Business Models and Institutional Complexity: Understanding Value Creation in Healthcare Sector Public-Private Partnerships

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), as novel hybrid organizations, combine different institutional logics to generate innovative solutions to complex problems. Their growth and survival depends largely on the creation of value for stakeholders and society. Using data from a comparative case study of two PPPs in the healthcare sector, we focus on the fact that the business model design is a means through which the successful or unsuccessful management of institutional complexity can occur inside hybrid organizations, with a subsequent generation or destruction of value. We are able to link the literature on institutional complexity and hybrid organizations with the one on business models, by looking at the organizational mechanisms and processes that are implemented in the definition of partnership governance, content and structure. We provide a process model of the way the business model design can help to bridge different logics and finally create value for stakeholders.