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This page is about a management tool used by boundary organizations across the boundary of science and politics. It is not to be confused with Hybrid Management Sub-Layer.

Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy,and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime

Discipline	{{{Sciences (General)}}}
Peer-reviewed	{{{peer-reviewed}}}
Language	English
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ISSN	0162-2439 (print) 1552-8251 (web)
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Hybrid management and boundary organization

Hybrid management is the process of how social constructs (hybrids) intertwining both scientific and political elements are constructed, taken apart and ordered to coordinate activities in domains labeled as either scientific or political. It acts as a management tool used by boundary organizations in today’s international contexts to make global decisions.

Terminology

Miller (2001) introduced the concept of ‘hybrid management’ to reorient the conventional theory of boundary organizations and thus explain their activities in today’s more complex and dynamic global contexts.

Hybrids, as defined by Miller (2001), are social constructs intertwining both scientific and political elements which are difficult to separate from each other. These hybrids can refer to people, artifacts, institutions, and organizations such as the climate regime SBSTA .

In the context of globalization, international institutions linking both science and politics fluctuate considerably due to distinct situations in different countries. Therefore, to maintain productive relationships with one another, boundary organizations need to manage those hybrids. That is to say, those hybrids need to be constructed, taken apart and ordered to coordinate activities across multiple domains such as science and politics.

However, it is not to say that the distinctions between science and politics existing in one hybrid are not important. In contrast, while both scientific and political institutions can promote knowledge creation and social governance, treating them as distinct forms of life rather than regarding any of them as a specific activity is necessary. By implementing that, people can be kept from the trap of thinking that activities labeled as ‘scientific’ have nothing to do with values, powers and social orders, while activities taking place in ‘political’ domains cannot produce scientific knowledge.

Hybrid Management Strategies/Functions

Hybridization

The integration of scientific measures and policy-relevant standards for those measures is termed as 'hybridization'. Successful integration of those scientific and political judgement could help to meet the standard criteria of various experts, policy makers and public audience around the world.

Deconstruction

The 'breaking down' of hybrids to reveal their value-laden assumptions is called 'deconstruction'. In most international scientific claims, exposing the tacit values of hybrids to the public helps to increase the transparency of the policy making process and hence boost the efficiency of policy formulation .

Boundary-work

'Boundary work' is defined as the process of building and maintaining dynamic boundaries across different domains in hybrids. According to Gieryn(1995) and Jasanoff(1990), boundaries existing in hybrids are often indistinguishable. Therefore, it is essential for boundary organizations to create distinct lines between scientific and political aspects of activities. The most significant reason for implementing boundary work is to build the legitimacy of both science and policy in one hybrid because they are only regarded as credible when operating within their own jurisdictions.

Cross-domain orchestration

Although the scientific and political activities in hybrids need to be seen as separate for the purpose of legitimacy, they are actually dependent upon each other. Therefore, they still need to be coordinated in practice, which is the last function of hybrid management called 'cross-domain orchestration'.

Boundary Organization

Conventional theory of boundary organizations

Historically, the theory of boundary organizations was created for the explanation of a new class of institutions emerging from the stable scientific and political institutions of the United States in a long period. The main purpose of this theory was to stabilize the 'potential disturbance' existing on the boundary of science and politics for those organizations located on this border.

Guston(2000), the founder of the boundary organization theory, defined boundary organizations based on their structural features as institutions locating in the middle of science and politics boundaries. They have three characteristics including legitimating the creation of boundary objects and standards, engaging participants from both scientific and political domains, and separating two distinct lines of accountability for science and politics. For example,the boundary organizations developed in the United States appear to serve the goals of science and politics separately. That is to say, boundary organizations not only need the scientific approvals of credibility for their knowledge claims, but also the political approvals of legitimacy for their policy orientations.

Weak assumptions of the conventional theory

Unlike the slowly changing pace of institutions in the United States, the changes in the contemporary process of globalization are more rapid and uncertain. Based on that, Miller (2001) identified three weaknesses of the conventional assumptions about boundary organizations when operating under global circumstances.

Firstly, traditional boundary organizations tend to generalize science and politics. Consequently, they would ignore the differences between institutions in terms of political and scientific factors. However, these differences are more distinct in international settings because norms, ideas and values differ considerably from country to country.

Secondly, the theory of boundary organizations fell into the trap of finding a ‘fine, bright line’ for institutions locating on the science and politics boundary. As a result, they tend to overlook the diverse hybrid institutional types within this boundary.

Finally, traditional boundary organizations are too static to operate in the contemporary process of globalization. This is mainly attributed to the hyper-differentiated political and scientific cultures of the United States. However, if both domains are well-defined in institutions, their changing pace will be slow, which is inconsistent with the rapidly changing nature of globalization. This opinion is extended by Parker and Crona (2012) who claimed that the traditional theory aims to build a stable boundary environment and assumes that the boundary stabilization can be achieved through reconciling different demands of stakeholders. However, it ignores the truth that some problems are irreconcilable and will eventually force incompatible solutions in dynamic global situations.

Build on the criticisms of Miller, Parker and Crona (2012) added one more assumption of the conventional theory which needs to be adjusted. They pointed out that the conventional theory takes stakeholders' accountability as equal, which means it does not consider the role tensions existing between those stakeholders from different domains such as scientists and policy makers.

International boundary organizations and Hybrid Management

With the increasing challenges of globalization, people have sought to address those problems by adapting to the hybrid institutional framework. To be more specific, they have increasingly put science in the central of global policy making. Therefore, boundary organizations operating in global contexts today, as redefined by Miller (2001), refer to those social settings, arrangements and institutions which are able to recognize science and politics as different forms of life when they mediate in activities with both scientific and political features.

However, what needs to be noticed is that it is difficult and complex for boundary organizations to coordinate credibility, legitimacy, and authority of institutions among diverse publics, officials and experts around the world. Hence, the conventional theory of boundary organizations focusing on structural features and the broader institutional landscape needs to be expanded. Miller (2001) then introduced a new framework-hybrid management-to reorient this theory for international contexts and to address the issues of process and dynamics rather than static structural features.

Hybrid Management in public services (health care and hospitals)

Hospitals as one type of tax financed public service organizations have become a long-lasting health policy issue due to its rising costs. They have put much pressure on policy makers to improve the efficiency of hospital management systems dealing with a wide range of professions.

Miller (2008) and other co-authors redefined the word 'hybrid' in a broader term when applying it into the public services. It then is used to represent the mixtures of various types of expertise, management logics and structures. The mixture of medical expertise and managerial skills in hospitals is a typical example of this new type of hybrid.

Byrkjeflot (2014) and other researchers have put forward three conceptualizations of hybrid management in hospitals to address the political issue of growing budgets in healthcare. They are:

• "The clinical manager who combines professional self-governance with a general managerial logic."
• "The commercialized manager who combines professional self-governance with an enterprise logic."
• "The neo-bureaucratic manager who combines self-governance with a neo-bureaucratic logic."

The first hybrid role, clinical manager, is a position mostly taken by doctors who act as a general manager while maintaining their own professional jobs. The main reason for those clinicians to take this multi-position work is because they want to safeguard control of their own professional work and gain the rights to instruct other professions such as nurses at the same time. It is apparent that the general management skills are not hard to be acquired by doctors even if they have no financial expertise. To be more specific, by occupying managerial roles, health professionals could better integrate clinical tasks with management than unitary general managers and hence save the budget.

Then the commercialized manager is defined as a hybrid role where health care managers with professional expertise also act as commercial managers dedicated to market competitions. This role emerges from the contexts where hospitals are required by healthcare policies to create economic benefits by improving their efficiency. Those commercialized managers promote health care as a commodity and hold an entrepreneurial view when implementing managerial techniques.

Finally, the neo-bureaucratic manager plays a more limited role than the above two types of manager due to the development of new regulatory agencies and governance practices who pay more attention to the central bureaucracy. Therefore, the neo-bureaucratic manager in health care is mainly responsible for securing the compliance of professionals on centralized rules and procedures. However, differing from the classic control system, the neo-bureaucratic managers implement a 'distant control' through performance review, patents' feedback, nursing audits and so on.

Hybrid Management in the climate regime (SBSTA)

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) is a separate forum established by countries to arrange exports’ advice for policy making on climate change. Created in 1992 by the UNFCCC, the SBSTA is a good example of how scientists and politicians from different countries work together to construct new institutional arrangements by using science to support the political institutions of the climate regime.

The SBSTA served as a common space where both governments and commercial organizations can decide the ground rules together by giving accreditation to scientific experts and their knowledge contribution. All regime participants would negotiate and provide scientific advice for the decision of competing institutional design models. Once the agreements have been achieved in the SBSTA, they will play an important role in shaping the standardized and institutional contexts for future decision making within the climate regime.

The four functions of hybrid management could be well illustrated by using the example of SBSTA, especially in its measurement of greenhouse gas emissions.

As an international boundary organization, the SBSTA needs to assign responsibilities of climate change to countries around the world by measuring their specific amount of greenhouse gas emissions. However, this is not only a scientific measuring work, but also includes many value-laden questions such as "Should the survival emissions be treated the same as luxury emissions?". To address such hybrid issue, the SBSTA implements the 'hybridization' function to integrate its measuring process with policy-relevant standards.

The voting rules of SBSTA is a good example of 'deconstruction'. It enables every participating country to vote for the final decisions of any climate issues, which means those countries with a tacit voice cannot be ignored simply and therefore, they could have a say to their value-laden concerns about those resolutions.

Furthermore, the SBSTA also devotes to divide up responsibilities within each hybrid to help build boundaries for science and policy so that they could be perceived as legitimate by both participating countries and public audiences. The process of differentiating emission categories into 'natural' and 'anthropogenic' is where boundary work can play a role.

Finally, one challenge faced by the SBSTA is about how to warrant the credibility of knowledge created for multiple audiences across the world. The 'cross-domian orchestration' enables the SBSTA to develop shared understandings of global environmental policies and knowledge created in this context. For example, the SBSTA has involved an informal working group where the governmental politicians and the representatives of experts can negotiate with each other under its authority.