Heads And Tails: Both Sides Of The Coin

The Dutch debate on hybrid organizations (which mix elements of state and market) is dominated by normative ideas brought forward by those advocates and adversaries of hybridity that tend to focus on only one side of the coin. In this thesis, Philip Marcel Karré argues that hybridity can only be fully understood and managed when one considers both sides of the coin, and sees benefits and risks as each other's flipsides. By analyzing hybrid organizations in the Dutch waste management sector, he develops a perspective on hybridity that can be used by policy makers, professionals and academics to pinpoint those dimensions that could produce benefits or risks.


Karré argues that hybridity is neither a catastrophe nor a panacea, but that it needs to be managed properly. The biggest challenge will be to prove in every single case that the expected opportunities created through hybridity far outweigh the costs of controlling the risks it poses.


Philip Marcel Karré studied political sciences and communication sciences at the University of Vienna. He now works as a senior researcher and lecturer at the Netherlands School for Public Administration. He conducts research on governance and other new steering mechanisms for addressing wicked social problems and contributes to educational programmes for senior civil servants.