Sub-Plenary 2-4

Turning Competing Goals from a Liability into an Asset: Learning from Hybrid Organizations

Organizers:
Davide Hahn, University of Bergamo, Italy
Tommaso Minola, University of Bergamo, Italy
Maria Rosa Scarlata, University of Bergamo, Italy

Chairs (in presence):
Davide Hahn, University of Bergamo, Italy
Maria Rosa Scarlata, University of Bergamo, Italy

Panelists:
Giuseppe Criaco, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Lisa Hehenberger, ESADE Business School, Spain
Joel Gehman, George Washington University School of Business, US
Markus Perkmann, Imperial College, UK
 

In today’s "More-than-Human Society," organizations increasingly face the challenge of managing multiple, often competing goals. These goals span from economic imperatives–such as financial sustainability and shareholder returns–to non-economic aspirations, including societal and environmental responsibilities. For example, compliance with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria has become a key condition for funding and long-term viability.

While the coexistence of competing goals has traditionally been depicted as a liability—resulting in resource allocation dilemmas, attention conflicts, and perceived trade-offs—recent research on hybrid organizations challenges this view. Hybrid organizations, by their very nature, are embedded in both economic and non-economic logics, navigating these dualities as a fundamental part of their structure. Their ability to harness goal multiplicity as an asset rather than a liability offers valuable insights for the broader organizational landscape.
This sub-plenary session aims to explore how hybrid organizations succeed in aligning economic and non-economic goals, transforming potential trade-offs into synergies. For instance:

• In academic spin-offs, the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs (a non-economic goal rooted in academic logic) can lead to superior technologies that serve as the foundation for competitive advantage and legitimacy with investors, enabling financial success.

• In social ventures, narratives centered on societal impact can foster trust and investment, facilitating the pursuit of both mission-driven and financial sustainability goals.

This plenary will be structured around three central insights:

1. Challenging the Trade-Off Perspective: The session will challenge the traditional view that pursuing non-economic goals embeds a trade-off with economic performance, and vice versa. It will explore alternative perspectives that reject the inevitability of trade-offs.
    
2. An Optimistic Alternative: Participants will gain insights into how diverging goals can be strategically managed in hybrids and the contextual conditions that facilitate such a strategic alignment. The session will delve into the identification of the mechanisms that are crucial for a successful alignment of goals and the creation of a shared organizational identity that reinforces the pursuit of each of these goals. Exemplar cases will be used to illustrate how organizations can achieve this mutual reinforcement.
    
3. Learning from Hybrid Organizations: Hybrid organizations offer valuable lessons on managing competing goals as an asset, helping to answer intriguing questions, such as:

• Should goals be pursued concurrently or sequentially?
• Should organizations establish distinct sub-units or roles for different goals, and how should these units communicate?
• To what degree should economic and non-economic goals be emphasized, and how does this balance shift based on factors like the organization's lifecycle, type, or governance structure?