Power of Hybridity

The Power of Hybridity encourages readers to see how different approaches can be combined to generate new insights in social impact organizing. This book has three goals: 1) to draw attention to hybridity and hybrid organizing as the reality of most, if not all, organizations in contemporary society; 2) to unpack the potential, possibilities, and challenges of hybridity for social impact organizing across diverse organizations in response to varied social issues; and 3) to explore how hybridity might shape the future of organizing, particularly as a catalyst for social and institutional change. Cooper and Fu build on past research to introduce a new model of hybridity that focuses on hybrid identities, forms, rationales, channels, actors, and contexts in social impact organizing. Insights from existing research offer implications for different forms of organizing (e.g. social service nonprofits, cross-sector networks, religious congregations, social ventures, benefit corporations, and corporate social responsibility programming) in response to varied social issues (including education, migration, gender-based violence, artificial intelligence, and climate change). Cooper and Fu focus on a cross-disciplinary review of existing research, while also introducing new research on including vulnerable stakeholders and incorporating artificial intelligence in social impact organizing. Implications of hybridity are offered for individuals, organizations, networks, communities, and society as a whole. Each chapter focuses on challenges in social impact organizing, with an invitation for different types of stakeholders to engage hybridity in response to the social issues that matter to them. The book includes discussion questions, case studies, and reflections for individual and group reflection, making this a resource for educators, researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers interested in social issues.

Katherine R. Cooper is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at DePaul University. Cooper is an award-winning teacher and researcher who focuses on how people and organizations work together in response to social issues. She is the co-author of Networks for Social Impact (2022; Oxford University Press), and her research has appeared in leading journals focused on communication, business and management, and nonprofits. Jiawei Sophia Fu is an Associate Professor of Communication at Rutgers University. Fu's research advances theoretical understandings of hybrid organizing^—^specifically, how organizational and social actors navigate and integrate multiple, often competing elements such as goals, identities, media platforms, stakeholders, and institutional logics in their communication practices. Fu's research has been widely recognized across multiple disciplines and academic associations.