Integrating competing institutional logics by benefit corporations: Challenges and practices

Abstract

Drawing on institutional logics, this study empirically examines challenges faced by benefit corporations that are at the crossroads of competing logics—need-based social logic to do right by society and demand-based market logic to generate adequate profit for sustaining operations—and the practices that such organizations adopt to manage these challenges to maintain their hybrid nature. Examining 30 benefit corporations from the United States, this study finds multiple sets of primary challenges and empirically specifies that benefit corporations should integrate competing institutional logics by actively managing both internal dynamics in the organizations and external relations to be successful. The article further identifies benefit corporations that were unsuccessful in combining both logics, and thus, has implications for both the literature and management practice.