Managing Institutional Logics to Tackle Organizational Crises: A Tale of Two Railways

Increasing attention is being paid to how hybrid organizations handle the tensions between contending institutional logics. However, intra-logic tensions regarding the decoupling of the internal components of the incumbent logics, the resultant organizational crises and how these crises are resolved, are understudied. This study explores how the Chinese and Indian Railways tackle organizational crises by reframing and recombining the means and ends components of contending logics. Based on comprehensive archival, interview and textual analyses, we find that the two railways maintained or shifted the incumbent logic to address organizational crises through remedial, manipulation, compromise and complementation strategies. We specify the mechanisms underlying each strategy, present a unified model and discuss the implications for research on hybrid organizations and crisis management.