Resisting Isomorphism in the Reentry Service Field: Organizational Hybridity, Identity, and Innovation

Background and Purpose: The reentry service field for people being released from prison has been indicted for its ineffectiveness and its orientation to market principles. Institutional theorists like Lori Wacquant in particular, have critiqued reentry agencies for being isomorphic with a field that engages in rituals aimed at enhancing organizational legitimacy, rather than effective service-provision. This research examines the organizational dynamics of a reentry agency in Philadelphia that has been identified as a model of innovative practice by the National Academy of Science, a designation that is especially remarkable since Philadelphia has the highest population under post-custodial surveillance, and one with a high prevalence of re-incarceration. Specifically, we examine how organizational identity within the agency resists forces of isomorphism within the reentry field.

Methods: In-depth and semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 35 participants (staff and clients) of the agency with roots in three external fields and contexts: academia, the re-entry services field, and a community of people being released from prison. A grounded theory approach with sensitizing concepts was employed to analyze the data.

Results: The agency was shaped by hybrid identity-formulating processes, and was an example of a holographic organization, whereby participants subscribed to the same set of multiple identities across the organization. Specifically, we found that the agency was deeply rooted in anti-carceral and clinical best practices orientations simultaneously, with these two identities complementing, as well as conflicting with each other. Participants managed multiple identities through: 1) integrating with external fields of reference, 2) engaging each other in the agency over conflicting identities, and 3) opposing normative practices in the reentry field that were deemed to be ineffective. We found that both, the multiple organizational identities, as well as these management techniques, resisted isomorphism with the reentry field.

Conclusions and Implications: We found that the agency fit into one of the least-studied types of hybrid organizational identity categories documented in the literature. While most organizations with multiple identities are ideographic, whereby different organizational subgroups hold different identities often resulting in conflict and contestation, this holographic organization demonstrated stability in its hybridity, and a robust resistance to external isomorphism. Implications for the association with holographic hybridization in identity and innovative practice are discussed.