Hybrid organisational arrangements and the role of multimodality

Hybrid organisational arrangements experience interest among scholars and
practitioners due to increasing prevalence of pluralistic institutional environments in modern societies. Hybrids are perceived to do well in such environments because of their ability to combine institutional logics and thereby address a wider set of institutional referents compared to non-hybrids. Besides the growing attention to hybrids, a yet neglected but nascent interest on organisations’ use of multimodality to communicate, compete, form identities and organise activities is rising. In this paper, we consolidate the growing interest on hybrids and multimodality by studying the role of multimodality in a strategic partnership, which we define as a hybrid combining institutional logics. The theoretical approach consists of concepts from the literature on institutional organisational analysis that is considered suitable for a study of multimodality in hybrids. The analysis is organised in a prelude and three organisational narratives based on data collected during 2018-19 through observations and qualitative interviews. The analysis provides insights into the development and mobilisation of multimodalities in the investigated hybrid. Furthermore, the analysis illustrates how material and visual multimodalities influence the shaping of internal and external hybrid relations. This includes for example the development of a hybrid practice that eliminates criticism from organisations outside the hybrid, a portfolio office that enables the shaping of a hybrid identity and a standardised budget form that constitutes a basic scheme for organising action across divergent social parties in the hybrid. This paper contributes to the growing literature on hybrids and multimodality with novel insights from a strategic partnership operating in the construction industry.