Searching for Sustainability-led Innovation: Reconciling the Unintended Consequences of Conflicting Organizational Logics

PhD, 2013-2016 Stefan Hemel

Supervisors: Dr Palie Smart

Research Context: Novelty and contribution: Organizational search in hybrid organizational forms Reconciliation strategies for sustainability-led innovations

• A competitive innovation climate and the scale of sustainability challenge requires • Understanding reconciliation strategies for sustainability-led innovations with higher levels of collaboration with unusual partners1 hybrid organizational forms • The circular economy is challenged to resolve multiple tensions – closing material • Paradox perspective allows for better understanding modes of reconciliation loops, improving social conditions, and satisfying market demands. regarding sustainability aspirations • Innovating with in hybrid organizational forms creates sites for sustainability-led • Reconciliation strategies developed ultimately allow for faster delivery of novel innovation, owing to different institutional logics. ideas and opportunities.

Literature review: Research question: Proposed Methodology: Organizational Search and How do distinct institutional logics impact the search for Critical Incident Technique9 Institutional Logic sustainability-led innovations?

• Systematic literature review brought • Hybrid organizations are sustainability-driven and address social and environmental General Identify paradoxical together findings on organization- concerns predominantly in market settings aim incidents and their level search. • In practice, paradoxical incidents are expected to occur during agenda setting and reconciliation in search for through problem-solving activities. sustainability-led • Little empirical evidence how such paradoxes are reconciled. innovations Organizational Search Conceptual model: Who is Collaborating corporate Sustainability Paradox reconciliation in hybrid organizational forms observed partners involved with CSR -led Social/Eco 5,6,7,8 non-profit organizations and innovation Innovation Hybrid organizational form Sustainability searching for Institutional Search Search outcomes2,3 sustainability-led logic A1 aspirations2,3 Industrial • Discovered innovations Organizational • New business Sustainability innovation structures and model opportunities for What is Predominantly paradoxical • Evidence suggests that search symbols • Better sustainability - Organizational performance observed tensions and their practices vary • Reformulated purpose measurement Paradoxical tensions4 problems/opportunit reconciliation • Organizational search is well - Search • Search developed in inter-firm • Identity ies strategies and opportunities for • New designs (of organizational contexts, but less so • Performing Method Critical incident technique routines sustainability • Learning existing strategies in cross-sector contexts • Pooling resources Institutional • Coordinating and routines) • Literature review on institutional and routines Data Interviews with individuals logic B1 • Solution logic revealed that different firms collection involved in the for- Organizational alternatives are influenced by distinct sets of Features3 profit/non-profit structures and (Resource institutional systems • Broad/narrow Reconciliation1,5 collaboration symbols redistribution) search • Replacement • Evidence suggests that material and - Organizational • Local/distant • Blending symbolic practices shape a firms’ purpose Analysis Analytic induction and search • Segregation institutional logic - Search ideal type analysis • Assimilation • Paradoxes and tensions occur as strategies and • Elaboration conflicts when logics recombine routines Reporting Descriptive and evaluative • Expansion • Contraction

• Other mechanisms6

Expected findings and implications: Reconciliation strategies support faster innovation searches towards a circular economy

• Different institutional logics with distinct aims in hybrid organizational forms are suspected to deal differently with each other • Overcoming insurgent logics influences learning successes and innovation performance • Sustainability-led innovations are reasoned to be caused by a hybrids ability to reconcile paradoxical incidents • Material practices and symbols for sustainability-led organizational search are expected to change through institutional entrepreneurial activities.

1: Thornton, P., Ocasio, W. and Lounsbury, M., 2012. The Institutional Logics Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2: Seebode, D., Jeanrenaud, S. and Bessant, J., 2012. Managing Innovation for Sustainability. R&D Management, 42(3), pp.195–206. 3: Levinthal, D. and March, J., 1981. A Model of Adaptive Organizational Search. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2(4), pp.307–333. 4: Smith, W. and Lewis, M., 2011. Toward a Theory of Paradox: a Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), pp.381–403. 5: Pache, A.-C. and Santos, F., 2013. Inside the Hybrid Organization: Selective Coupling as a Response to Competing Institutional Logics. Academy of Management Journal, 56(4), pp.972– 1001. 6. Jay, J., 2013. Navigating Paradox as a Mechanism of Change and Innovation in Hybrid Organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), pp.137–159. 7: Battilana, J. and Dorado, S., 2010. Building Sustainable Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Commercial Microfinance Organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6), pp.1419– 1440. 8: Haigh, N. and Hoffman, A.J., 2012. Hybrid organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 41(2), pp.126–134. 9: Flanagan, J.C., 1954. The critical incident technique. Psychological bulletin, 51(4), pp.327–58.

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