TY - CHAP
T1 - Institutional Hybridity in Public Sector Reform: Replacement, Blending, or Layering of Administrative Paradigms
AU - Polzer, Tobias
AU - Meyer, Renate E.
AU - Höllerer, Markus A.
AU - Seiwald, Johann
PY - 2016/12/23
Y1 - 2016/12/23
N2 - Despite an abundance of studies on hybridization and hybrid forms of organizing, scholarly
work has failed to distinguish consistently between specific types of hybridity. As a consequence, the
analytical category has become blurred and lacks conceptual clarity. Our paper discusses hybridity as the
simultaneous appearance of institutional logics in organizational contexts, and differentiates the parallel
co-existence of logics from transitional combinations (eventually leading to the replacement of a logic)
and more robust combinations in the form of layering and blending. While blending refers to hybridity as
an ‘amalgamate’ with original components that are no longer discernible, the notion of layering
conceptualizes hybridity in a way that the various elements, or clusters thereof, are added on top of, or
alongside, each other, similar to sediment layers in geology. We illustrate and substantiate such conceptual
differentiation with an empirical study of the dynamics of public sector reform. In more detail, we
examine the parliamentary discourse around two major reforms of the Austrian Federal Budget Law in
1986 and in 2007/2009 in order to trace administrative (reform) paradigms. Each of the three identified
paradigms manifests a specific field-level logic with implications for the state and its administration:
bureaucracy in Weberian-style Public Administration, market-capitalism in New Public Management, and
democracy in New Public Governance. We find no indication of a parallel co-existence or transitional
combination of logics, but hybridity in the form of robust combinations. We explore how new ideas
fundamentally build on – and are made resonant with – the central bureaucratic logic in a way that
suggests layering rather than blending. The conceptual findings presented in our article have implications
for the literature on institutional analysis and institutional hybridity.
AB - Despite an abundance of studies on hybridization and hybrid forms of organizing, scholarly
work has failed to distinguish consistently between specific types of hybridity. As a consequence, the
analytical category has become blurred and lacks conceptual clarity. Our paper discusses hybridity as the
simultaneous appearance of institutional logics in organizational contexts, and differentiates the parallel
co-existence of logics from transitional combinations (eventually leading to the replacement of a logic)
and more robust combinations in the form of layering and blending. While blending refers to hybridity as
an ‘amalgamate’ with original components that are no longer discernible, the notion of layering
conceptualizes hybridity in a way that the various elements, or clusters thereof, are added on top of, or
alongside, each other, similar to sediment layers in geology. We illustrate and substantiate such conceptual
differentiation with an empirical study of the dynamics of public sector reform. In more detail, we
examine the parliamentary discourse around two major reforms of the Austrian Federal Budget Law in
1986 and in 2007/2009 in order to trace administrative (reform) paradigms. Each of the three identified
paradigms manifests a specific field-level logic with implications for the state and its administration:
bureaucracy in Weberian-style Public Administration, market-capitalism in New Public Management, and
democracy in New Public Governance. We find no indication of a parallel co-existence or transitional
combination of logics, but hybridity in the form of robust combinations. We explore how new ideas
fundamentally build on – and are made resonant with – the central bureaucratic logic in a way that
suggests layering rather than blending. The conceptual findings presented in our article have implications
for the literature on institutional analysis and institutional hybridity.
U2 - 10.1108/S0733-558X201600048
DO - 10.1108/S0733-558X201600048
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
VL - 48B
T3 - Research in the Sociology of Organizations
SP - 69
EP - 99
BT - Research in the Sociology of Organizations
PB - Emerald Publishing
ER -