Through a longitudinal mixed method case study, this paper’s general aim is to contribute to the organizational analysis of the intricate relations and mutual influence between manifold forms of organization involved in tackling grand societal challenges (Alexius and Furusten, 2020; Brès et al 2018; George et al, 2016; Gray and Purdy, 2018; Gümüsay et al, 2022; Kaufmann and Danner-Schröder, 2022). As noted in the call for abstracts, many previous studies have highlighted confusion, contradiction and conflict in organizations with heterogeneous expectations. And among the fewer, more positive studies, a great number are conceptual rather than empirical (Segnestam Larsson and Wollter, 2020). That is to say that in these studies, hybrid or other alternative organizational forms, are treated as promising a priori (Greenwood and Freeman, 2017).
These insights may make one wonder whether there is solid empirical evidence to suggest that alternative forms of organizing are capable of tackling grand societal challenges. In this paper, drawing on an historical case study, I claim that the Swedish Federation for Sexual Education (RFSU) has potential to qualify as an interesting success case in this regard. An old saying goes: “All good things come in threes”. It all started in the 1930s. Internationally renowned journalist and social activist in sexual education and parental planning, Elise Ottesen Jensen, founded the Swedish Federation for Sexual Education (RFSU) in 1933. Missions like free and legal abortion, an acceptance of homosexuality and sexual education and access to contraceptives for all teenagers, were among those that motivated Ottesen Jensen to set up RFSU (Lennerhed, 2002).
Ottesen Jensen realized early on that her mission to extend sexual and reproductive rights in society could not be achieved solely on public funding, since the political ideas she and her co-founders (medical doctors and representatives from the workers’ movement) wanted to push were radical. There was a need for own “free cash” able to finance political sexual rights advocacy that in 1930s Sweden was seen as provocative to many.
From the start, Ottosen Jensen therefore had the idea of an organization made up of three different organizational “bodies” – a nonprofit parent organization for political advocacy and education, a clinic for therapy and treatment and a fully owned limited enterprise (RFSU Limited), producing and selling a product that was closely in line with the core political mission of sexual education and rights: condoms. Although each of the three had their particular institutional conditions, they also shared the same mission and were able to cooperate on their respective fronts, using different means (Lennerhed, 2002; Alexius and Segnestam Larsson, 2019).
Theoretically then, RFSU may be defined as a constitutional hybrid: an organization that is hybrid by constitution, hence an organization that was established for the explicit purpose of integrating not only different institutional logics but also structural elements typically found in different societal spheres, to fulfill its mission (Alexius et al, 2017; Alexius and Furusten, 2019). Examples of constitutional hybrids include limited enterprises fully owned by the public, cooperatives, mutually owned enterprises and the category of organizations focused in this paper; limited enterprises fully owned by civil society organizations.The paper is a development of a recently published Swedish essay (Alexius, 2022) and describes how the “holy trinity“ of radical political mission, clinical care and own market income, has been at the heart of RFSU and vital to its success during its 90 years in operation for the sexual health and rights in Sweden and abroad. In terms of data, the case study draws on previous historical volumes on RFSU and their founder (Lennerhed, 2002; Lindahl, 2003; Thorgren, 2014), as well as own document studies and 12 interviews conducted 2015-2021 with previous and current RFSU leaders and staff.
An important conclusion is that the common assumption in previous literature on hybrids, that power asymmetries will lead to mission-drift towards company-ization and marketization, should not be taken for granted. Rather, these processes must be scrutinized empirically using theoretical concepts like that of constitutional hybridity that opens up for recognition of the mutually strengthening mechanisms that have enabled RFSU to tackle grand societal challenges by achieving important social and sexual reforms.
References
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