The Study On The Hybrid Organizing Mode And Mechanism Of Multiple Institutional Logics In Chinese Social Enterprises

In recent years,the global economy has entered an unprecedentedly developing era.However,social problems such as environmental pollution,aging population and food safety are becoming increasingly prominent,making it difficult to have an effective solution solely relying on the government,the market,or the non-profit organization.Social enterprise,creative in addressing social problems,has gradually become an innovative thinking and practice that saves government failures,market failures,charity failures and that finds a way-out in the social dilemma.The emergence and popularity of social enterprise not only reflect the society's innovation and efforts in sustainably solving social problems,but also represents the reflection and revision on the profit maximization opinion from traditional capitalism.At present,social enterprises in China are growing rapidly and are expected to have a breakthrough in the next few years.Emphasizing on the use of commercial means in solving social problems as well as combining commercial and non-profit forms,social enterprise is a representative of hybrid organization,a new organization form.The core feature of hybrid organization in a social enterprise is the hybridity,which is the integration of multiple institutional logics including commercial logic and social welfare logic.Being a double-edged sword,hybridity brings difficulties and challenges to the operation and management of social enterprises while endowing the society enterprises with resources and innovation.The emergence and growth of social enterprises put forward a vital research question in organizational theory study: how do social enterprises overcome the differences and conflicts between the two institutional logics,maintain business competitiveness and social value creativity,achieve sustainable development? Meanwhile,the development of social enterprises also promotes the management and balance of the multiple institutional logics in social enterprises to become an important research topic.In the context of economic transition and social innovation in China and from the perspective of multiple institutional logic theory,this study explores three questions: Firstly,what are the dimensions of multiple institutional logic's distribution features and management modes in social enterprises under the background of China's transitional economy? Secondly,what are the advantages as well as conflicts and tensions faced by Chinese social enterprises? Thirdly,how do Chinese social enterprises cope with conflicts and tensions and maintain hybrid in achieving sustainable growth.In order to answer the above three research questions,the study adopts qualitative research methods such as grounded theory and single case study.Based on the surveys and interviews of 20 social enterprises in China,the study tries to reveal the ‘Black box' of multiple institutional logics coexisting and integrating in social enterprises.The study found out that:(1)The distribution features and management modes of multi-institutional logics in Chinese social enterprises.There are three institutional logics within Chinese social enterprises: social welfare logic,commercial logic and state logic.Among them,commercial logic and social welfare logic are the core logics of social enterprise,which determine the nature of hybrid organization in social enterprises,and the intervention of state logic may affect the commercial logic and social welfare logic.The distribution features of multi-institutional logics in social enterprises can be summarized as: the importance of institutional logics,the scope of institutional logics and the degree of institutional logics.According to the scope of institutional logics,the study classifies social enterprises into four types: general social enterprise,channel social enterprise,focus social enterprise and leverage social enterprise.The management modes of social enterprises' multi-institutional logics have four dimensions: organizational structure,organizational practice,organizational personnel and organizational culture.In the dimension of organizational practice,the integration of commercial logics and social welfare logic appears to have four types: customer benefited,employee benefited,supplier benefited,and other than the social enterprise benefited.(2)The advantages as well as conflicts and tensions faced by Chinese social enterprises.Comparing with traditional non-profit organizations,Chinese social enterprises have advantages in terms of resource acquisition,legality establishment and job identification.However,the integration of multi-institutional logics brings about conflicts and tensions.The conflicts and tensions caused by commercial logic and social welfare logic include: resource tension,performance tension and identity tension.The conflicts and tensions caused by government logic intervention include: the lack of macro policies,the ambiguous roles of government being both innovative and restrictive ruin the realization of social enterprises' social goals.Additionally,the government logic may restrict some of the enterprises' market behavior,and over dependence on government may weaken business thinking and capability.(3)Trial and error and innovation in organizational practice as well as paradox framing of social entrepreneurs are two key mechanisms for social enterprises to maintain hybridity.Through trial and error and innovation in organizational practices,social enterprises constantly adjust their practices and organizational identity to reduce external demands or tensions.Paradox framing provides the boundary for trial and error in organizational practice,which ensures social enterprises to stick to the social objective as well as commercial objective and avoid mission drift.This study contributes to the theory in the following ways: Firstly,this study unveils the ‘Black box' of multi-institutional logics coexisting and integrating within social enterprises.Secondly,this study systematically summarizes the conflicts and tensions faced by social enterprises based on the grounded theory.Finally,this study reveals the two key mechanisms for social enterprises to maintain hybridity from a dynamic and long-term perspective.