What does it mean to be a hybrid? Managing the hybridity of Dutch Third sector organizations

• In Event: Hybrid Organization and (Non-)Digital Practices

Abstract

Public service provision and value creation in the Netherlands are inherently hybrid (Karré, 2011). From the cradle to the grave, the Dutch encounter hybrid Third sector organizations: associations, foundations, and cooperatives. These are the organizations, that help mothers bear children at home and provide postnatal care for the mother and newborn. Others provide childcare and education later. Also, during their free time, the Dutch depend on Third sector organizations when they join a sports club, want to learn play an instrument or develop another creative skill. Universities are Third sector organizations too, as well as many housing associations, hospitals, and welfare providers.

These organizations are vital actors in the welfare state and hence have a privileged position as partners of government in social services delivery (Brandsen & Karré, 2021). Generally, they originated in the community, but were coopted by the state through the provision of funding, while remaining organizationally independent. Due to public management reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, especially the introduction of competitive tendering, these organizations now also compete on the marketplace, lately also with social enterprises as relative newcomers to the Dutch welfare mix (Karré, 2021). They also are expected to be responsive to society at large and to their individual clients specifically.

Because these organizations create public value in so many ways, provide a diverse range of services (health care, welfare, education, etc.) and have different societal and ideological backgrounds, the Third sector in the Netherlands is fundamentally fragmented with a huge organizational diversity (Pape and Brandsen, 2016). And because these organizations are fundamentally hybrid and have such close relationships with the state and the market, it is also not clear whether we can speak of a Third and independent sector at all: in the Netherlands, all organizations are hybrid to some extent.

This makes it interesting to discuss what it means for these organizations to be hybrid in day-to-day practice. Being hybrid has many benefits, but it also unavoidably leads to tensions regarding belonging, performing, organizing, and learning (Petrella et al., 2022). How do these influence the daily functioning of these organizations and what do they mean for their relationships with their clients and the state, two groups that depend on the way in which these hybrid organizations provide services and create public value?

This discussion should be of interest too to organizations providing services in other countries, as increased hybridity has been identified as a response by many Third sector organizations to changing policy environments in Europe, leading to more competition, decreased funding and growing accountability and reporting requirements (Ko & Liu, 2019; Pape et al., 2020; Adro & Fernandes, 2022).

References

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Author

• Philip Marcel Karré, Erasmus University Rotterdam