Alternative logics for resource acquisition and academic engagement with industry

Paper in proceeding, 2012

Recent research has explored how organizations respond to institutional complexity, that is, situations where pressures from multiple logics are present. While extant studies have viewed institutional complexity as a source of contradictions, this paper instead asks how organizations may deliberately seek exposure to alternative logics, in order to acquire resources. This paper presents an inductive study of university-industry research centers, that is, research groups based at universities but sponsored by corporations. We propose a process model of how centre participants at first reached settlements that exploited institutional complementarities, and then dealt with the arising logics tensions via organisational design. The paper concludes with implications for work on institutional complexity, ambidexterity and resource dependence theory.