Business–nonprofit hybrid organizing: a dynamic approach to balancing benefits and costs

Frontiers in Health Services · 5 authors, 4 centres

AI SUMMARY

FIDELITY 100%

This summary was generated by AI from a single paper. It has not been reviewed by a clinician and is not clinical advice. Verify against the source before acting on it.

AGENT 01 · STRUCTURED SUMMARY

TRACE TO SOURCE

“

TL;DR

This qualitative study of three cases identified two forms of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing (Appended and Blended) and found that the costs and benefits of each form change over time based on strategic priorities and operating conditions, suggesting a dynamic approach is needed for sustainable public health initiatives.

Full summary

507 CHARS

The study used a qualitative comparative case study design to analyze three sustained business-nonprofit hybrid organizing initiatives in a U.S. city. A central finding is that the value of these forms is not static; their advantages and drawbacks shift in importance depending on the initiative's evolving strategic priorities and operating environment. This indicates that no single form is inherently superior and that organizations may need to adapt their hybrid structure over time to remain resilient.

STUDY TYPE

other

SPECIALTY

public health

SUMMARISED BY

AI pipeline

FIDELITY CHECK

100% · A

ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10242097

Business–nonprofit hybrid organizing: a dynamic approach to balancing benefits and costs

Frontiers in Health Services

READ THE FULL PAPER

ABSTRACT

Introduction Efforts to address complex public health challenges can benefit from cross-sector collaboration, while also fostering growing business sector engagement in promoting health equity. What form business-nonprofit collaboration should take, however, is a difficult question for managers and leaders. Hybrid organizational forms, which combine for-profit and nonprofit elements within a single organization in unconventional ways, offer an innovative and potentially promising approach. Yet, while existing typologies of cross-sector collaboration have identified hybrid forms at one end of a continuum of possible forms of collaboration, these typologies do not differentiate the diversity such hybrid forms may take, and the costs and benefits of these innovative hybrid forms are poorly understood. This leaves managers interested in promoting public health through business-nonprofit hybrid organizing with limited guidance about how to maximize potential merits while mitigating drawbacks. Methods We performed a qualitative comparative case study of three examples of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing. Data collection included 113 interviews with representatives from 42 organizations and observation of case study activities. We used thematic analysis within and across cases to characterize the form of hybrid organizing in each case and to examine benefits and costs of different forms for supporting initiatives. Results We identified two hybrid, collaborative forms - Appended and Blended forms. Each form had benefits and costs, the significance of which shifted over time contingent on changing strategic priorities and operating environments. Benefits and costs of particular forms become more or less important for establishing and sustaining initiatives under different conditions, requiring a dynamic view. Discussion No particular form of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing is inherently better than another. Optimizing hybrid organizing and ensuring resilient collaborations may mean allowing collaborative forms to evolve. Practitioners can manage tradeoffs between benefits and costs through an ongoing process of assessing the fit between a given collaborative form, strategic priorities, and relevant features of the operating environment. This dynamic view offers important insights for ensuring the resilience of business-nonprofit collaborative efforts to enhance public health.

CITATION EXPORT

Emma-Louise Aveling, Jane E. Roberts, Lauren A. Taylor et al.. Business–nonprofit hybrid organizing: a dynamic approach to balancing benefits and costs. Frontiers in Health Services. (2023). https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2023.1164072

AUTHORS

5 · 4 CENTRES

Emma-Louise Aveling, Jane E. Roberts, Lauren A. Taylor, Nazmim Bhuiya, Sara J. Singer

1Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
2Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
3Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
4Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA, United States