ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the forms, processes, and mechanisms of organising such activities from a specific viewpoint. Hybridity is an ambiguous concept. It is very easy to see hybridity everywhere. The book discusses hybridity through hybrid forms of governance and hybrid organisations. The book illustrates hybridity within public and private governance as well as its origins and the difficulties of conceptualising hybrid activities as temporal and socially embedded activity. It deals with the alternative theoretical ways of categorising hybrid activity according to the number of actors and according to the different levels of analysis. The book includes an examination of how real-life categorisation of economic activity is able to take into account the existence of hybrid activities. It contains a number of case descriptions about hybrid arrangements performing practical duties in building infrastructure, supplying energy, educating students, creating innovations, and organising old-age financial security.
