The Role of Governmental Decision Makers in Hybridization

The literature on hybridity primarily examines nongovernmental organizations and explores how they acquire hybrid forms and behaviors as a consequence of shifts in policy. The activities of government in these policy changes receive less attention. This article aims to help address this gap through the capturing and theorizing of the role played by government boards at the local level in enacting national policy on hybridization processes within public services. The UK health sector is used as the context for this research as it has been subject to a marketization policy designed to allow local health boards to divest their community health services, which has resulted in the creation of new hybrid organizations. A framework is used that draws on governance theory to conceptualize board actions during these processes. The findings of the case study show a board using a stewardship model of governance, which manifests itself through the exclusion of other stakeholders, such as employees, from making decision about divestiture. However, the board is also shown to offer the prospect of a very different model of governance within the new organization that can more readily be identified as a stakeholder participation model. This case study extends the theory of hybridization by analyzing a governmental context in which a combination of both techniques was deemed necessary. This necessity arises because key stakeholders, such as employees and trade unions, are broadly against these changes and their enactment. Therefore, the sole employment of coercion would be unlikely to succeed in securing employee commitment once hybridization had taken place, hence, incentives are needed, too.