Organizational Hybridity of Multiple Identities: Drivers and Implications for Social Innovation

Abstract

Contemporary organizations increasingly embrace multiple identities, but such hybridity may fuel innovation. This research examines communicative drivers of organizational hybridity (i.e., network, community, and institutional) and how plural organizational identities relate to the creation of novel ideas. Research composed of survey, archival, and expert evaluation data from 293 U.S. nonprofits highlights the influence of institutional factors on the development of hybrid social-business organizational identities. Moreover, the availability of charitable donations in the local community and institutional demands from the market are positively related to an organization’s innovativeness orientation and/or social innovation novelty, and the nonprofit commercialization environment of the local community is also positively related to social innovation novelty. Findings suggest nonprofit and business orientations are not necessarily contradictory, and that organizations can realize innovation through blending dual identities. This study advances research on hybrid organizing, organizational identity, and social innovation and offers implications for leveraging hybrid identities for social impact.

Keywords

hybridity hybrid organizing social innovation organizational identity nonprofit organization

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