Welfare Mix and Hybridity. Flexible Adjustments to Changed Environments. Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Abstract Present day welfare societies rely on a complex mix of different providers ranging from the state, markets, family, and non-profit organizations to unions, grassroots organizations, and informal networks. At the same time changing welfare discourses have opened up space for new partnerships, divisions of labor, and responsibilities between these actors. For nonprofit organizations this means that they operate in complex institutional environments where different institutions and logics compete with each other. In this special issue we have collected a number of articles that analyze how organizations and organizational fields adjust to a new environment that is increasingly dominated by the logic of the market, and how in particular nonprofit organizations, as hybrids by definition, are able to cope with new demands, funding structures, and control mechanism.