviewee stated, “the really good parts are when we lay out a plan and we actually achieve it and all that—we can actually say that what I’ve done today has changed the lives of animals (I21). In NPO-Assist, one member discussed how resourcing coherence across managerial and professional logics in health and aged care services facilitated communication, allowing for better care for clients:

“[Managerial logics create] a priority and a focus around efficient resources, no wastage, dotting I’s, crossing t’s, that sort of stuff. I am dealing with nurses and social workers whose clear priority [within a professional logic] is the client and their priority to do paperwork isn’t necessarily top priority … [To make resourcing more coherent across managerial and professional logics] we have discussions around what’s a good priority and what’s not” (I7).

Resourcing Competition

Case study organizations that combined multiple logics in unproductive ways had members who generally felt that allocation of resources across all logics influencing the organization was a mismanagement of the organization’s finite resources. They also viewed resourcing among practices and processes supporting different logics as zero-sum. The members of NPO-Independence widely perceived “competing needs” (I3) across the market logic, social welfare logic, and managerial logic with regard to the organization’s financial resources and physical buildings. One interviewee described their feelings toward allocation of resources for establishing ‘alternative’ funding methods: “we have never set up those quote ‘traditional’ [charitable and grant funding] methods because as the [market] innovators we are cool and groovy—it’s now in this environment will come back to bite us.” They went on to describe their feelings regarding NPO-Independence’s decision not to invest resources in owning the building where it delivered residential disability services: “we don’t have any control over the care of those residents and that is what is paramount to us” (I4).

Members of NPO-Equity widely perceived a competitive approach to resourcing among practices and process supporting the organization’s managerial logic, social welfare logic, and professional logics. They felt the need to achieve “better outcomes and outputs for residents with exactly the same resources … constantly juggling all the time to get the most out of every single dollar” (I10). An interviewee expressed their opinion that the competitive approach to resource allocation and efficiency was more consistent with managing a retail business model but risked subverting ethics of care in professional nursing logics and social welfare logics: “We’re dealing with life and death here [in aged care]. This is not shoes and handbags. These are people’s lives(I10).

In other examples, staff delivering frontline services at NPO-Empowerment perceived that a managerial logic created competition in accessing resources that were needed to help vulnerable clients under a professional social work logic and a social welfare logic. Staff felt as though they needed to compete for resources, with members vying for assets needed to serve equally worthy client groups, as practitioners explained:

“They compete with each other and, for me, that’s just wrong because [all] groups are equally valid to be considered by society as valuable and should be supported and valued and should be able to have quality of life … if you have seniors competing for funding with [other groups like single mothers] then it’s crazy.” (I18)

“It’s all about the dollar … It is frustrating and quite upsetting to see the work on the ground [cut back due to competition for funding]… You would like to say to whoever controls all the firm, ‘Come down and see. Come and have a look at what we do and the way we do it and then tell me why you want to cut it’ … One year it’s mental health, one year it’s old people, one year is disability, one year it’s the kids. (I20)

Governance Orientation

Opportunity to Leverage

In addition to motivational framing, actor engagement, and resourcing attitude, our focal NPOs tended to be distinguished by governance orientation, or the general attitude of board members regarding the appropriateness and feasibility of combining multiple logics. In case studies that combined logics in productive ways, the NPO’s board members tended to view the presence of multiple logics was an opportunity to leverage. For example, NPO-Wellbeing appointed a highly professionalized and remunerated board whose members strove to integrate values and practices associated with managerial, market, social welfare, and religious logics to “leverage some better capacity for our services” (I12), generate strategic opportunities and promote organizational sustainability. As an interviewee explained:

“we always try and attempt to having sufficient balance on the board so that there are people who understand the work and have a strong sense of [social welfare and religious] mission for the work as well as people who bring very significant large-scale business skills … [The board also includes] particular roles around interpreting the mission of the Church” – developing theological values (I12).

In a similar vein, by appointing an executive director to the board whose background and experience integrated multiple logics, NPO-Assist uniquely oriented its governance toward identifying and leveraging opportunities at the intersection of managerial, social welfare, and religious logics: “our focus is on supporting children and families, not supporting shareholders” (I8). The executive director “has been a minister of the church but he’s also been a very successful businessman who was previously managing an aged care organization so the mix of skills and attributes [helps to see opportunities across logics] and he’s also a clinical psychologist” (I6). Finally, board members at NPO-Humane generally perceived opportunities at the intersection of managerial, social welfare, and professional veterinary logics, with members referencing how the board tended to “pinch ideas from the corporate world to run a charity” (I22).

Problem to Resist

In case studies that combined logics in unproductive ways, the NPO’s board members were primarily oriented toward multiple logics as problems to resist. In NPO-Empowerment, the board members “sort of come with their own set of beliefs and values where they don’t really come from a human service sort of background” (I17). In NPO-Independence “the board, who in some ways are not detailed people, didn’t really read what the strategic plan said and what were the implications for us as a management” (I4). The case of NPO-Equity provides a vivid illustration of how board members’ attention to different logics informs a governance orientation toward multiple logics as problems to resist. Volunteerism in the social welfare logic created a governance problem for professional managers in NPO-Equity. They resisted this problem by developing work-arounds that elevated the managerial logic and subordinated the social welfare logic:

The governance of the organization is lacking … It’s meaningless for me to deliver [my monthly report] to them because they’ve got no real understanding. They are all volunteers and they are all there partly because they represent their communities. … The reality is that professional managers are actually driving things with virtually no strategic leadership at that governance level (I9)

At the same time, volunteer board members of NPO-Equity viewed manager roles and practices associated with managerial logics as problems they had authority to resist. This governance orientation legitimated dismissing professional managers who did not act in ways that executive board members believed was good for the needs of the communities they represented. Explaining how two professional managers “fell foul” of a board member for enacting managerial logics, an interviewee said:

Things happened and he just fell foul and she was gone. … He also got rid of the previous finance person. … They fell foul because there was a way to do this and he wanted to run it his way and they were effectively dismissed. … That’s the deficiency in the governance structure at the moment. (I9)

The quote below from a board member of NPO-Equity reinforces how combining volunteerism of social welfare logics and managerial logics in unproductive ways plays out in a governance orientation of multiple logics as problems to resist:

It’s always conflict. … Some management thinks, ‘Oh that’s not your role, that’s my role as manager’ because it’s very hard to distinguish which is management role and the governance role for NPOs … The one conflict is they don’t respect you because you are not paid. The second is because there should be an understanding of the duties of the governance of the governing body and management.” (I11).

Summary: A Model of Hybridity Perspectives for Combining Multiple Logics

Taken together, our findings suggest that NPO’s develop an organizational perspective on hybridity, which we define as a generalized view of combining logics held widely across an NPO’s members. We found NPO hybridity perspectives to be comprised of four composite elements: motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitude, and governance orientation. Figure 1 presents a model of hybridity perspectives for combining multiple logics in NPOs which we derived from our findings.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Continuum of NPO hybridity perspectives for combining multiple logics

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As our model shows, multiple logics are combined in productive ways when an NPO’s leaders construct a motivational framing for combining logics that is compelling, when shared spaces are created for an NPO’s members to actively engage with logics, when resourcing attitudes are coherent across logics, and when governance by board members is oriented toward multiple logics as opportunities to leverage. In contrast, multiple logics are combined in unproductive ways when an NPO’s leaders’ motivational framing for combining logics is confused, when organizational actors have passive and isolated actor engagement with logics, when resourcing attitudes are competitive across logics, and when governance by board members is oriented toward multiple logics as problems to resist.

Thus, our model is suggestive of two ideal types of organizational hybridity perspectives situated on either end of four continua describing the different dimensions of NPO views and attitudes toward their hybrid nature. As depicted in Fig. 1, at one end of these continua, our analysis indicates that each element—a compelling motivational framing, active engagement in shared spaces, coherent resourcing attitudes, and a board which views multiple logics as opportunities to leverage—makes a distinct, individual contribution to an overarching organizational perspective conducive to the productive harnessing of the organization’s hybrid nature. While actual NPOs will only ever resemble this ideal type of hybridity perspective more-or-less closely or imperfectly, our data suggest that the more closely an NPO comes to realizing this ideal type, the more likely it will be to productively leverage hybridity.

Furthermore, while our study was focused specifically on gleaning the elements of organizational perspectives conducive to the productive leveraging of hybridity, our data are suggestive of two related insights into organizational hybridity perspectives. The first insight is that the continua comprising these different elements are empirically distinct. Our data illustrate that real organizations can fall at one end on some of these continua and closer to the other end on others. For example, one of our focal NPOs, NPO-Wellbeing excelled at motivational framing and governance orientation, which contributed greatly to its productive leveraging of its hybrid nature. However, tensions associated with achieving coherence in the resourcing attitude, particularly in the early stages of logic introduction, likely hindered this leveraging. Such examples illustrate that actual hybridity perspectives are not unilaterally (un)productive, but arrays of four composite elements which, on balance, allow the firm to more-or-less productively leverage its hybrid nature. We argue this is practically important because it suggests managers of hybrid organizations need to pay specific attention to all four elements to productively leverage hybridity.

The second insight is that organizations can move along these continua over time and that elements may influence each other. For example, returning to the example of NPO-Wellbeing above, our data suggest the organization moved from competitive to coherent positioning of resourcing attitudes over time. This process was facilitated particularly by the compelling motivational framing in the hybridity perspective.

Whether this transition was through conscious effort or a more emergent organizational trend in NPO-Wellbeing, the transition implies that change is possible and that organizational hybridity perspectives and their composite elements are not static. Notably, they are dynamic continua that hybrid organizations move along as their board members, managers, employees, and volunteers change over time along with their practices, routines, and communication patterns. Again, we point to the practical importance of such movement. It implies that hybrid organizations’ board and managers can and should devote resources to the augmentation of their organizations’ motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitudes, and governance orientation when the organization is failing to productively leverage its hybrid nature.

Discussion

We set out to better understand how NPOs can manage their hybrid nature implicating a more complex constellation of institutional logics than is typically depicted in extant research. To do so, we examined the question of what characteristics distinguish NPOs that combine multiple logics in productive and unproductive ways. We investigated this question through a qualitative inductive study which collected and analyzed data for six case studies of NPOs in Australia. Our study makes three contributions to the literature at the intersection of the logics perspective and NPO hybridity, and has ethical implications for how NPOs accomplish their social missions for vulnerable populations.

First, our study makes a novel contribution by opening up new insight into a core puzzle in the NPO literature regarding what distinguishes NPOs that combine logics productively versus unproductively. The model of hybridity perspectives for combining multiple logics which emerged from our data builds on and extends the literature that uses logics to frame NPO hybridity. This literature has tended to identify one or two material tactics the organization will use to navigate the tensions inherent in its hybrid nature. Examples include decoupling practices associated with different logics (e.g., Bromley et al., 2012), selective coupling of compatible elements (e.g., Pache & Santos, 2013), or subordinating/deemphasizing one of the logics (e.g., Hustinx & Waele, 2015; Litrico & Besharov, 2019; Savarese et al., 2021). Other literature is concerned with the views and attitudes of stakeholders toward hybridity and takes a similarly narrow approach of analyzing the impact of one or two tactics on stakeholders. This includes research on the legitimation of social enterprises to external audiences (e.g., Maier et al., 2016; Meyer et al., 2013; Ruebottom, 2013), the management of diverse board members’ attitudes toward hybridity (e.g., Pache et al. 2024), and the efforts of leaders to empower employees and volunteers embedded in different logics to view collaboration as productive (e.g., Jay, 2013; Vickers et al., 2017).

While this extant research has provided some valuable but focused insights into the influences on the productivity of hybridity for a given organization, our findings and model offer a more comprehensive explanation. We bring attention to how the views and attitudes of board members, leaders, employees, and volunteers simultaneously determining the organization’s perspective on its hybrid nature are more multiplex than has been depicted in the literature to date. Thus, our findings and model advance the literature beyond its general tendency to take a myopic focus on the views and attitudes of one group of actors in any given study. Such myopia runs the risk of oversimplifying the diagnoses of flaws of unproductive approaches as well as prescriptions for more productive approaches. Our findings give empirical weight to the intuition that the views and attitudes of all composite groups in the organization, instantiated in our four emergent dimensions (i.e., motivational framing, actor engagement, resourcing attitudes, and governance orientation), matter at one and the same time. In theorizing these emergent dimensions as comprising a hybridity perspective which crucially influences the productivity of an organization’s approach to its hybrid nature, our study adds nuance to extant research on hybrid organizations through acknowledging the complexity of the views and attitudes present in a hybrid organization in a more comprehensive fashion.

Second, we contribute to a deeper understanding of NPO hybridity by casting novel light on the constellations of logics in NPOs. The relatively small body of empirical studies applying the logics perspective to NPOs has to date been characterized by a narrow focus on specific pairs of logics often salient for NPOs or similar hybrid organizations like social enterprises (e.g., commercial and social welfare logics, managerialist and social welfare logics; see Castellas et al., 2019). This is an intuitive approach to understanding NPO hybridity given how significant the tensions between these logics can be for many NPOs (e.g., Fitzgerald & Shepherd, 2018). However, analysis of simple pairs of logics significantly truncates the complexity of the institutional environment facing NPOs (Skelcher & Smith, 2015) arising from wider constellations of logics (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Thornton et al., 2012; Waldorff et al., 2013).

In moving beyond analyzing pairs of logics, our study advances the NPO hybridity literature by revealing the novelty and complexity of the constellations of multiple logics that an NPO must navigate. More specifically, our six case studies illuminate how logic constellations in NPOs can involve up to five different logics associated with social welfare, managerialism, markets, professions, and religion and that these constellations are arrayed as primary and subordinate logics. By expanding the array of logics analyzed, our study brings attention to some complementary, supportive, or otherwise non-contradictory relationships between different logics that permit primary and subordinate logics to be more easily combined in productive ways by NPOs. In doing so, our study complements the small body of extant work on “the bright side of hybridity” (Mongelli et al., 2019) by suggesting that a more comprehensive understanding of the logics influencing NPO operations can reveal more of the bases on which the positive externalities of hybridity might be generated.

Finally, our findings add nuance to the oft deployed concept of governance in research on NPO hybridity. Extant studies have broadly suggested that formal and informal governance mechanisms can defend and maintain practices supporting the social welfare logic of NPOs (e.g., Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Hwang & Powell, 2009; Jönsson, 2019; Mair et al., 2015; Simpson et al., 2011). Our study, however, moves beyond the focus on governance mechanisms and emphasizes the genesis of such mechanisms: governance orientation, here meaning the general attitude of board members regarding the appropriateness and feasibility of combining multiple logics in a productive way. While governance mechanisms are the strategic tools through which the board’s orientation is implemented, they are mere tools. Our findings suggest that, from a governance perspective, equally if not more important for the management of NPOs is designing a board generally composed of members believing hybridity is an opportunity to be leveraged as opposed to a problem to resist. That is, our findings underscore the crucial importance of board selection procedures, and how a potential member’s attitude toward the complex institutional environment the NPO operates in must be ascertained and accounted for in choosing board members.

Moreover, given the importance of widely held organizational perceptions that our study throws into high relief, our findings and model resonate with a small body of extant work on communication and collaboration in NPOs (e.g., Battilana et al., 2015; Castellas et al., 2019) and the broader organizational literature on the use of space (e.g., Staggs et al., 2022; Wright et al., 2023). Aligning with this work, our findings recommend that NPO managers make concerted efforts to help create and maintain hybridity perspectives among all members of their organizations anchored by a compelling motivational framing, shared actor engagement, and a coherent attitude to resourcing multiple logics. Our findings related to shared spaces for actor engagement, for example, suggest that NPOs should establish and maintain social and physical spaces among members responsible for the practices and processes supporting different logics. Interacting in shared spaces would seem to be key for members—each of whom, given their idiosyncratic life experiences, beliefs, and values, is likely to bring very different perspectives on the appropriateness and commensurability of the NPO’s primary and subordinate logics—to converge around consensus support for the organization’s hybridity. Thus, our findings encourage managers of NPOs to consider how they might create shared spaces, whether through dedicating on-site physical spaces for formal and informal social interactions and/or online spaces via social media channels and messenger applications.

Ethical Implications

The above contributions have ethical implications for NPOs’ achievements in society and for providing services to members of vulnerable populations in local communities through improving NPO management. Our findings recommend that leaders of NPOs expand their focus beyond managing the views and attitudes of just one group—such as the board (e.g., Pache et al. 2024), or external stakeholders (e.g., Ruebottom, 2013), or employees (Vickers et al., 2017)—and beyond balancing merely the commercial and social goals of the organization. Rather, our study implies that the productivity of hybridity for any given NPO, and thus its ability to fill gaps in services provided by government and the market to people in need, is a function of leaders’ ability to keep many ‘plates spinning’ at once. NPO leaders must strategize around not just the market and social welfare logics inherent in their hybridity, but the managerial, professional, and religious priorities and obligations that board members, employees, and volunteers in NPOs often bring to bear in their decision making.

Further, in the precarious funding environment for NPOs highlighted in business ethics research (Ahmadsimab & Chowdhury, 2021; Hwang & Powell, 2009), NPO leaders must concern themselves with the views and attitudes of all these actors simultaneously. They can do this by (1) providing a compelling motivational framing of the organization’s hybridity, (2) establishing shared spaces for active engagement between and across members embedded in different logics, (2) communicating that resources expended toward engagement with all the organization’s logics are beneficial for the NPO’s core mission, and (4) ensuring a diverse board which views hybridity as an advantage rather than a liability. Whereas extant literature may give the impression that these elements could be accomplished in a ‘piecemeal’ fashion, our study emphasizes the complex reality of running an NPO and suggests that it is only through the recognition of this complex reality that NPOs will be able to generate the most good for the most stakeholders. Therefore, the ethical implications of our study arise from the broader societal impacts of NPOs productively harnessing multiple logics to support people in need in vulnerable populations and communities. Applying the practical insights and recommendations from our study will help NPOs to continue their vital role of filling gaps left by inadequate service provision by governments and markets in the face of escalating demand for social services and despite precarious NPO funding environments (Flanigan, 2022; Ko & Liu, 2021; Smith, 2017).

Future Research

While our six focal cases allowed us to gain some insight into the perspectives that NPOs take on their intrinsically hybrid nature, our study was exploratory and the nature and scope of our dataset posed limitations on the insights we were able to draw. We see our model as capturing our emergent theoretical insights into two ideal–typical perspectives on NPO hybridity combining multiple logics. We see each element representing continua rather than dichotomies, but further research is needed. Our dataset did not permit us to systematically examine our model for either processes or variance on the compositional elements that anchor an organization’s hybridity perspective. Future research is needed to examine each element in our proposed NPO hybridity perspectives in more detail and to explore potential relationships that might exist between the various elements. Such work might also seek to connect variation in these elements more systematically to outcomes proxying the productivity of the organization’s specific approach to combining logics. For example, a study looking at the effects of variation in actor engagement with multiple logics on measures of successful social service provision would be a significant contribution to the literature on NPO hybridity.

Similarly, our dataset did not permit us to examine empirically whether there are potential relationships between particular traits of an NPO—such as organizational size, stage of life cycle, or the presence or absence of slack resources—and the hybridity perspective that organizational members adopt and the consequences for NPO performance. Nevertheless, our data are suggestive of some tentative relationships that warrant further investigation. Specifically, larger, older, better-resourced NPOs generally seemed to be characterized by more productive ways of combining multiple logics. Future researchers might seek to investigate whether there are systematic relationships between organizational traits, such as size and age, and particular compositional elements of an NPO’s hybridity perspective in our model. These traits warrant further research as they may serve as important boundary conditions on our insights as well as precursors to productive tensions in hybrid organizations It is possible, for example, that when there is actual resource munificence in an NPO, organizational members may be less likely to adopt a resourcing attitude of competition over finite resources because resource constraints would be a less prominent aspect of day-to-day organizational life. We invite future research into this issue and other potential boundary conditions on the applicability of our model to other NPO contexts.

Toward that end, researchers might consider alternative research designs to verify and elaborate our model. Subsequent studies might use psychometric survey instruments to better understand and tap variation in the hybridity perspectives. Data of this type might be leveraged to test hypotheses about relationships between an NPO’s perspective on hybridity and the productivity of the NPO’s combination of logics. Longitudinal research might also trace whether organizational perspectives on hybridity change over time, potentially constituting a general tendency for larger, older organizations to have views and attitudes regarding hybridity which frame it as an opportunity rather than a liability.

Conclusion

NPOs remain a crucial source of support in communities to fill gaps in social services provided government and the market (Flanigan, 2022; Ko & Liu, 2021; Smith, 2017). Our study offers insights into the productive and unproductive ways that NPOs combine multiple logics as they perform their important social welfare role. We invite both researchers and practitioners to consider the wider implications of our model for understanding hybridity in NPOs and for managing and leveraging multiple logics. Researchers might build on the conceptual insights in our model in future studies of NPOs and social hybrids more generally, while NPO practitioners might consider the implications for leadership recruitment, board composition, and training and socializing staff and volunteers.