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Hybrid Forms of Business: The Logic of Gift in the Commercial World

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Abstract

Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate advances a positive view of businesses that are hybrids between several traditional categories. He expects that the “logic of gift” that animates civil society infuses the market and the State with relations typical for it—reciprocity, gratuitousness, and solidarity. His theological rationale offers an answer to two questions that have largely remained open in the literature—why hybridization of business occurs and why it is desirable. A rational reconstruction of hybrid enterprise that goes beyond a simple taxonomy of types benefits from the Pope’s call for an intrinsic integration of institutions and processes traditionally attributed to disparate spheres. The relational model of the Trinity defines the unity in diversity that accounts for the benefits of truly hybrid businesses, and the “logic of gift” serves as the agent of integration.

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Notes

  1. The principal exception to this assessment is the group of Italian economists who may be referred to as the “Civil Economy School” (Bruni 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011; Bruni and Zamagni 2007[2004], 2009). Some of them are associated with the Focolare Movement, and their ideas are reflected in Caritas in Veritate.

  2. Italics in quotes indicate italics in the original text.

  3. On economic arguments in Caritas in Veritate, see Grassl (2011a) and Grassl and Habisch (2011), and on theological arguments Grassl (2011b). The latter reasoning is not further pursued in the present paper.

  4. Reciprocity in this sense must not be mistaken for the do ut des (‘I give so that you may give’) of reciprocal exchange (see Bruni 2008, 2010).

  5. In fact, where Michael Novak ridiculed any attempt to “humanize” the corporation (Novak 1997, p. 1), Benedict XVI requests just this (CV 9, 18f., 21f., 42, 78). He views “profit as a means for achieving the goal of a more humane market and society” (CV 47) and understands his Encyclical as a contribution towards “civilizing the economy” (CV 38).

  6. Even authors sympathetic to the “logic of gift” do not always follow Benedict XVI in the full impact of his vision. This is reflected in the definition of social enterprises as “autonomous not-for-profit organizations providing goods or services that explicitly aim to benefit the community” (Becchetti and Borzaga 2010, p. 7).

  7. Characterizing Caritas in Veritate as “at best a relatively unremarkable restatement of some familiar themes from previous social encyclicals” (Woods 2009) betrays a deep misunderstanding of its theology of business.

  8. In the left panel, strategic direction Φ = (P/M), and the 45-degree line is represented by P/M = 1, where P = profit orientation and S = social mission. Strategy under hybridization may be expressed as Φhyb = (M × C × S), where M = market, C = civil society, and S = State. The condition of Caritas in Veritate is: max Φhyb = [(∂M/M)/(∂C/C) + (∂S/S)/(∂C/C)] > 1 | ∂C/C > 0, i.e. civil society must increasingly invade the market and the State.

  9. No distinction is drawn here between non-profit and not-for-profit enterprise.

  10. Mixed and complex models are here ignored. Business models of social enterprise are analyzed in Grassl (2012).

  11. In nature, cross-species hybrids such as mules are typically infertile. The biological analogy has therefore limits in the social world.

  12. In sociolinguistics, pidgin languages, as merely utilitarian contact languages involving elements from two parents, are not native languages whereas creoles (such as Jamaican Patois) are first languages for particular communities. Only creole languages are stable and true hybrids (Holm 2000).

  13. In more formal terms, the underlying business ontology is then simply a tuple < BUS [(ComponentsBus, RelationsBus), Processes], ENVBus > where ENV = business environment. ENV can, for example, be represented by relevant PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, ecological, and legal) factors.

  14. According to the rule “structure follows strategy”, a feedback of chosen strategy on the nature and relations of components may be assumed but is not of importance in the present context.

  15. A multi-dimensional scale for measuring hybridity of organizations (based on ten metrics) between the private and public spheres has been proposed (Karré 2011) and may be generalized for cases of multi-domain hybridity.

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Acknowledgments

Previous versions of this paper were presented at the conferences “The Logic of Gift and the Meaning of Business”, 24–26 February 2011, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Vatican City, and “The Whole Breadth of Reason: Rethinking Economics and Politics”, 14–17 September 2011, Alta Scuola Società Economia Teologia, Fondazione Studium Marcianum, Venice. The author thanks for the responses received at both occasions. Particular recognition is due to Professor Domènec Melé for his helpful commentaries.

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Grassl, W. Hybrid Forms of Business: The Logic of Gift in the Commercial World. J Bus Ethics 100 (Suppl 1), 109–123 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1182-5

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