Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector: Challenges for Practice, Theory and Policy

Welfare has always been provided by 'public', 'voluntary' and 'private' sector organizations. But do these terms have any meaning in a contemporary welfare landscape where organizations can possess significant characteristics of more than one sector? Is this hybridity now eroding the unique qualities of the different sectors?

This book explores these questions, and more, through the lens of a new theory of hybrid organizations – tested and developed in the context of a range of case studies. In detail, it:
■ Develops the first theory of hybrid organizations to discuss the future of the third sector
■ Presents an original analysis of the consequences of hybridity
■ Provides readers with useable ideas to address practical issues of accountability and change

Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector offers an agenda-setting analysis for all those interested in the future of the third sector, the rise of hybridity in the public sector and the study of organizations.