This ethnographic study, spanning 28 months within the German Navy's First Flotilla, explores the dynamic interplay between a dominant institutional logic and an emerging, yet essential, minority logic. Focusing on an innovation team operating under an idealized startup logic, we unravel the mechanisms of their interaction with the Bundeswehr's entrenched bureaucratic logic. Our findings reveal a nuanced dance of convergence and divergence, characterized by phases of preparatory alignment, object-based blending, and logic shielding. This continuous oscillation between structural and blended hybrids, termed 'punctuated hybridity', highlights the team's strategic efforts to integrate innovative practices without succumbing to the dominant logic's potential for mission drift. Our study contributes to the discourse on institutional complexity by offering a novel perspective on managing logic contestation within large, stable organizations and enriches the understanding of dynamic hybridization and institutional.This ethnographic study, spanning 28 months within the German Navy's First Flotilla, explores the dynamic interplay between a dominant institutional logic and an emerging, yet essential, minority logic. Focusing on an innovation team operating under an idealized startup logic, we unravel the mechanisms of their interaction with the Bundeswehr's entrenched bureaucratic logic. Our findings reveal a nuanced dance of convergence and divergence, characterized by phases of preparatory alignment, object-based blending, and logic shielding. This continuous oscillation between structural and blended hybrids, termed 'punctuated hybridity', highlights the team's strategic efforts to integrate innovative practices without succumbing to the dominant logic's potential for mission drift. Our study contributes to the discourse on institutional complexity by offering a novel perspective on managing logic contestation within large, stable organizations and enriches the understanding of dynamic hybridization and institutional.