Hybrid accountabilities and managerial agency in the third sector

Abstract

This paper investigates how the dynamics of conflicting accountabilities are managed within the context of the third sector; specifically in organizations providing services for people with learning difficulties. Multiple accountability relationships create organizational settings that are subject to multiple constraints and risks but also offer resources for agency. We analyse how managers take up agency to enable them to enact, resist or reconcile multiple accountabilities. Our study’s contribution lies in our elucidation of the far-reaching hybridity of the third sector and the complex forms of actorhood it cultivates, in which managers are able to handle resources with great dexterity, in pursuit of settlements which may only be contingent and temporary.