Combining Logics to Transform Organizational Agency: Blending Industry and Art at Alessi

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dalpiaz, Elena; Rindova, Violina; Ravasi, Davide
• 署名单位: Imperial College London; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; City St Georges, University of London
• 刊物名称: ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-8392
• DOI: 10.1177/0001839216636103
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 347-392
• 关键词: INSTITUTIONAL COMPLEXITY; CULTURAL PRODUCTION; COMPETING LOGICS; field; entrepreneurship; creation; DYNAMICS; OPPORTUNITIES; microfinance; legitimacy

摘要

To understand how organizations combine conflicting institutional logics strategically to create and pursue new market opportunities, we conducted an in-depth longitudinal study of the multiple efforts of the Italian manufacturer of household goods Alessi to combine the logics of industrial manufacturing and cultural production. Over three decades, Alessi developed three different strategies to combine normative elements of the two logics, using each strategy to envision and pursue different market opportunities. By combining the logics of industrial manufacturing and cultural production, Alessi was able to envision new possibilities for value creation and to enact them through innovation in product design. The three strategies triggered a common set of mechanisms through which the purposeful combining of logics enabled the pursuit of opportunity, while each strategy structured the process differently. We develop a theoretical model linking the development of recombinant strategies to the dynamic restructuring of organizational agency and the related capacity to create and pursue new market opportunities. Our findings and theoretical insights advance understanding of the processes through which organizations challenge taken-for-granted beliefs and practices to create new market opportunities, use logics as resources to enable embedded agency, and design hybrid organizational arrangements.