As authoritarianism increasingly challenges liberal democratic values in shaping future economic and societal institutions, the statements made by business and social organizations about their attitude toward state control become an important component of the discursive field. When the state power is relatively greater, organizations are likely to align more with its demands in making commitments about their purposes and principles. But are all organizations have the same level of symbolic dexterity - being dexterous at gauging the external power context and casting symbolic actions accordingly? We spotlight the constituted actorhood of organizations—in particular, the degree of organizational hybridity—as a critical condition for the symbolic dexterity of organizations. We find empirical supports for our proposition using both quantitative and qualitative evidence from the context of the emerging civil sector in China between 2008 and 2015, as the state and private community raised contradictory expectations about the relationships between the nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and the government. The results show that 1) NPOs calibrate their expressed organizational purposes based on the relative power of the state vis-à-vis the private community and, (2) their symbolic dexterity in expressing their organizational purposes is positively correlated with their degrees of hybridity. Our study underscores the accounting for the constituted actorhood of organizations, and contribute to the understanding of the interplay between organizations’ symbolic actions and the power different constituencies as they vie for more influence in shaping the economic and social sectors.
