Searching for Sustainability-led Innovation: Reconciling the Unintended Consequences of Conflicting Organizational Logics PhD, 2013-2016 Stefan Hemel Supervisor: Dr Palie Smart

Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, United Kingdom T: +44 (0)7970 758124 or +44 (0)1234 751122 E: stefan.hemel@cranfield.ac.uk or palie.smart@cranfield.ac.uk

http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/about/cranfield/themes/environment/

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.

• A competitive innovation climate and the scale of sustainability challenge requires higher levels of collaboration with unusual partners

• The circular economy is challenged to resolve multiple tensions – closing material loops, improving social conditions, and satisfying market demands.

• Innovating with in hybrid organizational forms creates sites for sustainability-led innovation, owing to different institutional logics.

• Understanding reconciliation strategies for sustainability-led innovations with hybrid organizational forms

• Paradox perspective allows for better understanding modes of reconciliation regarding sustainability aspirations

• Reconciliation strategies developed ultimately allow for faster delivery of novel ideas and opportunities in different hybrid organizational forms.

General aim

Identify paradoxical incidents and their reconciliation in search for sustainability-led innovations

Who is observed

Collaborating corporate partners involved with non-profit organizations searching for sustainability-led innovations

What is observed

Predominantly paradoxical tensions and their reconciliation

Method Critical incident technique

Data collection

Interviews with individuals involved in the for-profit/non-profit collaboration

Analysis Analytic induction and ideal type analysis

Reporting Descriptive and evaluative

RESEARCH CONTEXT Organizational search in hybrid organizational forms

NOVELTY AND CONTRIBUTION Reconciliation strategies for sustainability-led innovations

• Hybrid organizations are sustainability-driven and address social and environmental concerns predominantly in market settings

• In practice, paradoxical incidents are expected to occur during agenda setting and through problem-solving activities.

• Little empirical evidence how such paradoxes are reconciled.

RESEARCH QUESTION How do distinct institutional logics impact the search for

sustainability-led innovations?

• Systematic literature review brought together findings on organization-level search.

• Evidence suggests that search practices vary

• Organizational search is well developed in inter-firm organizational contexts, but less so in cross-sector contexts

• Literature review on institutional logic revealed that different firms are influenced by distinct sets of institutional systems

• Evidence suggests that material and symbolic practices shape a firms’ institutional logic

• Paradoxes and tensions occur as conflicts when logics recombine

LITERATURE REVIEW Organizational Search and

Institutional Logic

METHODOLOGY Critical Incident Technique9

• Different institutional logics with distinct aims in hybrid organizational forms are suspected to create different types of conflicting paradoxes • Hybridization or hybridity is a key construct in relation to conflicts and tensions • Overcoming insurgent logics through appropriate reconciliation strategies impact learning and innovation • Sustainability-led innovations supports transition towards a circular economy

EXPECTED FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS Reconciliation strategies support faster innovation searches towards a circular economy

Organizational Search

Sustainability-led

innovation

Industrial Sustainability

Social/Eco Innovation

CSR and Sustainability

Institutional logic A1

Organizational structures and symbols - Organizational purpose

- Search strategies and routines

Search aspirations2,3

•New business model

•Better performance measurement

•Search opportunities for sustainability

•Pooling resources and routines

Features3

•Broad/narrow search

•Local/distant search

Paradoxical tensions4 • Identity •Performing •Learning •Coordinating

Search outcomes2,3 •Discovered innovation opportunities for sustainability

•Reformulated problems/opportunities

•New designs (of existing strategies and routines)

•Solution alternatives (Resource redistribution) Reconciliation1,5

•Replacement •Blending •Segregation •Assimilation •Elaboration •Expansion •Contraction •Other mechanisms6

Institutional logic B1

Organizational structures and symbols - Organizational purpose

- Search strategies and routines

Hybrid organizational form5,6,7,8

CONCEPTUAL MODEL Paradox reconciliation in hybrid organizational forms