ABSTRACT
This chapter explores sustainability-oriented hybrid organisations that adopt business methods to address social and environmental issues. These are businesses with a societal purpose and demonstrate institutional changes in how businesses think about profit, nature, and growth. This chapter examines some of the dimensions of hybridity through concepts such as value creation, institutional logics, and legal forms and discusses the potential contribution of hybrid businesses in the transition towards a sustainable economy. It proposes that if such hybrid forms of sustainability-oriented business are to contribute in a meaningful way, a strong emphasis on social and environmental logics and most likely less emphasis on commercial logic are needed in order to avoid the risk of compromising on sustainability. Hybrid businesses come in both system preserving and system transforming varieties and therefore differ in their potential to bring radical change to the economy. Although more research is required to fully assess their prospective impact on the transition towards a sustainable economy, they are already demonstrating an alternative business paradigm in regard to sustainability.
