Governance of Hybrid Organizations

The last few decades have witnessed significant changes in corporate governance practices by organizations that aim to improve the credibility and accountability of corporate boards of directors. In parallel with these developments in practice, academic understanding of the composition, function and value of corporate boards has been enhanced in the fields of law, corporate finance and management. However, it is striking that these theoretical advances have not yet been extended to other types of organizations, such as collaborative agreements, despite their overall economic importance as well as their comparable as well as unique governance needs. In fact, corporate governance theory and alliance governance research have largely developed independently from one another and remain separate literatures. The purpose of this essay, therefore, is to identify and develop some bridges between the two large literatures by considering the similarities and differences between hybrids and traditional corporations as organizational forms and by explicating some of the implications for the governance of collaborative agreements. We begin to trace out some new possibilities for a research agenda that would cross-pollinate the disparate streams of research on corporate governance and alliance governance.