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The Hybrids (And We Don't Mean Automobiles)

by Steven Howlett

This Research to Practice offers something a bit different and allows author Steven Howlett to revisit some of his favourite writers: Angela Ellis Paine, Nick Ockenden and Joanna Stuart. The three recently wrote a book chapter called ‘Volunteers in Hybrid Organizations: A marginalised majority,’ published in Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector: Challenges for Theory and Practice, edited by David Billis. As Paine, Ockenden and Stuart explain, the involvement of volunteers in an organisation does more than help an organisation achieve its goals; it offers a key statement about what the organisation is like and what it values. However, in recent times and across many countries, outside forces are not only shaping organisations but also sometimes changing the nature of that organization through the effects of hybridity – where third-sector organisations start to take on characteristics of organizations from other sectors.  

The chapter under review in this Research to Practice proposes that we step back and look at hybrid organizations and their impact on volunteers. Viewed positively, organizations often retain their volunteer roots, despite taking on hybrid characteristics; viewed less than positively, volunteering and volunteers can get lost in new organisational forms. In this Research to Practice, Howlett asks that we explore these ideas, engage debate and draw out implications for practice in the relatively new world of hybrids.

Available in August

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