Dynamic Rivalry of Institutional Logics in a Cross-Sector Social Partnership

This study examines how institutional logics interplay in a cross-sector social partnership dealing with refugee-integration in a rural district of Germany. In an inductive 15-month case study that dew on interviews, observations, and triangulated quantitative user data, we examined how multiple sectors collaborated and observed the dynamic enactment of institutional logics in day-by-day practices and an increasing contradiction of altruistic and market-based institutional logics. We also show the influence of exogenous events, political exertion of influence and the power of the media on the enactment of institutional logics. In addition, our study is one of the few existing studies that focus on a partnership promoted by the public sector. By unfolding the complexity of refugee-integration – one of the present global Grand Challenges – we deepen the present understanding of specific challenges involved in cross-sector partnerships.