hkr.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Decoupling in the age of market-embedded morality: responsible gambling in a hybrid organization
Stockholms universitet.
Kristianstad University, School of Health and Society, Avdelningen för Ekonomi och arbetsliv. Kristianstad University, Research environment Governance, Regulation, Internationalization and Performance (GRIP.
2017 (English)In: Journal of Management and Governance, ISSN 1385-3457, E-ISSN 1572-963X, Vol. 22, no 2, p. 285-313Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper contributes to the understanding of hybrid organizations by refining the concept of decoupling as a strategic response to conflicting objectives and institutional expectations (Meyer and Rowan in Am J Soc 83:340–363, 1977). In today’s popular responsibility discourse one notes a hopeful “win–win” ideal that invites attempts, by companies in particular, to realize and balance conflicting values and to strive to fulfil both profit objectives and responsibility objectives. Although institutional theory has long acknowledged the strategic response of decoupling in organizational contexts, the potential of exploring and refining how this concept may be used to analyse strategic responses in the contemporary era of market-embedded morality has yet to be explored (Shamir in Econ Soc 37:1–19, 2008). There are good reasons to do so as the present-day discourse on the relation between the economy and morality offers a new set of options and challenges for legitimately responding to institutional demands. This paper draws on an explanatory, rich ethnographic and longitudinal case study of a Swedish fully state-owned company operating in the post 1990s gambling market. We suggest that contemporary hybrid organizations positioned at the crossroads of bureaucratic and market schemes of organizing, may find themselves in a particularly tight spot and seek legitimacy by decoupling—not only by adopting certain legitimizing structures, but also and increasingly with reference to market-embedded morality, a commoditizing of responsibility in their contested market setting. Based on the case findings, we suggest a distinction between organization-based decoupling and market-based decoupling and propose that market-based decoupling may be attractive to hybrid organizations owing to it being less sensitive to scrutiny and accountability claims. But at the same time, our findings indicate that market-based decoupling poses a risk to hybrid organizations, as it does not offer the same degree of legitimacy with key stakeholders/the general public as organization-based decoupling does.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2017. Vol. 22, no 2, p. 285-313
Keywords [en]
Decoupling, Market-embedded morality, Hybrid organization, SOE, Gambling market, Sweden, Svenska Spel
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-17099DOI: 10.1007/s10997-017-9387-3ISI: 000432996700003OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hkr-17099DiVA, id: diva2:1133683
Available from: 2017-08-16 Created: 2017-08-16 Last updated: 2018-06-07Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(439 kB)364 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 439 kBChecksum SHA-512
0f1becc8ccc6cb89e4bf40af681a5ec9a056f93b8a3df474015cfcf31e73ee8952b12157b7016240bfdcf73d15af9537ad616f616d33b53c133e8da66c6b4090
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full text

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Grossi, Giuseppe
By organisation
Avdelningen för Ekonomi och arbetslivResearch environment Governance, Regulation, Internationalization and Performance (GRIP
In the same journal
Journal of Management and Governance
Social Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 366 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 926 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf