Converging Winds: Logic Hybridization in the Colorado Wind Energy Field

Abstract

This study explores the hybridization of field-level logics, a process that integrates previously incompatible logics within an organizational field. Through an inductive study of the wind energy field in Colorado, we find that logic hybridization resulted when social movement organizations, incumbent firms, and policy makers variously responded to incompatibility between economizing and ecologizing logics. Compromise and framing efforts catalyzed social movements to alter the balance of power in the field, which transformed the relationship between field logics. Hybrid organizations then emerged to establish, legitimize, and embed a new set of inter-linked frames, practices, and arrangements that integrated previously incompatible logics. Incumbent firms and policy makers further formalized and embedded the new hybridized logic in the field. Our findings suggest that the hybridization of field level logics is a complex process in which organizational actions and field-level conditions recursively influence each other over time.