Academic entrepreneurial hybrids: Accounting and accountability in the case of MegaRide
Introduction
This paper addresses the growing debate on hybridity and hybrid organizations (e.g., Battilana, Besharov, & Mitzinneck, 2017; Battilana & Lee, 2014; Grossi, Kallio, Sargiacomo, & Skoog, 2020; Grossi, Reichard, Thomasson, & Vakkuri, 2017; Johanson & Vakkuri, 2018; Maier, Meyer, & Steinbereithner, 2016; Pache & Santos, 2013). Hybrid organizations rely upon and mobilize resources, governance structures, accountability practices and logics derived from different sectors (public, private for-profit and non-profit) with divergent goals (Battilana & Lee, 2014; Pache & Santos, 2013), governance models, control systems, and accountability mechanisms (Grossi et al., 2017; Johanson & Vakkuri, 2018). The multidimensional character of these settings, with varying identities, organizational forms and institutional logics, configures a value pluralism, potentially causing organizational “mission-drift” and diverging/conflicting logics to be accommodated for greater public value creation (Vakkuri & Johanson, 2021; Vakkuri, Johanson, Feng, & Giordano, 2021). An overlooked issue pertains to how multiple values shape accounting and accountability practices, and vice versa, in hybrid organizations, which is the focus of this study. There is no consensus on the development of accounting and accountability in hybrids, where more than one type of value can be worthwhile or important (Castellas, Stubbs, & Ambrosini, 2019), influencing these practices. On the one hand, actors with divergent values and goals may limit the identification of a common mission for the organization, negatively impinging its ability to value and disclose results and to meet all stakeholders’ needs, due to competing interests (Abdullah, Khadaroo, & Napier, 2018; Hyndman & McConville, 2018). On the other, multiplicity is somehow regarded as an advantageous factor, contributing to broader accountability and value creation (Mongelli, Rullani, Ramus, & Rimac, 2019).
To tap into these countervailing insights, we focus on understanding the identity tensions at both the institutional (macro-level) and individual levels (micro-level) that shape the hybrid nature of the organization and its actors. Accounting and accountability practices should not be simply considered practices that organizations – known as hybrid – may or may not develop due to contextual and cultural factors. Instead, these practices may be constitutive for hybrid organizations, a means of aligning conflicting logics and objectives from the outset, at both the organizational and individual levels. Such alignment, in turn, may favor greater reliance on accounting and accountability practices. These issues are particularly relevant in the complex domain of academic spin-offs, more accurately described as hybrid knowledge-intensive organizations. Academic spin-offs feature high education rates; intangible resources; complex, ambiguous processes; wide employee autonomy, self-determination, creativity and intrinsic work motivation; and highly difficult performance evaluation (e.g., Kärreman, Sveningsson, & Alvesson, 2002). In this context, hybridity refers to the existence of several conflicting logics and identities tackling the organizational and individual levels (Crow, Whitman, & Anderson, 2020) and likely to threaten systematic broad value creation. Therefore, understanding how the multiplicity of values and related identities (academic and entrepreneurial) develops into hybridity at both the individual and organizational levels, rather than into the prevalence of several logics over others, becomes paramount. In this paper, we focus on accounting and accountability's potential to negotiate the hybridization of conflicting logics and identities, which, in turn, might foster greater commitment to such logics and practices. The aim is to understand how accounting and accountability practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurial logics and identities, which in turn favor the development of accounting and accountability practices. The research employs a theoretically informed in-depth single case study of the academic spin-off MegaRide of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy).
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The second section reviews extant research. The third and fourth sections develop the theoretical model and describe the research design and context, respectively. The fifth and sixth sections present the findings of the case study, while the seventh discusses the results. Lastly, we advance some concluding remarks.
Section snippets
Assessment of prior research
For the current paper's purposes, we address academic spin-offs as hybrid knowledge-intensive organizations, bringing together somewhat segregated debates. Crow et al. (2020) have described academic entrepreneurship as a complex and multifaceted domain, combining heterogeneous characteristics typical of hybrid organizations. Academic spin-offs are often based on embryonic technologies developed in a university context at some distance from the market. To transform research activities into a
Theoretical model
Our theoretical framework merges the complex dynamics of academic entrepreneurship with the hybridization processes that can occur at multiple levels, thanks to the steering potential of accounting and accountability logics and mechanisms. Specifically, we adapt the approach of Toniolo, Masiero, Massaro, and Bagnoli (2020), who consider micro (individual) and macro (institutional) levels.
The theoretical model starts by acknowledging that hybrid organizations combine multiple values and
Research method
Following Broadbent and Unerman (2011), the paper embraces a theoretically informed in-depth single case study to gather data, based on multiple sources, such as documentary evidence, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations. This enabled us to understand the organization within the context of its operating environment and to explore processes and actors’ perceptions, using different information sources (Yin, 2009).
The data were collected between January and May 2021.
To
The micro-level: accounting and accountability fostering actors’ hybridization in MegaRide
This section focuses on actors' perceptions of logics, objectives, and possible conflicts, considering how accounting and accountability practices contributed to fostering their hybridization. The section starts by acknowledging that MegaRide's success is strongly rooted in the positive synergies that the founding team could create from the outset, both within and outside the university, with key actors and gaining complementary competences, which favored a conscious and welcomed hybridization
The macro-level: accounting and accountability for academic entrepreneurship in MegaRide
Through accounting and accountability, beyond the individual dimension, we reckon that, in the case of MegaRide, valuable growth from the academic and company perspectives positively shapes the dynamics occurring at the macro-level. Following the theoretical model in Fig. 1, the current section discusses how this happens.
Discussion
Drawing from the theoretical model, this section examines the dynamics emerging in the MegaRide spin-off, to explain how accounting and accountability practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurship identities and how these identities favor the development of accounting and accountability practices.
A central point of our theoretical model is the conflict between several competing institutional logics (bureaucratic, academic, and market) in university settings that not only
Concluding remarks
The current paper addressed the question of how multiple values shape accounting and accountability practices in hybrid organizations, focusing on the academic entrepreneurship field (Crow et al., 2020), and aimed to unveil How accounting and accountability logics and practices can be constitutive of hybrid academic entrepreneurial identities and how hybrid academic entrepreneurial identities favor the development of accounting and accountability logics and practices.
The paper offers profound
References (58)
- et al.
Managing the performance of arts organisations: Pursuing heterogeneous objectives in an era of austerity
The British Accounting Review
(2018) - et al.
Firms' genetic characteristics and competence-enlarging strategies: A comparison between academic and non-academic high-tech start-ups
Research Policy
(2012) - et al.
The future of the university and the university of the future: Evolution of ivory tower to entrepreneurial paradigm
Research Policy
(2000) - et al.
Accounting, non-governmental organizations, and civil society: The importance of nonprofit organizations to understand accounting
Organizations, and Society, Accounting, Organizations and Society
(2017) - et al.
Trust and accountability in UK charities: Exploring the virtuous circle
The British Accounting Review
(2018) - et al.
The process of change in management accounting: Some field study evidence
Management Accounting Research
(1990) - et al.
Academics or entrepreneurs? Investigating role identity modification of university scientists involved in commercialization activity
Research Policy
(2009) The limits of accountability
Accounting, Organizations and Society
(2009)- et al.
Short and long translations: Management accounting calculations and innovation management
Accounting, Organizations and Society
(2009) - et al.
Conceptualising the heterogeneity of research-based spin-offs: A multi-dimensional taxonomy
Research Policy
(2006)
Qualitative data analysis: Illuminating a process for transforming a ‘messy’ but ‘attractive’ ‘nuisance
Founding team composition and early performance of university-based spin-off companies
Technovation
Management control and research management in universities: An empirical and conceptual exploration
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
On hybrids and hybrid organizing: A review and roadmap for future research
Advancing research on hybrid organizing–insights from the study of social enterprises
The Academy of Management Annals
Performance management in universities: Effects of the transition to more quantitative measurement systems
European Accounting Review
Dialogism in corporate social responsibility communications: Conceptualising verbal interaction between organisations and their audiences
Journal of Business Ethics
Resisting the new public management: Absorption and absorbing groups in schools and GP practices in the UK. Accounting
Auditing & Accountability Journal
Developing the relevance of the accounting academy: The importance of drawing from the diversity of research approaches
Meditari Accountancy Research
Hybridity as instrumental value affecting management accounting in hybrid organizations
The British Accounting Review
It's 2020: What is accounting today?
Australian Accounting Review
Responding to value pluralism in hybrid organizations
Journal of Business Ethics
Identity ambiguity and change in the wake of corporate spin-off
Administrative Science Quarterly
Social impact and performance measurement systems in an Italian social enterprise: A participatory action research project
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management
Academic enterprise as a new institutional logic for public higher education
Rethinking academic entrepreneurship: University governance and the emergence of the academic enterprise
Public Administration Review
Does context matter in academic entrepreneurship? The role of barriers and drivers in the regional and national context
The Journal of Technology Transfer
A little bit of everything? Conceptualising performance measurement in hybrid public sector organisations through a literature review
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management
Individual responses to competing accountability pressures in hybrid organisations: The case of an English business school
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Cited by (6)
Actors constructing accountability in hybrid organisations: The case of a Swedish municipal corporation
2023, British Accounting ReviewHybridisation, purification, and re-hybridisation: A study of shifting registers of value
2023, British Accounting ReviewMegaprojects and hybridity. Accounting and performance challenges for multiple diverse actors and values
2022, British Accounting ReviewCitation Excerpt :In this regard, we are responding to calls for such research made in the recent literature (Grossi et al., 2022, pp. 590–591). Notably, several studies over recent decades have investigated hybridisation processes and hybrid organisations in diverse contexts (Kurunmäki, 2004; Kurunmaki & Miller, 2006; Miller et al., 2008; Thomasson, 2009; Grossi et al., 2017; Johanson & Vakkuri, 2017; Gebreiter & Hidayah, 2019; Sargiacomo & Walker, 2022; Spano’ et al., 2022). However, in spite of this wealth of research, megaprojects have mostly been analysed through the lens of project management (Olander, 2007; Aaltonen & Kujala, 2010; Mok et al., 2015), business ethics (Kujala et al., 2012; Lehtimäki & Kujala, 2017), or public management (Christensen & Grossi, 2021; Kundu et al., 2021).
Entrepreneurship in and around academia: evidence from Russia
2024, International Journal of Sociology and Social PolicyThe future of public sector accounting research. A polyphonic debate
2023, Qualitative Research in Accounting and ManagementLogics in situations of lower or higher “perceived control exposure”: the case of researchers
2023, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management