Governing Hybrid Municipal Enterprises through Sustainability: Balancing Tensions and Creating Public Value - Evidence from Three Studies

Municipally owned enterprises (MOEs) are central hybrid actors in local governance, yet research still lacks an integrated understanding of how they manage competing logics and contribute to sustainable public value. Three gaps persist: (1) the literature is fragmented and rarely connects organisational, institutional, and systemic levels; (2) sustainability is treated mainly as disclosure rather than as a governance and sensemaking mechanism; (3) the political and discursive role of MOEs in municipal arenas remains largely unexplored. This dissertation addresses these gaps through a three-part multilevel qualitative design. A grounded literature review reinterprets MOE scholarship through a micro–meso–macro lens, identifying cross-level misalignments as structural sources of hybrid tensions. A case study of an Italian MOE shows how sustainability and SDG reporting become tools for navigating paradoxes, aligning strategy, and shaping organisational identity. A discourse analysis of municipal council debates reveals how political actors mobilise MOEs rhetorically to construct legitimacy, responsibility, and ESG priorities. Overall, the dissertation offers a systemic understanding of how sustainability operates across organisational, institutional, and political arenas, advancing theory and practice on hybrid governance and sustainable public value creation. ​