The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox 9780198754428, 0198754426

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T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

ORG A N I Z AT IONA L PA R A D OX

The Oxford Handbook of

ORGANIZATIONAL PARADOX Edited by

WENDY K. SMITH MARIANNE W. LEWIS PAULA JARZABKOWSKI and

ANN LANGLEY

1

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2017 The moral rights of the authors‌have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933973 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​875442–​8 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

Foreword: Paradox in Organizational Theory Robert E. Quinn and Mrudula Nujella

Poets and philosophers have long talked about paradox as being fundamental to human experience. By paradox they often mean the presence of simultaneous opposites, and associate the concept with words like contradiction, irony, inconsistency, and oxymoron. “I must be cruel to be kind,” said Hamlet (Shakespeare [1600] 1963: 3.4.199). Of joy and sorrow, Kahlil Gibran ([1923] 1951) wrote, “They are inseparable . . . Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” In ancient Greece, philosophers beginning with Parmenides wrestled with paradoxes of being and becoming (Plato, 428–​348 bc; Bolton 1975), of unity and variety (Parmenides, c.515–​450 bc), and of change and stasis (Zeno, c.490–​430 bc). In art, we have examples in the endless staircase of Penrose (where by climbing up you find yourself descending) and the Waterfall of M. C. Escher (a perpetual motion machine). In organizational scholarship, paradoxical thinking begins in the 1980s. The research of Quinn and Rhorbaugh (1983) demonstrated that the notion of organizational effectiveness was inherently paradoxical. A number of books soon followed. Smith and Berg (1987) argued for a paradoxical reframing of group relations. Quinn (1988) offered a consideration of how to master the paradoxes and competing demands of organizations. Quinn and Cameron (1988) brought together some of the most prominent theorists of the day to consider the role of paradox in organization theory and practice. In that book some leading scholars laid important foundations for our current thinking. Van de Ven and Poole (1988) provided an initial theory of paradox and change. Ford and Backoff (1988) tied paradoxical theory not only to dialectical thinking but also to trialectical thinking and the notions of attraction and co-​evolution. Bartunek explored the notion of reframing and the transformation of paradoxes. Eisenhardt and Westcott applied paradoxical thinking to just-​in-​time manufacturing. Siporin and Gummer introduced organizational thinkers to the role of paradoxical interventions in social work. Morgan explored how paradox could be introduced to the management classroom. Argyris wrote of the role of paradox in his own practice of crafting organizational theory.

vi   Foreword In subsequent years, management scholars have used the paradoxical framework to successfully unpack a variety of organizational phenomena—​tensions of exploration and exploitation (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996; Auh and Menguc 2005; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009); competing identities in hybrid organizations (Battilana and Dorado 2010; Jay 2013); dichotomies of stability and change (Feldman and Pentland 2003; Farjoun 2010); paradoxes of control and collaboration (Sundaramurthy and Lewis 2003)—​and so on (see Smith and Lewis 2011 for a more extensive review). Since the turn of the century interest in the topic has intensified. Smith and Lewis (2011) note that scholarship in the paradox tradition has risen at an average rate of 10 percent per year between 1990 and 2011 and interest continues to climb. In the Academy of Management Annual Meeting programs the word “paradox” has received three times as many mentions in 2015 (84 mentions) than it did in 2012 (34), 2013 (26), or 2014 (34). The emphasis on paradoxical thinking in understanding organizational phenomena is a result of two trends: one, we are living in an increasingly complex world characterized by uncertainty, change, and ambiguity; and two, we are reaching the ends of our theorizing limits using existing frameworks that are rooted in either/​or thinking. As we increasingly confront questions of extremes (can too much of a good thing be bad?), and boundary conditions (when does what is true become false?) we see the limitations of either/​or thinking. In identity literature, for instance, we see a more complex perspective. People can be seen as having optimal distinctiveness or optimal balance. The individual is both uniquely individuated and sufficiently of a piece with larger social identities (Brewer 1991; Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006). Likewise, in the self-​esteem domain, paradoxical tensions can be translated to the contingency model of self-​worth. It recognizes that high self-​esteem is not a uniformly positive good, worthy of pursuit, but that self-​ esteem is as much a source of vulnerability as it is a source of motivation (Crocker and Knight 2005; Crocker and Park 2004). In more macro domains, paradox has emerged as a necessary tool to theorize about organizations’ responses to complex environments that impose competing demands such as simultaneous social and financial obligations, or flexibility and stability. In essence, this renewed emphasis on paradox and both/​and thinking augurs well because it signals a certain maturity of the field and propels us toward wholeness via more holistic theories of management. As we move forward in this direction, here are three things we can collectively do to enhance the generative potential of paradox theory: 1. Provide a unifying definition of paradox, an issue that has remained problematic since very early days of paradox theory. Clarify and emphasize the both/​and perspective, that paradox is not a contingency question but is the simultaneous presence of contradictions that are mutually codependent. 2. At a meta-​level, take a both/​and perspective toward paradox theory itself because paradox theorists themselves are divided along either/​or lines, for example,

Robert E. Quinn and Mrudula Nujella    vii should we accept paradox as an inherent feature of organizing versus should we actively resolve it; is it intrinsic to group life or is it a social construction? (Smith and Lewis 2011) 3. Finally, engage in empirical work that fully makes apparent the paradoxes of organizational life. Paradox is a counterintuitive concept that makes it difficult to comprehend using rational logic but when made apparent and explained we resonate with it at an experiential level, which is why the need for researchers to make visible invisible currents of paradox is especially high. This handbook is a sizable effort toward generating a greater understanding of the tensions and transformations of organizational life. It brings together some of the finest thinkers of our time. It will accelerate the current interest in paradox and will do much to achieve the above three goals and more.

References Andriopoulos, C., and Lewis, M. W. (2009). Exploitation–​exploration tensions and organizational ambidexterity:  Managing paradoxes of innovation. Organization Science, 20(4): 696–​7 17. Auh, S., and Menguc, B. 2005. Balancing exploration and exploitation: The moderating role of competitive intensity. Journal of Business Research, 58(12): 1652–​61. Battilana, J., and Dorado, S. 2010. Building sustainable hybrid organizations: The case of commercial microfinance organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 53(6): 1419–​40. Bolton, R. 1975. Plato’s distinction between being and becoming. The Review of Metaphysics, 29(1): 66–​95. Brewer, M. B. 1991. The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5): 475–​82. Crocker, J., and Knight, K. M. 2005. Contingencies of self-​worth. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(4): 200–​3. Crocker, J., and Park, L. E. 2004. The costly pursuit of self-​esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3): 392. Eisenhardt, K. M., and Westcott, B. J. 1988. Paradoxical demands and the creation of excellence:  The case of just-​in-​time manufacturing. In Paradox and Transformation:  Toward a Theory of Change in Organization and Management, edited by R. E. Quinn and K. S. Cameron. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Farjoun, M. 2010. Beyond dualism: Stability and change as a duality. Academy of Management Review, 35(2): 202–​25. Feldman, M. S., and Pentland, B. T. 2003. Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(1): 94–​118. Ford, J. D., and Backoff, R. W. 1988. Organizational change in and out of dualities and paradox. In Paradox and Transformation:  Toward a Theory of Change in Organization and Management, edited by R. E. Quinn and K. S. Cameron. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Gibran, K. 1951. The Prophet. New York: Vintage Books. (Originally published 1923) Jay, J. 2013. Navigating paradox as a mechanism of change and innovation in hybrid organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1): 137–​59.

viii   Foreword Kreiner, G. E., Hollensbe, E. C., and Sheep, M. L. 2006. Where is the “me” among the “we”? Identity work and the search for optimal balance. Academy of Management Journal, 49(5): 1031–​57. Quinn, R. E. 1988. Beyond Rational Management:  Mastering the Paradoxes and Competing Demands of High Performance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass. Quinn, R. E., and Cameron, K. S. (eds) 1988. Paradox and Transformation: Toward a Theory of Change in Organization and Management. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Quinn, R. E., and Rohrbaugh, J. 1983. A spatial model of effectiveness criteria: Towards a competing values approach to organizational analysis. Management Science, 29(3): 363–​77. Shakespeare, W. 1963. Hamlet, edited by H. H. Furness. New  York:  Dover Publications. (Originally published 1600) Smith, K. K., and Berg, D. N. 1987. Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381–​403. Sundaramurthy, C., and Lewis, M. W. 2003. Control and collaboration: Paradoxes of governance. Academy of Management Review, 28(3): 397–​415. Tushman, M. L., and O’Reilly, C. A. 1996. The ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change. California Management Review, 38(4): 8–​30.

Contents

List of Figures  List of Tables  List of Contributors  Introduction: The Paradoxes of Paradox  Wendy K. Smith, Marianne W. Lewis, Paula Jarzabkowski, and Ann Langley

xiii xv xvii 1

PA RT I   F O U N DAT ION S A N D A P P ROAC H E S 1. Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research  Jonathan Schad

27

2. Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox  Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince

48

3. A Road Map of the Paradoxical Mind: Expanding Cognitive Theories on Organizational Paradox Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen

66

4. What Paradox?: Developing a Process Syntax for Organizational Research  Robin Holt and Mike Zundel

87

5. Organizational Dialectics  Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha 6. Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation: Otherness in East–​West Approaches to Paradox  Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak

105

125

x   Contents

PA RT I I   PA R A D OX IC A L P H E N OM E NA I N A N D B E YON D ORG A N I Z AT ION S 7. Critical Management Studies and Paradox  Koen van Bommel and André Spicer 8. Beyond Managerial Dilemmas: The Study of Institutional Paradoxes in Organization Theory  Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed

143

162

9. Paradoxes of Organizational Identity  Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma

178

10. Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations  Mariline Comeau-​Vallée, Jean-​Louis Denis, Julie-​Maude Normandin, and Marie-​Christine Therrien

197

11. Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship  Kim Cameron

216

12. Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations: What Can the Economies of Worth and Paradox Frameworks Learn from Each Other?  Jean-​Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud

239

13. The Role of Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox during Organizational Change  John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant

260

14. Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity: A Conversation with James March  Richard Badham

277

15. Paradox at an Inter-​Firm Level: A Coopetition Lens  Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-​Ullah 16. Pathways to Ambidexterity: A Process Perspective on the Exploration–​Exploitation Paradox  Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann

296

315

17. Gender and Organizational Paradox  Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft

333

18. Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability  Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant

353

Contents   xi

19. The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations  Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal

373

20. On Organizational Circularity: Vicious and Virtuous Cycles in Organizing  Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha

393

21. Tensions in Managing Human Resources: Introducing a Paradox Framework and Research Agenda  Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges

413

22. Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens: Deeper Understanding and New Insights  Ella Miron-​Spektor and Miriam Erez

434

23. “I Am . . . I Said”: Paradoxical Tensions of Individual Identity  Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst

452

24. The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences between Academics and Practitioners  Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek

472

25. Paradox in Everyday Practice: Applying Practice-​Theoretical Principles to Paradox  Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek

490

PA RT I I I   E N G AG I N G PA R A D OX E S  26. Methods of Paradox  Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi

513

27. Expanding the Paradox–​Pedagogy Links: Paradox as a Threshold Concept in Management Education  Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis

529

28. Paradox and Polarities: Finding Common Ground and Moving Forward Together: A Case Study of Polarity Thinking and Action in Charleston, South Carolina  Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson

547

Index 

571

List of Figures

3.1 Theoretical model: the road map 

67

3.2 A schematic configuration of antonymic categorization 

70

12.1 An integrative framework for studying the management of normative paradoxes and tensions 

255

15.1 Different degrees of strength of the coopetition paradox 

300

15.2 States of tension, managerial responses, and effects on the paradox 

303

15.3 The dynamic model of coopetition 

308

18.1 Layers of parts and wholes of sustainability 

357

20.1 Types of feedback loops 

395

20.2 Resolving paradoxical tensions 

399

21.1 Paradoxes of the employment relationship 

419

23.1 Identity as dynamic interplay of knotted paradoxical tensions 

461

24.1 Academics and practitioners on two separate cliffs with a gap between them 

473

24.2 A bridge between academics’ and practitioners’ separate cliffs 

478

24.3 (Some) Academics and practitioners joined in a common purpose 

481

24.4 Distinctions between academics and practitioners whose emphasis is primarily on the technical aspects of their craft and who carry out reflection-in-action

484

25.1 Relationship between practice-​theoretical principles 

502

27.1 A model for using paradox as a threshold concept in management education  537 28.1 Sample content of the activity and rest polarity dynamic 

550

28.2 Two diagonal points of view of activity and rest 

551

28.3

The Polarity Map®  552

28.4 Completed Polarity Map® for enforcement and community support 

559

28.5 Assessing guide 

560

28.6

PACT™ assessment results 

564

List of Tables

0.1 Section 1 overview 

9

0.2 Section 2 overview 

11

0.3 Section 3 overview 

20

1.1 Elements of a paradox meta-​theory and aspects from philosophy 

35

2.1 A summary of psychoanalytic foundations and paradox for leadership, groups, and organizations 

49

2.2 A selection of unconscious defense mechanisms 

52

5.1 Distinguishing contradiction, paradox, and dialectics 

111

9.1 Illustrative examples of key paradoxical tensions in organizational identity 179 10.1 Features of pluralism and types of paradox 

198

10.2 Sensitizing CMS concepts and their contribution to understanding pluralism and paradox 

203

10.3 Systemic complexity principles and contributions to our understanding of paradoxes 

207

12.1 Consolidated overview of six “worlds” according to the Economies-​of-​ Worth framework 

242

12.2 Comparison of assumptions between paradox and the Economies-​of-​ Worth frameworks 

244

12.3 Illustrations of paradox studies that could be developed with the Economies-​of-Worth framework

250

12.4 Illustrations of Economies-​of-​Worth studies that could be developed with the paradox framework 

253

16.1 A process perspective on the exploration–​exploitation paradox 

320

18.1 Examples of issues that arise when interests conflict across multiple levels 

358

18.2 Compartmentalization and temporal splitting can be responses to both part-​whole and temporal paradoxes 

364

19.1 Previous organizational research on time dimensions 

375

22.1 Creativity paradoxes 

436

23.1 Four paradoxes of individual identity 

456

xvi   List of Tables 25.1 Summary of practice-​theoretical view of paradox 

492

26.1 Empirically studying paradoxes: issues, decisions, and suggestions 

518

27.1 Application of threshold principles of paradox in the MBA curriculum 

542

27.2 Ways to enhance paradox skill sets during the management education process  543 28.1

The PACT™ five-​step “Small” process 

28.2 Summary of lessons learned 

554 567

List of Contributors Editors Wendy K. Smith earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, and is associate professor of management at the Lerner School of Business, University of Delaware. Her research on the nature and management of strategic paradoxes has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, Management Science, and Academy of Management Learning and Education. Wendy is co-​founder of the blogsite http://​www.leveragingtensions.com, which seeks to connect scholars and practitioners interested in paradox, dualities, and dialectics. Marianne W. Lewis is professor of management and dean of the Cass Business School, City, University of London. Her research explores leadership and organizational paradoxes, appearing in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, and Harvard Business Review. Paula Jarzabkowski is a professor of strategic management at City, University of London. Her research focuses on strategy-​as-​practice in complex and pluralistic contexts such as regulated infrastructure firms, third-​sector organizations and financial services, particularly insurance and reinsurance. She has conducted extensive, internationally comparative audio and video ethnographic studies in a range of business contexts. Her work has appeared in leading journals including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. Her first book, Strategy as Practice: An Activity-​Based Approach was published by Sage in 2005 and her most recent book, Making a Market for Acts of God, was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. Ann Langley is professor of management at HEC Montréal, Canada and holder of the research chair in strategic management in pluralistic settings. Her research focuses on strategic change, inter-​professional collaboration, and the practice of strategy in complex organizations. She is particularly interested in process-​oriented research and methodology and has published a number of papers on that topic. In 2013, she was co-​ guest editor with Clive Smallman, Haridimos Tsoukas, and Andrew Van de Ven of a Special Research Forum of Academy of Management Journal on Process Studies of

xviii   List of Contributors Change in Organizations and Management. She is also co-​editor of the journal Strategic Organization, and co-​editor with Haridimos Tsoukas of a book series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies published with Oxford University Press. She is adjunct professor at Université de Montréal and University of Gothenburg.

Foreword Robert E. Quinn is a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He is a long-​time student of paradox. Quinn is one of the co-​founders of the Center for Positive Organizations. He had published eighteen books including the bestseller Deep Change, and The Best Teacher in You which won the Ben Franklin Award, as the best education book for 2015. Quinn is a fellow of the Academy of Management and the World Business Academy. Mrudula Nujella is a doctoral student in the Management and Organization Department at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (India). Her research interests fall in the domain of interpersonal relationships and human connection at work.

Contributors Constantine Andriopoulos earned his PhD at Strathclyde Business School, and is a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Cass Business School, City, University of London. His research on organizational ambidexterity and the management of innovation paradoxes has been featured in journals such as Organization Science, Human Relations, California Management Review, and Long Range Planning. Constantine is co-​founder of the blogsite http://​www.leveragingtensions.com, which seeks to connect scholars and practitioners interested in paradox, dualities, and dialectics. Karen L. Ashcraft is a professor of organizational communication in the College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research examines organizational and occupational forms, identities, and affects, particularly as these entwine with gender, race, and other relations of difference and power. Her work has appeared in such venues as Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization, and Communication Theory. Ina Aust (previously Ehnert) earned her PhD at the University of Bremen, Germany and is a professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain School of Management. Her published work has appeared in journals such as International Journal of Human

List of Contributors    xix Resource Management, German Journal of Human Resource Management, Management Revue et alia. Together with Julia Brandl and Anne Keegan she undertakes research on paradoxes in HRM. Richard Badham is a Professor of Management at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management. He has been a Von Humboldt Fellow at the Technical University, Berlin and a Visiting Professor at Yale University Centre for Cultural Sociology. His crossdisciplinary research on leadership, innovation and change informs his current work on irony and change (Leading Change: An Introduction (Edward Elgar, 2018) and organizational politics (Power, Politics and Organizational Change, Third Edition, 2019, with Dave Buchanan). Pratima Bansal is the Canada Research Chair in Business Sustainability at the Ivey Business School, Western University (London, Canada). She earned her DPhil in management studies at the University of Oxford. She has been studying business sustainability for over two decades, shifting her attention in the last ten years to the dimensions of time, space, and scale in explaining sustainable development. Her research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal, among others. Tima founded the Network for Business Sustainability (http://​www.nbs.net) in 2006, with the aim of using research to help advance sustainability practice. Jean M. Bartunek is the Robert A.  and Evelyn J.  Ferris Chair and Professor of Management and Organization at Boston College. Her PhD in social and organizational psychology is from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a past president and fellow of the Academy of Management and currently serves as deputy dean of the fellows. Her research interests center on organizational change and academic–​practitioner relationships. Jean is currently an associate editor of the Academy of Management Review and the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Rebecca Bednarek is a senior lecturer in management at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research on strategizing within complex organizational settings, the global reinsurance industry, and organizational ethnography has been published in Human Relations, Long Range Planning, Organizational Studies, and Strategic Organization. She also co-​authored Making Markets for Acts of God: Risk Trading Practices in the Global Reinsurance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015). Maria Bengtsson is a professor of entrepreneurship at the Umeå School of Business and Economics, Umeå University in Sweden. Her research interests include dynamics in inter-​organizational relationships, coopetition, and innovation. She has published research in, for example, Industrial Marketing Management, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Competitiveness Review, Regional Studies, and International Small Business Journal. She has also published the book Climates of Global Competition (Routledge, 1998) and A Grammar of Organizing, (Edward Elgar, 2007) together with three colleagues.

xx   List of Contributors Marya L. Besharov is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the ILR School at Cornell University. She received her PhD in Organizational Behavior and Sociology from Harvard University. Her research examines how organizations and their leaders navigate and sustain competing demands, with a particular focus on hybrid organizations that combine social and commercial goals. Marya’s work has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Research in Organizational Behavior, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, and Industrial and Corporate Change. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Organization Science. Koen van Bommel is assistant professor of organization theory at VU University Amsterdam. Taking an organization theory perspective, his research focuses in particular on corporate sustainability. He has published articles in Organization Studies, Research in the Sociology of Organizations and Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. Julia Brandl earned her PhD at WU Vienna and is a full professor of human resource management at the Leopold-​Franzens-​University of Innsbruck, School of Management. She has published her research in journals such as Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Together with Ina Aust and Anne Keegan she undertakes research on paradoxes in HRM. Kim Cameron is the William Russell Kelly Professor of Management and Organizations in the Ross School of Business and Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. He is a co-​founder of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan, and he has also served as a dean, associate dean, and department chair. He received BS and MS degrees from Brigham Young University and MA and PhD degrees from Yale University. His research on organizational virtuousness, paradox, and other topics has been published in more than 130 scholarly articles and fifteen academic books. He was recently recognized as being among the top ten scholars in the organizational sciences whose work has been most frequently downloaded from Google. Erica Wen Chen is a doctoral student in strategy, management and organizations at Nanyang Technological University. Robert Chia is research professor of management at the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow. He received his PhD in organizational analysis from Lancaster University. He is the author/​editor of five books including Strategy without Design (Cambridge University Press, with R. Holt) and has published in Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, Organization Science, and Academy

List of Contributors    xxi of Management Journal amongst others. Prior to entering academia Robert worked for seventeen years in shipbuilding, aircraft engineering, human resource management, and manufacturing management. Stewart Clegg is research professor at the University of Technology Sydney, director of the Centre for Management and Organization Studies Research, and a visiting professor at Nova School of Business and Economics and at Newcastle University Business School, United Kingdom. His research is driven by a fascination with power and theorizing. Stewart is a prolific writer and is the author or editor of a number of books, including Frameworks of Power (Sage, 1989), The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (2nd edn, 2006), and The Sage Handbook of Power (2009). Mariline Comeau-​Vallée earned her in Management at HEC Montréal, and is now a Professor at École de la Gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal. Her research interests include interprofessional dynamics, identity negotiation, and tensions management. She has studied these topics in pluralist contexts, such as healthcare and social economy. She has contributed to the books The Oxford Handbook of Health Care Management (2016), Challenges and Opportunities in Health Care Management (2015), Social Innovation and Labour (2009) and the journals Leadership (2013) and Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics (2012). W. E. Douglas Creed is a professor at the University of Rhode Island College of Business Administration. He received his PhD in organizational behavior and industrial relations and MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the role of social identity, emotions, and agency in institutional change processes. His research has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Organization Science. Eliana Crosina is a doctoral candidate in the Management and Organization Depart­ ment at Boston College. She holds a BS in business administration and a MBA from Babson College, as well as a MS in organization studies from Boston College. Her current research interests center on issues of identity and organizing in entrepreneurial contexts. Miguel Pina e Cunha is professor of organization theory at Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal. His research has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization Studies. He participated in the editorial boards of several journals including the European Management Journal, Management Learning, Organization Studies, and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. He co-​authored, with Arménio Rego and Stewart Clegg, The Virtues of Leadership: Contemporary Challenge for Global Managers (Oxford University Press, 2012). Christiane Demers is a professor in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal. Her research focuses on organizational change and evolution, with a particular emphasis on strategic dynamics and organizational processes. She is the

xxii   List of Contributors author of Organizational Change Theories:  A  Synthesis (Sage, 2007)  and has published in journals such as Organization Science and Journal of Organizational Change Management. Jean-​L ouis Denis earned his PhD in community health at Université de Montréal, and is full professor of health policy and management at the School of Public Health, Université de Montréal. He holds the Canada research chair on health system redesign and improvement. Recent papers have been published in BMC Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Academy of Management Annals, Public Administration, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Miriam Erez is professor (emeritus) of organizational psychology and management, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion, Israel. Her three research topics focus on “the journey of the idea”—​innovation management, cross-​cultural and global organizational behavior, and work motivation. She has co-​authored and co-​edited five books, and over one hundred journal papers and book chapters. Erez received the 2002 IAAP Distinguished Scientific Award and the 2005 Israel Prize in Administrative Sciences. She is fellow of AOM, APA, SIOP, IAAP. She has advised about a hundred master and doctoral students and she is currently associate editor of the Journal of International Business Studies and of Cross Cultural & Strategic Management. Gail T. Fairhurst is a distinguished university research professor of organizational communication at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests are in organizational communication; leadership processes, including problem-​ centered leadership and framing; paradox; and organizational discourse analysis. Her work on paradox and dialectics appears in such journals as The Academy of Management of Annals, Organization Studies, Human Relations, and Management Communication Quarterly. Benjamin D. Golant completed his doctorate at Royal Holloway, University of London, and is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh Business School. His research focuses on the role of rhetoric and narrative in leadership, identity, and strategic change and has been published in Organization Studies, Human Relations, and Organization. Jean-​Pascal Gond is chair professor at Sir John Cass Business School, City, University of London. His research interests emphasize corporate social responsibility, the performativity of management theories as well as the organizational dynamics of justification. His work has been published in journals such as Business & Society, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization Science. Manto Gotsi earned her PhD in marketing at the University of Strathclyde, and is a reader in marketing at Westminster Business School, University of Westminster. In the past, Manto has held academic posts at Cardiff University, Brunel University, University of Aberdeen, and University of Strathclyde. Her research on the nature and management of tensions and paradoxes has been published in journals such as Human Relations, European Journal of Marketing, International Small Business Journal, and International Marketing Review.

List of Contributors    xxiii Gabriel Grant is the founder of Human Partners, cofounder of the Byron Fellowship Educational Foundation, and a PhD candidate in leadership and sustainability at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. His research explores how people simultaneously pursue individual, organizational, and planetary flourishing and is published in journals such as the Journal of Industrial Ecology and Journal of Corporate Citizenship. He has coached over one thousand change leaders in navigating paradoxes of sustainability including directors and c-suite executives from over a hundred major brands. Robin Holt is professor in the Department of Management, Philosophy and Politics at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. He has just completed a book on Judgment and Strategy and is writing two further books, one on craft, strategy and technology, the other on entrepreneurship and desire. He was editor of the journal Organization Studies 2013–2017. Michael Jarrett is senior affiliate professor in organizational behavior at INSEAD. He has written books, articles, and papers on managing strategic change, top management teams, and the application of systems psychodynamics to organizational studies. He has published in Organization Research Methods, Journal of Change Management and Harvard Business Review. Jason Jay is a senior lecturer and director of the Sustainability Initiative at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He earned his PhD in organization studies at MIT Sloan. His research focuses on how people and organizations navigate the tensions inherent in the quest for sustainability, as they simultaneously pursue their own self-​interest and the flourishing of human and other life. With Gabriel Grant he is the author of Breaking Through Gridlock: The Power of Conversation in a Polarized World and has published articles in the Academy of Management Journal and California Management Review. Barry Johnson earned his PhD from International College. His seminal book, Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems (HRD Press, 1992) captures the foundation of this powerful approach. He co-​authored, with Roy Oswald, Managing Polarities in Congregations:  Eight Keys for Thriving Faith Communities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). His third book, AND, How to Leverage Polarity, Paradox, Dilemma (Polarity Partnership) is scheduled to come out next year. Cliff Kayser earned his master’s degrees in organization development and human resource management from American University and completed his coaching training at Georgetown University. He is an adjunct professor in the master’s in organization development in the School of Public Affairs at American University and a coaching fellow in coaching programs at George Mason University. Cliff is a graduate of the two-​ year Mastery Program in Polarity Thinking and has served as dean since 2014. Anne Keegan earned her PhD at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and is an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School. She is full professor in human resource management at UCD School of Business, Ireland. Her published work has appeared in Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies,

xxiv   List of Contributors Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Resource Management, and Human Resource Management Journal. Together with Ina Aust and Julia Brandl she undertakes research on paradoxes in HRM. Joshua Keller is an assistant professor of strategy, management and organizations at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research, which applies cognitive approaches to paradoxes, has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Management and Organization Review. He received his PhD in management from the University of Texas at Austin, United States. Eric Knight earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford and is an associate professor in innovation and management at the University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney. His research focuses on the discursive and material practices that organizational actors use in response to strategic tensions, and his research has been published in journals such as Organization Studies, Journal of Economic Geography, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Eric is the founding editor of the blogsite http://​www. leveragingtensions.com, which seeks to connect scholars and practitioners interested in paradox, dualities, and dialectics. Glen E. Kreiner is the John and Becky Surma Dean’s Research Fellow and management professor at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State. He received his PhD from Arizona State University. His research focuses on identity-​related issues as experienced at the organizational, professional, and individual levels. Primarily a grounded theorist, he examines linkages between identity and such topics as work–​home dynamics, stigma, dirty work, emotions, legitimacy, ethics, and workers with disabilities. Jane Lê earned her PhD from the Aston Business School and is an associate professor in work and organizational studies at the University of Sydney. She studies organizational practices and processes in complex, dynamic, and pluralistic organizations. Jane is particularly interested in understanding how people in organizations balance multiple competing demands. She has published her work in journals such as Organization Science, Organization Studies, Strategic Organization, and the British Journal of Management. Jane is passionate about qualitative research and qualitative research methods and is currently serving on the editorial board of Organizational Research Methods and Organization Studies. Marcia Lensges is assistant professor of management at Xavier University. Her research focuses on the intersection of micro and macro organizational topics, such as justice, identity, and organizational restructuring. She has been published in the Journal of Management Inquiry. Valérie Michaud is associate professor at ESG UQAM, in Montreal. Her research focuses on social and collective enterprises, with special interest for the management of their inherent tensions and paradoxes. Her work has been published in journals such as Organization Studies and M@n@gement.

List of Contributors    xxv Ella Miron-​Spektor earned her PhD in organizational psychology at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion—​Israel Institute of Technology, and is an assistant professor at the Technion. Her research on tensions and paradoxes of creativity and innovation, organizational learning, culture, and emotions has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of Organizational Behavior. Ajit Nayak is a senior lecturer in strategy at the University of Exeter Business School. His primary area of interest is processual approaches to understanding human agency and organization. Ajit Nayak has published in Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Long Range Planning, Organization, Business History, and Marketing Theory. Julie-​Maude Normandin is a PhD candidate in analysis and management of public policies at the École nationale d’administration publique. Her research focuses on crisis management, resilience, risk management, and complexity. She has published articles in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, and the International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management. She received the Joseph-​Armand Bombardier Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Sotirios Paroutis is a professor of strategic management and head of the strategy and international business group at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. He earned his PhD at the University of Bath. His research on the discursive, cognitive, and visual activities organizational actors employ when dealing with strategic tensions has been published in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, California Management Review, Human Relations, and British Journal of Management. His latest book is Practicing Strategy: Text and Cases, 2nd edition (Sage, 2016). Linda L. Putnam earned her PhD in the Department of Communication at the University of Minnesota and is a distinguished research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research on paradoxes and contradictions and on gender studies has been published in The Academy of Management Annals, Human Relations, Organization Studies, Management Communication Quarterly, and Academy of Management Review. She is a fellow of the International Communication Association and a distinguished scholar of the National Communication Association. Sebastian Raisch is vice dean and professor of strategy at the University of Geneva, Geneva School of Economics and Management. He is a permanent visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on how large organizations renew themselves by reconciling the conflicting forces of change and stability. His current research is on organizational ambidexterity, organizational paradox, and strategic decision-​making. Tatbeeq Raza-​Ullah is a final-​year PhD candidate in Umeå School of Business and Economics at Umeå University Sweden. His research enquires into special types of inter-​firm relationships that involve competition–​cooperation paradox, also known

xxvi   List of Contributors as coopetition, and further investigates the nature and role of tension, emotions, and managing capabilities in such relationships. He has published in Industrial Marketing Management and Academy of Management Proceedings. Jonathan Schad is a PhD student in management at the University of Geneva, Geneva School of Economics and Management. His research focuses on the philosophical roots of paradox and how organizations manage tensions between stakeholders. His work on paradox has been published in the Academy of Management Annals. Margaret Seidler earned her master of public administration at the University of South Carolina, and studied organization development at the University of St. Thomas. She is a Polarity Management Master and her practice focuses on creating higher performance in both organization and community systems. She is the author of Power Surge: Energizing your Leadership Strengths (HRD Press, 2008). Garima Sharma is an assistant professor of strategy, at University of New Mexico. Garima received her PhD from Case Western Reserve University after which she was a postdoctoral fellow at Ivey Business School, Western University. Her research sits at the interface of organization theory and sustainability. She is interested in knowing how organizations manage tensions between social and profit goals. She also studies interdisciplinary collaboration for knowledge generation, specifically how researchers and managers come together to co-create knowledge. Her research has been published in journals such as Organization Studies and Journal of Business Ethics. Mathew L. Sheep is chair of the Management Department at Florida Gulf Coast University and an associate editor of Human Relations since 2012. His research in paradoxes of individual and organizational identity work, innovation, work–​home boundary work, and other topics has been published in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Human Relations, Organization Studies, and Journal of Business Ethics. John A. A. Sillince earned his PhD in social science at the London School of Economics, is a senior editor at Organization Studies and is a professor of strategy and management at Newcastle University Business School. His research on rhetoric has been published in journals such as Organization Studies, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Organization Science. Natalie Slawinski received her PhD from the Ivey Business School at University of Western Ontario, and is an associate professor of strategic management at the Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her research lies at the intersection of time, sustainability, and paradox and has been published in journals such as Organization Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization Studies, and Organization & Environment. Sara Soderstrom earned her PhD in management and organizations from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is an assistant professor in

List of Contributors    xxvii organizational studies and program in the environment at University of Michigan. In her research, she studies how individuals within organizations mobilize others, develop coalitions, and access key decision-​makers when they are trying to implement sustainability initiatives. Further, she studies individual and organizational responses to the ambiguity and uncertainty that surrounds sustainability. André Spicer earned a PhD from the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is a professor of organizational behavior at Cass Business School, City, University of London. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which is The Stupidity Paradox. Marie-​Christine Therrien earned her PhD from École des Mines de Paris and is a full professor of management at the École nationale d’administration publique (Montreal, Canada). Her research interests are in resilience governance, complex organizations, and crisis management. Her research focuses on the issues of coordination of networks, analysis of organizational failures, knowledge transfer, organizational resilience, and crisis management. She has published articles in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses, International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, et alia. She is the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Emergency Management. Paul Tracey is professor of innovation and organization, and co-director of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. He is also a visiting professorial fellow at the Department of Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne. Between 2011 and 2013 he was an Economic and Social Research Council mid-career fellow. His research has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, and Organization Science. His research interests include social innovation, regional innovation, and institutional change. He received his PhD from the University of Stirling. Haridimos Tsoukas is the Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Manage­ ment in the University of Cyprus, Cyprus and a Distinguished Research Environment Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. He obtained his PhD at the Manchester Business School (MBS), University of Manchester, and has worked at MBS, the University of Essex, the University of Strathclyde, and at the ALBA Graduate Business School (Greece). He has published widely in several leading academic journals. He was the editor-​in-​chief of Organization Studies (2003–​8) and has served on the editorial board of several journals. He was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Science by the University of Warwick in 2014. With Ann Langley he is the co-​founder and co-​convener of the annual International Symposium on Process Organization and co-​editor of the Perspectives on Process Organization Studies, published annually by Oxford University Press. He has co-​edited several books, including The Oxford Handbook of Organization Theory (with Christian Knudsen, Oxford University Press, 2003) and Philosophy and Organization Theory (with Robert Chia, Emerald, 2011). He is the author of Complex Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2005) and If Aristotle were a CEO (in Greek, Kastaniotis, 2012, 4th edn).

xxviii   List of Contributors Russ Vince is professor of leadership and change at the School of Management, University of Bath. He is honorary professor of management at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on emotion in organizations, leadership, and learning. Recent papers can be read in the Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, and the British Journal of Management. Russ is an associate editor of the journal Academy of Management Learning and Education. Alexander Zimmermann is assistant professor of organization and strategic management at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and leads the Center for Organizational Excellence at the Universities of St. Gallen and Geneva. His research on strategic, organizational, and leadership approaches to deal with paradoxical tensions has been published in journals such as Organization Science, California Management Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. Mike Zundel is professor in the Work, Organisation and Management Group at University of Liverpool Management School, UK, where he also acts as associate head, responsible for research. He is interested in processual and media-theoretical aspects of organizing and strategy and he is a senior editor of Organization Studies and consulting editor of the International Journal of Management Reviews.

I n t rodu ction The Paradoxes of Paradox Wendy K. Smith, Marianne W. Lewis, Paula Jarzabkowski, and Ann Langley

Organizations are rife with paradoxes. Persistent and interwoven tensions emerge from and within multiple levels, including individual interactions, group dynamics, organizational strategies, and the broader institutional context. Examples abound such as those between stability and change, empowerment and alienation, flexibility and control, diversity and inclusion, exploration and exploitation, social and commercial, competition and collaboration, learning and performing. These examples accentuate the distinctions between concepts, positing their potential opposition; either A or B. Yet the social world is pluralistic, and comprises multiple, interwoven tensions, in which it can be difficult even to distinguish between A and B. This book thus seeks to elicit some of the ways that paradox, pluralism, tensions, and contradictions are represented in the literature and provide a range of lenses and tools with which to understand and conduct research into such phenomena. Early management scholars advanced contingency theory as a means of addressing tensions, such as those between flexibility and control, or between differentiation and integration. This perspective depicts competing demands as dilemmas posed by alternative options and advances tools to make trade-​offs that resolve the tensions (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Woodward 1965). Over the years, scholars built on this framework to develop increasingly sophisticated models that would result in “better” choices amongst alternatives. Such either/​or approaches depict tensions as external to the individual. They advocate responding to uncertainty and choice with conviction and resolution, diminishing anxiety and inspiring confidence. Yet not all tensions can be resolved by contingency reasoning. As we delve into the nature of tensions, we surface complex dualities that are not only contradictory, they are also interdependent. Tied in a web of mutual interactions, these complex tensions cannot be disentangled. Schneider (1990) depicts the human experience as

2   Introduction an elastic band that exists in an ongoing push and pull between expansion and contraction. Smith and Berg (1987) note the paradoxical relationships between the individual and the collective; group identity emerges from, while also subjugating the unique contributions of each of its members. Follett (1996) emphasizes the reciprocity of power in leader/​subordinate relationships, noting how advancing subordinate power increases, rather than diminishes, leaders’ power. Similarly, Giddens (1984) stressed the mutually interwoven processes of structure and agency to build and reinforce systems. Indeed, social order comprises multiple, coexisting value systems (Weber, see Kalberg 1980), orders of worth (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006), or logics (Friedland and Alford 1991), grounded in the family, religion, the economy, community, etc., which together may imbue organizational and individual life with pluralistic meanings and demands. Contemporary society, marked as it is by rapid change, blurs boundaries and scarce resources and further exacerbates interwoven contradictions (Smith and Lewis 2011). Reducing these complex types of interactions to simple either/​or choices neglects critical interdependencies which can fuel ongoing vicious cycles. Choosing one pole of a tension may defensively trigger its opposition. By contrast, paradox scholars expand potential approaches to tensions by appreciating the contradictory and interdependent aspects of competing demands. Such approaches highlight ongoing processual dynamics as multiple poles ebb and flow in relation to one another, sometimes in opposition and other times aligning. Existential philosophy and psychology, for example, proposes that life is defined by death so that those who have come close to their own death report experiencing a greater vividness of life (Schneider 1990). Tomorrow is defined by and eventually becomes today, so that invoking arguments about the future can profoundly impact our actions today. Stability enables change, as stable structures can serve as boundaries within which greater and more fluid shifting can occur (Farjoun 2016; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 1999). In these dynamic interplays, interwoven tensions challenge static structures and systems. Scholars contributing to this volume question whether tensions emerge from our systems or our understanding of these systems, and explore how actors and organizations cope, even thrive with plurality, tensions, and contradictions. Paradox studies date back to the Ancient Greeks and Eastern Mystics. Scholars of philosophy, psychology, and physics have long explored the paradoxical essence of human existence (e.g., life–​death, knowledge–​ignorance, self–​other), human nature (e.g., expansion–​ constriction, independence–​ dependence) and nature itself (e.g., time–​space, particles–​waves) (Capra 2010; Schneider 1990). Such works stress that interdependent contradictions are inherent in our lives, ourselves, and our organizations. Motivated by our natural inclination to delineate and distinguish, we tend to create our own tensions. In seeking order, we impose abstract distinctions and boundaries reinforced by our discursive and/​or analytical tendencies. Doing so may, paradoxically, exacerbate the interwoven complexity, as tensions morph, shift, and change (Benson 1977). As our ordered world disintegrates, we find coexisting contradictions to be surprising, absurd and perplexing—​paradoxical. Yet similarly motivated by our

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    3 defensiveness, anxiety, and need for simplicity, we uphold distinctions and separations, reinforcing the very paradoxical experiences we seek to minimize. While dating back to ancient philosophy, only recently have organizational scholars started to explore paradox. Drawing from broad insights across disciplines including psychoanalysis (i.e., Freud, Frankl, Jung, Watzlawick), communications (Fairhurst and Putnam 2004; Putnam 1986), and macro sociology (i.e., Marx, Bakhtin, Giddens, Bateson), a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions (i.e., Benson 1977; Lewis 2000; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Quinn and Cameron 1988). Scholars responded. Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. In a recent review of top management journals, we reported that journal publications addressing paradox grew at an average rate of 10 percent per year between 1990 and 2014 (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). The growth of a scholarly community around these concepts is further evident in the overwhelming attendance at paradox-​focused professional development workshops and symposia at the Academy of Management (AOM) and extensive submissions to a dedicated subtheme at the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS). In addition, a special issue dedicated to paradox in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (2013) received approximately forty submissions, and a special issue of Organization Studies (2017) embracing paradoxes, tensions, and dualities received over one hundred submissions, setting a record for this international journal. This mounting body of literature provides increasingly rich and varied approaches to plurality, tensions, and contradictions. The growing catalogue of organizational paradoxes is impressive—​ spanning gender, identity, leadership, and modernity. The versatility of the paradox lens is also demonstrated by its application across levels of analysis. At the individual level, scholars explore how employees address tensions between work and life (Rothbard 2001; Trefalt 2012), achieve peak performance while engaging in steep learning (Dobrow, Smith, and Posner 2011; Edmondson 2012), enable democratic leadership while ensuring discipline and authority (Denis, Langley, and Sergi 2012; Lawrence, Lenk, and Quinn 2009), and embrace collective leadership styles while achieving coherent direction (Denis et al. 2012). At more macro levels, studies seek to understand how organizations can foster both exploration and exploitation (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Knight and Paroutis 2016; Smith and Tushman 2005), social missions and financial outcomes (Jay 2013; Smith, Gonin, and Besharov 2013), global principles and local demands (Marquis and Battilana 2009), market competition and regulatory demands (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013), or competition and cooperation (Brandenburger and Nalebuff 1996; Raza-​Ullah, Bengtsson, and Kock 2014). This growing community of scholars also applies a range of divergent and complementary lenses to gain insights into interdependent contradictions, including dialectics, critical theory, psychoanalytics, process theory, practice theory, and cognitive sciences among many others. Resulting studies explore self-​referential dynamics that

4   Introduction facilitate change to encourage stability (Feldman 2000; Tsoukas and Chia 2002; Weick et al. 1999), and processually unfold through situated dynamics, embodied communication, and everyday actions (Jarzabkowski 2005; Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Langley 1999; Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016; Tsoukas and Chia 2002). Studies highlight alternative means of coping, such as sensemaking techniques to better understand paradox (Jay 2013; Lüscher and Lewis 2008), rhetorical approaches to surface and address tensions (Bednarek, Paroutis, and Sillince, 2017; Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007; Putnam 1986), or to facilitate transcendence (Abdallah, Denis, and Langley 2011; Seo, Putnam, and Bartunek 2004), and structural approaches to delineate conflicting actors while facilitating interactions (Ashforth and Reingen 2014; Besharov 2014). In addition, they propose that contradictions and tensions are the norm in pluralistic contexts (Denis, Lamothe, and Langley 2001), such that we may learn much about responses to paradox from everyday practices (Fenton and Jarzabkowski 2006; Smets, Jarzabkowski, Burke, and Spee 2015). Further richness is imbued with distinct yet overlapping lenses accentuating dialectical processes (Ashcraft 2001; Benson 1977; Farjoun 2002; Seo and Creed 2002) and varied world views and logics (Besharov and Smith 2014; Boltanski and Thévenot 2006; Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, and Lounsbury 2011; Kraatz and Block 2008; Pratt and Foreman 2000; Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012).

The Paradox of Paradoxes As the depth and breadth of paradox studies grows, new insights challenge foundational ideas, and raise questions around definitions, overlapping lenses, and varied research and managerial approaches. Alternative perspectives highlight fundamental divides while also inviting complementary approaches. As we reflected on the state of paradox studies, we soon became aware that we were surfacing the paradoxes of paradoxes—​ contradictory, yet interdependent perspectives on paradox enveloped in the core theoretical assumptions. We describe three paradoxes of paradox.

Paradoxical Origins (Paradox as Inherent versus Socially Constructed) Scholars diverge in depicting tensions as inherently enmeshed within a system or as emerging and evolving through individuals’ social constructions and relational dynamics. An inherent approach depicts paradoxes as living within systems, structures, processes, and routines and argues for increasingly informed responses to expected patterns. If paradoxes exist outside of individual agency, then improved outcomes depend on individual awareness, recognition, and management competency. Objectifying tensions also facilitates empirical research, as researchers can observe, measure, and

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    5 manipulate paradoxes separate from their responses. However, separating paradox from responses can risk over-​simplification to the extent that scholars and observers succumb to the pressures to hold paradox static by assuming that paradoxes do not change and only our responses to paradoxes change. By contrast, a social construction approach depicts paradoxes as arising from individual and collective sensemaking, discourse and relational dynamics. Our limited cognition, abstracted discourse, and emotionally infused relationships create, exacerbate, or diminish seemingly absurd oppositions. Paradoxes exist within our discourse, our cognition, and our relationships, not independent of them. Such a perspective complicates our research programs. Scholars cannot delineate responses from paradox, as responses are the paradoxes (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). In some cases, people may even discursively construct paradoxes with the purpose of legitimating proposed actions that seem to dissolve them (Abdallah et al. 2011). This view emphasizes and demands greater sensitivity, critical analysis, and appreciation for processual dynamics that depict paradox as consistently emerging, morphing, and changing. But assuming that paradox is only a construction of the mind imbues individuals with ultimate control over the construction and deconstruction of paradox, and diminishes both assumptions and experiences of their persistence. Complementary insights highlight the interwoven nature of structure and agency (Benson 1977; Giddens 1984)  or between inherent and socially constructed understandings of paradox. Organizational boundaries emerge from individual and collective sensemaking (Ford and Ford 1994), dividing holistic phenomena into distinct and oppositional elements, and embedding contradictory demands. Differentiating structures align people within divergent boundaries, perpetuating distinctions. Similarly, individual relationships that highlight distinctions become reinforced and ossified within structural features, again perpetuating dualities (Smith and Lewis 2011). Whether these interdependent contradictions emerge initially from structural divides or from individual and collective sensemaking may reflect the paradoxical chicken-​ and-​egg problem.

Paradoxical Ontology (Paradox as Entity versus Process) Alternative perspectives differentially accentuate paradox as a static entity or as a dynamic process; and as a duality or a plurality. More static depictions assume two poles of a paradox—​A and B—​and emphasize constancy in both the poles, and the relationship between them. Paradox becomes a noun—​“the” paradox or “a” paradox. This perspective separates the entity of paradox from the approaches or responses to paradox. Studies of ambidexterity often adopt such an approach, depicting two poles “exploration” and “exploitation,” and holding constant each pole, assuming that the relationship between poles shifts episodically in response to key events (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009). For example, environmental events or new technologies could generate an episodic shift in the ways that organizations address either their existing world or their

6   Introduction future world. A more static approach inspires typologies and categorizations that delineate across features of these tensions. In contrast, dynamic approaches emphasize fluid movements and process, often depicted by cycles of attention to contradictory elements that might extend beyond two clear and well-​defined poles of a duality to include shifting and reforming foci of tension over time that could be complex and multidimensional. In this case, the term paradox may be used as an adjective, describing movement over time: e.g., a paradoxical cycle, a paradoxical approach. Alternatively, when the emphasis is on process and shifting contradictions over time, reference may be made to a “dialectical” perspective (Benson 1977) reflecting an ongoing fluid motion between ever-​changing dualities. From a dialectical perspective, the contradictory nature of elements in the social world may actually flow in and out of consciousness depending on power relationships and implicit taken-​for-​granted assumptions that can underlie the temporary dominance of one pole or another. One pole may further morph with another, creating new poles—​the thesis and anti-​thesis becoming a synthesis (Hargrave and Van de Ven 2016). In this case, the term “paradox” might be invoked to describe the momentary consequence of tensions that, at a certain point in time, come strongly into conscious awareness and are constructed as “a” paradox (in the more static entitative sense). In other words, from an integrative view that bridges static and dynamic perspectives, dialectical processes can be seen as generating paradoxes that lead to responses, which may in turn reconstitute the shape of ongoing dialectical and paradoxical tensions. Alternatively, inherent, systemic paradoxical tensions could surface within a particular instantiation, by which dialectical processes might inform and enable change. Yet even such processes may lead to novel outcomes, as the underlying paradox persists. Quinn and Cameron’s (1988) early articulation sought to understand organizational paradox as a driver of change and transformation.

Paradoxical Purposes (Paradox as Normative versus Descriptive Lens) A final paradox of paradox is related to the tension between normative and descriptive purposes; that is, between those who study paradox, tensions, or dualities in order to find better ways to manage interdependent contradictions, and those who use paradox as a more explanatory lens without such a value-​oriented purpose. In the first case, viewing the world in terms of paradoxes and accepting the coexistence of interdependent opposites rather than suppressing them is a credo with significant managerial implications that need to be brought to light, developed, and understood. The popular books of Charles Hampden-​Turner and Charles Handy are classics in this genre (Hampden-​Turner 1994; Handy 1995) and all of the editors of this handbook have to different degrees, at different times and in different ways thought about or analyzed how paradox might be mobilized productively for some normative managerial purpose (although some of us may be more optimistic and others more prone to see the dark

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    7 side). As management scholars, offering guidance is our bread and butter and inevitably structures to some degree the way we think. At the same time, a descriptive perspective on paradoxical and dialectical processes might suggest that the capacity to “manage” paradox is an illusion precisely because paradoxes are encompassing, uncontrollable, dynamic, interactive, and ever changing. From this perspective, no one can ever stand outside or above paradox and deliberately manipulate it for specific ends. Benson (1977) uses the notion of “totality” to express the impossibility of externalizing contradiction. The descriptive perspective on paradox or dialectics would thus tend to emphasize the explanatory value of this framework for understanding the world, but remain skeptical of not just the simplistic defensive solutions of selecting and splitting but even of those that appear to involve acceptance, such as reframing and integration. If it is truly paradoxical, paradox resists integration, any form of deliberate “both/​ and” intervention may be an illusion. Langley and Sloan (2012: 266) express this paradox of paradox as follows, with particular reference to dialectics: “A dialectic perspective in the purest sense would suggest that any deliberate attempt by top managers to impose a social order that involved the nurturing of creative tensions is likely at some point to encounter its very own contradictions and resistance. In other words, the dialectic change process can never be perfectly contained within any managerial recipe, not even one that recognizes the dialectic nature of change.” From this perspective, it would defeat the point to attempt any form of integration of the opposing poles of this paradox of paradox!

Summary The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox seeks to surface and engage with different perspectives on paradox, illustrating and illuminating the paradoxes of paradox introduced above. The handbook juxtaposes paradox insights drawing on diverse theoretical approaches and applying to a broad range of phenomena. Authors adopt a variety of lenses, theories, and language to describe contradiction, paradox, tensions, and dialectics. Doing so highlights similarities and differences. Across these pieces we see several similarities emerge around the constitution of and response to paradox. First, across the pieces in the handbook, authors collectively address tensions that are both contradictory and interdependent. Authors use different labels to address these tensions including paradox, dialectics, and dualities. Key differences exist, explored in more depth in a number of the chapters. Yet the unifying elements of each reflect the dual (and paradoxical) features of being contradictory—​oppositional, inconsistent, competing–​–​and of being interdependent—​interwoven, synergistic, mutually constitutive. Together, these authors recognize that it is these two interwoven (and paradoxical!) constitutive features that make these tensions different and more complex than other tensions such as dilemmas, trade-​offs, and competing demands. Moreover, authors collectively agree that we experience such constitutive elements as absurd and perplexing, delighting to some and discouraging to others.

8   Introduction At the same time, important insights exist in the distinctions. With such a range of phenomena, lenses, and theories, authors highlight diverse assumptions, applications, and implications. We delineate some of these distinctions below as we explore the breadth of chapters in the handbook. Through these similarities and differences we advance paradox studies, providing resources that enable scholars’ learning and engagement, while complicating and enriching our insights. As such, we hope the collection will inspire, motivate, and deepen future scholarship of organizational paradox.

Organization of the Handbook In seeking to be a resource to authors, The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox is organized into three sections. The first section examines and extends foundations, drawing on a broad range of fields informing our views of organizational paradox. Doing so surfaces varied assumptions, definitions, and approaches and shows the rich theoretical pluralism with which we are able to conceptualize paradox. The second section illustrates paradox research across organizational phenomena and levels, while examining the interplay between paradox and varied theoretical lenses and approaches. In the third section, we explore scholarly engagement with paradox from research methods to teaching to business engagement. This section turns a paradox lens upon ourselves to reflect upon the paradoxical nature of scholarship.

Part I: Foundations and Approaches The first section of the handbook draws from a variety of fields to identify foundational understandings of paradox (see Table 0.1). Doing so surfaces variety as well as linkages. Indeed, authors highlight similarities in constitutive features of paradox—​exploring tensions that are both contradictory and interdependent. Further, they do so by depicting paradox as external to our own experience of the world as well as emergent from how we interpret, describe, and interact with the world. Taken together, these chapters accentuate the limits of assuming a formal either/​or logic which prevents the fundamental appreciation, deeper insight, creative opportunities, and breakthrough thinking that lie in being delighted by absurdities and seeking the “grace” of intricate and fluid tensions. Schad (Chapter 1) identifies multiple foundational philosophies from formal Greek logic, Eastern philosophy, dialectics, existentialism, philosophies of language, and political philosophy. This chapter highlights the varied definitions, assumptions, and implications of paradox across foundational philosophy, a heterogeneity which informs our work today. Schad argues for the value of this diversity, suggesting that together these foundational philosophies help inform a paradox meta-​theory. This broad array sets the groundwork for the subsequent pieces which each do a deeper dive into particular areas.

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    9 Table 0.1 Section 1 overview Chapter

Foundation

Reflective insights

1 Schad

Philosophy

“Ad fontes”—​going back to foundational sources—​informs the diversity of our assumptions, definitions, and approaches, while also arguing for a broader meta-​theory. This chapter introduces insights from logic, Eastern philosophy, dialectics, existentialism, language, political philosophy.

2 Jarrett and Vince

Psychoanalytics

Paradoxes provoke unconscious emotions and anxiety, defence mechanisms, and awareness approaches. These dynamics highlight the challenges of engaging paradoxes entrenched within the individual.

3 Keller and Chen

Cognitive approaches

Our cognitive processing drives us toward categorizing, highlighting opposition, and surfacing paradoxes. These processes are informed by our cultural and social context, as well as by our individual affect.

4 Holt and Zundel

Linguistic

Language provides an efficient form of reasoning in which we are able to identify classes of people, things, and activities. Yet such distinctions exacerbate paradox, by overlooking the interconnectedness of the world, which is better understood through forms of reasoning that embrace notions of grace.

5 Clegg and Cunha

Dialectics

Dialectical thinking draws inspiration from Hegel’s model in which a thesis is confronted by its anti-​thesis and informs its synthesis. This process emphasizes ongoing change, becoming, and processes of transcendence.

6 Chia and Nayak

Eastern and Western approaches

Fuzzy and ambiguous paradoxical utterances such as those of Heraclitus and Lao Tzu enable people to reach beyond the limits of logical representation by seeing the “in-​one-​ anotherness” of our concepts and ideas, allowing us to play with meanings rather than being bound by frozen categories that divide up the world.

Jarrett and Vince (Chapter 2) and Keller and Chen (Chapter 3) explore individual-​level engagement and interactions with paradox, drawing on psychoanalysis and cognitive theories respectively. Jarrett and Vince highlight unconscious and emotional processing. Specifically they emphasize how paradoxical experiences surface unconscious emotions and anxieties, provoke defense mechanisms, and/​or can enable awareness and

10   Introduction intervention. They depict such dynamics at varied levels—​individual, group, and leader levels—​highlighting the breadth of tensions, while also demonstrating patterns. Keller and Chen explore how individuals experience paradox, drawing widely on theories of individual cognitive processing, as well as insight about social conventions and culture. They argue that our cognitive processes inform how we categorize dualities and understand the nature of the relationship between them. Our social conventions, however, inform our approach to these relationships: i.e., the extent to which we welcome or resist contradictory yet interrelated tensions. Connecting individual cognition with broader cultural norms offers explanations for why there might be divisions between Eastern and Western views of paradox (see Chapter 6), as well as offering insight into the nature of paradox as both socially constructed—​informed by our broader cultural narratives—​ as well as inherent within our narrative systems and structures. Holt and Zundel (Chapter  4) challenge us to rethink our thinking. Drawing on Bateson, they explore how the abstraction of language creates and surfaces fissures between parts and wholes, or classes and their members. Language, through the ability to specify and articulate particular classes of things, provides a form of reasoning that enables us to generate distinctions between these classes. Yet such distinctions also exacerbate paradox as they overlook the immense complexity with which things interact, and which are beyond human ability to select and specify. They therefore offer an alternative form of reasoning, grounded in Bateson’s notion of “grace,” which emphasizes interconnections and interdependency. They apply these concepts to organizational routines, and the tension between routines as patterned experiences with a set of stable characteristics and as motors for ongoing change, in which the only thing that is stable is change. Continuing to focus on more processual dynamics of paradox, Clegg and Pina e Cunha (Chapter 5) draw on foundational works by Hegel, Marx, and Bakhtin to explore the nature of dialectics. These authors suggest that dialectics reflects an ongoing processual view that explores change and becoming, as thesis and anti-​thesis consistently morph into synthesis. They define the key element of synthesis as transcendence. Chia and Nayak (Chapter 6) further point us to the role of language and abstraction, as they draw links between the Greek philosopher Heraclitus and Eastern philosophers such as Lao Tzu. They recognize divisions and distinctions that emerge from the abstractions of our mind, which leads to absurdities in our logic. Chia and Nayak conclude that oppositional characteristics need to be taken more lightly and playfully.

Part II: Paradoxical Phenomena in and beyond Organizations In the second section, scholars apply paradoxical lenses to different organizational theories and phenomena, extending insights within each of these domains, while simultaneously stretching our understanding of paradox (see Table  0.2). The breadth of

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    11 Table 0.2 Section 2 overview Chapter

Theory/​ Phenomena

Reflective insights

Provocation

7. Van Bommel and Spicer

Critical theory

Critical Management Studies (CMS) aims to expose the darker side of organizational paradoxes, such as the way seemingly benign management practices serve as structures of oppression. CMS lenses, such as feminism and colonialism, can help scholars to study these hidden paradoxes.

What if we were able to reveal the darker sides of organizational life and use these analyses to design and develop more just forms of organizing?

8. Tracey and Creed

Institutional theory

The intersection of paradox and institutional theory challenges us to address critical issues around social status, race, gender, etc. Whereas institutional theory depicts features that reinforce extant social order, paradox theory explores where such fault lines exist. Institutional paradoxes surface such rifts and fault lines in taken-​for-​granted, reinforced social order.

What if we could investigate “grand challenges,” particularly around social order? How would the intersection of institutional theory and paradox inform these insights?

9. Besharov and Sharma

Organizational identity

Paradox and organizational identity share underlying ontologies, but have proceeded independent of one another. Highlighting the contradictory yet interdependent nature of features of organizational identity (stability and change, social actor and social construction) can surface novel, valuable insights.

What if we understood organizational identity as imbued with interdependent contradictions that surface over time and across multiple parties in organizations?

10. Comeau-​ Vallee, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien

Pluralism

Pluralism and paradox often occur together. The study of both these phenomena may be enhanced by drawing on insights from CMS and complexity theory. Doing so may expand the focus of paradox studies beyond managerial concerns and recognize interdependent tensions beyond bipolarity.

What if we expanded the notion of paradox beyond bipolarity? How would we then think about ways of handling multiplicity and interdependence simultaneously?

(Continued)

12   Introduction Table 0.2 Continued Chapter

Theory/​ Phenomena

Reflective insights

Provocation

11. Cameron

Positive organizational scholarship

Positive organizational scholarship explores positive processes and outcomes. Yet, positivity to an extreme can be negative. And negativity can lead to and provoke positivity. The path of virtuousness therefore lies in balancing the positive and the negative.

What if we explore the paradoxical relationship between positivity and negativity? What if we recognized the human tendencies to overemphasize negative events and explored how the emphasis on the positive can overcome these experiences?

12. Gond, Demers, and Michaud

Economies of Worth

Most paradoxes have a moral dimension which is largely overlooked in existing studies. An Economies of Worth (EW) approach embraces multiple, plural moralities and so provides paradox scholars with a means of analyzing how people’s responses to paradox comprise moral elements.

What if we acknowledge the complex moralities involved in organizational life and gave both scholars and organizational participants a means of acknowledging and understanding the plural moral dimensions of action?

13. Sillince and Golant

Rhetorical theories

Rhetorical approaches enable us to evaluate the two sides of organizational change. Specifically, rhetorics of metaphor enable us to bring together elements of change, even as rhetorics of irony enable us to appraise the ambivalence people feel toward change.

What if we acknowledged the ambivalence people feel toward organizational change and provided them with ways to reflexively engage with that ambivalence?

14. Badham

Modernity

(Re)interpreting the foundational work of Jim March surfaces inherent paradoxes in the nature of rationality, the pursuit of performance, and the value of meaning. As Badham argues, March’s insights offer richness and complexity to understand the contradictory interdependencies in organizational life.

What if we recognized the inherent paradoxes within our understanding of organizational life as rational, outcome-​ driven, and successful?

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    13 Table 0.2 Continued Chapter

Theory/​ Phenomena

Reflective insights

Provocation

15. Bengtsson and Raza-​Ullah

Coopetition

Coopetition is an inter-​ organizational paradox that may be less easily “manageable” than organizational paradoxes. Cooperation and competition should be considered as orthogonal dimensions rather than a continuum. These tensions are cognitive and emotional phenomena that arise as managers face paradox. Moderate levels of tension are desirable in coopetitive situations.

What if we considered “tension” to be the subjective experience of paradox, separating out the paradox itself from the way it is experienced cognitively and emotionally?

16. Raisch and Zimmerman

Ambidexterity

Ambidexterity literature identifies structural, contextual, and sequential approaches to managing exploration–​ exploitation tensions. Yet each create certain path dependencies that fuel momentum, while sparking reinforcing dynamics that impede flexibility over time.

What if sustained paradox management entails shifting between and combining approaches to balance the duality of path-​ dependent and path-​ breaking activities?

17. Putnam and Ashcraft

Gender

Gender studies have viewed paradox in two different ways. While modernist views highlight double binds and inequality, postmodern feminist research casts paradox as an opportunity to negotiate new identities and organizational forms. Feminist studies suggest a need to theorize organization as both realist and constructivist.

What if we embraced a theory of organizations that is grounded in paradoxical ontology combining realism and constructivism as suggested by feminist theorizing?

18. Jay, Soderstrom, and Grant

Sustainability

The sustainability agenda is fraught with paradoxes, due to the competition for scarce resources amongst multiple stakeholders. Yet, by enabling people to become champions of ambivalence we can achieve the win–​win that enables long-term success.

What if we aimed for a genuine win–​win with sustainability by embracing its fundamental paradoxes rather than seeing these as a trade-​off?

(Continued)

14   Introduction Table 0.2 Continued Chapter

Theory/​ Phenomena

Reflective insights

Provocation

19. Slawinski and Bansal

Temporality

Time embeds multiple dualities, such as short-​term and long-​ term, clock time and event time, fast and slow. Approaching these dualities as either/​or trade-​ offs can limit organizational performance, and lead to unsustainable environmental impacts. Several literatures have already challenged us to think about time as paradoxical.

What if we approached time as both contradictory and interdependent? How might such an approach shift how we think about organizational performance and environmental sustainability?

20. Tsoukas and Cunha

Vicious and virtuous cycles

Paradoxical relationships trigger vicious and virtuous cycles, the nature of which depends on how we engage and approach competing demands. Organization depends on balancing both virtuous and vicious cycles. Circular phenomena are ubiquitous, easy to create, difficult to understand, and impossible to completely master.

What if circular (rather than linear) thinking was fully incorporated into organizational practice and into organizational theorizing and empirical research?

21. Aust, Brandl, Kegan, and Lensges

HRM

Paradoxes are ubiquitous in HRM, nested and challenging as systematic methods (e.g., compensation, job design) and collide with human intricacies (e.g., emotions, identities, power). While such tensions—​as well as their provoked defenses and reinforcing cycles—​are frequently studied, applications of paradox theory remain rare in HRM research.

What if we approached HRM with a paradox lens, purposefully seeking out interdependent contradictions, exploring the interplay of organizational and human intricacies, and fostering more fluid, inclusive and paradoxical approaches to their management?

22. Miron-​ Spektor and Erez

Creativity

Creativity is inherently paradoxical, surfacing interdependent contradictions between novelty and usefulness, incremental and radical, learning and performance, etc. A paradoxical approach can surface these tensions and enable more creative outcomes.

What if we adopted a paradoxical approach to both understand and enable increased creativity?

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    15 Table 0.2 Continued Chapter

Theory/​ Phenomena

Reflective insights

Provocation

23. Sheep, Kreiner, and Fairhurst

Individual identity

Reviewing “identity work” from a paradox lens surfaces four fundamental and interwoven paradoxes of identity: (1) characteristic vs. process (paradox of entity); (2) sameness vs. difference (paradox of conformity); (3) current vs. past/​future (paradox of temporality); and (4) expanding/​pulling apart vs. contracting/​holding together (paradox of elasticity).

What if we move beyond and transcend a separate elaboration of identity paradoxes, applying a post-​ structuralist lens to open our understanding of how identity paradoxes can be nested, knotted, and dynamically interwoven?

24. Crosina and Bartunek

Academic–​ practitioner relationships

The academic–​practitioner divide raises some of the greatest tensions around how to address core problems. We can shift our perspective on this challenge, however, if we recognize that individuals may not play only one role, and note how scholars practice and practitioners theorize, and together they inhabit a common world around problem solving.

What if we stopped dividing the world into scholars and practitioners, and instead explored how problems are solved through the mutual contributions of rigor and relevance, of insight and application?

25. Lê and Bednarek

Practice theory

A practice-​theory framework, based on social construction, everyday practice, consequentiality, and relationality can generate new understandings about and methods of studying paradox.

What if we took the social construction, dynamism and the descriptive nature of paradox seriously, so ceasing to seek transcendence and resolution?

applications across levels of analysis demonstrates the utility and versatility of a paradox lens. Such expansion stresses the role of paradox as a meta-​theory, offering insights toward how we think about theory. Yet it also offers us insights in paradox as a tool for theorizing. Exploring the tensions within our theories and across our theories invites novelty in our thinking. In early conversations about paradox, Jean Bartunek, past president of the Academy of Management provoked us, “What if every management theory had an equal and opposite theory?” Perhaps doing so would surface our greatest insights.

16   Introduction In Chapter 7, van Bommel and Spicer provide a critical theory perspective on paradox. As they note, Critical Management Studies (CMS) has long had an emancipatory agenda of exposing the paradoxes of organizational life, such as the structures of oppression incorporated within seemingly benign management practices. They provide a range of critical theory lenses from feminism to colonialism as potential resources for uncovering the hidden paradoxes that shape organizational life. In doing so, they suggest that paradox studies and paradox scholars have, as yet, shied away from these darker or more difficult paradoxes. This chapter thus provides critical theory resources for analysing often-​unseen dynamics, even as paradox theory also provokes CMS scholars to examine how we might develop more just forms of organizing. In Chapter 8, Tracey and Creed argue that the intersection of paradox and institutional theory raises provocative issues about how the structures and architectures of society reinforce often troubling social institutions such as race, gender, sexuality, and socio-​economic status. They challenge organizational research, and particularly both the paradox and institutional theory communities, to address these “grand challenges.” Drawing from two vignettes around 1) slave trading by administrators at Georgetown University in the 1800s, and 2) dining rituals at Cambridge University to reinforce existing social class stratification, they depict institutional paradoxes as those instances where fault lines or slippages emerge to confront well-​established institutional order. They provoke scholars to explore in more detail the nature and dynamics of such fault lines, and their implications for the “grand challenges” we face in our world today. In Chapter 9, Besharov and Sharma argue that research on organizational identity and paradox share similar underlying ontologies, but have proceeded as primarily distinct and disconnected literatures. They point to key paradoxical tensions within organizational identity, between stability and change, as well as inherent and socially constructed features of organizations, and suggest how insights into the contradictory yet interdependent nature of such tensions can introduce novel ideas into our understanding of organizational identity. Chapter 10 by Comeau-​Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien on “Alternate prisms for pluralism and paradox in organizations” addresses directly at least two of the paradoxes of paradoxes we introduced in the previous section. Specifically, by drawing on complexity theory, they expand the notion of paradox to a more pluralistic perspective that reaches beyond bipolar opposites. Their lens also challenges managerial perspectives on paradox by mobilizing insights from Critical Management Studies to consider the social embeddedness of paradox, calling for approaches that might view pluralism and paradox as an opportunity for more profound social change. Cameron (Chapter 11) examines the paradoxes of positivity and negativity. As a theoretical lens, Positive Organizational Scholarship explores approaches toward increased generative, creative, and virtuous outcomes. Yet as Cameron notes, experiencing excessive positivity in the absence of negativity can become self-​reinforcing to an extreme that can be dysfunctional. He quotes an Arab proverb, “All sunshine makes a desert.” Similarly, research points us to how positive, life-​affirming outcomes can emerge

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    17 from tragic events. Cameron challenges us to explore how positive and negative forces together can lead to virtuous outcomes, especially in light of research suggesting that we tend to over-​emphasize negative experiences. Gond, Demers, and Michaud (Chapter  12) note that paradoxes often comprise a moral dilemma that has, to date, been largely overlooked in organization studies. They juxtapose paradox theory with Boltanski and Thevenot’s Economies of Worth (EW), which provides a framework for analyzing how actors engage with the multiple moral dimensions they face. They bring the two bodies of literature together, comparing and contrasting their fundamental assumptions and core questions. Their chapter advances a research agenda in which the EW framework can provide a more nuanced understanding of the dilemmas underpinning responses to paradox, even as paradox theory provides an opportunity for EW to examine actor’s responses to the tensions arising from multiple moralities. Sillince and Golant (Chapter 13) provide us with a set of methodological resources for analyzing paradox, based on the application of rhetoric. Using the example of organizational change, which is fraught with paradoxical instances between present and future states of the organization in transition, they show how the rhetoric of metaphor enables integration of such tensions while the rhetoric of irony provides grounds for differentiation. They suggest that cycles of metaphor and irony enable organizational participants to identify their ambivalence toward change, even as they are also able to engage reflexively with their own part in the change. Badham (Chapter 14) surfaces paradoxes of modernity and rationality through a (re) interpretation of the foundational organizational scholarship of Jim March. As Badham argues, embedded within March’s work are: 1) paradoxes of rationality—​the irrational ways in which we reinforce a (mis) belief in rational organizational behavior; 2) paradoxes of performance—​which raises the dilemma to live within the experience of uncertainty in organizations, while demanding the communication and appearance of certainty; and 3) paradoxes of meaning—​in which we acutely recognize the challenge between pursuing success and knowing that such a pursuit can be elusive at best, fruitless at worst. By recognizing March’s work as inherently paradoxical, Badham invites us to reconsider the richness of March’s ideas, while provoking greater complexity with our own understanding of managerial dilemmas, pursuits, and understanding. Bengtsson and Raza-​Ullah’s Chapter 15 on coopetition (the integration of collaboration and cooperation at the inter-​firm level) innovates in at least two ways. First, it introduces the notion of “degrees” of coopetition by allowing the two poles of the competition–​collaboration tension to vary on orthogonal scales, rather than seeing them as situated along a continuum. Secondly, it addresses the first paradox of paradoxes introduced above by treating the inherent degree of coopetition separately but interdependently with the cognitive and emotional tensions it gives rise to among managers. This enables the authors to develop an insightful typology of more or less ambiguous and tension-​ridden situations with different consequences; an idea that may well have potential beyond the specific situation of inter-​firm paradox the authors are addressing.

18   Introduction Raisch and Zimmermann, in Chapter 16, develop a process perspective on ambidexterity. Distinguishing stages of ambidextrous organizations—​initiation, contextualization, and implementation—​they illustrate alternative pathways for navigating tensions of exploration and exploitation. The resulting model depicts a dynamic balancing of path-​dependent and path-​breaking approaches to paradox management. In Chapter 17, Putnam and Ashcraft review the way in which a paradox perspective has been mobilized in gender studies. The authors contrast modernist studies that emphasize dualities resulting in double binds and inequality, with postmodern feminist research that focuses on the doing or performing of gender and casts paradox as an opportunity to negotiate new identities and organizational forms. The tension between static and entitative approaches to paradox (the modernist view) and more dynamic perspectives (the post-​modernist view) is palpable in their analysis. In Chapter 18, Jay, Soderstrom and Grant examine the pertinent topic of paradoxes of sustainability. The aim of the sustainability agenda is to achieve a “win–​win” for business and society, encompassing the short-​and long-​term goals for humans and our natural environment. However this agenda often encounters paradox arising from scarcity of natural and financial resources, and the plurality of perspectives from the multiple stakeholders involved. Drawing on a range of examples, they show how achievement of the sustainability agenda requires the development of trade-​off-​breaking innovations and supporting people to become “champions of ambivalence,” so enabling contradictory motivations to be realized. Time represents a critical aspect of understanding paradox, while paradoxes inform our engagement in time. In Chapter 19, Slawinski and Bansal address these relationships. They surface the dualities of temporality, including tensions such as objective and subjective, clock time and event time, short-​term and long-​term, and fast and slow. Approaching these dualities as separate and distinct negatively impacts organizational performance and prevents societal sustainability. Slawinski and Bansal point to a number of key literatures that approach time as both contradictory and interdependent, and provoke us to explore how we can integrate these paradoxes across our research. Tsoukas and Pina e Cunha (Chapter 20) further expand upon processual insights, emphasizing how opposing forces drive ongoing circular dynamics, the nature of which depends on how we approach these tensions. Drawing on organizational scholars such as Weick and Senge, these authors demonstrate both vicious and virtuous cycles in areas such as leadership, change, culture, and growth. Applying a paradox lens, Aust, Brandl, Kegan, and Lensges (Chapter 21) re-​examine existing studies of tensions that pervade human resource management (HRM). Delving into the dynamics of alternative response/​coping strategies, they explore processes that fuel reinforcing cycles and contribute a paradox framework to the study of HRM. A case study illustrates use of the framework to unpack nested paradoxes and resulting vicious and virtuous cycles of HRM in practice. In Chapter 22, Miron-​Spektor and Erez surface the paradoxical nature of key creativity tensions—​between novelty and usefulness, incremental and radical, learning and

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    19 performance, individual and collective. By depicting these tensions as both contradictory and interrelated, this chapter calls for approaches to creativity that integrate and engage these paradoxical tensions. In doing so they surface the complexities of creativity, and call on future research to embrace and extend such insights. Sheep, Kreiner, and Fairhurst (Chapter 23) seek to render the paradox–​identity link explicit, presenting identity work as a fluid web of knotted tensions. Applying a paradox lens, they depict intricate, interwoven processes of language and discourse. The resulting view is one of identity appearing as a set of stable characteristics, and as a continual work in progress, realized in situ through an interplay of sensemaking, discursive interaction, and negotiation. As individuals and those around them negotiate self–​other understandings and juxtapose opposing and interwoven aspects of identity, they construct amalgamations of persistent tensions. The partnerships between academic and practitioner surfaces ongoing paradoxes between rigor and relevance, short-​term and long-​term, understanding and application. In Chapter 24, Crosina and Bartunek emphasize the paradoxical nature of these tensions by depicting not only their contradictions but also their interdependence. As they note, academics practice and practitioners theorize. They argue that our overemphasis on the two roles as distinct and divided misses key mutually informed relationships. To demonstrate the value of the scholar-​practitioner, they draw from both Saul Alinsky’s insights about integrating multiple communities by noting their collective interests amidst a broader universe, and Donald Schoen’s work on the reflective practitioner to help demonstrate greater value in the contributions of rigor and relevance together. Lê and Bednarek (Chapter 25) provide a practice-​theoretical perspective on paradox. Arguing that the two have a shared ontological approach, they develop a framework of four key practice principles–​–s​ocial construction, everyday activity, consequentiality, and relationality–​–t​hat have implications for the way we understand paradox. Their approach is thus firmly grounded in the notion of paradox as socially constructed, dynamic, and descriptive. Using rich examples, they lay out a research agenda that explores the mutual interests of the two approaches and enables practice theory to address some of the underexplored elements in paradox studies, such as the way that paradoxes are materialized in the artefacts of organizational life.

Part III: Engaging Paradoxes The final section shines a spotlight on our own experiences as scholars, teachers, and consultants (see Table 0.3). These chapters offer insights into how we work with paradoxes within each of these roles, while also uncovering the paradoxical nature of these roles. The paradoxes of paradox introduced above suggest perplexing questions about how we study, teach, and mobilize these dynamics in our own work. The chapters in this section address some of these tensions. Andriopoulos and Gotsi (Chapter 26) draw on extant studies of paradox to both surface and address some of these core challenges and thereby help guide empirical research. Suggested approaches illustrate means of

20   Introduction Table 0.3 Section 3 overview Chapter

Domain

Reflexive insights

26 Andriopoulos Empirical research and Gotsi

Studying paradoxes requires rethinking our empirical methods, asking questions around what, who, how, and where? Illustrated approaches help sharpen methodological rigor and creativity.

27 Knight and Paroutis

Teaching

Paradox is a threshold concept—​that is transformative, irreversible, integrative, and bounded—​fundamentally changing how students engage tensions. We can teach such a threshold concept through facilitated, reflected experiences.

28 Kayser, Seidler, and Johnson

Practice; consulting

Transforming organizational dynamics depends on surfacing underlying paradoxical tensions. This chapter depicts how we can do so using Polarity Partnerships’ Polarity Map, and their process to engage multiple stakeholders in surfacing and accepting these paradoxical tensions.

providing evidence of paradoxes in empirical settings, developing reliable and flexible protocols for paradox identification, exploring paradox across levels, practicing reflexivity, staying close to the context, and leveraging multi-​modality. Knight and Paroutis (Chapter  27) turn our attention toward the classroom. They depict paradox as a “threshold concept,” which irrevocably transforms the way that individuals think about and respond to competing tensions. Through the example of a capstone MBA course, they propose pedagogical strategies for enabling students to embrace paradox. Finally, Seidler, Kayser, and Johnson (Chapter  28) demonstrate tools for helping introduce paradoxical principles to change mindsets, practices, and systems in organizations. They reflect on how they used Polarity Partnership’s Polarity Map to surface paradoxes and transform the dynamics of the police department of Charleston, South Carolina (USA). Their work proved valuable several years later to help the city quickly, collectively, and positively respond when a gunman sadly opened fire and killed nine African Americans during bible study in one of the city’s churches. Taken together, these authors provoke us to introduce paradox into our own work, offering us tools, models, and examples to help us do so.

Conclusion The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox accentuates the paradox of knowledge—​the more we know, the more we know we do not know. By cataloguing and

Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    21 analyzing what we know, the authors in this book also uncovered how much more there is to learn. By doing so, we hope these chapters will spark new research questions, motivate future collaborations, and inspire provocative research.

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Smith, Lewis, Jarzabkowski, and Langley    23 Lawrence, P., and Lorsch, J. 1967. Organizations and Environment: Managing Differentiation and Integration. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Lewis, M. W. 2000. Exploring paradox:  Toward a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25(4): 760–​76. Lüscher, L., and Lewis, M. W. 2008. Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51(2): 221–​40. Marquis, C., and Battilana, J. 2009. Acting globally but thinking locally? The enduring influence of local communities on organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29: 283–​302. Poole, M. S., and Van de Ven, A. 1989. Using paradox to build management and organizational theory. Academy of Management Review, 14(4): 562–​78. Pratt, M. G., and Foreman, P. O. 2000. Classifying managerial responses to multiple organizational identities. Academy of Management Review, 25(1): 18–​42. Putnam, L. 1986. Contradictions and paradoxes in organizations. In Organization Communications: Emerging Perspectives, edited by L. Thayer, 151–​67. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Putnam, L. L., Fairhurst, G. T., and Banghart, S. G. 2016. Contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizations: A constitutive approach. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1): 65–​171. Quinn, R. E., and Cameron, K. S. 1988. Paradox and Transformation:  Toward a Theory of Change in Organization and Management. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Raza-​Ullah, T., Bengtsson, M., and Kock, S. 2014. The coopetition paradox and tension in coopetition at multiple levels. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(2): 189–​98. Rothbard, N. P. 2001. Enriching or depleting? The dynamics of engagement in work and family roles. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46(4): 655–​84. Schad, J., Lewis, M., Raisch, S., and Smith, W. 2016. Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1): 5–​64. Schneider, K. J. 1990. The Paradoxical Self:  Toward an Understanding of our Contradictory Nature. New York, NY: Insight Books. Seo, M.-​G., and Creed, W. D. 2002. Institutional contradictions, praxis, and institutional change: A dialectical perspective. Academy of Management Review, 27(2): 222–​47. Seo, M.-​G., Putnam, L., and Bartunek, J. M. 2004. Dualities and tensions of planned organizational change. In Handbook of Organizational Change, edited by S. Poole and A. Van de Ven, 73–​107. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smets, M., Jarzabkowski, P., Burke, G. T., and Spee, P. 2015. Reinsurance trading in Lloyd’s of London:  Balancing conflicting-​ yet-​ complementary logics in practice. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3): 932–​70. Smith, K., and Berg, D. 1987. Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco, CA: Josey-​Bass. Smith, W. K., Gonin, M., and Besharov, M. L. 2013. Managing social-​business tensions: A review and research agenda for social enterprise. Business Ethics Quarterly, 23(3): 407–​42. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381–​403. Smith, W. K., and Tushman, M. L. 2005. Managing strategic contradictions: A top management model for managing innovation streams. Organization Science, 16(5): 522–​36. Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., and Lounsbury, M. 2012. The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trefalt, S. 2012. Between you and me:  Setting work–​nonwork boundaries in the context of workplace relationships. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6): 1802–​29. Tsoukas, H., and Chia, R. 2002. On organizational becoming:  Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5): 567–​82.

24   Introduction Weick, K., Sutcliffe, K. M., and Obstfeld, D. 1999. Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. In Research in Organizational Behavior, edited by R. I. Sutton and B. M. Staw, vol. 21: 81–​123. Stamford, CT: JAI Press. Woodward, J. 1965. Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice. London: Oxford University Press.

Pa rt  I

F OU N DAT ION S A N D A P P ROAC H E S

Chapter 1

Ad Fon t e s Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research Jonathan Schad

Paradoxes inspire. These puzzles, inconsistencies, and impossibilities have attracted the greatest minds in history. They are a central theme in Bach’s music, Escher’s lithographs, and even in the earliest human writings, such as Eastern teachings and the Judeo-​Christian Bible (Capra 1975; Hofstadter 1979; Smith and Lewis 2011). Paradoxes provoke thought, spark curiosity, and can be a source of novelty. In this context, philosophy has contributed the most profound treatises. These writings span hundreds of years. They offer rich roots in the domains of logic, language, and dialectics, but they have also informed many other fields from economics and psychology to the natural sciences. Furthermore, these philosophical foundations have influenced management research, advancing our understanding of organizational tensions. In traditional management research, tensions are often treated as trade-​offs or dilemmas. Framing a tension as a paradox—a “​ persistent contradiction between interdependent elements” (Schad et al. 2016: 10)—​opens a whole new world to debate and responds to these opposing forces. Using a paradox lens goes beyond an either/​or logic (Smith and Lewis 2011) and enables scholars to detect the synergistic potential of a tension’s elements (Farjoun 2010) to guide new ways of theorizing (Poole and Van de Ven 1989). By applying this lens, scholars have advanced our understanding of tensions in a variety of research fields, such as hybrid organizations (Jay 2013), organization design (Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008), and strategy practices (Smets et al. 2015). The foundational writings on paradox in management build explicitly on the rich intellectual heritage that philosophy offers (i.e., Lewis 2000; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Quinn and Cameron 1988; Smith and Berg 1987). These roots have been used in three ways: to define paradox (Lewis 2000; Smith and Berg 1987), to illustrate different response strategies to paradoxes (Van de Ven and Poole 1988), and to distinguish

28    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research between different types of paradoxes (Poole and Van de Ven 1989). All these insights helped initial theory building in management research. By shifting the focus to more abstract aspects of organizational tensions, such as their origin, the relation between oppositional elements, and their dynamic evolution, paradox research is now moving toward a meta-​theoretical perspective that applies to a variety of phenomena and contexts (Lewis and Smith 2014). This reflects the situation in philosophy when paradox is not an independent stream, but is widely discussed across different traditions. Furthermore, paradox in management research serves as a “theorizing tool” that combines multiple paradigms (Lewis and Smith 2014). This development implies that philosophy’s role is changing: While the integration of philosophical insights was necessary in the early years of theory building (Lewis 2000), the emergent meta-​theoretical approach builds on the multiplicity of philosophical roots to gain new insights (Schad et al. 2016). Since a central aim of paradox research is to understand how a tension’s elements relate to one another (Smith and Lewis 2011), understanding the roots is critical. Paradox scholars draw increasingly on philosophy (e.g., Chae and Bloodgood 2006; Chen 2008; Lado et al. 2006; Li 2014a), but research has thus far mostly focused on single aspects. This approach can lead to incomplete insights. For instance, contrasting Eastern and Western traditions, such as the logics of integration and separation, ignores the similarities we find in the two traditions (Li 2014b). Moreover, the field risks singling out the “right” philosophical sources and possibly imposing a best-​fit approach (Ford and Ford 1994). This potential polarization might reproduce the tensions between the different intellectual roots and, at worst, create new “paradigm wars.” Understanding the philosophical paradigms’ respective aspects and contributions can help advance an integrative meta-​theory by clarifying individual contributions and facilitating insights across paradigms. Nevertheless, the literature lacks a systematic overview of the philosophical traditions and their links to different elements of paradox research in management. To fill this gap, I return to the sources (“ad fontes”): The philosophical roots. Ad fontes was a normative principle of Renaissance humanism. Its proponents warned scholars to take the sources of thought seriously and learn from them, which subsequently had a significant influence on school and university education (Howard 2006). By going back to the sources, this chapter’s aim is to offer a concise overview and to serve as a guide for future research. To avoid “paradigm wars,” I present the philosophical foundations as lenses. This approach serves a dual purpose: On the one hand, it allows selecting the lens that fits best in order to further explore the elements of a paradox meta-​theory. On the other hand, lenses can enable fruitful cross-​ fertilization in a multi-​paradigmatic approach. To this end, the chapter is organized in the following way: I start by introducing the philosophical roots as lenses, each of which provides different insights into paradox. Thereafter, I link these lenses to elements of a paradox meta-​theory, providing a systematic overview. I clarify each element’s links to the philosophical foundations and highlight avenues for future research.

Jonathan Schad   29

Philosophical Foundations Paradoxes are central to a variety of philosophical traditions, each with different emphases and uses. For instance, Plato uses the term paradox to state that something was against (para) popular opinion (doxa). He argues that action should follow rational examination rather than feeling. Other traditions, such as logics, use the term in a much narrower, more formalized way. This section introduces the key aspects of six philosophical lenses dealing with paradoxes and persistent tensions: logic, Eastern philosophy, dialectics, existentialism, philosophy of language, and political philosophy.1

Logic Logic is primarily concerned with (formal) reasoning. The field had a strong impact on our current understanding of paradoxes. In logical systems, paradoxes are rare, which is why their implications are taken seriously. The roots date back to pre-​Socratic thinkers. Zeno of Ela was a pioneer of working with logical puzzles. He illustrated a famous theoretical puzzle in his “racetrack paradox” by arguing that a runner starting after his opponent will never be able to overtake the opponent, no matter how fast he runs, because by the time this runner reaches his opponent’s point, the latter will have moved on (Hughes and Brecht 1976). Zeno’s reasoning about the infinite divisibility of time and space led to the conclusion that motion was ultimately impossible—​since, prior to motion, an infinite number of other motions needs to be performed. This paradox provided great insights into the role of time and space in paradoxes. Although Zeno’s premises of time and space were individually sound, the conclusion (i.e., the impossibility of motion) seems absurd. Aristotle was one of the first to take Zeno’s paradoxes seriously instead of treating them as simple riddles (Sainsbury 2009). By developing a system of logical reasoning (syllogism), Aristotle is often considered the founder of formal logic (Rescher 2001). According to Aristotle, inconsistencies can be avoided by examining the premises: While the racetrack paradox’s conclusion is correct, the premises also need to be correct. Aristotle introduced the “law of non-​contradiction” to argue that contradictory premises cannot both be true (Priest 1995). This system of logical reasoning influenced modern scientific inquiry, which treats contradictions as systemic anomalies. Consequently, logicians prefer to solve paradoxes. Contrary to this view, Kant (1998) presents four antinomies in his Critique of Pure Reason. An antinomy is a pair of logically sound arguments leading to contradictory conclusions. According to Kant, one cannot choose one or the other side in such a case, since both arguments are based on sound premises. He thus points to the limits of 1  The six lenses are not philosophical traditions in the strict sense. Some lenses group several areas and traditions in philosophy. The lenses’ definitions are therefore intentionally broad.

30    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research science and pure reason. By using exclusively theoretical or empirical arguments, it is impossible to decide in favor of one side of the antinomy, because neither of them provides all the insights. Kant thus proposes a transcendental approach that engages both arguments. His antinomies present opposing premises that cannot be resolved. Another historical root in logic is Epimenides’s liar paradox: A person who maintains that “I am lying” cannot be telling the truth. The statement is only correct if the person is not lying. Conversely, if the person is lying, the statement cannot be true. Either way, something is always false. The liar paradox disrupts the standard classification of true and false statements, because it is simultaneously true and false. Some logical contradictions can therefore be both true and false at the same time (Sorensen 2003). Modern logicians, such as Russell, Whitehead, and Gödel, were inspired by Epimenides’s paradox. By translating this ancient paradox into mathematical terms, Gödel produced his “incompleteness theorem.” In this theorem, Gödel states that some statements in a system must be true, but cannot be proved to be true. He proves that we cannot prove everything (Hofstadter 1979). Questioning the basic assumptions of logical systems can lead to an infinite regress, which underscores the persistence of paradoxes.

Eastern Philosophy Eastern philosophy is rich in paradoxes. In Eastern thought, paradox is the norm rather than the exception. I briefly present three main streams of Eastern philosophy, although this tradition admittedly goes far beyond the points mentioned here.2 My focus is on philosophical streams that originated in the “Axial Age” (800–​200 b.c.) (Jaspers 1953):  Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. These three teachings encompass religious and ethical systems concerned with the conduct of life, as well as with the relation between the individual/​particular and the whole/​universal. Taoism regards opposition as empowering. In his text Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu explains that there is an underlying harmony between opposites guided by the tao. While “tao” signifies path, Lao Tsu refers to it as the origin of all being (Fung [1948] 1966). This holistic view encompasses a purposeful acceptance of the world. Taoism is thus the way of life. It is associated with the yin and yang symbol. The black and white parts of the yin and yang symbolize interdependent opposites: The black surface contains a white dot and vice versa (Morgan 1986). Their relation is not static, but one part can only grow by diminishing the other. Yin and yang thus represent “correlative thinking” that simultaneously carves out similarities and distinctiveness (Graham 1986). As such, Taoism embraces opposites and indicates their underlying wholeness. While Taoism is more concerned with nature and its origins, Confucianism is concerned with social organization and individual conduct. Confucianism seeks a life in

2 

I am well aware that it is difficult to take Eastern philosophy into account as an entity. The insights provided here highlight the different emphases and how these traditions are generally perceived.

Jonathan Schad   31 harmony. One of the core ideas is presented in Confucius’s four books: “The doctrine of the mean” implies that moral conduct lies in a balanced, middle way by following the “Golden Rule” to do only things to others that one finds desirable oneself (Confucius 1977). As such, Confucianism comes very close to Aristotelian ethics (Hamburger 1959). Finally, Buddhism also promotes the middle way. According to Buddha, suffering marks human life. The constant struggle with flux and stability characterizes this state of suffering. Transcending this state means changing one’s perception to reach “nirvana”—​a state of individual liberation. Changing one’s perception is complemented by one’s moral behavior, which can be identified by aiming at the middle way between two extremes (Capra 1975). Confucianism and Buddhism both emphasize the role of balancing extremes.

Dialectics The term “dialectic” has a long tradition. It is found in the Socratic dialogues, and Aristotle also referred to a logical argument’s structure as dialectic (Stokes 1986). Kant uses the notions of thesis and anti-​thesis to describe the two contradictory arguments in his antinomies (Kant 1998). Our contemporary understanding of dialectics mostly refers to the theoretical works of Hegel, Marx, and Engels. In general, dialectics describes a triadic progression from the tension between a thesis and an antithesis to their resolution through synthesis (Sorensen 2003). Hegel’s dialectics accept contradictions in formal logic. He takes an idealistic perspective and views dialectics as a path toward greater truth—​or “the absolute idea” (Hegel [1812]  1998). Hegel regards dialectics as a dynamic process of contradiction’s evolution—​contradiction is the source of movement and progress. Development is a dialectical process during which a thesis is confronted with an antithesis, whose contradiction leads to their synthesis. The contradiction is not resolved, since the synthesis contains elements of truth from both sides of the contradiction. Dialectics is thus a process of becoming, because each side of a contradiction contains parts of a greater, underlying whole. Eventually, the synthesis forms a new thesis, which is in turn confronted with a new antithesis (Sorensen 2003). Hegel’s dialectics is holistic and teleological, because it progresses toward a greater truth (Cunha et al. 2002). Marx explicitly refers to Hegel in the development of his dialectics. While the basic triadic structure of the argument—​thesis, antithesis, synthesis—​is similar, Marx’s writings differ from Hegel’s. Whereas Hegel regards dialectics as rooted in logics, Marx perceives it as rooted in the material world. He uses dialectics as a method to identify the main contradictions in a society and to trace their evolution’s processes (Russell [1945] 2004). Engels (1946) summarizes the main principles underlying Marx’s thought and formulates the principles of materialist dialectics. In particular, Engels stresses the deterministic evolution of societal change through contradictions and their synthesis, but also emphasizes a potentially destructive shift if one side is over-​emphasized (Morgan 1986).

32    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research

Existentialism Existentialists place the individual at the center of their research to account for human life’s different struggles. Rescher (2001) summarizes the core “existential paradox” as follows: “Birth . . . is automatically the start of an unavoidable transit towards death” (120). The existentialist tradition’s authors contribute to the issues of human existence from this awareness. Existentialism is not (only) pessimistic, but is a movement in reaction to predominant determinism (Joullié 2016). Kierkegaard, one of the founding fathers of existentialism, deals primarily with death and the meaning of life. In his book Either/​Or, Kierkegaard refers to the incompatibilities of life. He formulates a paradox between the finite and infinite in human life: While the finite refers to restricting oneself (e.g., following moral norms), the infinite refers to mobilizing oneself (e.g., exploring one’s freedom). Both orientations are contradicting activities, but interdependent, and need to be balanced throughout life (Schneider 1990). Kierkegaard also conceived the idea of the “dizziness of freedom”: Anxiety or angst is not rooted in fearing evil, but in the possibilities freedom offers (Kierkegaard [1844] 1981). While humans are “condemned to be free” (Sartre [1943] 1992: 623), the positive side is that this freedom enables them to be author of their lives. Camus serves as another example of an existentialist author. In his book The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus ([1942] 1955) deals with the “absurd”: Tensions, or paradoxes, arise from humans’ quest to find an answer to the meaning of life, although they find this an impossible task. Human nature is structured in such a way that it seeks to reach unity and the absolute, but the human condition’s limitations do not allow this. According to Camus, recognizing and acknowledging this absurd state are the only defensible options. Kierkegaard and Camus both introduce us to the paradoxicality of human existence and individual responses to it.

Philosophy of Language Here, philosophy of language is used as a lens to illustrate the role of language in paradox. While drawing on the traditions of philosophy of language, I also include rhetorical paradoxes. Logical and rhetorical paradoxes are often distinguished from each other, but they frequently stem from language and subsequently inspire logical analysis (Rescher 2001). The liar paradox (“I am lying”) is also an example of a rhetorical paradox (Ford and Backoff 1988). This statement causes a “strange loop” (Hofstadter 1979). Similarly, Russell’s barber paradox asks who shaves the only barber in a village if the barber shaves all “villagers who do not shave themselves” (Rescher 2001: 143). If he shaves himself, the statement that the barber shaves all but those who shave themselves, is no longer true. Such paradoxes are contradictory and self-​referential statements leading to a vicious

Jonathan Schad   33 circle (Smith and Berg 1987). Any proposed solution to either side simply reproduces the problem (Priest 1995). Subsequently, some philosophers examined the understanding of language (Priest 1995). Wittgenstein is one of the most prominent proponents of the philosophy of language and deals with the structure of language and its meaning. In his treatise Tractatus Logico-​Philosophicus, Wittgenstein ([1922] 1995) claims that the limits of thought are primarily the limits of language. Language can only be understood to the extent that it can be visualized in reality. This is how ideas are communicated—​through pictures and analogies. The wrong use of pictures in language can be the root of paradoxes (Sorensen 2003). Wittgenstein regards paradoxes as “something surprising,” something that can only be understood if contextualized (Wittgenstein 1956). In his later works, Wittgenstein ([1953] 1971) describes language as a tool and words as instruments. He uses “language games” to convey that words and expressions are embedded in practice.

Political Philosophy Political philosophy is fraught with persistent tensions and contradictions. It is closely linked to ethics, and both fields deal with normative questions. Political philosophy examines questions on how a society can best be organized. Conversely, ethics concerns the systematic examination of values and norms. Political philosophy is rich in dealing with tensions characterized by the contradictory, yet essential, elements of a social system. The core topics include individual freedom, fairness, legal rules, and responsibility. Philosophers elaborate on the ideal relationship between the individual and the society, discussing this mostly in terms of social contract theory. Long discussions have been held on the idea that individual freedom can only be reached by giving away some freedom (Locke [1689] 1988), and on the actual extent of power in a state (Hobbes [1651] 1981). Political philosophy thus deals with multiple systemic tensions. Furthermore, according to Rousseau ([1762] 1987), a society can only work if its citizens can distance themselves from their self-​interest and take a different stance: They are simultaneously citizens (guided by the common interest) and “bourgeois” (guided by their individual interests). Individuals thus have multiple roles that can be in conflict with one another. Taking individual preferences as a starting point, political theorists also describe persistent contradictions when individual preferences are aggregated to the collective level (Arrow 1951). In ethics, there are two main opposing approaches to assessing an action’s morality. On the one hand, deontologists emphasize that adherence to a specific rule—​a rule that applies in any given context—​determines the morality of an action. This group of philosophers is primarily linked to Kant’s writings (Kant [1785] 1997). On the other hand, consequentialists regard a moral action as determined by its consequences. The utilitarian Bentham ([1789] 1907) is the most important defender of this “outcome”-​oriented approach. The main tensions in ethics stem from these incompatible approaches. Several attempts have been made to reconcile these different views. Mill (1863), for example,

34    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research distinguishes between the different qualities of desired ends (or “outcomes”), while Rawls (1971) states that fairness is rooted in the process that produces general rules.

Philosophical Aspects in Management Research The previous section dealt with paradox thought in philosophy. In management and organization theory, paradox research uses similar ideas, often without referring to the philosophical foundations. In this section, I clarify the links and show that multiple philosophical lenses are applicable at different levels of analysis. Some philosophical approaches are thus more appropriate for some managerial challenges, but add little to others. Neglecting the breadth of philosophical roots can lead to partial, or even erroneous, applications—​for instance, paradox approaches that logic suggests do not fit with the way existentialism conceptualizes them. While the logical paradoxes arise from contradictory premises, existentialism takes an individual-​level perspective and deals with the experience of paradoxes. I propose a systematic overview to take stock of the paradox literature in management and to facilitate future research with philosophical foundations. I link the identified aspects from philosophy to core paradox meta-​theory elements as identified in prior research (Lewis and Smith 2014; Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). These elements can be categorized into four groups, each representing a key debate in paradox research: origin, concept, responses, and development. Origin refers to the nature of paradoxes. Are they socially constructed or inherent? Concept helps us define what a paradox is. How are the elements of a tension related to defining paradox? Responses illustrate defensive reactions and coping strategies with regard to paradoxes. How are paradoxes dealt with? Finally, development denotes movement over time. How do paradoxes evolve over time? Table 1.1 shows the connections between elements of a paradox meta-​theory and aspects from philosophy along the four identified groups. Together, these four groups can also be interpreted as a structured process of thinking about paradox: Researchers first need to be clear about the roots of paradoxical tensions and how they arise, or become salient. Subsequently, the central question is whether a tension truly forms a paradox. When paradoxes are identified, the research interest shifts to identifying potential approaches in order to address them. Finally, since paradoxes are dynamic, their development and recursiveness over time need to be taken into consideration. I will next discuss each of the four debates with respect to how aspects from philosophy are reflected in the different elements of a paradox meta-​theory in management science. In addition, I will indicate areas for future research.

Jonathan Schad   35 Table 1.1 Elements of a paradox meta-​theory and aspects from philosophy Debate

Elements

Origin

Inherent tensions Systemic tensions Political philosophy: A social contract implies tensions between the individual and the society (Hobbes; Locke). Multiple roles Political philosophy: Citizens are simultaneously guided by common and individual interest (Rousseau). Human life is paradoxical Eastern philosophy: Human life is marked by the constant struggle with flux and stability (Buddhism). Existentialism: The finite and infinite in human life require restricting and mobilizing oneself (Kierkegaard).

Concept

Aspects from philosophy

Social construction

Human condition Existentialism: Humans try to find an answer to the meaning of life, although they find this to be an impossible task (Camus). Incompatible values Political philosophy: In ethics, the morality of an action can be assessed by adherence to a specific rule (deontologists; e.g., Kant) or its outcomes (consequentialists; e.g., Bentham). Use of language Philosophy of language: Ideas are communicated through pictures and analogies; the use of pictures in language is embedded in practices and can be the root of paradoxes (Wittgenstein).

Contradiction

Role of time and space Logic: Assumptions on time and space can lead to a contradiction (Zeno). Law of non-​contradiction Logic: Contradictory premises cannot both be true (Aristotle). Opposing premises Logic: Antinomies are pairs of logically sound arguments leading to a contradictory conclusion, which cannot be resolved (Kant).

Interdependence

Holism Dialectics: Each side of a contradiction contains parts of a greater whole (Hegel). Eastern philosophy: Opposites are part of an underlying wholeness (Taoism).

Persistence

Self-​referential Philosophy of Language: Statements can be true and false at the same time (Russell). Logic: Some statements in a system cannot be proved (Gödel).

(Continued)

36    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research Table 1.1 Continued Debate

Elements

Aspects from philosophy

Responses

Defensive responses

Suffering Eastern Philosophy: Human life is marked by suffering from a paradoxical state (Buddhism). “Dizziness of freedom” Existentialism: Anxiety or angst is rooted in the possibilities of freedom (Kierkegaard).

Strategic responses

Correlative thinking Eastern Philosophy: A yin and yang approach simultaneously carves out similarities and distinctiveness (Taoism). Embracing Existentialism: Recognizing and acknowledging the paradoxical state are the only defensible options (Camus). Dialectics: A contradiction is embraced by means of synthesis (Hegel). Logic: Contradicting arguments can be transcended (Kant). Balancing Eastern Philosophy: A “middle way” can be used to accommodate contradicting extremes (Buddhism; Confucianism)

Reinforcing cycles

Vicious cycle Philosophy of language: Any “solution” reproduces the problem (Priest).

Development

Process dynamics Dynamic process Dialectics: Dialectics is a teleological process, progressing toward a greater truth (Hegel). Societal change occurs through contradictions and their synthesis. Over-​emphasis of one side can lead to destructive shifts (Marx and Engels).

Origin Origin groups two meta-​theoretical elements of paradox research:  inherent tensions and social construction (see Smith and Lewis 2011). These elements locate the origin of paradoxical tensions as an objective reality of organizational life versus as emerging through perception, language, and the behavior of individuals and collectives. Inherent tensions suggest that organizations’ struggle with complexity and ambiguity is a natural organizational characteristic (Lewis and Smith 2014). Accepting dual demands has helped reframe systemic organizational elements, such as exploration and exploitation (Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008)  and stability and change (Farjoun 2010), as contradictory yet essential requirements. Further, research acknowledges individual-​level paradoxes and contradictions as inherent in group

Jonathan Schad   37 life (Smith and Berg 1987). Viewing tensions as inherent to organizational life, management research has leveraged existentialist and Eastern philosophy (e.g., Lewis 2000)  suggesting that paradoxes are a normal feature of human existence. Using these philosophical lenses for future research could further explain human life’s inherent tensions. For instance, if humans struggle with flux and stability, as well as with the finite and infinite, how do organizations impact this struggle? Do organizations further intensify life’s paradoxicality or reduce its tensions’ impact? Moreover, insights from political philosophy on individuals’ multiple roles could help explain the origin of tensions. These roles may stem from a society’s normative conception and differing individual and collective objectives. Such a lens could also help assess the extent to which paradoxical tensions are system imperatives, or are of normative origin. Management research using multiple objectives, such as stakeholder value (Parmar et al. 2010) or the multi-​objective firm (Mitchell et al. 2016), could especially benefit from this lens. Social construction refers to actors failing to recognize the relation between two elements of a tension, or to actors polarizing these elements (Lewis and Smith 2014). According to Hahn et al. (2014), individuals have different cognitive frames that influence their sensemaking of paradoxical tensions. Social construction can also stem from conflicting values (Scherer et al. 2013) or might emerge through discourse (Putnam et al. 2016). Referring to Wittgenstein’s “language games,” Clegg et al. (2002) see “the imperfection of language” (491) as the origin of contradictions in organizations, which emerge through collective interaction. Future management research could further leverage a philosophy of language lens: If, as Wittgenstein suggests, pictures and analogies are used to communicate ideas, the role of metaphors in creating or avoiding tensions becomes critical (Oswick et al. 2002). This view might also help explain mixed messages better (Argyris 1993), since, according to Wittgenstein, shared practices help interpret pictures correctly. In addition, leveraging an existentialist lens could clarify the origin of paradoxical tensions with regard to the human condition’s limits. Camus suggests that the reality that these limits pose opposes the aim to overcome them. Moreover, political philosophy and ethics can help outline the actual incompatibilities of (ethical) values. For instance, paradox research on institutional logics (Smith and Tracey 2016) could benefit from identifying tensions as rooted in consequentialist and deontological approaches. While the discussion on inherent and socially constructed paradoxes has generated rich insights (Clegg 2002), Smith and Lewis (2011) argue that paradoxes are both inherent and constructed. They maintain that while tensions are inherent to social systems, they remain latent until environmental factors marked by plurality, change, and scarcity, or actors’ cognition render them salient. While conceptualizing tensions as socially constructed or systemically inherent leads to very different research questions, future research could further elaborate on their interplay (Schad et al. 2016). Taking political philosophy’s systemic tensions and ethics’ conflicting individual values as complementary lenses might help identify the different origins, which implies even more complex approaches.

38    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research

Concept Concept comprises the three defining elements of paradoxes: contradiction, interdependence, and persistence. Schad et al.’s (2016: 10) definition of paradox as a “persistent contradiction between interdependent elements” also reflects these elements. In management, definitions of paradox include contradiction as a central element (Lewis 2000). Poole and Van de Ven (1989) argue that paradoxes grow from the contradiction between two “internally consistent theories of limited scope” (562). Consequently, contradiction is used as a starting point for theorizing. In social sciences, paradoxes are also marked by time and space. Only if contradictory demands occur simultaneously is something perceived as contradictory (Lewis 2000). To describe the role of contradiction, management research has made reference to formal logic (Smith and Berg 1987), although social science paradoxes “are not, strictly speaking, logical paradoxes” (Poole and Van de Ven 1989:  562). Future paradox research could benefit even more from various philosophy aspects. For instance, as illustrated by Zeno, the role of time and space in contradictions requires further exploration. Temporal and spatial aspects might influence the way contradictions are conceptualized. This becomes even more crucial when “virtual work” (Wilson et al. 2008) and different time dimensions (Crossan et al. 2005; Huy 2001) are taken into account. To what extent do paradoxes need a simultaneous occurrence in time and space to be perceived as contradictory? In addition, opposing logic premises can be further reflected on in multi-​paradigmatic research. Elaborating on theories’ contradicting basic assumptions can help establish paradox as a “theorizing tool” (Lewis and Grimes 1999; Lewis and Kelemen 2002). On the theorizing level, Aristotle’s “law of non-​contradiction” could be used as a “test” for paradoxes. Rather than a simple tension, a contradiction is a strong and persistent conceptual and/​or experienced problem. Interdependence shows that a tension’s elements are fundamentally linked to one another (Schad et  al. 2016). Elaborating on these elements’ relationship has helped reconceptualize fundamental tensions, such as the relationship between competition and cooperation (Chen 2008), as well as between retrenchment and recovery activities (Schmitt and Raisch 2013). This research has helped identify the synergies and complementarities of paradoxical tensions and elaborate on them (Smith and Lewis 2011). Farjoun (2010) takes a duality perspective on the stability and change paradox:  The opposed elements are interdependent, “contradictory but also mutually enabling” (202). In this perspective, a contradiction’s elements form the two extremes of a continuum (Chen 2008). An Eastern philosophical perspective has mainly been leveraged to introduce a more holistic view of opposites, and shows that a tension’s elements can depend on one another (e.g., Chae and Bloodgood 2006; Li 2016). The yin and the yang—​both elements contain a part of the other and inform each other—​often symbolize paradoxes (Lewis 2000). Schad et al. (2016) suggest that elaborating better on holism will benefit future research, especially when taking interwoven tensions into consideration. However, it will be difficult to determine a holistic approach’s limits. Taking a

Jonathan Schad   39 dialectical idealism lens, as Hegel suggests, could elevate tensions to higher level paradoxes. Further, Eastern philosophy knows a multiplicity of paradoxes and emphasizes holism as a state of “completeness” (Li 2016). The interdependence of contradictory elements implies the persistence of paradoxes (Schad et al. 2016). A tension’s persistence over time is a key criterion to distinguish it from other tension-​based approaches (Smith and Lewis 2011). This also illustrates that a paradox cannot simply be resolved (Lewis 2000). Temporarily accommodating a paradox on one dimension reproduces it on a different dimension (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Smith 2014). In management research, approaches shifted from trying to resolve paradoxes to “working through” them (Lüscher and Lewis 2008). Management research has made use of the philosophy of language to illustrate the persistence of paradoxes (Smith and Berg 1987). As the philosophy of language suggests, self-​reference will continuously return tension to the surface. Moreover, future research could use a logic lens and, as Gödel suggests, question theories’ basic assumptions. While some tensions might be “resolved,” the actual paradoxes might be rooted in the underlying, abstract premises. Together, all three criteria—​contradiction, interdependence, and persistence—​need to be present to ensure that research actually deals with a paradox.

Responses Responses are central once a paradoxical tension is salient and can thus be experienced (Smith and Lewis 2011). This group comprises defensive and strategic responses to paradoxes—​both of which are core elements of a paradox meta-​theory (Lewis and Smith 2014). Defensive responses deal with resistance to and avoidance of paradoxes (Lewis and Smith 2014). Foundational works in psychology and psychoanalysis largely influence management research on defensive responses (Smith and Berg 1987) and provide insights into individual-​level reactions to paradoxes (Schad et al. 2016). Paradoxes can cause strong emotional reactions and a feeling of discomfort (Ashforth and Reingen 2014; Vince and Broussine 1996). These insights into how individuals might “suffer” from paradox show similarities to Buddhism. This lens could be especially promising in research on leadership and paradoxes (Ou et al. 2015), since Buddhism also deals with moral conduct toward others. Further, Kierkegaard’s ([1941] 1954) idea of the “dizziness of freedom” could be promising in terms of counterintuitive research questions. In this regard, discomfort might stem from a large range of (positive) possibilities, which might be a “too-​much-​of-​a-​good-​thing effect” (Pierce and Aguinis 2013). For instance, while complete information is often positively attributed to decision-​making, too much information might actually hinder decision-​taking (Dean and Sharfman 1996). Strategic responses engage a tension’s elements (Lewis and Smith 2014). This emphasis is closely linked to cognition and framing issues (Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Smith and Tushman 2005). Likewise, paradox research emphasizes the importance of paradoxical thinking and sensemaking in response to tensions (Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011). Research

40    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research has identified different approaches to help balance paradoxical tensions (Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Putnam et al. 2016). While earlier studies chose one approach over others, recent paradox research recognizes a multiplicity of simultaneous approaches (Smith 2014). In management, researchers, inspired by the respective traditions, have drawn on Eastern and Western philosophy to contrast different response logics (Li 2014a; Li 2014b). Researchers have also drawn on Confucius and Aristotle to advocate balance by means of a middle ground between two extremes (Pierce and Aguinis 2013). Smith and Lewis (2011) argue that balance in management cannot be static, but that paradoxes can be successfully addressed by means of a “dynamic equilibrium.” Future research could focus more on balancing questions (Schad et al. 2016). For instance, the “correlative thinking” that Taoism introduced (Graham 1986) could inform us about paradoxical thinking as a balancing mechanism influencing strategic responses. Future research on responses could explore the interplay between defensive reactions and strategic approaches in greater detail. If paradoxes imply strong emotional reactions, their approaches can be framed accordingly. Strategic responses might also trigger various defensive responses. This becomes even more relevant when multiple paradoxes interact with one another (Jarzabkowski et  al. 2013), and balancing thus becomes a dynamic process. Using and contrasting multiple lenses could help explain how defensive and strategic responses relate to one another. Drawing on existentialism emphasizes emotions, while logic underlines rationality. Combining rationalization and emotion aspects might help researchers understand their interplay (Vince 2006) to determine how tensions trigger emotions, but also how emotions can provide a successful response to paradoxes.

Development The last group, development, adds a temporal and dynamic perspective. The two meta-​ theoretical elements are: reinforcing cycles and process dynamics. Together, they help conceptualize how paradoxes unfold and develop over time (Lewis and Smith 2014; Schad et al. 2016). Reinforcing cycles are central when examining the interplay of a tension’s elements over time (Lewis and Smith 2014). Lewis (2000) explains that paradoxes can create a reinforcing cycle, which can be vicious or virtuous. Vicious cycles can be rooted in intentional individual behavior with unintended consequences of organizational decline (Masuch 1985; Sundaramurthy and Lewis 2003). In contrast, Smith and Lewis (2011) argue that a dynamic equilibrium can lead to a virtuous cycle. In their conception of paradox, Smith and Berg (1987) drew on the philosophy of language to illustrate that self-​reference, contradiction, and circularity are central. The closely related insights from the philosophy of language and logic could inspire future research to take a dynamic perspective. Such lenses emphasize that any proposed “solution” continuously reproduces the initial tension—​organizational achievements are therefore temporal “outcomes.” This becomes even more problematic when taking into account that

Jonathan Schad   41 tensions, once accommodated on one level, can be reproduced at higher levels, and that multiple paradoxical tensions are interrelated (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). Process dynamics provide a longitudinal perspective on paradoxes (Schad et al. 2016). Researchers refer to the philosophical sources in dialectics to illustrate movement around tensions and their changing, emerging character (Clegg et al. 2002; Cunha et al. 2002; Langley and Sloan 2012). For instance, Harvey (2014) describes a group innovation process in which the main tensions are recurrently accommodated by means of synthesis. Paradox scholars distinguish between dialectics and paradox: when a synthesis is temporal and the main tension remains, dialectics equals a paradox (Smith and Lewis 2011). The paradox focus and the dialectical emphasis of processes and change could also be used complementarily, since they share common philosophical roots (Farjoun 2016). To build on these rich roots, future research could leverage the different dialectical traditions in philosophy better by, for instance, following Hegel’s idealist dialectics that tensions develop teleologically. For paradox, this view implies that each accommodation may give rise to a paradox at a higher, more complex level (Lado et al. 2006)—​paradoxes encompass additional elements after each new synthesis. Furthermore, paradox research might benefit from Marx and Engels’ dialectical materialism. These philosophers describe process dynamics, such as shifts and disruptions, as due to the main contradictions, as well as due to social and political forces. Future research might examine how tensions progress and what drives the change, which suggests reflecting on the role of power in paradox research (Fairhurst et al. 2016; Hargrave and Van de Ven 2017).

Conclusion Informed by a multiplicity of philosophical traditions, paradox in management and organization research has gained momentum over the past decades. Contradiction, interdependence, and persistence constitute paradoxes, which become salient under conditions of change, plurality, and scarcity (Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). This chapter takes stock of the different philosophical sources. Presenting them as lenses, a systematic overview shows the links between philosophy and the core elements of paradox research. Through such an approach, the boundaries of paradoxical conceptualizations in philosophy become clearer, which might help avoid imposing one best-​fit approach and guide future research. Recently repositioned as a meta-​theory of organizational tensions, paradox serves as a “theoretical framework” and a “theorizing tool” (Lewis and Smith 2014). As a theoretical framework, paradox helps explore tensions in context. Depending on the elements of a paradox meta-​theory, certain philosophical lenses might be more helpful in terms of guiding theoretical reflection. Formulating the general principles of a paradox meta-​ theory may help build hypotheses and “test” paradox theory (Schad et al. 2016). The

42    Ad Fontes: Philosophical Foundations of Paradox Research proposed overview may help identify philosophical lenses that fit certain paradox meta-​ theory aspects. Some philosophical traditions might not be suitable for a certain level of analysis of and debate on paradox in management research. As a “theorizing tool,” a paradox meta-​theory facilitates multi-​paradigmatic research (Lewis and Grimes 1999; Lewis and Kelemen 2002; Poole and Van de Ven 1989). Interpreting philosophical traditions as lenses preserves their unique value and enables scientific progress through juxtaposition (Lewis and Smith 2014). As such, paradox becomes a method to deal with tensions between paradigms. Many of these tensions originate from differences between philosophical traditions and world views. Analyzing the underlying premises between these traditions will lead to confronting oneself with statements that cannot be proved true. For instance, Eastern philosophy’s suggestions regarding the metaphysical assumptions underlying a holistic view of paradoxes lead to entirely different insight than the individual-​level insights of existentialism, which points to humans’ limits in terms of perceiving and experiencing their lives’ fundamental contradictions. Nevertheless, the two lenses can inform each other and generate entirely new insights. Returning “ad fontes,” and taking the root’s contradictions seriously, can help us learn better from past discussions, which can guide our future research. This learning helps us avoid reinforcing existing tensions and theory conflicts better, as well as avoid causing new ones. While this “philosophical plurality” has great potential to further inform a meta-​theory of paradox, it also raises fundamental questions with regard to ontology and epistemology. What is the nature of our (social) reality? How do we acquire knowledge? For instance, as a meta-​theory, paradox will have to engage in discussions about the (in-​)commensurability of different philosophical lenses (Scherer et  al. 2015). As such, we move toward a philosophy of science debate.

Acknowledgments I wish to thank Marianne Lewis for her thoughtful insights and developmental guidance, as well as Miguel Pina e Cunha, Elisabeth Does, and Sebastian Raisch for their helpful comments.

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Chapter 2

Psychoana ly t i c Theory, Emot i on, a nd Orga niz ationa l Pa ra d ox Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince

In this chapter we discuss the psychoanalytic foundations of organizational paradox. Our general argument is that psychoanalytic theories offer a framework for the study of emotions in organizations and for the paradoxical tensions arising from emotions. Like other scholars, we understand organizational paradox as “contradictory yet interrelated elements (dualities) that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 387). These contradictory elements are two sides of the same coin (Lewis 2000) and they persist over time because they are “impervious to resolution” (Smith 2014: 1593). The persistence of paradoxical elements means that they are dynamic (they are continuous, enacted over time, an integral part of ongoing processes) and mutually reinforcing (as part of ongoing processes, they are interrelated and irresolvable). We develop an analytical framework to discuss three core constructs of psychoanalytic thinking:  unconscious emotions, particularly their relationship with anxiety; defense mechanisms, which serve as protection against psychological threats and leave traces in the form of repetitive or compulsive behavior and routines; and “the analytic attitude,” which is used to gain awareness of unconscious emotions, and as the basis of interventions to balance the contradictions (or paradoxical nature) of defense mechanisms. We see these constructs at work in three dimensions of the workplace: among leaders, within groups, and in the organization itself (see Table 2.1). In the leadership dimension we contribute a new concept, the paradox of authority, to describe the tension between internal pulls and external roles (conscious and unconscious) that both support and undermine leadership. We explore the links between psychoanalysis and the group in the paradox of belonging. Finally, we show how psychoanalytic theory can help to comprehend the power relationships embedded in implicit structures and their effects in the paradox of performance and organizing (organizational

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    49 Table 2.1 A summary of psychoanalytic foundations and paradox for leadership, groups, and organizations Organizational juncture

Leadership—​paradox of authority Psychoanalytic foundations

Unconscious emotions and anxiety

Defense mechanisms against anxiety, repetitive patterns, and contradictory actions

Anxiety, loss, aggression, hedonism, depression, “inner contagion”

Ambivalence, need to belong, fight flight, dependency, fear of exclusion, e.g., Freud (1921/2001), need to control Stein (2005), Klein e.g., Schutz (1958); (1975), Vince and Smith and Berg Mazen (2014). (1987); Baumaister et al. (1998)

Persecutory anxiety, confusion, fear and stress

Denial, splitting, projection, phantasies, projective identification, introjection, transference, regression

Denial, splitting, emotional detachment, social defenses, organizational toxicity, emotionally embedded power relationships and “organizational blind spots”

e.g., Lewis (2000), Kets de Vries et al. (2013), Petriligeri and Stein (2012), Vince and Broussine (1996).

Awareness and intervention: the “analytic attitude”—​throw light on patterns. Keep “both/​and.”

Organizations—​ paradox of Groups—​paradox of performance and belonging organizing

Basic assumptions, splitting, scapegoating, role specialization, projective identification, valencies, polarization/​ tribalism among group members

e.g., Vince and Mazen (2014), Lüscher and Lewis (2008), Voronov and Vince (2012), Kenny and Fotaki (2014), Wasko and Fotaki (2005).

e.g., Smith and Berg e.g., Brown and (1987), Bion (1961, Starkey (2000), Stein 1967), Wells (1990) (2007), Ashforth and Reigen (2014), Menzies (1990), Fraher (2004), Fotaki and Hyde (2015)

Container-​ contained, “reverie,” psychoanalytic-​ informed coaching, use of countertransference

In addition: note repetitive patterns in groups, clinical “hypothesis” testing, interpretations

e.g., Bion (1961, 1970), Jarrett (2004); Kilburg (2004); Long et al. (2006).

e.g., Bion (1961), Diamond and Adams (1999), Hodgkinson and Wright (2002).

In addition: examine parallel process as a means to craft an intervention e.g., Wasko and Fotaki (2005), Prins (2010), Diamond and Allcorn (2003).)

50    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox change). This matrix of relationships is illustrated using vignettes from secondary sources (Fotaki and Hyde 2015; Hodgkinson and Wright 2002; Kilburg 2004).

Key Psychoanalytic Ideas Various psychoanalytic theories can inform a discussion of paradox, including the writings of Jung, Klein, and Lacan. However, we have chosen to discuss psychoanalytic foundations primarily in relation to the work of Sigmund Freud, in particular with reference to his idea of the unconscious.

The Unconscious, Emotions, and Paradox The term unconscious is used as an analytic device to understand individual or group motives, perceptions, and actions outside of normal awareness. Freud postulated that the unconscious was dynamic, continuously at work and affecting behavior in complex, often contradictory ways. Unconscious wishes are always active, always present, always “pushing for release” (Frosh 2002: 13). “It is indeed an outstanding peculiarity of the unconscious processes that they are indestructible. Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is past or forgotten” (Freud [1911] 2015: 180). The unconscious asserts itself in slips of language, in dreams, through mechanisms of psychic defense (both personal and social). It helps us to recognize that the fantasies, dreams, and imaginings we generate enable the growth of understanding as much as those things we accept as knowledge or truth (Craib 2001). Through the acknowledgement of unconscious processes, we gain access to “the artful science of our false senses of security” (Phillips 2014: 145) and to the varied interpretive possibilities arising from our (individual and collective) emotional responses to ourselves and others. Theories of unconscious processes and emotions are important to paradox studies as they help to explain, for example, how and why we might punish ourselves for others’ behavior, or why we turn other people into objects of hatred or derision to avoid our unacknowledged, hated self. To express this in a paradoxical way, “Freud was discovering how modern people endangered themselves by the ways in which they protected themselves” (Phillips 2014: 145). The conflicting, contradictory, and interdependent nature of the unconscious is a fundamental component of psychoanalytic thinking. While rarely described as paradoxical, the unconscious is a key theoretical construct for comprehending individual and collective emotion and paradox. For example, a core conflict in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud [1920] 1955) is the formulation and duality of life and death instincts. To express this paradoxically, “the aim of all life is death” (Freud [1920] 1955). In The Ego and the Id ([1923] 1961), Freud developed a structural theory of the mind, providing an account of conflicting yet interconnected relationships of the impulses

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    51 of the “id,” the governance role of the “ego,” and both the critical and idealizing role of the “super-​ego.” The three are persistent and interdependent—​one cannot do without the others.

Paradox and Unconscious Defense Mechanisms A second pillar of psychoanalytic thinking, the origin and role of defenses, rests on the premise that developmental experiences during childhood influence personal characteristics, the inner world, and subsequent adult neuroses. Raw emotions and desires are unconsciously regulated, repressed, or deferred by defenses in order to protect the ego from pain, fragmentation, or from reality (Barsade et  al. 2009; Baumeister, Dale and Sommer 1998). Thus, there is constant tension in the inner world between the desire to fulfill unconstrained emotions on the one hand, and the need to maintain civility on the other.1 As Schafer explains: “Anxiety functions . . . as the motive for defense; more exactly, it is the ego’s anticipation of a traumatic situation of which the preliminary anxiety reaction is a portent, together with the ego’s function of avoiding unpleasure, that establishes the occasion of defense” (Schafer 1983: 97, our emphasis). Other analysts build on Freud’s work to highlight the functioning of individual defense mechanisms: projection, introjection, identification, and splitting (Freud 1966; Segal 1979). For example, paradoxical relationships can be found in processes of “projection,” defined as the disowned impulse or part of oneself that is projected onto another. Inner personal conflict is polarized, split off, and ascribed to another object or person in order to defend against those aspects of the self that are too threatening to acknowledge (Petriglieri and Stein 2012). A summary of defense mechanisms is illustrated in Table 2.2. Our view is that the tensions articulated in psychoanalytic theory, for example, that defenses both limit and facilitate action, help to explain the underlying dynamics of paradox in organizations. Smith and Lewis (2011) argue that a meaningful response to paradox is one that seeks “dynamic equilibrium,” or “the persistence of conflicting forces and purposeful, cyclical responses over time that enables sustainability . . . the system maintains equilibrium by adapting to continuous pulls in opposing directions” (2011:  386). In psychoanalysis, the continuous response to and holding of opposing forces not only allows dynamic equilibrium but also forms the basis for learning, development, and tolerance of existential anxiety (Bion 1961; Cramer 2000; Segal 1979; Valliant 2000).

1  Contemporary psychoanalytic schools of thinking such as object relations and attachment theory have moved away from the “drive-​discharge” theory of Freud and focus more on the nature and quality of the relationship. However, most agree that childhood experiences form an important part of adult neurosis along with the tensions enacted through defenses.

52    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox Table 2.2 A selection of unconscious defense mechanisms Defense

Description

Repression

Blocking unpleasant experiences from memory.

Denial

Refusing to accept an unpleasant reality.

Splitting

The isolation and separation of emotional experience whereby “good” ones are retained and “bad” ones are cast off.

Projection

Attributing personal shortcomings to others.

Introjection

The process whereby the map of the world “out there” becomes the map of the “inner world” and it becomes internalized.

Projective identification

The projection of one’s disowned self as: a) a form of communication, b) as a form of control.

Transference

Re-​enactment of previous relationships from the past to current people and events.

Counter transference

A cycle of projective and introjective identification as the basis of intrapsychic communication between analyst and analysand.

Source: Table adapted from Smith and Berg (1987), Jarrett (2004), Lewis (2000), Vince and Broussine (1996).

The Analytic Attitude: Engaging Paradox We borrow the term “analytic attitude” from Schafer (1983) to describe a state of mind that leaders, organizational actors, or change agents might bring to the task of helping the individual, group, or organization gain insight, learn, and grow. Such an attitude can help to identify and collectively acknowledge the repetitive (perhaps compulsive) and contradictory enactments that mask unconscious conflicts and underlying paradoxes. It promotes the voicing of interpretations that draw attention to defenses and their possible origins. Such reflection and interpretation generates opportunities to collectively address and work with conflicts and contradictions. However, drawing attention to ongoing organizational defenses and encouraging multiple interpretations is a political act in that it involves intervening in prevailing power relations. In psychoanalysis, the analytic attitude helps to create the relational space for the analyst to say things that the client cannot express but that are articulated via pre-​verbal communication, identified through transference and countertransference. Bion (1970) uses the metaphor of “the container” and “the contained” to describe this relational space. The container is represented by the analyst who, using her own emotions as data (“the countertransference”), introjects the implicit emotions of the client. This serves to contain intense feelings—​raw, primitive emotions that seek to be split off, projected, and disowned by the client before they can be understood. Both the container and the contained, what Bion referred to as “an explosive force within a restraining framework” (Bion 1970), depend on each other; they are contradictory but interrelated, and

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    53 ultimately they generate insight, even when it is not yet apparent that such insight is required. Transference and countertransference relations provide a link to past dangers, anxieties, and repetitive defenses. Freud suggested that: “we soon realize that transference itself is merely an instance of repetition, and that this transference involves repetition of the forgotten past . . . We must therefore expect that the patient will yield to the compulsion to repeat—​which now takes the place of the impulse to remember—​not only in his personal relationship to the physician, but in all other activities and relationships taking place in his life at the same time” (Diamond 2008: 358). Here, we are not concerned with the patient, but rather with the patience required in organizational settings to identify and engage with impulses to silence contradictory voices, to repeat destructive practices, and deny the persistence of repressive regimes. Our argument is that the shared interpretation of underlying dynamics draws attention to mutually reinforcing contradictions. “Interpretation is more than uncovering; it is discovering, transforming, or creating meaning too. What it refers to may not have been ‘all there but hidden’ prior to its utterance . . . (and) by introducing the new, one may throw much previous knowledge and understanding into a new light” (Schafer 1983: 87). A persistent question for people within organizations is—​what is being interpreted? At its simplest, interpretation involves identifying repetitive patterns of thought and action that potentially signify resistance, projective narratives, or habits and attachments to particular ways of thinking, being, or working. However, we know that such reflection is never simple. For example, reflection on what is problematic within prevailing relations of power tends to mobilize those power relations against processes of reflection (Pässilä and Vince 2015). These three concepts:  unconscious emotions, defense mechanisms, and the analytic attitude, represent the core of paradox and the psychoanalytic enterprise. In this schema, the process of “working through” paradox is not to resolve it but to increase the capacity, tolerance, and ability to hold the polarities, messiness, and uncertainty that are integral to organizational life.

Psychoanalysis, Paradox, and Organizational Life Psychoanalytic theories offer a framework for the study of emotions in organizations and for the paradoxical tensions arising from emotions. Emotions are integral to authority, power, and institutional relations. They serve to both reinforce and to undermine prevailing dispositions and established structures. Emotions seep into and out of organizations; they help to contain and constrain our experience; they can be owned and disowned, projected, deeply-​felt, or ignored (Voronov and Vince 2012: Voronov 2014). As organizational actors we may assume that our decisions are measured and

54    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox reasonable. However, emotions invariably influence, infuse, and disrupt our best-​laid plans or preferred problem-​solving techniques, as well as the promises we make to ourselves to remain calm and stay in control. Therefore, emotions supply the evidence we need to comprehend our organizational experience, and (paradoxically) this is in part what makes us ignore them. We now apply each of the psychoanalytic constructs we have identified to three layers of the organization—​leadership, groups, and the organization—​in order to illustrate paradoxes of authority, belonging, performance, and organizing.

Leadership and the Paradox of Authority Leadership suffers from “a widespread social addiction to positivity” (Collinson 2012: 89). It is primarily represented as a set of positive capabilities aligned to improvements in individual behavior, knowledge, and practice. This idealization of leadership (both in theory and practice) provides a one-​sided view of leadership dilemmas. We know, both from published accounts as well as our own experience, that leaders also can misuse, manipulate, avoid, or ignore their authority and responsibilities (Kets de Vries et al. 2013). Studies of CEO hubris (Chatterjee and Hambrick 2007), leadership derailment (Kaiser, Hogan and Craig 2008), and the dark side of leadership (Vince and Mazen 2014) illustrate some of the tensions facing people in leadership positions. A psychoanalytic approach can provide a deeper understanding of the paradoxical nature of leadership and authority (Kets de Vries et al. 2013; Kets de Vries and Miller 1985). We argue that competing pulls between the inner world and external demands is at the core of a paradox of authority, whereby the anxiety that unconsciously drives behavior leads to the existential danger that one is trying to avoid, despite conscious acts to respond to external reality. The sources of these contradictions are multiple, but we focus on two: self and other relationships, and the intra-​ psychic dynamic of managing oneself. Our conceptualization of leadership takes into account the interaction of social and intra-​psychic dynamics in individuals’ success (or failure) in taking up roles as leaders (DeRue and Ashford 2010; Petriglieri and Stein 2012; Vince and Mazen 2014). We have coined the term paradox of authority to describe a form of leadership self-​sabotage that fails to recognize the simultaneous and contradictory pulls between self and other, and between the internal world and external reality. The inner world is the product of past and transferal experiences, now forgotten or repressed, that result in a tendency to repeat conflictual relationships (Kets de Vries et al. 2013). The increasing scope and complexity of organizational life fosters anxiety and exacerbates a tendency to enact compulsive patterns. The relationship between self and other has at least two parts: what others unconsciously do to the leader, and what she or he does to them. First, the leader is subject to pulls, expectations, and projections that followers enact. Freud ([1921] 2001) noted that members of a group psychologically

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    55 invest in the leader as an idealized version of themselves. Mechanisms of projective and introjective identification suggest that leaders act out roles in response to their followers’ unconscious wishes (Bion 1961). Leaders are subject to complex emotions that are not only to do with how they feel but how others feel about them, and how these different emotions contribute to unconscious role behavior and action. For example, Gabriel (1997) highlights the wide range of projections that result from “meeting God” (the Chief Executive Officer), a leader cast as both villain and hero by different people in the same organization. Conversely, leaders can act out their own projections and fantasies in relation to their team members. As noted by Petriglieri and Stein (2012), “Since leaders function as sources of meaning making, the unconscious use of others as recipients of unwanted aspects of the self may become a collective modus operandi that damages the organization and may even cause its destruction” (1223). Thus, personal authority can be thwarted by unconscious projections (in either direction) that are detrimental to leadership.

Emotion The second part of the paradox of authority is the intra-​psychic task of managing the self. Stein (2005) illustrates the complexity of the task by referring to Shakespeare’s Othello, inviting us to explore the inner demons of Othello’s psychic world as a leader, in which he is gripped by envy, jealousy, and self-​deception. Lapierre (1989) is more explicit, describing the competing tensions in terms of relative potency: “Leaders must cope with feelings of impotence and omnipotence that accompany and may derail the attempt to exercise power” (Lapierre 1989: 177). He argues that these feelings develop through childhood experiences: those troubled by (unconscious) impotence develop a sense of helplessness and vulnerability, whereas feelings of omnipotence go to the other extreme, driven by fantasy and delusion. Some leaders oscillate between the two. It is only when the extremes are eliminated, following the realization of the leader’s limitations and fragility, that he or she can exercise leadership appropriately, without excessive vulnerability or delusion. A similar theme is the centerpiece of Schneider’s (1999) The Paradoxical Self, where he elucidates the nature of self-​contradictions. Drawing on the work of Kierkegaard, he sets forth his “paradox principle,” which assumes that the human psyche rests on a continuum of being restrictive (impotence) or expansive (omnipotent), the dread of either of these extremes evokes dysfunctional responses, and that confrontation and integration is needed to encourage an “optimal” (functional) response. The book shows that the tensions between the restrictive or expansive self in response to the inner and external world yields a range of dysfunctional responses from mild neurosis to severe schizophrenia. Referencing Freud and Jung, he calls these unconscious dynamics “the return of the repressed.” Thus, “the more one represses the expansive . . . the more one is likely to experience its return” (Schneider 1999: 193). Both parts—​self and other relationships, and managing the self—​take attention away from the external task. However, if the source of anxiety is left unattended it may result in unconscious defenses and dysfunctional behaviors.

56    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox

Defenses The emotional struggle between the internal and external worlds gives rise to a paradoxical dilemma and its (dysfunctional) release through projective and primitive defenses (Kernberg 1994; Klein 1975). For example, Petriglieri and Stein (2012) show how the maintenance of a leader’s identity in the Gucci family led to destructive, “toxic” relationships between family members as well as senior staff, through the process of projective identification and introjection. This created contradictions in the leadership behavior of Gucci and his son Aldo, whose grandiose public selves were in stark contrast to their misdemeanors (cheating and lying) as well as their humble origins. They projected unwanted aspects of themselves onto others, leaving a legacy of family rivalry that ultimately led to the downfall of the Gucci empire.

Awareness and Intervention The paradox of authority can be acknowledged and worked with by raising leaders’ awareness of their unconscious inner conflicts and by helping the integration of their polarities. Interventions such as organizational role analysis (Long, Newton, and Sievers 2006) or psychoanalytically informed coaching are designed to support such awareness. Jarrett (2004) illustrates the paradox of authority in the case of an executive who had recently been promoted to a senior leadership position. His inner conflict to “stay the same” rather than to boast about his increased status initially made him ineffectual in the new role. Erring on the side of impotence, the artificial constraints he placed on himself ultimately led to poor team performance. Once the contradiction between his inner and outer worlds was revealed, he was able to take on the authority of the role and release the tensions within the management team (Jarrett 2004: 251–​2). Similarly, to address the pulls and pushes of restrictive and expansive impulses, Schneider (1999) suggests that “dynamic equilibrium” requires confronting the paradox (awareness and intervention) and integration for a healthy, functional response. We illustrate some of these concepts in the vignette below.

Vignette 1: The Paradox of Authority Ron was frustrated as interim president of the north-​east region. On one hand he could see all the problems that needed attention, and the carnage they would leave once tackled. On the other, the boss had not given him the authority to get on with it or any reassurance that his position would be made permanent. He felt the company was taking advantage of him. So when his coach asked in what ways, he replied: “Let me count the ways. I’m responsible for this place and what happens here, but I have to ask permission to do almost everything. I’m working longer hours than ever, with more time away from my family, my religion, and the things I like to do. I’m doing all this for less than a significant salary increase, and these guys cannot even tell me whether they’re going to give me the job. It makes me feel like a patsy . . . just a big jerk” (Kilburg 2004: 246). The next question drew an unexpected response. “Does this situation remind you of anything you have faced before?” Ron reflected. After a while he revealed a personal

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    57 account of his mother’s distress when his grandfather died, when he was only six years old. In short, he recalled how his mother’s affections for her father led to her (and his father’s) loyalty being taken advantage of “pretty badly.” Further enquiry from the coach helped make the link. “Oh, that is easy now that I’ve remembered the story. I really hate the feeling of being taken advantage of. I cannot stand it at all . . . I feel like I just want to quit and go elsewhere” (Kilburg 2004: 248). This abbreviated account shows a leader struggling with complex emotions. Initial denial of his feelings mixed with anxiety partly accounts for his anger, where he is ready to “act out” his repressed anger and quit. However, the intervention of a psychoanalytically informed coach with a simple question helps to identify a previous pattern and unconscious feelings. Ron, in the full account, reluctantly shares his shame, resentment, and vulnerability by recounting a story of betrayal and hurt that he connects with his current situation as a leader. The discussion led to talking through strategic options and to a conversation with the CEO. As Ron said, now it means, “I can steer clear of making some bad choices.” He went on to become the regional president and made the necessary changes for the company instead of unconsciously sabotaging himself and the organization.

The Paradox of Belonging in Groups Groups provide a fundamental unit of analysis in social institutions and act as a link between individual behavior and the collective “group as a whole” (Wells 1990). However, they are inherently paradoxical: “The simultaneous presence of opposite and contradictory forces and the repetitious ‘stuckness’ that often accompanied these forces led us to consider that what we were observing was the expression of the paradoxical nature of group life” (Smith and Berg,1987: 62).

Emotions Group-​level contradictions can derive from many places. For example, tensions can be embedded from the inception of a group as a result of members’ ambivalence about being part of it. Both exclusion from the group and the desire to show dominance in a new (or existing) group create anxiety. The ego’s drive for inclusion, control, and affection can evoke unconscious defenses and inform group sentiment (Schutz 1958). Smith and Berg (1987) refer to this dilemma as “the paradox of belonging”:  “Paradoxes of belonging often raise actors’ defenses, intensifying conflict, polarization, and tribalism” (Lewis 2000: 769). These unconscious emotions play an important but hidden role in the group and can lead to collective actions that go beyond group consciousness. These implicit affects move through the group via projective identification, leading to a “process by which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes” (Schoenewolf 1990: 50).

58    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox

Defenses Unconscious sources of paradox in groups arise from defenses of splitting, projective processes, role specialization, and the formation of sub-​groups (Smith and Berg 1987). To add to the complexity, these defense mechanisms are reciprocated, and thus operate at the interpersonal as well as the group level. So, depending upon the personal defensive valences of its members, unconscious emotions can become widely contagious or end up deposited with one member of the group who is made into a scapegoat for collective failures (Bion 1961; Smith and Berg 1987; Wells 1990). Bion (1961) captures contradictory tensions within groups by drawing attention to the duality in their modes of thinking. He distinguishes between “basic assumption” and “work” groups. The former are primarily driven by psychological defenses that are collectively shared. In work groups, the completion of tasks, learning, and reflexivity are the modus operandi. In cases where the negative notion of group defense predominates, the group becomes “stuck” in a dysfunctional spiral whereby collective shared defenses are represented by pulls of excessive “dependency” and irrational conflicts in the form of “fight/​flight” or a pseudo-​intimacy in the group that Bion (1961) refers to as “pairing.” These tensions may be harnessed in what he calls “the specialized work group” (Bion 1961), whereby a defensive orientation that is split off to a sub-​group may be used to fulfil a wider function on behalf of the system as a whole. He cites as an example the use of the army as a vessel to contain violence on behalf of wider society, which projects its own aggression onto the container of the specialized group. The existence of contradiction, conflict, and opposition create (unacknowledged) anxiety, which groups seek to resolve through defensive strategies. However, in such cases the paradoxical nature of group life reasserts itself, since by eliminating one side of the problem, the connectedness with the opposing force is lost, and thus the paradox cannot be identified, explored, or contained (Smith and Berg 1987). Hence the paradoxical lens, like the psychoanalytic approach, acknowledges and requires that both the functional (work group) and dysfunctional (basic assumption group) are included in any analysis or group intervention.

Awareness and Intervention Calling attention to paradox that groups habitually and unconsciously re-​enact can be achieved by taking an “analytic attitude.” The internalization, through introjection and feelings of countertransference, of the group’s projective forces offers information about what might be hidden or unexpressed. These feelings provide the basis for interpretive intervention that seeks to explore the doubts that inform, sustain, and recreate the life of the group. Interpretive intervention may take the form of a hypothesis. According to Borwick (2006) “hypotheses are conjectures, guesses, hunches . . . Unlike opinions, which are fixed and tend to induce defensive responses if the opinion is challenged, hypotheses are ephemeral.” Diamond (2008), for example, provides an account of an interpretation to a group of medical doctors. His task as an organizational consultant was to provide an

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    59 organizational narrative that touched on the psychological (internal and subjective) and social structures (external and objective) of their everyday realities. Using countertransference in his role as consultant, his insights threw light on “repetitive patterns, themes and points of urgency” (Diamond 2008:  357). Once the group acknowledged these patterns (which did not come easily) they were able to change. Initially, it took a brave medic to speak out and admit: “You got it right—​it’s time we dealt with it” (Diamond 2008: 357); and to unravel the fear of rejection that prevented them talking about change (Smith and Berg 1987). Features of the paradox of belonging are illustrated in the following vignette.

Vignette 2: The Paradox of Belonging The top management team of Beta Co. faced their biggest strategic challenge yet: how to respond to digitalization and the seismic shifts in the publishing industry. Fearing “cognitive inertia” and “strategic drift,” they invited in “scholarly consulting” to help facilitate a strategy process workshop (Hodgkinson and Wright 2002). As part of the diagnostic phase of interviews, the authors found the top team was overwhelmed with high levels of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that took the form of defensive avoidance strategies. Defenses, both conscious and unconscious, included scapegoating (shifting the blame onto individuals), denial and polarization of the current reality, and bolstering the current strategy (idealization), which most agreed was failing. There was also the challenge of individual members not speaking out in the group, leading to a false agreement inconsistent with private interviews. These were exacerbated by the actions of the CEO and founder, who enacted a high degree of control in the workshop in response to the firm being out of control. She would withdraw from the process to divert the focus away from her inability to control the long-​term destiny of the company. The final outcome was the failure of the intervention. The authors concluded: “it is clear that the exercise was undertaken in an organization whose inner context was non-​receptive: the psychodynamic basis of the behavior of the CEO and her relationship to her team of senior managers militated against our best effort” (Hodgkinson and Wright 2002: 972). They continue: “Change agents must remain ever conscious of the fact that interventions in organizations provoke a complex inter-​play involving: (1) a range of individual and collective psychological defense mechanisms (the paradox of belonging), (2)  organizational politics, and (3)  power” (Hodgkinson and Wright 2002: 974).

The Paradox of Performance and Organizing The application of psychoanalytic theory to organizational studies throws light on how emotions are experienced in the collective through three specific dynamics: anxiety in the system, social defenses, and psychoanalytic organizational consultation. These are set in the context of organizational change and often generate paradoxical tensions. For example, Diamond and Adams (1999: 246) studied a Department of Public Welfare that

60    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox espoused a care ethic, while at the same time unconsciously undermining ethical behavior (“The more activity and talk we generate about ethics; the less ethical behavior we get”). In particular, they identified “persecutory anxiety” as “a rather common collective experience of participants in contemporary organizations. Executives and employees may find themselves operating in an unfriendly and, at times, hostile work environment, often characterized by a rhetorical patina of pleasant and collegial interaction” (252). Lüscher and Lewis (2008), acknowledge that periods of change, “spur confusion, anxiety and stress that impede, or even paralyze, decision making” (Lüscher and Lewis 2008: 221). Anxiety and unconscious defenses tend to be associated with the emotional impact of organizational change (Lewis 2000; Vince and Broussine 1996).

Emotions We propose that, unlike in-​group or interpersonal settings, emotions in organizations are structurally embedded and that there is an inevitable interplay between emotions and institutionalized power relations (Voronov and Vince 2012). The connection between affect and power in organizations has attracted increasing interest in psychosocial studies (Kenny and Fotaki 2014), to which scholars have applied a constellation of inter-​related theories. Research from this perspective is concerned with “how subjectivity engages with broader social and political forces, and how psychic processes contribute to their reproduction and alteration” (Kenny and Fotaki 2014: 19). For example, Prins (2010) used systems psychodynamic theory to look at multiparty collaboration within the domain of foster care. She showed how “the objectives of this project moved from finding the best solution for foster children and their parents involving all relevant stakeholders, to organizing a minimal form of collaboration between four foster care services in two specific areas” (Prins 2010: 305). The organizations involved mobilized a “false consensus” driven by the desire to remove asymmetries of power and resourcing, reduce the emotional complexity of stakeholders’ needs, and avoid the uncertainty of new ways of working. Collective emotional responses may arise from the tensions between emotions and perceptions surrounding fairness, equity, or ethics in organizations.

Defenses In such settings, the social defenses created in organizations represent attempts to manage anxieties and fears. Emotions operate as an organization-​wide phenomenon; groups of actors develop mechanisms to collectively defend themselves from the anxieties inherent in the system. For example, Wasko and Fotaki (2005) examined the function of human resources (HR) in the engineering industry, and found that “the psychoanalytic lens applied to the HR function highlights its role as a container for the organization’s inability to manage human elements without splitting and separating negative from positive elements within the organization” (Wasko and Fotaki 2005: 673). This revealed the contradictory nature of organizations, and the different emotional pulls that reside within them, in addition to the “specialized” container role that serves to maintain dynamic equilibrium (Smith and Lewis 2011).

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    61

Awareness and Intervention Working with psychoanalytic theory in organizations means understanding the role that the unconscious plays within the system, the parallel processes between the client and the consultant, and the organizational power relations that impact on change. The analytic task is to bring to light the anxieties, repetitive patterns, and projective relationships that remain implicit and that can sabotage leadership, group effectiveness, or cohesion, as well as organizational functioning. Opportunities for interpretation provide organizational actors with cues and signals about unconscious processes, but are by no means sufficient; an intervention also has to help them to understand the origins of these dynamics by noticing and labeling examples of “here and now” interactions, and by exploring roles, relationships, fantasies, and unacknowledged narratives that infuse the corpus of the organization. For example, Diamond and Allcorn (2003) give a detailed description of an intervention in an academic institution where unconscious dynamics characterized relations between the dean (central power), a head of department (made a scapegoat for all the ills in the department), a critic of the head of department, and the once-​idealized consultants who were denigrated once they did not recommend what Faculty wanted (removing the head of the department). In taking an analytic attitude, the authors unravel the institutional power relationships between the dean’s office and the various departments (not just the one under focus), the resentment of the critic who felt underappreciated, and the use of the consultants as the “container” of all the angry feelings and frustration that faculty did not feel safe enough to aim at the Dean. “Transference and countertransference transport members’ anxieties and their concomitant defensive and regressive actions (such as splitting and projection) into workplace roles and relationships that shape the intersubjective structure and meaning of organization experience” (Diamond and Allcorn 2003:  509). Understanding these unconscious relationships provides insight into regressive forces within organizations. The vignette below illustrates these ideas further.

Vignette 3: The Paradox of Performance and Organizing A psychoanalytic lens on the paradox of organizational change is illustrated by Fotaki and Hyde (2015) who identify a consistent and institutionalized pattern of “organizational blind spots” that mask the underlying problem and are driven by psychological and social defenses of splitting, blame, and idealization. They argue that organizational blind spots explain “how defense mechanisms enable organizations to remain committed to unworkable strategies.” The concept elucidates an alternative and psychoanalytical explanation of the phenomenon of escalation of commitment by showing the interplay of individual actions, unconscious motives, and collective defenses. The authors add that the concept “does not merely refer to a pervasive state of denial of reality but is about the institutionalization of such denial through organizational rituals, routines and storytelling” (Fotaki and Hyde 2015: 447). They illustrate the defense mechanisms by drawing upon three examples within the British NHS (National Health Service). We highlight one of the cases, which examined mental health care in a specialist ward.

62    Psychoanalytic Theory, Emotion, and Organizational Paradox There were a number of issues. First, the ward was always over capacity, taking in twenty-​six patients for twenty-​two beds. Second, the nursing staff had no control over patient admissions, which meant they often had to send people home to wait. Third, the stress of the work and the concern for the patients and public led to defensive “splitting, whereby madness remains with the patients and sanity with the staff ” (Fotaki and Hyde 2015: 453). Evidence of the managers blaming inefficiencies on the staff, who in turn blamed the patients, reinforced the splitting and scapegoating. Patients were falsely accused of stealing, being greedy, selfish, and over-​demanding. Some patients became aggressive or non-​cooperative, some were restrained or isolated as staff seemingly took control of the “problem,” whereas good patients “toed the line” (Fotaki and Hyde 2015: 453). In short, the ward created a “highly charged” climate leading to an organizational system of reinforced anxiety, defenses, and a culture of toxicity.

Conclusion In this chapter we have explored constructs from Freudian psychoanalytic theory that shed light on the unconscious dynamics at work in organizations, alongside examples illustrating how organizational paradox can help to transform our understanding and practice of leadership, and relationships in groups and organizations. In our view, psychoanalytic theory explicates underlying emotions and defenses, as well as informing potential interventions to work with paradox. It does so in three particularly compelling ways. First, an interest in identifying unconscious processes and dynamics, both inter-​personal and social, brings contradictions into public view. Such contradictions are structural and structuring (Clegg, Cunha and Cunha 2002), they influence norms and routines, and they enable agency. They are also behavioral and inextricably linked to self–​other relations. Attempts to resolve contradictions reinforce self-​limitation and “stuckness” (Vince and Broussine 1996) at the same time as they mobilize potentially transformational interpretations of persistent tensions. Psychoanalytic theory helps us to perceive and engage with how organizations create roles, relations, practices, and structures that are designed to achieve one aim but may end up mobilizing its opposite. Second, psychoanalytic theory reveals the micro-​processes involved in the interplay between emotions and institutionalized power relations (Voronov and Vince 2012). It elucidates the key question of how and why collective emotional dispositions come to dominate in specific organizational contexts (Vince and Mazen 2014). Social defenses are created consciously and unconsciously in attempts to manage everyday anxieties and fears, and yet they somehow legitimize that anxiety in ways that diminish the desire to act. Organizational roles can be understood not only through patterns of authority and influence, but also through processes of projection that may turn others into versions of the hated self (Petriglieri and Stein 2012). Psychodynamic approaches offer insights into the dynamics that tie emotions and power relations together, because emotions are central to the social and political analysis of organizations (Kenny and Fotaki 2014).

Michael Jarrett and Russ Vince    63 Third, psychoanalytic approaches encourage leaders and followers to reflect on their organizational experiences, especially the emotional complexity that both energizes and disempowers their everyday organizational life. Those things that our emotions try to make us avoid can provide essential organizational knowledge in our search for change. Shedding light on issues that are defended against or avoided creates a potential for transformation, particularly because organizations are environments where nobody wants to disrupt “the way things are.” By combining psychoanalytic theory with organizational paradox theory, organizational actors, in their various combinations, are able to recognize and engage with the emotion-​filled, highly political, and relentlessly complex organizational environment in which their work is done. Recognizing this legitimizes reflection and interpretation, and supports the emergence of political processes that push through individual and social defenses, and are ultimately more collaborative and inclusive.

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Chapter 3

A Road Ma p of the Parad ox i c a l  Mi nd Expanding Cognitive Theories on Organizational Paradox Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen

When we think about paradoxes, it is important to think about how we think about paradoxes. As previous scholars have pointed out, whether an individual is aware of a paradox (Lewis 2000; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Sharma and Good 2013), how an individual reacts to a paradox (Ingram 2012; Miron-​Spektor, Gino, and Argote 2011; Miron-​Spektor, Ingram, Keller, Smith, and Lewis 2017; Smith 2014; Smith and Tushman 2005), or whether a paradox even exists (El-​Sawad, Arnold, and Cohen 2004; Ford and Backoff 1988; Poole and Van de Ven 1989) may depend on how individuals think about paradoxes. Cognition is not simply a factor that contributes to our understanding of organizational paradox. It is a cornerstone of organizational paradox theory (Smith and Lewis 2011). While cognition is central to organizational paradox theory, our understanding of how the mind shapes individuals’ experience with organizational paradoxes may still be in its infancy. One way to further develop this line of research is to expand the literature sources that the research draws upon. Most organizational paradox theories on cognition is based on other organizational literature (e.g., Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, and Figge 2014; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Sharma and Good 2013; Smith and Tushman 2005), including theories on sensemaking (see Maitlis and Christianson 2014 for a review) and cognitive frames (see Cornelissen and Werner 2014 for a review). Other organizational paradox theories have borrowed from other applied disciplines, such as theories on defense mechanisms found predominantly in research on clinical psychology (e.g., Leonard‐Barton 1992; Lewis 2000; Putnam 1986; Vince and Broussine 1996). However, while there is an abundance of literature on cognition found in various disciplinary cognitive sciences (e.g., cognitive psychology, cognitive linguistics, and cognitive neuroscience), the incorporation of disciplinary research on cognition into organizational

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    67 paradox theory has been limited (see Keller, Loewenstein, and Yan 2017 for an exception; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016). We believe that organizational paradox theory will benefit greatly from closer attention to cognitive science research. While the cognitive science literature does not explicitly address the question of how people experience paradoxes, many topics touch upon issues central to organizational paradox theory. In particular, organizational paradox theory concerns how people see paradoxes, which can be further enhanced by tapping into disciplinary research on perception. It addresses how people make sense of paradoxes, which can tap into disciplinary research on reasoning. And it addresses how people react emotionally to paradoxes, which can tap into disciplinary research on affect. By examining how other scientists tackle the fundamental questions about how people think, feel, and reason, we can learn new insights into how perception, affect, and reasoning shape individuals’ experience with paradoxes. The incorporation of cognitive science literature into research on organizational paradoxes, however, poses a number of challenges. The literature is vast. It operates under different paradigms with different underlying assumptions. Most importantly, it requires the acquisition of different languages. We believe that connecting organizational paradox theory to the cognitive sciences first requires a road map. In this chapter, we provide an initial road map by introducing an overall model that connects the various cognitive processes that are likely to be associated with paradoxes (Figure 3.1). Our model does not provide a map of what we already know about paradoxes, as little cognitive science research directly addresses paradoxes. Instead, our model provides a map of where to look for further insight and how to develop future research. Social convention

Antonyms Enculturation

Culture Environment

Enculturation

Cognition Learning Categories Learning Domain knowledge Perception

Material conditions

Reasoning

Metacognitive knowledge

Memorization & habituation

Paradox emergence Behavior

Stimuli Affective response

Coping

Schematization

Figure 3.1  Theoretical model: the road map

68    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind We structure our chapter as follows. We first explore the question of why an individual experiences a paradox by discussing the role of categories—​specifically antonymic categories. We then explore the question of how individuals experience a paradox by discussing the role of perception, affect, and reasoning. We also explore the question of how individuals learn to manage paradoxes by discussing the role of domain-​specific and metacognitive knowledge. Finally, we explore the question of how the subjective experience of paradoxes is influenced by others. By constructing this road map, we provide a first step in forming new inquiries into how individuals experience and manage paradoxes, thus contributing to research on organizations and cognition.

Why Do Individuals Experience a Paradox? Paradoxes are “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382). In discussing how something can be both contradictory and interrelated, organizational paradox scholars have long argued that paradoxes are shaped by both material conditions and cognitive processes (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). In some cases, a paradox may be the result of a set of contradictions inherent in organizational systems, such as a demand to be simultaneously broad and focused on a task. In other cases, however, the paradoxes are socially and cognitively constructed (Bednarek, Paroutis, and Sillince 2017; Clegg et al. 2002; Ford and Backoff 1988; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017; Johnston and Selsky 2006; Lüscher et al. 2006). For example, an idea can be both novel and useful, but cognition can prevent an individual from discovering this connection (Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011). Cognitive linguistic accounts of antonymic relations between categories suggest that the construction of a paradox centers on the role of categories. Therefore, to examine how cognitive processes impact why paradoxes emerge, we begin by discussing the role of categories.

Categories We refer to categories as groupings of objects with a common label (Murphy 2002). Categories can be used to classify people (e.g., Ashforth and Mael 1989; Hogg and Terry 2000), firms (e.g., Vergne and Wry 2014), strategic issues (Jackson and Dutton 1988), tasks (e.g., Glynn 1994), behaviors (e.g., Keller and Loewenstein 2011), ideas (e.g., Loewenstein and Mueller 2016), and decisions (e.g., Liu, Keller, and Hong 2015). Individuals use categories to make inferences based on information about objects they see (Markman and Ross 2003) and to guide their own actions accordingly (Smith and Medin 1981). For example, individuals see drops of water, categorize them as “rain” and then seek an umbrella. Analogously, top managers see a competitor launching a new

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    69 product, categorize the action as a “threat” and then launch their own new product accordingly. Categories influence perception by providing a mental template for matching the stimuli we see (Harnad 1987). For example, when we see drops of water, we see categories of “water,” “liquid,” and “rain” and assess the situation accordingly. Categories also influence reasoning by providing a vocabulary of tools for sensemaking that individuals use to interpret their situations (Loewenstein, Ocasio, and Jones 2012). We see the rain and decide to open an umbrella. We see a threat and decide to launch a product.

Categorization Processes Categories are important for understanding paradoxes, because paradoxes may emerge when there is misalignment between categorization processes. The categorization process that individuals use to classify objects can involve implicit and/​or explicit processes (Chen, Ross, and Murphy 2014; Smith et al. 2012). Implicit processes (or bottom-​up processes) involve observing objects and comparing the observations to prototypes (Rosch 1978) or exemplars (Minda and Smith 2002). For example, an employee may observe a pattern of behaviors demonstrated by previous employers, label them narcissistic, and use the label when a new employer exhibits similar patterns of behavior. Explicit categorization processes, on the other hand, involve top-​down rules (Smith and Sloman 1994; Zhang et al. 2016). For example, an employee defines any absence of attention to an employee as an indicator of narcissism and applies the label narcissist to any employer that is not paying attention. Explicit categorization processes serve an important cognitive function by providing information about each object in a quick and systematic manner (Love 2014). At the same time, short-​cut rules can lead to dissociation between how we would categorize based on explicit rules and how we categorize based on implicit learning (Smith, Patalano, and Jonides 1998; Smith and Sloman 1994). In particular, an object may have features that match a prototype of a category yet break an explicit rule. Dissociations between rules create a contradiction because individuals do not use different strategies to come up with different categories. They use a combination of explicit and implicit processes to come up with one category (Love 2014; Love, Medin, and Gureckis 2004; Smith et al. 1998). For example, individuals do not have two categories of exploration: a rule-​based category of exploration and an inductively generated category of exploration. They have one. Therefore, when an object has features of a category but violates a category-​associated rule, the result is a contradiction. It’s a member of a category and it is not.

Antonymy One form of explicit processing likely to trigger a contradiction in categorization is antonymy (Jones 2002; Murphy 2003, 2006). Antonymy refers to semantically opposite

70    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind relations between categories. Antonymy is one of the most fundamental forms of categorical relations that people use. In fact, antonyms are the most commonly used word pairs in natural discourse across languages (Cruse 1986) and are core parts of children’s early linguistic (Murphy and Jones 2008) and cognitive (Mansfield 1977) development. Most paradoxes discussed in the organizational literature are, in essence, antonyms, including exploration and exploitation (Smith and Tushman 2005; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), cooperation and competition categories of behaviors (Keller et al. 2016) and stability and change (Klarner and Raisch 2013; Lüscher and Lewis 2008). While linguistic research on antonyms originally presumed that antonyms are naturally ingrained characteristics of human syntax, it is now widely accepted that antonymy is not ingrained but a form of categorization processing (Paradis and Willners 2006, 2011). Antonyms are both producers and products of cognition. Antonymy influences categorization by providing a schematic configuration on relations between objects and directing attention to the schematic configuration whenever individuals categorize an object (Paradis and Willners 2011). As shown in Figure 3.2, the schematic configuration associated with antonymic relations between categories comprises two components. The first component is a scale. The scale reflects variance between objects based on characteristics of a single feature of the most prototypical objects in the category (Paradis 2008; Paradis and Willners 2006). For example, hot and cold reflect variance in temperature, exploration and exploitation reflect variance in preferring risk versus reward, and profit-​oriented and social-​oriented reflect variance in having a financial versus social motive. The second component is a boundary that separates objects into clusters between the two sections of the scale (Paradis 2008; Paradis and Willners 2006). On one side of the boundary is hot, exploratory, or profit-​oriented, and on the other side of the boundary is cold, exploitative, or social-​oriented. Antonymy creates its own mental template that directs attention to the scale and boundary (Paradis and Willners 2011), with objects placed along the scale and on one side of the boundary.

Boundary

C A Scale B

Figure 3.2  A schematic configuration of antonymic categorization

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    71

Antonymy-​based Categorization Processing Antonymy is a particularly useful form of explicit categorization because it provides quick access to information based on inferences associated with word-​to-​word relations (Verhagen 2007). Antonymy creates a rule to categorize objects based on where the object fits on a scale and which side of a boundary located at the midpoint of the scale the object resides in. For example, when a manager considers implementing a “cutting-​edge project,” the manager may first categorize the idea as exploratory because “cutting-​edge” is a prototypical feature of being exploratory. The category of exploratory then calls attention to the category of exploitative as an antonym and places the idea on a risk/​reward scale with any idea categorized as exploratory as non-​exploitative. The individual will then group “cutting-​edge projects” with other non-​exploitative ideas and make inferences accordingly (Yamauchi and Markman 2000).

Categorization and Contradictions The categorical inference that antonymy provides helps individuals categorize efficiently. At the same time, antonymy can trigger a perceived contradiction, as the schematic configuration it provides may lead to an assumption that no object can be a member of two antonymic categories. If an object has features of two antonymic categories, then it violates a rule that an object cannot be a member of two opposite categories. For example, an idea cannot be both exploratory and exploitative and a relationship cannot be both cooperative and competitive, because that would entail being something and its opposite. There are many instances where this is true, as often discussed by organizational paradox scholars. In fact, based on logic, only a minority of antonyms are exclusive opposites (Jones 2002; Murphy 2003). Only in those cases would it be logically contradictory for an object to be a member of both categories. For example, someone cannot be both dead and alive unless we accept the existence of zombies or ghosts. The majority of antonyms discussed in the organizational paradox literature are not logically exclusive. It is logically possible for a strategic issue to be both a threat and an opportunity (Dutton and Jackson 1987; Jackson and Dutton 1988), an organizational activity to be both exploratory and exploitative (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Lavie, Stettner, and Tushman 2010) or a task to be both novel and useful (Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011). In each of these cases, the contradictions are cognitively constructed. An individual may find that the same object has shared features of two antonymic categories, but the individual will only accept this apparent contradiction if the individual recognizes that an object can be a member of both categories. For example, the novelty of a cutting-​edge project may make the project more commercially viable, but that entails recognizing that the project can simultaneously be both exploratory and exploitative.

72    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind As organizational scholars have emphasized, paradox is an inherent part of organizational life yet individuals often do not experience them because they fail to recognize their existence (Knight and Paroutis 2017; Lewis 2000; Sharma and Good 2013; Smith and Lewis 2011). Research on categories—​in particular antonymic categories—​suggests why.

How Do Individuals Experience Paradoxes? While we contend that categorization is a key factor in determining why individuals experience paradoxes, other cognitive processes are critical in determining how individuals experience paradoxes. As discussed earlier, cognitive processes do not impact the experience of paradoxes in isolation of material conditions. Cognition and material conditions interact (Smith and Lewis 2011). The most established model for explaining the interaction between the two factors is the stimuli-​response model (Skinner 1938). According to this model, material conditions create stimuli, which invoke a set of cognitive processes that individuals respond with. They include perception, affect, and reasoning. Cognitive processes do not drive individuals’ actions. They provide a set of responses. The process begins with stimuli created by material conditions, is followed by perception, then by affect, then by reasoning (subconscious or conscious) and then finally by behavior.

Perception The first response is perception, which is a process of matching the stimuli with a mental representation (Dijksterhuis and Bargh 2001). The matching process can be top-​ down with the use of preexisting mental templates or bottom-​up with the use of sensory inputs (Marr 1982). Categories provide mental templates that guide our perception of the environment (Goldstone 1994; Goldstone, Lippa, and Shiffrin 2001). Before we even consciously process information from what we see, we have already filtered the information of what we see based on our preexisting categories (Goldstone and Barsalou 1998). And thus we may see an object and not recognize that it can be a member of two antonymic categories because we have already used the antonymic relationship between categories as a filter. For example, there may be potential projects (e.g., new product development projects, Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009) that managers can implement that address both exploration and exploitation, but the habitual classification of projects as either exploratory or exploitative filters out projects with characteristics of both. As a result, managers may not think of such projects and the potential projects may remain unrecognized.

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    73

Affect If individuals see a paradox, they are likely to first respond emotionally (Lewis 2000). Qualitative studies have found that, in fact, paradoxes can be anxiety-​provoking (Huy 1999; Sundaramurthy and Lewis 2003; Vince and Broussine 1996). One potential reason is that when individuals deviate from a habitual categorization scheme, their cognitive load will increase (Epley and Gilovich 2006), which in turn raises tension (Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen 1994; Pohl et al. 2013). Antonymy can be a particularly effective form of habitual categorization because it helps people reduce cognitive effort providing systematic rules about opposites. Such binary rules become habitual and schematized in the mind. In order for individuals to recognize paradoxes, they must recognize that an object is a shared member of two antonymic categories, which violates the antonymic rule. This rule violation may raise emotional tension. For instance, it is easier to brainstorm tasks that are novel but not useful or useful but not novel. To brainstorm tasks that are both novel and useful raises tension (Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011). One explanation for this increased tension is a violation of antonymy-​associated rules.

Paradox behind Paradox and Affect However, if individuals ignore antonymy and rely exclusively on implicit categorization processes, there will be less tension associated with rule-​breaking but more tension associated with greater overall cognitive effort. In this case, individuals can only categorize by observing how each object matches features of a prototype or set of exemplars. This in itself increases cognitive load. However, most antonymic relations between categories follow salient differences in prototypical features between categories (Paradis and Willners 2011). In most cases, an object that is hot is not cold, an activity that is exploratory is not exploitative, and a behavior that is cooperative is not competitive. Ignoring antonymic relations increases reliance on object feature matching, which also increases cognitive load. This in turn can trigger psychological stress (Macrae, Milne and Bodenhausen 1994; Pohl et al. 2013), reflecting the increased level of cognitive effort involved in the categorization process.

Affect as Information Provider Whether the individual is feeling anxious or calm as a result of experiencing paradox, the emotions include somatic markers coming from the nervous system that present information to the individual in the form of a physiological response (Damasio, Everitt, and Bishop 1996). This physiological response has been known to precede conscious reasoning, and thus can drive decision-​making through emotions (Öhman 1988). Because physiological responses come first, the information that people receive from

74    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind emotions will not only have a direct impact on behavior, but can influence subsequent reasoning (Damasio et al. 1996). Organizational paradox theorists have raised the idea that anxiety triggered by paradoxes can create defensiveness and rigidity in individuals’ thinking (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017; Lewis 2000). Somatic markers may be contributing to this behavioral effect.

Reasoning Once individuals “see” and “feel” stimuli, they can reason about the stimuli consciously or subconsciously (Evans 2008). If they respond to stimuli subconsciously, then a combination of affect and habit will likely guide their behavior. We suggest two possible reasons for individuals to only respond subconsciously to paradoxes. The first reason, as discussed before, is that they don’t see a paradox, as they only categorize the object as a member of one category or another. A second possible reason is that they see a paradox, but they do not treat the paradox as an unusual event and thus have no need to consciously reason about it (Paletz, Bogue, Miron-​Spektor, Spencer-​Rodgers, and Peng 2015). For example, they may believe that any idea can be both exploratory and exploitative and thus treat any idea they hear or think of as normal. If they do consciously reason about a particular paradox, categorization is likely to play a role, as categories provide the set of conceptual tools that individuals use for reasoning about a particular object (Medin, Ross, Atran, Burnett, and Blok 2002; Medin, Unsworth, and Hirschfeld 2007). For example, an individual may not see an idea that is both exploratory and exploitative, but may experience a demand to come up with an idea that is both exploratory and exploitative. Whether an individual’s categories of exploration and exploitation are mutually exclusive or overlapping will therefore have an impact on whether they come up with an idea that solves both issues. In these cases, subsequent behavior will be shaped, in part, by the outcome of this conscious effort. To summarize, individuals first perceive stimuli coming from material conditions. They then react to stimuli emotionally and finally reason about them (consciously or subconsciously). These processes constitute the link between material conditions and behavior.

How Do Individuals Learn to Manage Paradoxes? The description of the stimuli-​response model may suggest that individuals are purely passive and emotional beings that can only reason as a reaction to what they see and feel. This only applies in the short run. In fact, conscious reasoning can help transform what individuals see and feel over time. Conscious reasoning can transform perception and affect by activating learning, which in turn can be stored as knowledge in memory for

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    75 future use (Shuell 1986). Organizational paradox scholars have long argued that individuals can acquire knowledge to manage paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith and Tushman 2005). For example, individuals can learn how to integrate and differentiate paradoxical elements of a situation (Smith and Tushman 2005). We contend that conscious reasoning can lead to learning about how to manage paradoxes. Moreover, part of the learning process involves the transforming of perceptual and affective processes. Specifically, individuals can learn how to categorize differently and learn how to regulate their emotions. As a result, individuals can learn to see and feel paradoxes in a different way. As Miron-​Specktor et al. 2017 have found, individuals develop a paradox mindset that helps them to accept and be energized by the tension from paradoxical situations, and eventually achieve better performance and higher innovation at work.

Domain versus Metacognitive Knowledge To describe how learning can influence categorization and affect, we distinguish between two forms of knowledge: domain knowledge and metacognitive knowledge. Domain knowledge addresses specific paradoxical issues, such as how to manage exploration and exploitation, cooperation and competition, or novelty and usefulness. Metacognitive knowledge, on the other hand, addresses how individuals think about paradoxical issues more broadly. In other words, while domain-​specific knowledge addresses the content of people’s thoughts, metacognitive knowledge addresses the process of individuals’ own thoughts (Flavell 1979). We distinguish the two types of knowledge because individuals learn categories within specific domains (Diesendruck and Gelman 1999; Ross and Murphy 1999), and domain-​specific categories are particularly pervasive within organizations (Loewenstein 2014; Loewenstein et al. 2012). This includes antonymic relations between categories that are domain-​specific. For example, “cost leadership” and “differentiation” may not be obvious antonyms to all English speakers, but they are likely to be considered antonyms among those who have taken an introductory course in strategic management. At the same time, organizational paradox scholars have pointed to domain-​general strategies such as the incorporation of differentiation and integration (Smith 2014; Smith and Tushman 2005). As we will explain below, domain-​general knowledge around paradoxes involves metacognition, as the knowledge is about how individuals think about managing paradoxes.

Domain Knowledge Research comparing experts to novices in categorization has found that domain expertise can influence categorization processes in two critical ways. Firstly, domain expertise leads to more precise forms of categorization (Johnson and Mervis 1997; Tanaka and Taylor 1991). For example, whereas novice managers are more likely to have a single category of exploration and a single category of exploitation, experienced

76    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind managers are more likely to have precise subcategories that refer to more specific organizing activities. Domain expertise may help individuals uncover and integrate a paradox because their precision in categorization may include knowledge of interrelated aspects of a paradox at a finer grained level. For example, managers may be able to distinguish between an exclusively exploratory or both exploratory and exploitative project or between an exclusively competitive or both competitive and cooperative firm. Another possibility, however, is that precise categorization can hide the recognition of a paradox because it prevents the experts from gaining a more holistic understanding of the overall relationship between two antonymic categories. They may pay so much attention to the details of exploration that they ignore exploitative aspects of the same project. Secondly, domain expertise leads to more goal-​oriented categorization, where objects are classified based on complex causal relations (Rehder 2003; Steyvers, Tenenbaum, Wagenmakers, and Blum 2003). This form of categorization processing is also likely to create a double-​edged sword. On the one hand, experts may be more likely to find interrelatedness between two antonymic categories that are more complex than a scale/​boundary relationship. On the other hand, experts may be more dependent on a set of heuristic rules, including antonymic relations they acquired through experience. As a result, they may in fact be less likely to implicitly observe shared features of the two categories and thus less likely to surface interrelatedness through observation.

Metacognitive Knowledge As we mentioned earlier, while domain knowledge addresses specific paradoxical issues (e.g., creativity and usefulness, cooperation and competition), metacognitive knowledge addresses individuals’ own thoughts (Flavell 1979). This form of knowledge is critically important for understanding individuals’ experience with paradoxes because metacognition can influence perception and affect. In other words, individuals can learn how to pay attention to different aspects of their environment and can learn how to react emotionally when they see it. This knowledge is not contingent on specific paradoxical issues coming from specific domains.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Categorization Metacognitive knowledge can influence perception by encouraging individuals to think differently about categorization. As discussed above, categorization processes can filter information from the environment, thus influencing what people perceive and how people reason about what they see (Goldstone 1994). Metacognitive knowledge can help individuals monitor and control how they categorize (Redford 2010). As a result, they may be able to learn how to adjust their categories or how to think beyond categories in order to see a paradox.

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    77 Previous research has found that the use of metacognition to form explicit rules in categorization is a distinctly human trait (Smith et al. 2012). Of course, the issue of concern for organizational paradox scholars is how individuals can prevent the negative effects of explicit antonymic categorization on their ability to see a paradox and to find the interrelated elements of the paradox. To our knowledge, little research in the cognitive sciences addresses the question of how and when individuals can “explicitly be less explicit” in their categorization. Research on culture and cognition has found that holistic thinking (found prevalently in East Asia) decreases the dependence on categorization in reasoning (Choi, Nisbett, and Smith 1997). Holistic thinking encourages individuals to instead seek relationships between features of objects (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, and Norenzayan 2001). Therefore, holistic thinking may encourage implicit categorization processes and focus attention on how an object can be a member of both of two antonymic categories. However, because holistic thinking is typically acquired at an early age (Choi, Koo, and Choi 2007), it is difficult to assess how holistic thinking can apply to individuals within organizations who have grown up relying on antonyms in categorization and treat them as exclusively opposite. One area of promise is research on metacognitive approaches to mindfulness (e.g., Holas and Jankowski 2013; Jankowski and Holas 2014; Solem, Thunes, Hjemdal, Hagen, and Wells 2015), which may uncover ways that individuals can learn to see interrelated patterns.

Analogical Reasoning The use of metacognitive knowledge to manage paradoxes may not necessarily require abstract reasoning. In fact, it may be far less abstract in practice. Individuals can instead engage in reasoning through the use of metaphors and analogies (Gentner, Holyoak, and Kokinov 2001; Vosniadou 1989). Analogical reasoning involves surfacing cognitive structural similarities between the situation they observe and other situations they are familiar with. For paradoxes, in particular, individuals can discover examples of similar instances where the same object can be categorized as members of two antonymic categories. When an individual encounters a particular situation, task, or relationship, thinking about other instances that are structurally similar may enable them to recognize a paradox and to make sense of the paradox. One source of analogies is cultural artifacts (e.g., proverbs and stories) that describe paradoxes explicitly (Peng and Nisbett 1999). For example, the proverb “beware of your friends, not your enemies” may not only encourage thinking about the paradoxical nature of cooperating versus competing but other paradoxes in organizational life.

Metacognitive Knowledge and Affect Once individuals are aware of paradoxes, metacognitive knowledge may also play a role in regulating the emotional response to the paradox. Organizational paradox scholars

78    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind have highlighted that an acceptance of paradoxes can lower the negative emotional impact of paradoxical tension and can even turn a negative situation into a positive situation (e.g., Beech 2004; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Lewis 2011). Research in cognitive neuroscience supports this idea, as research has found that metacognition, in fact, can override emotional responses to stimuli by consciously regulating emotion (Lewis, Lamm, Segalowitz, Stieben, and Zelazo 2006; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, and Gabrieli 2002). One major way that metacognition can regulate emotions is by engaging in reasoning about the cause of the emotional tension. As discussed earlier, a key source of emotional tension associated with paradoxes is a feeling of unease when individuals discover dissociations between antonymic scale/​boundary rules and the overlapping features of the situation that match both antonymic categories. They appear contradictory, which creates emotional tension. There may be specific metacognitive mechanisms that can help individuals regulate the emotional impact of paradoxes and to turn the tension into a positive experience. In sum, the cognitive sciences support the assertion that organizational paradox scholars make about individuals’ ability to learn how to manage paradoxes. Individuals can acquire domain expertise, which may change how they think about specific paradoxical tensions. They may also learn metacognitive strategies for how to think about paradoxes more broadly, either through abstract reasoning or through analogical reasoning. This in turn can have an impact on how they categorize, how they reason about what they categorize, and their affective response. In other words, they can learn how to see a paradox, how to reason about a paradox and how to respond emotionally to the paradox.

What about the Role of Others? The picture that we have drawn so far has centered on the individual and the individual’s response to stimuli coming from material conditions. In reality, individuals do not think in isolation from others. Many organizational scholars have pointed out that the cognitive construction of paradoxes, in particular, is not isolated from the individual’s social world (Bednarek, Paroutis, and Sillince 2017; Clegg, Cunha, and Cunha 2002; El-​ Sawad et al. 2004). In fact, as the literature on vocabularies point out (e.g., Loewenstein et al. 2012; Ocasio, Loewenstein, and Nigam 2014), categories are shaped by members of collectives. Social groups shape category content and structure through social conventions that are shared through communication with others (Millikan 2005). People learn through social convention, for example, that sharing knowledge indicates cooperation (Keller and Loewenstein 2011) or that hiring a spouse indicates nepotism (Liu et al. 2015).

Antonyms as Social Conventions Antonymic relations between categories, in particular, are widely shared across collectives. As corpus studies on antonyms have found, antonyms used most frequently in

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    79 natural discourse are most likely to be taken for granted as categorical opposites (Jones, Murphy, and Paradis 2012). For example, because people always hear contrasts between “good” and “bad” and “hot” and “cold,” it takes very little cognitive effort for people to associate “good” as the opposite of “bad” or “hot” as the opposite of “cold.”

Social Conventions and Individual Cognition From the individual’s perspective, the conventional use of antonyms presents a double-​ edged sword. On the one hand, the conventional use of antonyms makes categorization easier because conventions establish rules that individuals do not ever have to learn through conscious effort. On the other hand, discovering rule-​breaking patterns becomes even more difficult because the same rules are shared by others. Others are more likely to reinforce the rules and are less likely to reinforce a violation of the rules. For example, if others consistently tell individuals that the goal is to create a product that is either novel or useful, then the individual is more likely to believe that the two qualities of a product are mutually exclusive. This makes the task of recognizing and accepting paradoxes especially difficult. Even if individuals actively engage in efforts to integrate two opposites, they may not even be aware of paradoxes because others are always referring to the opposites as exclusive contrasts.

Cultural Metacognition One form of knowledge that may address the role of social conventions, in particular, is cultural metacognition (Chua, Morris, and Mor 2012). Cultural metacognition involves a conscious self-​awareness of how the individual’s culture influences the individual’s own thinking. This includes a self-​awareness of cultural assumptions about opposites. For example, protection of harmony (Leung, Brew, Zhang, and Zhang 2010; Leung, Koch, and Lu 2002) and protection of social face (Leung 1997; Ting-​Toomey 1988) is a commonly shared value in East Asian cultures. The drive for harmony can appear to be in opposition to confrontation, but there are forms of confrontation that are not, in fact, diametrically opposed to harmony (Leung, Koch, and Lu 2002; Tjosvold, Hui, and Law 2001). Individual efforts to understand the cultural basis of assumptions about antonymic relations may provide opportunities for individuals to uncover paradoxes and seek integrative solutions. For example, individuals within East Asian cultures can learn to engage in constructive conflict (Tjosvold et al. 2001), which uses confrontation to promote harmony. If they understand that part of the distinction between harmony and confrontation is cultural, they may be able to better understand how to engage in constructive conflict. Similarly, individuals within Western cultures can learn to engage in cooperative forms of competition (Keller et al. 2016)  when they understand that part of the distinction between cooperation and competition is a product of culture.

80    A Road map of the Paradoxical Mind

Conclusion In this chapter, we provided a first step in incorporating insights from disciplinary research in cognitive sciences to contribute to our understanding of organizational paradoxes. We first addressed how cognitive science research can inform us of why an individual experiences a paradox by discussing the role of antonymic categories and categorization processes. We introduced two broad differences in categorization processes: an implicit process that emphasizes matching with protocols and examples and an explicit process that emphasizes rules. We pointed to the dissociation between the two forms of processing as a potentially critical form of contradiction that can lead to the emergence of a paradox. We then explored the process of how an individual experiences paradox by discussing the role of key cognitive factors. The process starts with stimuli generated by material conditions, is followed by perception, affective responses, and then by conscious or unconscious reasoning, and finally by a set of behavioral responses. We also discussed domain-​specific knowledge and metacognitive knowledge to address how an individual can learn to manage paradoxes. While domain knowledge emphasizes specific paradoxical issues, metacognitive knowledge emphasizes ways individuals think about paradoxical issues, such as analogical reasoning. Last but not least, we discussed how social conventions influence the experience with paradoxes and how cultural metacognition may be able to alter these effects. As we disclosed at the beginning of this chapter, our objective is to initiate ways of incorporating cognitive scientific research into the study of organizational paradoxes. Each of the areas we discussed has yet to be fully explored empirically. This requires us to initiate closer dialogues between organizational paradox theory and the cognitive sciences. It also requires us to engage in empirical research that can tap into cognitive science research in a way that captures organizational scholars’ rich understanding of how individuals see, feel, and reason about paradoxes in practice. For example, while we postulate that antonymic categories are at the center of the paradoxical experience, future research can examine the extent to which this relationship holds across the multiple contexts where paradoxes arise in both natural and controlled settings. While we postulate that perception, affect, and reasoning play distinct yet interrelated roles in shaping the cognitive experience with paradoxes, future research can explore how the cognitive processes interact. While we postulate that individuals can acquire domain-​ specific and metacognitive knowledge that influences the cognitive processes that shape individual behavior, future research can examine how such knowledge can be acquired in practice. While we postulate that the emergence of paradox is further hampered by social conventions, future research can examine the cross-​level relationship between social conventions and individual cognition. In addition, future research can examine how social conventions are formed at multiple levels of analyses, from the organizational level to the nation-​state (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van der Ven 2013; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016).

Joshua Keller and Erica Wen Chen    81 Finally, as research on cognitive science advances, especially in our understanding of the neuro-​foundation behind human cognition (Ochsner and Kosslyn 2013), future research can address new insights from discipline-​based cognitive research, such as the neuro-​basis of the cognitive processes human brains engage in when experiencing paradoxes. Therefore, the dialogue between the two areas of research requires ongoing interaction. As cognition remains a central component of paradox research, the integration of research on cognitive science and organizations on the topic of paradoxes is likely to become stronger over time.

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Chapter 4

What Par a d ox ? Developing a Process Syntax for Organizational Research Robin Holt and Mike Zundel

A language, to be most useful, should be similar in its structure to the structure of the events which it is supposed to represent. (Korzybski [1933] 1994: 412)

Gregory Bateson reminds us that complete knowledge of processes is impossible. All knowledge ever gets at are short chains; visible arcs of much larger, connected circuits, which remain ignored, concealed, or muted, and as such are largely denied causal efficacy ([1972] 2000: 145–​7). Through these arcs the world is brought in close and bracketed off in concordance with our limited sets of interests. Which processes we thematize and isolate from a potentially infinite tapestry of worldly things and events is governed by projects and ends to which we are enjoined; themselves the upshot of historically lengthy processes of sedimentation and disturbance. Finding the boundaries by which inquiry takes place is beyond conscious choice. While some parameters may be defined along scientific programmes and paradigmatic coalitions such as individual actions versus field-​level aggregates, Bateson reminds us of the inevitability of our immense ignorance when it comes to knowing what we are looking at. Of all the potential facts, only a very limited number become effective as mattering to us, and then only temporarily as their resonance shifts, or dissolves, and the countless remainder remains just that: latent and without effect (Bateson 1979: 99). Even those facts of which we are aware—​those small arcs that appear as noteworthy, interesting, tedious, engaging—​we encounter as part of practices in which their distinction is scripted by habituated norms and roles, their resonance is utterly socialized. For example as we notice curves on graphs we do

88   What Paradox? so by being attuned to different ways of being (e.g., a manager or an academic) in the pursuit of interests associated with this condition (e.g., increasing profit or determining causes and effects). By drawing these curves incisions are being made that then create outliers, liminal or outsider phenomena that don’t conform to smoothly arrayed representations, yet the curve itself is the outlier, being that which is noticed as part of the small variety of things and events making up our daily pursuits. In acknowledging the limits of any conscious attempt at understanding and controlling interrelating processes Bateson ([1972] 2000: 142ff; 438) is sceptical of attempts to compile ever-​more full and complex data sets. It is like attempting to design a TV screen to display coverage of all events involved in the whole television process—​including the TV’s own circuits. Such attempts lack wisdom; they lack appreciation of the larger interactive system that forever evades our conscious and conceptual grasp; the futility of our attempts making us prone to the kinds of shortcuts, truncations, and delimitations that generate paradoxical confusion. Lack of wisdom endangers the efficacy of productive as well as altruistic endeavours alike. Take the investments of the reforming mill owner Robert Owen (1771–​1858) in improvements to living conditions for workers. In A New View of Society, Owen elaborated on how ills amongst workers (alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies, physical debilitation) were linked to poverty and poor conditions. He persuaded his investors (Jeremy Bentham being one) to back an ambitious rebuilding programme at his New Lanark mills near Glasgow, Scotland, including new schools and shops. Business, he argued, worked better when workers felt better. Owen did not stop there, helping establish an entire community in New Harmony, Indiana, USA organized through the cooperative ordering of production, recreation, religion, and family life. Though energetic to the end, his later writings reveal intense frustration, lamenting how, despite his investments in buildings, machinery, apprenticeships, leisure facilities, and churches, the community splintered into factions, forever bickering (Owen 1813). It was surely too paradoxical that, when he had organized so much for the ostensive betterance of life, people were willing to risk poverty and disease by resisting solutions he knew would work? Bateson would have answered quite emphatically. The problem lay with Owen’s reforming zeal through which the world was organized into ideals and their imperfect expression. Owen had knowledge of classes (efficient workers, dutiful mothers, educated and properly fed children) and through his philanthropy strove to create members of these classes. New Harmony was just that, new and harmonious, the smooth arc of an idea of classes and members: a diagram, not a place. He lamented the resistance, yet the paradox was his own creation: people should understand what is good for them and show gratitude—​yet people are not only members of classes. Owen’s knowledge is particular to a culture, his culture, to someone who looks at workers as subjects for management on the basis of identifiable, stable, categorical characteristics but perhaps neglecting the “rough ground” of experience: the difficulty and repetitious nature of hard labour, the gratification to be had from drink, the urge to live freely, or indifferently, beyond the confines of others’ strictures, and so on, each of them being significantly pointed aspects of a worker’s life, but yet at the same time ungraspable in their totality by concepts. Owen’s frustration shows concepts giving

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    89 way to constant dialogue between what Owen’s contemporary William Hazlitt called the commonplace and the strange. These are forever pulling at one another, and, would have wit enough to recognize it, they set in sway the argumentative motion by which any life could be said to be led. It is this we wish to consider here, how paradoxes are tied to the conceptualization of experience. We begin by outlining the specific characteristics of language that give rise to such paradoxical constellations and link these to issues of identifying classes and logical types. From this we move to the importance and difficulty of integrating abstract and situational events and develop Bateson’s proposed syntax into a method for organizational scholars using the example of an organizational routine.

Language and Paradox Epimenides the Cretan claimed: “Cretans, always liars.” Thus was born an archetype of paradox, that from which all others unfold. Not because it was the first to be acknowledged, but perhaps the first to be orally and textually retained, at least in Western thought; and it is in the statements, claims, and observations of language that paradoxes live. Paradox arises because language itself has a Janus-​faced function:  it enables us both to draw distinctions and thus discern something from otherwise undifferentiated occurrence, while simultaneously creating distance between the word and its referent. Moreover, in presenting such isolating and distancing images of experience (an episteme) it itself is an experience (a techne), and so in carving form from entropic mess it informs action and thought with events and things; its medial technologies of speaking, writing, typing, or recording inventing objects are in turn inventing us (Stiegler 1994). Hence when we say paradox is “in” language, it is also very much “in” life itself, as a technology almost, by which lives are organized in the form of classes and types. In Theory of Play and Fantasy Bateson ([1972] 2000: 135ff) traces pre-​oral and pre-​ literal examples of communication to understand the influence of language as an abstracting, Gestalten-​forming capacity that both denotes and forms the world. In studying monkeys he conjectured a paradox would emerge when they enacted movements and expressions signalling aggression when, really, they were after play. Bereft of a linguistic capacity to proclaim the baring of teeth or playful nip to be invitations for play and not aggression, Bateson argued the monkeys used meta-​communication to signal: “this is play.” In this they navigated a complex and paradoxical set of relations which, formally put, unfold as: “These actions in which we now engage do not denote what those actions for which they stand would denote” ([1972] 2000: 136). The root of this paradoxical statement is “denote” being used on two different (and logically inadmissible) levels of abstraction, once referring to the signal, and once to the context in which these signals are interpreted. It is worth considering the ubiquity of such paradoxical statements in everyday (human) lives where the linguistic capacity is more sophisticated. Just as playful but seemingly aggressive monkeys don’t quite

90   What Paradox? mean what they seem to say when they bare their teeth, commercial advertisers such as Coca Cola engage in similar but reverse movements of not quite saying what they seem to mean as the coded message “buy this” becomes braided into a complex symbolic tapestry of youth, energy, and desirability. In this they attempt to short-​cut our interpretive faculties to reach our pre-​conscious and involuntary senses and hope we de-​code the message into conscious purchases (cf. Bateson [1972] 2000: 182). The linguistic capacity to distinguish, explicitly, such levels of abstraction, and thus being able to convey with a single sentence that this is not one situation but another, as in its being a situation of play not aggression, affords speakers efficient ways of qualifying what their actions do or do not denote and, from there, a route for the development of abstract concepts. Yet with the burgeoning of such flexiblity comes paradox. This becomes clearer when we look at the processes of linguistic communication. Walter J. Ong’s ([1982] 2002: 49) landmark study of the transition from oral to literate communities finds oral cultures using concepts in situational, operational frames of reference that are only minimally abstract. Tied directly to the “living human lifeworld” they are often pre-​logical or magical in character. For example, presented with geometric shapes, Ong’s subjects gave them names like buckets or moon, rather than identifying them abstractly as circles or squares; or where, when asked to cluster objects such as hammer, saw, log, hatchet into similar groups, they would not single out the log as the only non-​tool, but argue that all these things are alike as they belong to the situational work world. At a push they would pick out the hatchet by virtue of it being less efficient than the saw when cutting the log. Oral communities are reminiscent of Medieval man (sic) who was “probably other-​directed to an extent that our sociology would be at a loss to fathom. His mind was, to an enormous degree, fashioned and processed from ‘without’ ” (Enzensberger 1982: 4). Being sensitive to context in this way connects these language users to processual circuits of force, for example, the farmers who experience time in the falling of leaves, the birth and death of animals and the warming of the soil, and with the passing of familial generations. These are then concealed by what Ong identifies as shifts in the technologies of communication, where language moves from actual, situational forms to abstract ones, where practical wisdom gives way to abstract knowledge, such as the seasons giving way to the clock. Ong ([1982] 2002: 50) argues the effect of literacy in pulling us away from situational sensitivity is a grounding of paradox: words lean toward definition and fixity, whereas the things being represented tend toward life. The paradoxes posed by playfully bared teeth, or Epimenides declaring himself both a Cretan as well as a liar, engender such fissures: if monkeys bare teeth they will attack; Epimenides calls out “liars!” But in both cases we are surprised. The monkeys are after play, and Epimenides? If he speaks the truth he is a liar; the temporal veracity of this delineation running against a concrete contrary, setting in train a circular and intriguing stalemate. It is like being thrown into a drawing by MC Escher, another great exponent of the disorienting and arresting event of paradox. Yet Escher’s scenes are fantastical, other-​worldly, dream-​like; for there are no paradoxical situations in nature he can call upon to represent, they are more the products of a mathematician than artist (Escher 1948). While we may be captivated

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    91 and disturbed by the interlocking visual cycles in Escher’s art, we often fail to register their logical counterparts in language, precisely because we are not yet as much used to inconsistencies of concepts in the realm of the visual as we are in language, where we have developed ways of suspending or revising the “tacit and trusted patterns of reasoning” (Quine 1976: 7). While paradoxical statements are all around us, they become more problematic the more abstract and formalized the codification of language is, the more it is removed from its natural use and arranged by the laws of syntactical or mathematical calculus, the more prone this artifice becomes to paradoxical fissures.

Language, Classes, Logical Types How, then, does an abstract language lend itself to paradoxes? Logic construes events not as whole, but as facetted, made-​up of parts that can be delineated, and (re)related, so as to reconfigure what was mysterious as something clear, notably by reformulating paradoxical claims like Epimenides’ in the entailment syntax of “if . . . then”: If Epimenides is a Cretan then he is a liar. If Epimenides is a liar then his statement is not true. The above statements indicate an antinomy between two oppositional, yet related statements. These could be restated, in an even simpler syntax, as: “I am lying,” placing emphasis on the confrontation of two incommensurable truth claims (cf. Quine 1976). A somewhat different and, in our context, more helpful way of approaching the paradox is not in terms of truth claims but by questioning the levels of abstraction and concepts involved. First, Epimenides is assigned membership of a class, namely Cretans, which in turn is ascribed the property of “lying.” Second, Epimenides himself, as an individual entity, is assigned the property of lying or not lying. We are therefore dealing with claims on two levels: classes (and membership), and individual expressions of such. The difference is crucial for not all liars—​even serial ones—​lie all the time: if they did, lying would not be distinct from being truthful. So it is not necessarily the case that the Epimenides, a Cretan, is lying in this instance. We may dismiss the case of Epimenides as fictitious, after all we are not sure he really existed. Moreover, it makes little sense arguing that a class of women or men (“Cretans”) is a member of itself. We may thus, as we have done above, append a number of subscripts (e.g., stating that not every Cretan is lying all of the time), but that does not really defuse the matter. The problem takes more shape when approaching the issue of self-​ membership of classes more broadly. Following Bertrand Russell’s (Russell and Whitehead 1910) famous case of antinomies where classes are indeed members of themselves, Quine (1976) asks us to consider a class consisting of all classes that have more than five members. There will clearly exist more than five such classes as members, making the encompassing class a member of

92   What Paradox? itself. Or what of a class consisting of all classes that are not members of themselves? This class’s members are “non-​self-​members,” thus qualifying the encompassing class as a member of itself if, and only if, it is not (it would have to count itself as a member of this class of non-​self-​members, thus immediately violating its membership again). But as “no class can, in formal logical or mathematical discourse, be a member of itself ” (Bateson [1972] 2000: 279), we are faced with serious questions about class-​based thinking and, more specifically, the relationships between the world of explanation and the world of things we try to explain. For Quine (1976: 7), the importance of Russell’s antinomy lies in the fact that, while we can remove some examples of paradoxes, Epimenides included, purely on logical grounds as absurdities, there remains in our “habits of thought an overwhelming presumption of there being such a class.” While we may not believe in the veracity of an ancient Greek tale, we do not doubt existence of classes per se, despite the problems encountered. When Bateson, following on from the faux pas identified by Russell, proclaims that as “a class of classes cannot be one of the classes which [at the same time count as one of] its members,” we must accept that “a name is not the thing named” (Bateson [1972] 2000: 279). Such talk may appear as alien and incomprehensible to us as Escher’s drawings do. But this may merely be because we have forgotten to question the fissures of conceptual language. Instead, like Robert Owen, we look to better manage potential members of classes such as the poor or the worker, complex though it now might be with all the sub classes of wealth and work patterns; we bemoan perhaps the organizational difficulty without thinking of the conceptual absurdity by which it is structured (cf. Quine 1976: 7). For now, we remain deep believers in the existence of classes, and given their paradoxical fissures, we are beholden to probe into the foundations of that belief some more.

Universal Significance versus Singular Ineffability One reason for our largely unquestioned belief in class-​based thinking is rooted in the utility of devising “extended macroscopic events” (Korzybski [1933] 1994: 383); accumulations of experience gathered by abstracting some properties of things into the linguistic form of an object, while omitting others. The efficacy of such a logic can be readily grasped: a logic of classes distinguishes and values the similarities of objects over their individual differences; it abstracts into generalities, apparently without losing awareness of particularity: this Cretan called Epimenides is a liar, or this worker is poor both in body and mind. The structural and semantic benefits of such “extended macroscopic events” emerge as the products of class-​based knowledge converge in codified systems of Gestalten, which classify all events and objects that present themselves as such, enabling expedient and progressive human communication well versed in summary,

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    93 comparison, and verification (Korzybski [1933] 1994: 375; Ruesch and Bateson 1951: 176). Where Bateson observes monkeys apparently engaging in lengthy negotiations of meaning, our human language of classes and members makes it possible to develop the kind of progressive knowledge that propels modern science, engineering, and management because it lets us group, compare, and count things. We may see a worker with two comrades and say: there are three workers. We ascribe something mathematical to them, the number “three” or something organizational: a small assembly, which we recognize in them but which we cannot derive from them. What “three” is the three workers? Pointing to three dots does not help, nor comparing it with three apples or cats, nor will any triumvirate or trilogy, because we can only use three if we already know what “three” is (Heidegger 1993: 276). Categories therefore allow us to add something we already know to something new. It is in this way that history provides the means to imagine the future (Valery 1962: 7), so “three” workers become an assembly from which grouping the managed reform of work processes becomes possible as “three” can then be extended to three hundred, or three thousand, and across different assemblies. But Owen discovered in his frustration that the clarity gained through codified class-​ based “extended macroscopic events” runs against the individuality and uniqueness of what Korzybski calls “point events” ([1933] 1994: 383). After all, even if Owen sees these workers as belonging to classes (workers, poor, uneducated, etc.), these similarities do not capture their unique individuality. The class-​based differentiation of this or that person as a member of the category “workers” is a division between parts and wholes; a division between what we perceive (foremost, for Owen, the “property” of poverty of mind and body) and the infinite number of individual characteristics that remain in uncommunicative, unnoticed background when they do not share a common property (his or her laughter, pride, stoicism, resentment). It is this fission between the general and the specific that led Korzybski ([1933] 1994: 58, original italics) to proclaim: “a map is not the territory it represents”; “a word is not the object it represents.” The word “worker” designates all workers indifferently (a class) and thereby posits a “proper universal significance in place of singular ineffable individuals” (Agamben 1993: 10). However, this comprehension of singular distinct individuals in a category such as workers “is nothing but the name” (Agamben 1993: 10). Reality, on the other hand, “is the realization of the world as a source of appearances and forms rather than their objective, independent existences” (Cooper 2014: 585). Just like a joiner’s pencil1 shares similarities with the root class “pencil” (and thus with pencil2-​n) while remaining a specific object (a sharp/​blunt, working/​broken worker’s tool perhaps), a worker may be both poor in mind and body as well as an individual. In being named a worker she both belongs and does not belong to herself. Classes, maps, words, names, are therefore both indispensable for an efficiency of communication and, in their more abstract form, for scientific progress. But the more abstract language becomes the less these hierarchies and classes (and their associated predicate–​subject relations of language) can reflect the world they are designed to capture (M. C. Bateson 1972: 69; Bateson and Bateson 1987: 27). The ensuing paradox of ungrateful workers that so puzzled Owen is the product of a conflation of two distinct

94   What Paradox? levels:  of “extended macroscopic events” and “point events.” The resulting impossibility of logic to combine both the similarities as well as the differences between class and member-​based properties (see Korzybski [1933] 1994: 381) that are divided but still belong together “in perfect continence” (Spencer Brown 1969: 1). Division is therefore always a di-​vision; a separation of parts from wholes; the latter serving as “comprehensive containers” of the former (Cooper 2014: 586).

The Importance and Difficulty of Integration Korzybski (2002: 59) warns that our reliance on “antiquated map-​language, by necessity must lead us to semantic disasters, as it imposes and reflects its unnatural structure on the structure of our doctrines and institutions.” The continued antimony between the universal and the specific, between timeless class-​based verities that allow for efficient classification of phenomena and the unruliness of individual characteristics, continually tempts us to emphasize abstract levels over individual ones; emphasizing “efficient” universal terms while ignoring messy specifics. But this ascription of abstract concepts and logic to the world does not match the patterns of living things. Here we begin to elaborate our above concerns in terms of organizational thinking, beginning with Tsoukas and Chia’s (2002) suggestion that organization is synonymous with processes of “generalization” where various particulars are subsumed under generic categories providing a degree of stability; a temporary “punctuation of the flow of organizational life” (2002: 579). More forcefully, Agamben ([1990] 2009: 9) warns us that paradoxes, rather than being merely problematic in the sense of resisting logical completion, “define the place of the linguistic being,” for they mark out the possibility of exceptions in which out of joint space neither the determination of laws nor the nihilism of outright rejection carry any force. A pencil or a worker are at the same time sets as they are singularities (the pencil1; the worker) but where we may remain comfortable with the loss of individuality in a class of pencils, we run against a possibly monstrous set of distinctions in the case of living things; plants, animals, and humans. Human beings are a “class that both belongs and does not belong to itself ” (Agamben [1990] 2009: 9); being is the open fault line between part and whole; a di-​vision that ought not be wrested apart. Acknowledging such paradoxes pushes us to consider how to replace the map-​ language of the kind that frustrated Robert Owen. Korzybski (2002: 58) qualified his famous exclamation that “a map is not the territory it represents” as follows: “but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” But how may such a similarity in structure be attained? In other words, do we give up on mapping or experiment with alternative forms? One possibility emerges from Bateson’s 1972 essay Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art that outlines an attempt at

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    95 syntactically integrating different layers of social and material investigation. He refers to “grace” when naming the multiple levels that belong to an undivided whole, like a shark’s genome gracefully complementing the characteristics of hydrodynamics. This encompasses both extended macroscopic and point events; in Bateson’s words: the reasons of the heart and the reasons of the mind. Grace, the integration of these events and reasons, is difficult for humans to attain. While we may like to think that we “reign supreme in our own consciousness, that we are masters of what our minds accept or reject,” the “industrialisation of our minds” (Enzensberger 1982: 2,5) means our modes of understanding are always already being mediated by conceptual patterns, logics, and language, largely overriding non-​categorical ways of perceiving (cf. Ong [1982] 2002). This works in intricate ways: the lions on London’s Trafalgar Square representing the power of the British Empire could be replaced by eagles or bulldogs without losing the thrust of meaning but, Bateson ([1972] 2000: 130) asks, “how different might their message have been had they been made of wood?” Pondering on the meaning inherent in material as well as form indicates the integration of the categorical, reasoned insights by which we can come to indicate something-​as-​something, with aspects of style, rhythm, feel, skill and so on, the totality of which conveys meaning. There is a pushing back into the oral and away from the literate here. What appears to be at play in these processes is a series of transformations by which a message is encoded: from real empires to stone or wood figures to perceived, mythological notions of Great Britain. Bateson insists that what is of interest to him is not the message, not how this lion represents that empire, but how the rules of these transformations, their code, engenders a “spelling out of forms of knowing” (McLuhan [1964] 2001: 62) and is therefore indicative of the epochal parameters of the culture in which they are employed. Understanding these rules of transformation is therefore not the same as decoding the message, but rather an attempt at getting close to the patterns by which meaning is brought about.

A Syntax for Integration To achieve such an epistemological shift, Bateson ([1972] 2000: 131) offers a syntactical form depicting a logic that invokes patterns as opposed to fixing content (Zundel 2014). He begins with what he calls “redundancy”: a pattern of information exchange within which it is generally possible to guess, with better than random chance of success, what an apparent “part” or “arc” might infer about hitherto unapparent and so temporally and/​or spatially extending continuations of the arc within the wider circuits. The arc of the circle suggests a pattern or degree of redundancy that allows us to guess at what else might be there: from a drawn arc we can guess, with more than random success, at remaining parts of the circumference. Bateson himself plays with metaphors here, calling it a “hand drawn arc,” and as such distinct from the arc of a geometrically ideal circle. Guessing is not computing, the latter merely being proof of a “truth within a tautological system” ([1972] 2000: 133). The artist Ben Nicholson did something similar in hand

96   What Paradox? drawing the apparently geometric shapes of his white reliefs so as to belie the appearance of pure form and reveal the possibilities inherent in even the slightest deviation. Redundancy describes empirical experience, not geometry, and so affords us grip on what is absent but might become present. Raising an arm in greeting, for example, is an arcing pattern of information exchange where we have a better than random sense of the nature of any response. The gesture already contains meaning about the reply, which completes the circle by realizing one of the finite guessable possibilities. We can depict this as follows: [Greeting (wave)/​Reciprocal greeting (wave back)] The square brackets indicate the universe of relevance (in this case the practice or language game of greeting) and the slash marks the threshold where redundancy can be read. These may refer to spatial or temporal (or both) cuts, and the prediction involved may be either predictive or retrospective: “A pattern, in fact, is definable as an aggregate of events or objects which will permit in some degree such guesses when the entire aggregate is not available for inspection” ([1972] 2000: 140). The syntax can equally be applied to the sculpted lions: [Lions/​Characteristics of boldness, resilience, strength] [Lions in Trafalgar Square /​Characteristics of the British Empire] Being familiar with the patterns of coding in a culture, one is able to guess that the stone lions indicate characteristics attributable to animals, humans, and “collectives” like empires. Most of all communication, Bateson argues, is conducted not for the aim of conveying specific messages but to develop such redundancy and therefore predictability, and any newcomer to a culture will need to become familiar with its language games to become a proficient participant. In these examples, we can guess the message content (e.g., lions indicating power; a greeting followed by a reciprocal greeting) as well as the “the code” by which the message moves ([1972] 2000: 130). The greeting is entirely relational, each sender eliciting the meaning in the receiver, and back again, in processes of collectively agreed and historically sedimented encounters, rather than arriving at a situation separately, with separately conceived greetings. The greeting code is not about specific actions and words, so much as a capacity and willingness to be in sociable proximity, to be sympathetic to others, listening and taking turns, trusting to the greeting’s integrity. Such codes cannot be reduced to words easily, but constitute the background condition against which greetings make sense and out of which a sense of a culture’s characteristics might be imputed through social science investigation. Even in these simple examples, a rather complex syntax is at play as slash marks can be drawn across many parts of a message. We can predict from the word “lion” the presence of a mane, teeth, four paws, and a tail and, with this, further “internal patterning.”

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    97 The movement here is intricate; from verbal (digital) to iconic units of message material, from a word to actual teeth. Slash marks may also be drawn to indicate a wider patterning, for instance about the relationship between greeters who may or may not respond to the message. This may be depicted as follows: [(Greeting /​Reciprocal greeting)/​greeters’ relationship/​ . . . ] The slash marks indicate the various points across which redundancy may be read; the round brackets delimit the smaller universe of movements or utterances and responses. The square brackets indicate the wider universe of relevance, including the history of the relationship between both individuals that exceeds their specific moment of interaction. Using this syntax in the discussion of classes and members, and, in particular, the distinction between extended macroscopic and point events, we can write Epimenides’ and Owen’s explicit and implied messages thus: [(Epimenides proclaims “Cretians, all liars” /​Epimenides is lying) /​interlocutor caught by the paradox /​… ]1 [(workers, poor in mind and body /​workers want an ordered world) /​Owen’s (un) familiarity with the reality of being a worker in New Harmony /​ . . . ] The round brackets again indicate the smaller universe of relevance and here we can read across the slash mark from the message to what may be meant by the term “lying” in specific instances. The slash mark indicates the moment at which the explicit, digital statement stops, and the reading from what is “said” (the visible arc) to what can be “read into” begins. The difficulty, however, is to specify more clearly what exactly these entail and we are faced with what Quine (1976: 7) called our “habits of thought” that make us see a class of Cretans or workers, in the same way in which Ong’s ([1982] 2002) “moderately literary” study subjects began to see circles and other geometrical shapes and classes, where their oral peers saw individual objects like buckets, moons, and so on. Belonging to the class of Cretans, Epimenides must be lying; belonging to the working class, Owen’s workers must aspire to material and social betterment. The second slash mark indicates the passage to the wider universe of relevance, namely the various phenomena in their ineffable situational significance; an infinite array of point events that forever evades categorical grasp. Whatever the message elicits in terms of redundancy in the smaller universe, be it “Cretans” referring to aspects of citizenship, residency, cultural belonging, or other factors designating membership in this class, or workers referring to aspects of labour value, muscle power, wages and the like, there will be no simple relationship of these with the features of the wider universe; with the many 1 

We could add other slash marks too. How an interlocutor reacts to the message “Cretans, always liars,” whether they would just believe it, or go out and investigate, would say something about the you–​ me relationship between both people, and so on.

98   What Paradox? individual features that these exhibit save for our knowledge that both transformations are “ungraceful”: the interlocutor is stifled by the paradox; workers can resent Owen’s imposed order. The complexity of these relations is indicated by what Bateson ([1972] 2000: 459) calls “difference.” Take the line the joiner’s pencil leaves on a board; what we notice is not the line itself as condensed layer of graphite, but rather the difference between the grey line and wooden board: the difference that makes the difference. The world of ideas and thus the smaller universe in the round brackets in our example above is entirely made up of difference, and not of things, and any direct correspondence between, say the thickness of the pencil line and the object it refers to is in a complex sense incidental. Bateson uses examples for such “graceful” correspondence: a shark’s genome that, whilst not containing information about hydrodynamics, nonetheless makes it beautifully shaped for locomotion in water. And yet, it is precisely the conflation of these layers, the assumption that the shark’s genome “knows something about” hydrodynamics, that sets in gear paradoxical relations of the kind Owen bemoans when workers are not seen to conform to ideas of happiness, when the lines do not match up.

Example: A Syntax for Organizational Routines Following this basic sketch of syntax we can attempt its application to a recognized site of paradoxical relations: organizational routines. Traditionally identified as generators of stability in organizations (March and Simon 1958), routines are also associated with change: reactively, when a routine embodies a truce between latent conflicts (Zbaracki and Bergen 2010); when organizations “search” for more efficient practices (Nelson and Winter 1982: 14; Hodgson 2003); or when multiple organizational features need to be coordinated (Gersick and Hackman 1990); and (pro)actively when routines themselves become powerful motors for ongoing changes (Adler, et al. 1999; Lewin et al. 2011), continually stimulating new routine configurations that bring about innovation (Howard-​ Grenville and Parmigiani 2011). How, then, are we to grasp routines? Tight sets of rules will not suffice as performances always entail improvizational aspects so that even vastly varying actions can still belong to the same “family” of routines (Feldman and Pentland 2003: 101). Rather than treating routines as “things” (Helin et al. 2014; Tsoukas and Chia 2002: 574), scholars have invoked metaphors, such as genes or grammars to lend conceptual grip without fixing or “arresting” parts of the explanatory model. They have pointed to the “flexible yet persistent” routine character where routine actions recreate or revise social expectations, influencing subsequent enactments (Howard-​Grenville 2005: 629), as they are nested in—​and productive of—​social structures that play a crucial role in shaping social expectations (Feldman and Pentland 2003).

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    99 We can begin to redress these concerns in the language and syntax elaborated above. For Nelson and Winter (1982: 14), routines are: “regular and predictable behavior patterns of firms,” while Feldman and Pentland (2003: 103) add that while particular instantiations of routines may differ, they are held together by resemblance that allows their recognition as a coherent category. Understanding a routine goes beyond recognizing particular actions to also predict wider—​latent—​processes and artifacts connected with that routine. Being familiar with a language game, for example, similarly allows us to predict (even if not the exact content), something about the ending of a half-​finished sentence.2 We see this in a recent study conducted by Rerup and Feldman (2011: 579) who see organizational routines as “patterns for accomplishing work that achieves stability and change through endogenous interactions between the performative and ostensive parts that constitute them.” In a study of a Danish University research lab, LLD, Rerup and Feldman identify a hierarchical nesting of sub-​routines within higher order routines and schemes. Focusing specifically on the relationship between a recruiting routine and wider interpretive schemes, the authors identify dissonance (“the recruiting routine was seriously crippled,” p. 593) between recruitment processes, for instance in terms of contracting and the requirements of the wider environment in which LLD operated. Wider schemata included the ideal of creating an entrepreneurial outfit freed from the bureaucratic strictures of the Danish University of Education (DUP), to which the organization was formally assigned. The schemata also included a sense of being “hip” (2011:  589), a collection of extraordinary minds doing extraordinary things by transcending old-​fashioned norms and values; as well as a sense for family and belonging. A simplified depiction of this may be as follows: [(Problematic recruitment routine /​new employees arriving unannounced /​ computers not set up /​contracts not in place /​contracts not approved by DUP) /​ Entrepreneurial spirit /​Family ethos /​Government plans /​ . . . ] As the smaller universe (following the first slash mark) we can identify the observed problems. However, it is clear these observed actions are merely some of the characteristics of any recruitment routine; those making the linguistic trans-​substantiation from territory to map. Even without having explicit information about LLD, we can guess that “welcoming” may involve opening a door or shaking a hand; or that employees may feel disappointment, be in a sombre mood, or even shed a few tears, when arriving at a new workplace only to find out that nothing is prepared for them. Most of us are able to make such guesses due to our familiarity with recruitment processes as such which allow us to infer something about latent characteristics of the observed activities beyond what was actually reported. 2  Jokes are an important example of this. They work because they upset our predictions, turning what we assume to be the case from part of the story onto its head in the final “punch line”; Dennis Joseph Enwright’s poem “the typewriter revolution” shows how such prediction changes with technology.

100   What Paradox? The slash marks following the round brackets mark the transition into a wider universe of relevances. All these belong—​in an essential way—​to the observed activities, dovetailing into one another, yet they required a process of imaginative extension to “construct” from a diverse set of particulars a coherent picture of LLD’s routines, cultural ethos, or wider political ideals. LLD’s recruitment routine invokes these particular aspects of the wider environment together with even further entailments, for instance about what is meant by “entrepreneurial” or “public.”

Routine Integration In our syntax, the round brackets again indicate the smaller universe of relevance and here we can read across the slash mark from the message to what may be meant by the label “recruitment routine.” The slash mark indicates the transition from what is “said” or “seen” (the visible arc) to what can be “read into” the statement; including a digital/​ analogue transition, for example from the word “disappointment” to actual tears; as well as a transition from a smaller universe of meaning to wider schemata populating the university and education sector writ large. However, rather than suggesting that schemata are “enacted” (e.g., Rerup and Feldman 2011), we can follow Bateson in likening “successful” integration to “grace.” The shark’s grace stems from the integration of its genome with the demands of hydrodynamics. But the genome contains no information about the characteristics of hydrodynamics, just as with monkeys the baring of teeth contains no information about the intention to play, rather than attack. What about the routine? The routine equally carries no information of the wider schemata at play; the routine does not “know” about family values, entrepreneurship, and bureaucratic tradition. The latter are merely limited expressions of extended macroscopic events that signify the arches of wider patterns, too vast and complex to be fully represented, but whose interconnectedness of interdependent parts constitutes the wider system of relevance. With this in mind we can look at the department’s reactions. LLD employed ambassadors and recruitment specialists as well as formalizing its recruitment procedures (Rerup and Feldman 2011:  594). Such an increase in definition and control can be attained if parts of the message are decoded:  The DUP’s coding is akin to:  “recruitment/​DUP rules are followed,” as opposed to LLD’s prior coding as: “recruitment/​quick appointments trump departmental rules.” LLD’s response is literal: it takes from these wider schemes a few characteristics: the need to tick boxes, gain approval, formalize the process, hire specialists, but the question remains if these adjustments lead to a further integration of the di-​vision at play or if they are merely a “bag of tricks” (Bateson [1972] 2000: 439). The danger is that, in isolating a few elements as if they stood for the wider schemata or classes without questioning the nature of these classes themselves, the department moves toward a logical impasse. One participant notes that: “It’s a paradox. We are a young organization, but in some ways we act as if we are a very old organization” (Rerup and Feldman 2011: 599). This participant’s

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    101 confusion is indicative of a severance of the patterns that connect; of treating classes and members alike. Instead, we might be mindful that welcoming new employees is not the routine called recruitment, and that recruitment is not the scheme called “entrepreneurship,” “bureaucracy,” or “family”—​just as the thing is not the thing named and a category is not the object it aims to represent (Korzybski [1933] 1994). LLD’s literal response runs the danger not only of confusing its employees but also decreasing exposure to hitherto unrealized, unarticulated possibility; a lack of what Bateson calls “system wisdom” by which we become aware of the ever-​unfolding arrangements of mutually implicated, nested systems: of the code in itself. This focus on certain kinds of phenomena, and a lack of concern for wider systems and one’s influence on them, endangers the potentiality for change, or what Bateson ([1972] 2000: 510) calls the basic ecology of flexibility by which any system, be it human agent, organization, or institution, is sustained and survives. Bateson’s ([1972] 2000: 135) key contribution is that yet a third type of knowing exists that is manifest in an almost physiologically adapted style of movement. Here, grace is not a characteristic of “things + relations” (either concrete point events or abstract structures) but of relations alone and his syntax, which we developed above, indicates their rules of transformation. The syntax of brackets and slash marks offers a way of talking about specifics without assuming that membership of wider classes means members are classes. Instead, it affords inquiry into processes of relating small to the large; what is fleeting to stability; or present and absent. The coding of such processes is culturally sensitive, so that in understanding how participants integrate these patterns inquiry might also read across from the shape and poise of a person to the kind of environment to which she is accustomed. As an indication of grace, the syntax gives us a sense of the interconnectedness and interdependency, how human and material forms correspond to, or refuse in some way, the atmospheric demands of other systems, and in doing so become more or less articulate in themselves. So what about LLD’s options for response? No categorical answer can be given here: the question of integrating “categories” and “members” cannot itself be a matter of categorization: grace cannot be reduced to particular characteristics, but rather to a capacity to embrace the fault line that connects parts with the undivided whole (Agamben [1990] 2009). The syntax admits a “purely conscious control of the working process is neither desirable nor possible” in the attainment of grace, and that instead a suggestive construction of associations is made possible whose apparent order, like a still life painting by Cézanne, is far from fixed, but restless, and where things live in a form of open democracy rather than hierarchy (Ehrenzweig 1967: 57).

Concluding Remarks We began this discussion with Korzybski’s ([1933] 1994) distinction between “abstract macroscopic events” and “point events” and the suggestion that the establishment of a conceptual form, such as a routine, is a di-​vision of parts from a containing whole: a

102   What Paradox? world of appearances and forms (Cooper 2014: 585). Enzensberger’s (1982) “industrialization of the mind” conceptualizes precisely this insight, that concepts appear so much more real to us than the confusing and infinite mass of individual “point events.” We should therefore not be surprised about the lack of integration of wider and smaller universes but rather see such disintegration as a natural product of a di-​vision that affords identification of class-​based logics, and thus that continually allows us to add something we already know to something new. Identifying things and relations between them heightens our sense of technological control over the world in some ways, but it does so by bringing the temporal and spatial horizons of our known world ever closer. Paradoxes afford an important glimpse into the fissures created by the division of form from entropic mess and we have argued that, rather than avoiding them, paradoxes may prompt us to begin to recover the complexities that are involved when these inconsistencies come to the fore. Our sketch of Bateson’s ([1972] 2000: 132–​6) analytic indicates how meanings are ever expanding and how systems are ever inter-​relating, as such avoiding the over-​intellectualized accounts of social phenomena in whose clarity and precision our awareness of wider conditions of possibility is closed off. Its concern instead is with the processes by which phenomena mutually emerge, grow, and decay and how, from within these, we might find and present meanings without foreclosing on other possible meanings. We have argued that attempts at refining the contents of the smaller and wider universes, indicated by round and square brackets, may be more complicated than merely measuring some sort of correspondence. Here we can return to the notion of “grace.” The grace of the shark lies in the beautiful complementary nature of the message in its genome with the properties of water but this grace of physis remains only limitedly within human grasp. Owen experiences this, as his vision of harmony gives way despite his generous provision for its realization. Even the grace of the lions in Trafalgar Square appears to be vanishing as they no longer complement the features of a world empire but, perhaps, look somewhat out of place in its modern day form where power, steadfastness, and global reach are giving way to forces of austerity and national uncertainty. The recovery of the recruiting routine, equally, appears to speak only limitedly to wider systemic concerns. Only in very rare cases are we able to see more than the remnants of the arcs of such wider systems. Kittler (2006: 49) mentions one such exception: the mathematical engineer Claude Shannon who, as a student at MIT, devised a machine featuring merely one single On/​Off switch. When being switched to On, the machine’s lid would open and a mechanical hand would put the switch to Off again before disappearing below the lid.

References Adler, P. S., Goldoftas, B., and Levine, D. I. 1999. Flexibility versus efficiency? A case study of model changeovers in the Toyota production system. Organization Science, 10: 43–​68. Agamben, G. (1990) 2009. The Coming Community, translated by M. Hardt. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel    103 Bateson, G. (1972) 2000. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: IL: University of Chicago Press. Bateson, G. 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. London: Wildwood House. Bateson, G., and Bateson, M. C. 1987. Angels Fear:  Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. New York, NY: Macmillan. Bateson, M. C. 1972. Our Own Metaphor. New York, NY: Alfed A Knopf. Cooper, R. 2014. Process and reality. In The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies, edited by J. Helin, T. Hernes, D. Hjorth, and R. Holt, 589–​605. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ehrenzweig, A. 1967. The Hidden Order of Art. London: Trinity Press. Enzensberger, H. M. 1982. Critical Essays. New York, NY: Continuum. Escher, M. C. 1948. Interview. Online. The Metropolitan Mathematician’s Journal http://​ www.3villagecsd.k12.ny.us/​wmhs/​Departments/​Math/​OBrien/​escher.html. Feldman, M. S., and Pentland, B. T. 2003. Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 94–​124. Gersick, C. J., and Hackman, J. R. (1990). Habitual routines in task-​performing groups. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 47: 65–​97. Heidegger, M. 1993. Basic Writings, edited by D. Farrell Krell. London: Routledge. Helin, J., Hernes, T., Hjorth, D., and Holt, R. (eds) 2014. Introduction. In The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies, edited by J. Helin, T. Hernes, D. Hjorth, and R. Holt, 1–​16. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodgson, G. M. 2003. The mystery of the routine. Revue Economique, 54: 355–​84. Howard-​Grenville, J. A. 2005. The persistence of flexible organizational routines: The role of agency and organizational context. Organization Science, 16(6): 618–​36. Howard-​Grenville, J. A., and Parmigiani, A. 2011. Routines revisited: Exploring the capabilities and practice perspectives. Academy of Management Annals, 5: 413–​53. Kittler, F. 2006. Thinking colours and/​or machines. Theory, Culture and Society, 23(7–​8): 39–​50. Korzybski, A. (1933) 1994. Science and Sanity. (5th edn). Englewood, NJ: International Non-​ Aristotelian Library. Lewin, A. Y., Massini, S., and Peeters, C. 2011. Microfoundations of internal and external absorptive capacity routines. Organization Science, 22: 81–​98. March, J. G., and Simon, H. A. 1958. Organizations. New York, NY: John Wiley. McLuhan, M. (1964) 2001. Understanding Media. London: Routledge. Nelson, R. R., and Winter, S. G. 1982. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ong, W. J. (1982) 2002. Orality and Literacy. London: Routledge. Owen, R. 1813. A New View of Society. London: Free Press. Quine, W. V. 1976. The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays. London: Harvard University Press. Rerup, C., and Feldman, S. 2011. Routines as a source of change in organizational schemata: The role of trial-​and-​error learning. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3): 577–​610. Ruesch, J., and Bateson, G. 1951. Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Russell, B., and Whitehead, A. N. 1910. Principia Mathematica, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer Brown, G. 1969. Laws of Form. New York, NY: Julian Press. Stiegler, B. 1994. Technics and Time. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tsoukas, H., and Chia, R. 2002. On organizational becoming:  Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, (13): 567–​82.

104   What Paradox? Valery, P. 1962. The Outlook for Intelligence, translated by D. Folliot. Bollington Series XLV10. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zbaracki, M., and Bergen, M. 2010. When truces collapse:  A  longitudinal study of price-​ adjustment routines. Organization Science, 21: 955–​72. Zundel, M. 2014. Gregory Bateson. In The Oxford Handbook of Process Philosophy and Organization Studies, edited by J. Helin, T. Hernes, D. Hjorth, and R. Holt, 364–​79. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 5

Organiz ati ona l Dialect i c s Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha

Recently, mainstream organizational scholars such as Nonaka and Toyama (2002) have notably described firms as dialectical beings. The notion of “dialectics” has an important and venerable tradition in the humanities. Long before it was adopted by paradox-​oriented organizational scholars as one of the strategies for tackling opposition and contradiction, it had been used by some of the most prominent thinkers in human history, including Hegel, Marx, and Bakhtin. We discuss the meaning of dialectics, its importance for organizational theorizing as well as its difference from overlapping concepts, including tension, dilemma, and paradox. While organizational researchers have noted that the theorizing of paradox and dialectics sometimes overlap (Costanzo and Di Domenico 2015; Farjoun 2017; Smith and Lewis 2011)  we will concentrate on differences rather than juxtapositions. In so doing we highlight the central role of transcendence as the defining characteristic of dialectical reasoning from the Hegelian perspective adopted here. Transcendence may be an option when managers have to respond to requirements that are contradictory, such as closing hospitals while improving healthcare, producing beautifully crafted yet affordable and profitable products, reinforcing job security while increasing competitiveness (Abdallah et al. 2011). We explore the expression of transcendence through synthesis as it emerged in the field of organization studies to map extant research and further opportunities for theorizing.

Dialectics: Assumptions and Ideas The term “dialectic” has a long intellectual history in the social sciences. It dates back to ancient Greece where it referred to the art of conversation (Hall 1967). Hall (1967: 385) explained that dialectics refer to the search for truth by reasoning, while

106   Organizational Dialectics explaining that such meaning is too vague to pay justice to the richness of the approach.1 More contemporaneously, Schneider (1971: 667) identified seven meanings of the dialectic in sociology, all of which seem relevant for organizational theorizing. The definitional diversity of dialectics is problematic with the term being “neither clear nor univocal” (Zeitz 1980: 73). Unsurprisingly then, dialectics offers not a theory but as Benson (1977) argued, and as Baxter and Montgomery (1996: 6) affirm, a meta-​ theoretical perspective, a “small set of conceptual assumptions,” which revolve around contradiction, change, praxis, and totality, central tenets of Marxist/​Hegelian thought. Hook (1939: 378) argued that the term, dialectics, is “so infected with ambiguity” that it should be avoided, while Bhaskar (1993: 3) lamented that “any more or less intricate process of conceptual and social (and sometimes even natural) conflict, interconnection and change, in which the generation, interpenetration, and clash of oppositions, leading to their transcendence in a fuller or more adequate mode of thought form of life (or being)” can be referred to as dialectical. As Zeitz (1980: 73) summarizes, “in its most general and loosest sense, dialectics refers to any aspect of social processes having to do with conflict, paradox, mutual interaction, unintended consequence, and the like.” Hegel’s philosophy, with its focus on thesis, anti-​thesis, and synthesis, is a foundational reference for dialectical organizational scholars. Rescher (1996: 13) summarizes it thus: For Hegel, whatever exists in the world of reality or ideas is never a stable object but a processual item that is in transit and cannot be properly understood through its stable properties or as a succession of stable states, a matter of now this, now that. It is a process, an item constantly reshaped in an ongoing development proceeding through the operation of a dialectic that continually blends conflicting opposites into a unitary but inherently unstable fusion.

Some authors have critiqued the “mechanistic quality” (Baxter 2004:  183)  of Hegel’s thinking about change as a movement from thesis to anti-​thesis to synthesis but his conception remains central. If one considers transcendence as the core of dialectics, then Hegel is inescapable. Hegel was an influence not only for Marx, as we shall see, but also a number of influential thinkers, including Schumpeter (Prendergast 2005), whose notion of creative destruction resonates with Hegelian thought. Marx’s dialectical materialism, “arguably the best known member of the dialectical family” (Baxter and Montgomery 1996:  4)  focused on the process of material 1 

Hall advanced eight possible important meanings of the term in Ancient Greek thought: “(1) the method of refutation by examining logical consequences, (2) sophistical reasoning, (3) the method of division or repeated logical analysis of general into species, (4) an investigation of the supremely general abstract notions by some process of reasoning leading up to them from particular cases or hypotheses, (5) logical reasoning or debate using premises that are merely probable or generally accepted, (6) formal logic, (7) the criticism of the logic of illusion, showing the contradictions into which reason falls in trying to go beyond experience to deal with transcendental objects, and (8) the logical development of thought or reality through thesis and antithesis to a synthesis of these opposites” (1967: 385)

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    107 production, namely on the tension between the forces of production and the relations of production and has been especially influential in the fields of political economy and sociology. Social conflict, generated by contradictions, will precipitate change through praxis, where the proletarian class generated by capitalist relations of production strives to overthrow the dominance of the forces of production by the owners of capital. Authors such as Benson (1977) and Clegg and Dunkerley (1980) translated Marxist dialectics into organization theory, initiating a stream of continued research in which the study of contradiction is conceived as a source of institutional change (e.g., Seo and Creed 2002; Clegg 2015). A third main dialectical tradition, relational dialectics, was advanced by Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogism. To this theorist of culture, language, and philosophy “social life was not a closed, univocal, ‘monologue’, in which only a single voice (perspective, theme, ideology, or person) could be heard:  social life was an open ‘dialogue’ characterized by the simultaneous fusion and differentiation of voices. To engage in dialogue, participants must fuse their perspectives to some extent while sustaining the uniqueness of their individual perspectives” (Baxter 2004: 181). Bakhtin’s insistence on the notion that social processes are shaped by tension and contradiction, a struggle between centripetal and centrifugal social forces, a relational dialectic, became influential for organizational theorists, especially those from a communication field who early became familiar with his work (e.g., Baxter and Montgomery 1996; Putnam 2003; Mumby 2005). Social life, in this perspective, exists in and through people’s communicative practices, by which people articulate opposing tendencies. The dialectical social world is a “dynamic knot of contradictions, a ceaseless interplay between contrary or opposing tendencies” (Baxter and Montgomery 1996: 3, italics in the original). According to authors such as Poole and Van de Ven (1989), Putnam (2004), and Seo, Putnam, and Bartunek (2004), dialectics represents one of several possible ways of tackling contradiction. Contradictions do not necessarily create dialectics: contradictions can be faced managerially via exclusion, separation, integration, and connection as well as synthesized in the classic Hegelian sense. We shall next consider each approach.

Managerialist Responses to Contradictions Exclusion A contradiction may be ignored. In this case, one extreme is taken as realistic and the other is deemed irrelevant and therefore selected out. In practical management terms, the “right” pole has to be selected. For instance, scientific management privileged exploitation over exploration as the path to efficiency. Because “boundaries reside in the

108   Organizational Dialectics observer(s), not the observed” (Ford and Ford 1994: 760), observers may draw a boundary that excludes one pole from attention. For example, if an organization accepts that systematization is so crucial that it decides to ignore freedom and empowerment, it can simply locate a potential antithesis on the outside of its bounded attention, thus ignoring it. Organizations can emphasize stability at the cost of change. They can refine focus while avoiding peripheral opportunities (Cunha et  al. 2015). The exclusive approach to contradiction seems to be common. Consider the following illustration by Reed Hastings, co-​founder and CEO of Netflix: My first company, Pure Software, was exciting and innovative in the first few years and bureaucratic and painful in the last few before it got acquired. The problem was we tried to systematize everything and set up perfect procedures. We thought that was a good thing, but it killed freedom and responsibility. (Hastings 2012: 62)

Separation In the case of separation, contradiction is admitted but one pole is selected over the other at a specific moment and subsequently reversed. Separation manifests itself in several forms including separation in time, in space, and in the division of work roles. In the case of temporal separation, attention to one pole is succeeded by attention to the alternative pole (Vermeulen et al. 2010). The idea is that successive moments of attention will permit focus without crystallizing on any one aspect. In spatial separation, parts of a system will focus on one pole, other parts on the other. This corresponds to the logic of structural ambidexterity (O’Reilly and Tushman 2013). Role separation occurs when members of one system split their behaviors in such a way that some members focus on one pole while other members consider the other, in the same space and time. When some prison guards act like good cops and others as bad cops, they are enacting this approach (Tracy 2004). The same can happen with negotiators. Authors from “tension-​centered scholarship” (Trethewey and Ashcraft 2004)  have defended the proposition that transcendence can offer richer solutions to practical demands than more dualistic approaches:  “scholarship that denies the powerful presence of tensions neglects the basic character of organizational life” (Ashcraft and Trethewey 2004: 171).

Integration Contradictions can be approached via integration. Here, the opposites are no longer viewed as independent but as interdependent. The dualisms start to be approached as dualities and the previous separation gives place to the articulation of opposition. In this mode, a fusion is attempted between opposites in such a way that it is acknowledged that one pole requires the other to maintain the organization as vigorous and vibrant (no master without servant, no predator without prey, no collaboration without

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    109 competition). The concept of ambidexterity, for example, evolved from separation to integration, with the realization that duality can help to frame organizational issues and forms of understanding in more sophisticated ways than those permitted by dualism.

Connection In the connection mode, the push-​pulls of a tension are maintained as active and operative, in such a way that the forces of thesis and antithesis are never neutralized with the organization thriving through its capacity to mix extremes (Clegg et al. 2002). It is the tension that stimulates an organization to maintain a balance that is dynamic and facilitative of change. The organization, in this perspective, sustains paradox, instead of resolving it, as happens with transcendence. In this perspective, the tension is represented as a source of dynamism rather than a conflict that needs to be minimized or transformed. When organizations such as Toyota articulate contradictions as critical for success (Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimizu 2008), they are invoking the power of connection.

Thesis/​Antithesis/​Synthesis Put to Managerial Use The classic dialectic is an opposition of a thesis and its antithesis or anti-​thesis: the resolution of the contradiction between the two states of being can only become resolved though their resolution into a new synthesis, which, in turn becomes the basis for a new thesis in a never-​ending dialectic. Whilst this way of thinking is at the heart of Marxist dialectics more mainstream scholars have appropriated this way of thinking. Van de Ven and Poole (1995) established that synthesis constituted a rich way of approaching paradox, creating generative novelty out of the tension, an approach they call dialectical. Synthesis is the dialectical approach to organizing most commonly used by writers on management and organizations, alert to the transcendence of existing tensions between thesis and antithesis. Transcendence unfolds via the synthesis of a pre-​ existing thesis and the antithesis that the former generates. In the case of transcendence the poles are fused in such a way that they are no longer opposite; they become some new form of being that did not pre-​exist the poles.2

2 

Common managerial cases are nominated by Harvey (2014) in terms of the synthesis of new and old, by Pixar, creating a form of animation that is unique, changing the world of animated cinema. Pixar’s creativity transcended the old and new by creating films that echoed classical themes in a uniquely modern fashion, becoming a new form of animation. Apple’s fusion of technology and design constitutes another example of a common example of dialectical synthesis as is Cirque du Soleil’s synthesis of circus and theatre to create a new way of being a circus without animals but with high end production values. In this sense, transcendence may be a mark of game-​changing organizations.

110   Organizational Dialectics The most truly integrative approaches are those that allow organizations to learn to live with dialectics and paradox (Clegg et al. 2002) rather than exclude and separate them in a less than fruitful way. Integration, connection, and transcendence incorporate tensions in such a way that they mirror the tensions inherent to organizational processes.

The Elements of Dialectics Three characteristics define the core of dialectics as an organizational process:  contradiction, duality, and transcendence. These three characteristics are explained next, aligned with a definition of dialectics as the process through which organizations change via the dynamic tension created by contradictions, creating new organizational states of being from synthesis. Table 5.1 systematizes the differences between contradiction, paradox and synthesis.

Contradiction Dialectic starts with contradiction: “the core concept in dialectical perspectives is, after all, the contradiction—​a unity of opposites” (Baxter 2004: 182–​3) or “the dynamic interplay between unified oppositions” (Baxter and Montgomery 1996: 8). Contradictions, represented without any negative connotations, are the main drivers of change. Seeing reality as composed of unities of opposites represents a first step in the emergence of the dialectic, as contradictions engage actors in dynamic relations the outcome of which inevitably alters relationships. In fact, relations may be viewed as unities of opposites or as opposing opposites. Rus (1980: 15) remarked that to see power relations in terms of dialectical contradictions rather than conflict relations represents an elaboration of reality that is more profound than simply seeing power as manifest in a world of overt conflict and opposition. Dialectics refers to the dynamic relationship between two opposing poles that interrelate and contradict each other. In this sense, the dialectic involves conceptual tension. As discussed next, it is possible, however, that contradiction can be used productively without ever being articulated as a synthesis; for instance, Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimizu (2008) explained how Toyota is able to thrive because of the way it handles contradiction (e.g., between standardization and process improvement) without trying to resolve it through synthesis. Seeing opposition as contradiction means that the organization can also consider poles as interrelated in a dualistic fashion: the two parts imply one another but they are separated and can be approached as such. They are tackled via separation (in space, in time, in role sets). Vermeulen et al. (2010: 73) advocate the power of contradiction coupled with the power of focus varying over time when they suggest that “one year, for example, you might want to emphasize individual rather than group performance in the compensation system. Another year you might rearrange office space so that people in a business unit are grouped by function instead of customer segment, and then change

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    111 Table 5.1 Distinguishing contradiction, paradox, and dialectics

Contradiction

Element: contradiction

Element: duality

Element: transcendence

√

×

×

Explanation Contradiction is common in organizing. Contradictions include innovation and routine, stability and change, organic and mechanistic, differentiation and integration. Approaching contradiction: negotiation (Putnam 2003), ambidexterity (Duncan 1976).

Paradox

√

√

×

Duality involves the articulation of the poles of the contradiction into a common integrative representation. The poles become part of the same process. They are no longer separated. Approaching paradox: selection, integration (Poole and Van de Ven 1989).

Dialectic

√

√

√

The duality will unfold into some new form. The tension of the poles will generate a synthesis that transcends them both, and that no longer corresponds to any of the poles. In other words, the tension produces some change that is qualitatively different from the initial poles. Approaching dialectic: meta-​ communication (Tracy 2004), synthetic learning (Miller 1996).

back a few years later.” Focus is directed to one thing at a time. In this sense, harnessing the power of contradiction can be an important organizational competency: such contradictions are not necessarily approached via the dialectic.

Duality Duality refers to consideration, without separation, of opposites as components of a given social process (Farjoun 2010; Jackson 1999). Processes thrive because of the presence of the two opposites—​not in spite of them. Duality exposes synergies between ideas and involves the active consideration of the poles as part of a bigger holos, a totality, as in predator–​prey, in which the one is not imaginable without the other (Ford and Ford

112   Organizational Dialectics 1994). Relationships, even those of opposition and contention, can be framed through a duality lens. The emphasis on one pole may be tempting for its simplicity but it will inevitably imply a measure of ignorance. The fact that one pole is ignored does not mean that its influence will be neutralized. Dialectical reasoning means that a contradiction will be approached via duality. In organizational life contradictions may be tackled dualistically in an approach that is not dialectical. For a duality to become dialectical a third process is demanded: transcendence.

Transcendence A dialectical view of organizing emphasizes change and becoming through synthesis. The dynamic interplay between opposites represents an inner source of change (Mumby 2005). From this perspective organization is an attempt to introduce stability into a world always in the process of becoming (Tsoukas 2005a). From a dialectical perspective, change occurs when two opposite poles are synthesized into some new interpretation that transcends the initial opposites. Closing hospitals and improving healthcare may seem like an impossible equation but it may be interpreted as possible, for example, via the adoption of new technologies related to home care, a synthetic solution that transcends the original constraints. Nonaka and Toyama (2002) explain that the notion of synthesis normally presumes some evolution in the direction of a higher state. As Ford and Ford (1994: 763) suggest “dialectical change . . . is self-​movement stemming from ‘struggle’ between internal opposing tendencies that start small and gradually build up until they can no longer be maintained in the existing unity and a new unit—​the synthesis is created.” A newly formed synthesis is never transcendent for all time: there is no end to history. Eventually it will establish the thesis for a new contradiction creating its own nemesis. In this sense, the synthesis-​thesis-​antithesis cycle constitutes the core of a dialectical view of organizing. What is unique about the dialectical perspective is the “always becoming” of transcendence in the emergence of a synthesis that can no longer be subsumed by the original thesis or antithesis and will itself be overcome. Dialectical change qualitatively alters the terms of a process. Becoming, though, should not necessarily be equated with progress or superiority of the emerging entity. It represents an intermediate state of organizing, the limits of which will eventually be exposed: a solution becomes a problem that will lead to a further solution that will become a further problem, in a potentially infinite sequence, as a number of authors have theorized (e.g., Greiner 1972). The syntheses arrived at are not necessarily a product of volition or intention nor are they ever a final destination. As Schneider explained (1971: 669), dialectical tension is all about “wholly unintended results.” These results can be desirable but they can also be undesirable.

Contradiction, Paradox, Dialectics The processes of contradiction, paradox, and dialectics are expressions of the complex and textured nature of organizations. Contradiction is at the core of both paradox

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    113 and dialectics as Langley and Sloan (2012) argue. It needs to be for, as Kainz (1988) explains, “dialectics without paradox would be suspect.” In contrast with paradox, dialectics implies transcendence, i.e., evolution in the direction of some new arrangement (thesis—anti-​thesis—synthesis) that is not equivalent to any of its originating poles. A synthesis entails transcendence of prior theses, whether thesis or anti-​thesis. Paradox is not dialectics. Paradoxical tensions can be generative or paralyzing; they will not definitely lead to the creation of some new organizationally positive thesis. For example, ambidextrous movements between thesis and antithesis may allow an organization or its members to remain vital without achieving a new synthesis. Or the tension may become degenerative and lead to paralysis, such as when exploitation gains precedence over exploration and impedes renewal. In an organization captured by one pole of the tension paralysis by paradox can be a source of organizational ennui, manifest as inertia, repetition, or vicious circularity: the successive attempts to solve the problem may in the end aggravate the original problem due to the absence of its vital counterpart. For instance change initiatives may aggravate inertia; attempts at reform may deepen systemic difficulties by unleashing vicious circles of resistance (Cunha and Tsoukas 2015; Masuch 1985). Paradoxes can be interpreted as wicked problems (Fyke and Buzzanell 2013), problems that can be tamed but not solved. In a duality, any pole needs the other as an antidote against its own excesses and in the absence of such an antidote there can emerge too much of a good thing. As Follett ([1925] 1995: 86) recommended, “Never let yourself be bullied by an either-​or situation. Find a third way.”

Positive Dialectics Tension and paradox exist at micro and macro levels of organizational analysis (Zhang, Waldman, Han, and Li 2015). In this section we explore dialectics at multiple levels, selecting conceptual exemplars that illustrate a dialectical view of organizing at the levels of individuals, teams, organizations, and inter-​organizational systems.

Dialectics at the Individual Level From an individual perspective, dialectical approaches consider how decision-​makers, approach situations characterized by contradiction and potential for change. Change is “effected by [those] individuals who grasped what was essentially new and developing in the particular historical circumstances of their own age” (Prendergast 2005: 253). These individuals can be entrepreneurs who devise how an existing order can be replaced by a new one, as in the cases of Apple, Cirque du Soleil, or El Bulli. In existing organizations, Zimmermann et al. (2015) defended Festinger’s work on dissonance as an understanding of how organizational members deal with contradictory

114   Organizational Dialectics demands. Depending on their handling of dissonance, contradictions can be a wellspring of learning or a source of anxiety, hence the need for individuals, especially those in senior managerial positions, to become ambidextrous (Smith 2014; Tushman, Smith and Binns 2011) and be able to navigate through contradiction. The synthesis between individual-​level differentiation and integration can also be explored culturally. Individuals are increasingly being pushed to accept and live by an organization’s culture and values (Schein 1992) while also being proactive and independent, providing the organization with unique and spontaneous forms of contribution (Grant and Ashford 2008). When organizations invite their members to adopt what Unilever’s Paul Polman characterized as an “AND mentality,” members will be presumed to overcome traps of anxiety and defensiveness aroused by contradiction (Lewis, Andriopoulos, and Smith 2014), which, in turn, may lead them to explore opportunities for synthetic learning (Miller 1996). Synthetic learning is an emergent and holistic mode of learning that, through combination, reveals new forms of knowledge. Leaders combining idealism and realism in a unique and idiosyncratic way (Podolny 2011) illustrate the role of dialectical possibility at an individual locus. Brooks (2015) studied this tension through the cases of historical leaders (Washington, Roosevelt, Churchill) able to use a dual conscience to achieve extraordinary leadership: an inner moral voice capable of radical self-​awareness and a pragmatic outer voice. The ability to articulate these two “voices” in a personal, authentic way may be a key to great leadership. As Brooks (2015: A27) explained: “These two voices were in constant conversation, checking each other, probing for synthesis, wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove,” being no more a dove or a serpent. In contrast, the selection of one voice over the other may be a source of imbalance. Stephen Green, Anglican pastor, HSBC’s former CEO, and author of Good Value: Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World was unable to create a culture that embodied his proclaimed values. The scandal that rocked the bank in 2015 indicates that the capacity to be moral and pragmatic is mandatory. Therefore, creating comfort with duality thinking and dissonance may incline people to avoid the modes of selection and separation in order to strive for synthesis.

Dialectics at the Group Level From a dialogical perspective groups are constantly shaped by the opposing desires of their members for independence and interdependence (Smith and Berg 1987). How tensions are managed defines the collective (Silva et al. 2014). The study of Pixar by Harvey (2014) exemplifies the power of synthesis as a facilitator of superior levels of group effectiveness. Harvey shows how teams at this company achieved their success through dialectical sensitivity. Creative synthesis at Pixar occurred as a result of the integration of members’ perspectives in such a way that the team output transcended individual perspectives. By engaging with one another’s ideas, group members overcame the limitations resulting from individual resources and used the collective ideational pool in such

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    115 a way that the team achieved unique results via the struggle between different perspectives and through the fusion of technology and animation. Tension is also present in the team at the world famous restaurant, El Bulli, as reported by Svejenova, Mazza, and Planellas (2007). Led by Ferran Adriá, the team departed from both traditional and nouvelle cuisine, by fusing culinary exploration with scientific inspiration. The end result was not purely gastronomical, so much as a combination of cuisine and science that expanded the restaurant experience to a new level. Harvey (2014) pointed out that the possibility of achieving breakthroughs can be created by unusual combinations, such as those involving technology and animation, food and science, theatre and circus, function and design. These syntheses are always temporary states, as conflict will push challenges into new, unexpected directions. Those teams that learn to live with paradox, as a path to transcendence, have a potential advantage in terms of their innovation mindset. Their challenge lies in pushing the tension forward, without letting thesis or antithesis suffocate the opposing pole.

Dialectics at the Organizational Level Researchers have explored several dialectical processes at the organizational level. We consider two:  improvisation and shared value creation. Improvisation is sometimes taken as a lack of planning. In fact, it is the convergence of planning and execution (Moorman and Miner 1998), or the deliberate fusion of the design and execution of a novel production (Cunha, Miner, and Antonacopolou 2016). Organizations improvise not because they have not planned to but because reality overtakes their plans. Improvisation is the synthesis of planning and spontaneity, their hybrid. As Clegg et al. (2002) explained, improvisation can be defined as planning while action unfolds. It takes place when plans and resources are retrofitted to circumstances through action. Improvisation can therefore be represented as the synthesis of the opposite poles of planning and action. Planning and acting, however, remain distinct phenomena, which means that improvisation emerges from the relationship between them but it is not either of them conceived independently. Improvisation is a unique synthesis, not some bland conceptual halfway. That organizations can respond simultaneously to social problems and to the profit motive (Porter and Kramer 2011)  has been expressed through the notion of shared value, a concept that is also illustrative of a dialectical view of organizations synthesizing phenomena previously taken as opposites. Contrasting shareholder with stakeholder views highlights contradictions and prepares the ground for integrating the interests of different organizational agents, transcending particularistic interests. Social impact bonds offer an example. Shared value presents a new solution that transcends the traditional focus on the views and interests of any particular stakeholder. Hybrid organizations express this synthesis. The hybrid ideal is a synthesis in which an integrated hybrid model produces value that is both social and commercial (Battilana, Lee, Walker, and

116   Organizational Dialectics Dorsey 2012). As Battilana et al. (2012: 53), “When consumption yields both revenue and social value, customers and beneficiaries may become indistinguishable.”

Dialectics at the Inter-​organizational Level At the inter-​organizational level, the notion of coopetition is founded upon a dialectical approach: coopetition is neither cooperation nor competition but is simultaneously cooperative and competitive behavior (Tsai 2002), a synthesis of both. In coopetitive processes, organizations identity “frenemies” and define spaces where it is possible to cooperate within a generalized context of competition (Papachroni, Heracleous, and Paroutis 2015). Alliances such as NUMMI, in which Toyota and GM simultaneously cooperated and competed, with Toyota envisioning market presence in the US and GM focusing on management learning, are examples. The increasing integration of global markets means that to tackle challenges posed by competition, organizations sometimes need to collaborate with major competitors (Chen and Miller 2015) without forgetting that collaborators are competitors. Apple’s main supplier of microchips for iPhones is Samsung, its main rival in the smartphone business (The Economist 2015). Cooperation can thus feed competitiveness and competition can stimulate cooperation. What defines coopetition as a synthesis is the fact that at some point the resulting entity may be dissimilar to its predecessors as a genuinely distinct entity, overcoming tradition and creating novelty. Perhaps one of the most engaging of the contributions to the literature on the dialectics of inter-​organizational relations is Mark de Rond’s (2003) analysis of strategic alliances in the pharmaceutical industry. Strategic managers are victims of their own presumed future syntheses: taking the present as the thesis they hold up versions of competitive threat as the anti-​thesis that only a new synthesis—​the merger or alliance—​ can resolve. Dramas are constructed whose outcomes rarely meet the narrative expectations that propel the dialectics but, nonetheless, the process of change is launched—​for good or evil.

Negative Dialectics In positive dialectics, synthesis may provide creative approaches to tension and conflict, assisting organizations in dealing with incommensurable problems. Leaders who resort to dialectical synthesis should be aware, however, that synthesis could lead to unpredictable courses of action. As Lourenço and Glidewell (1975: 504) explain, “once a dialectical course is predictable, it is no longer truly dialectical!” The dialectic leads to change but it is not necessarily positive as imagined. Dialectics describe but do not predict (Lourenço and Glidewell (1975: 504). What are the negative organizational implications of dialectics? In Hegelian philosophy, as Rus (1980: 3) has pointed out, “everything has positive and negative sides,” including

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    117 dialectical transcendence. While the positive element is central to the Hegelian perspective (see also Swingewood 1970; Kainz 1988) in Adorno’s (1973) negative dialectics the assumption of progressive development is abandoned. From the perspective of Adorno’s negative dialectics, synthesis is still greater than the parts that preceded it but negative dialectics can produce outcomes such as fascism (Adorno 1973). One only has to be familiar with the 2016 United States presidential campaign to have seen negative dialectics in action as Richardson (2015) suggests. If Barack Obama is the thesis with which to begin mounting a campaign that sought to be its antithesis what would the anti-​thesis be? In contrast to a dignified black man, an undignified white man; in contrast to a careful, analytic, and inspiring speechmaker, someone with a disregard for the English language and a cavalier attitude to the truth of any matter; in contrast to a concern with detail and an analytical personality, a narcissistic disdain for detail other than a fascination with the self; a supporter of women and minorities in contrast to a champion of white, wealth, and male supremacy—​well one could go on. The paradox is how the United States could throw up such a challenger to the legacy bequeathed by Obama; the dialectic is the opposition between the legacies of that presidency inscribed in Hillary Clinton as a candidate and the anti-​thesis that is Donald J. Trump. Of course, what Trump offered were negative dialectics that sought only to oppose rather than to synthesize; given the central facts of gender, thrown into relief by Trump’s career performance of a historic male role and the role it played discursively, synthesis could never be possible. Negative dialectics offer dialectics without transcendence. Adorno’s (1973) notion of negative dialectics may offer important conceptual support for exploration of organizational phenomenon.

Gaps and Future Research Research on dialectics may benefit from the consideration of a number of remaining gaps. We highlight some central conceptual blind spots.

Increasing Definitional Precision The first gap refers to the nature of dialectics. A better understanding of the dynamics and the unfolding of dialectics will equip organization theory with a fine-​grained, textured understanding of the meaning of transcendence as a process. Thus far, researchers have made important progress in defining typological maps of how organizations approach tension but the types, their complementarities and the transitional spaces between them, have yet to be explored. Second, managing transcendence is a complex process of change. Overall, we defend the need to explore dialectical processes in detail, in order to remove the element of mystery that is still associated with it (e.g., Cunha et al. 2015), especially when the thesis/​antithesis tension changes qualitatively in the direction of synthesis.

118   Organizational Dialectics Organization theory uses dialectics in a number of different ways, as has been the case in philosophy and elsewhere. As well as definitional clarity, researchers need to separate dialectics from apparent forms of synthesis. Clegg et al. (2002) exemplified the issue with the notion of concertive control. Instead of operating as a genuine synthesis between control and autonomy, concertive control may be represented as a modality of organizational control disguised as freedom or, to use their formulation, two-​thirds of control, one-​third of autonomy. As Abdallah et al. (2012: 340) pointed out, transcendence discourses can be “in part illusory.” Other alleged forms of dialectical synthesis, such as shared value, might be equally problematic: are they genuinely new approaches to business or attempts to legitimize shareholder capitalism by mixing in a dose of corporate social responsibility? The debate between proponents of shared value (Porter and Kramer 2014) and its critics (Crane et  al. 2014)  suggests that identifying a synthesis and distinguishing it from apparent forms of transcendence is not straightforward. Other examples can be advanced: can organizations designed as “dynamic communities” (Galunic and Eisenhardt 2001), whose units compete now to cooperate later become truly coopetitive or is coopetition a fragile duality eventually giving rise to competition?

Dialectics as Genealogy The movement toward dialectical thinking may be approached from a genealogical perspective. Researchers may explore how dialectical reasoning has penetrated organizational thinking, leading to the coming together of opposing forces that, through conflict, produce creative new organizational forms (Harvey 2015). One case illustrates the point: that of the evolution of organization–​environment theory. Classical contingency theorists established a boundary between organization and environment, in which the organization’s structure should respond to environmental demands. In this sense, appropriate organizational design depended on environmental characteristics (Burns and Stalker 1961; Anand and Daft 2007). The environment and the organization are separated; depending on the contingencies afforded by the environment, the organization should choose an organic or a mechanistic design. Despite Child’s (1972) contestation such deterministic views of classical contingency thinking are still apparent in the initial version of organizational ambidexterity, in which the separation thesis prevailed (Duncan 1976; Tushman and O’Reilly 1996). Some authors defend the idea that organizations need to integrate contradictory modes of exploration and exploitation as a duality (Farjoun 2010). Separation simplifies organizational responses, whereas integration allows conceptual progress in the direction of paradox. Brown and Eisenhardt’s (1997) pioneering work showed that via semi-​structuring and simple rules (Sull and Eisenhardt 2015)  organizations operate a synthesis of organicism and mechanicism in the direction of the state that Tsoukas called “chaosmos.” Chaosmos is no longer chaos or cosmos, organicism or mechanicism, so much as “the fine balancing of cosmos and chaos over time” (Tsoukas 2013: 65;

Stewart Clegg and Miguel Pina e Cunha    119 italics in the original). The conceptual lineage from classical contingency to chaosmos suggests that dialectical theories of organization can result from sequential and collective work over extended periods of time. If the same logic applied to organizations, then researchers may profit from understanding how some organizations change their world views over time, in the process embracing dialectics.

How Do Organizations Engage with Dialectical Reasoning? Not much is known about the reasons why some organizations are able to turn tension between opposites into dialectical synthesis, whereas others cannot make it happen. Sometimes organizations get trapped in the vortex of tension caused by contradiction and its anxieties. Organizations are sometimes so embedded in dichotomous models that synthesis is not perceived as a viable option (Battilana et al. 2012). The role of leaders and organizational factors demands further study In order to explore how and why some organizations develop transcendent approaches to problems. Abdallah et al. (2012) clarified the role of leaders, namely the CEO, in communicating vigorous, transcendent discourses. These discourses may stimulate synthetic learning. Other leaders, in contrast, seem immobilized by contradictions. An additional question would consist in studying how organizations may create sustainable forms of balance, able to counter the inherent tendency of contradictions to resurface, even after temporary transcendence (Abdallah, Denis, and Langley 2011). Stability and identity remain privileged over dynamism and change despite the recent wave of interest in process, paradox, and complexity-​informed understanding (Meyer, Gaba, and Colwell 2005). What an organization is, in such perspectives, define what it is not (Ford and Ford 1994) because it cannot be both some thing and its opposite. Exploring how executives switch from identity to dialectics offers important perspectives on dialectical emergence. The dominant bias for stability is so deeply ingrained in organization theory that Tsoukas (2005b) qualifies uncertainty, and therefore challenges to identity, as the nemesis of modern organization theory. A dialectical view, in contrast, necessarily departs from a different ontological perspective: process, emergence, and the embrace of uncertainty are sources of vitality and adaptation. Given the prevailing entity-​based inclinations, the exploration of organizational dialectics as managed or evolutionary processes opens relevant research avenues (Chen and Adamson 2015). Research by Zimmermann, Raisch, and Birkinshaw (2015) suggests that processes leading to duality thinking unfold temporally. More needs to be known about the unfolding of dialectical relating and organizing and the reasons why organizations sometimes experience and resolve dissonance (Festinger 1957) through dialectics, whereas in other cases dissonance leads to paralysis or a focus on one pole

120   Organizational Dialectics only, at the cost of using dual tension as a learning opportunity, leading to negative dialectics.

Conclusion Understanding the way in which some paradoxes become dialectical and feed further paradoxes, approaching the processes that facilitate or hinder the transitions from contradiction to paradox to dialects, will enrich understanding of organizing-​in-​tension (Smith and Lewis 2011). In a paradox, opposites coexist but they do not necessarily lead to transcendence. We contributed to exploring dialectical reasoning and organizational becoming, positioning dialectics as the combination of contradiction, duality, and transcendence. A dialectical view of organizations explains how the tensions inherent to organizing result in the emergence of new organizational states through syntheses. Syntheses are not necessarily superior to other forms of dealing with tension nor are they a permanent state of being: they are always becoming as a source of change revealing a capacity to integrate opposition and lead it to a new state. The presence in full strength of the poles of a contradiction is a force that pushes further syntheses forward in never-​ending processes of evolution and revolution. To imagine that the present state of organization, in any here and now, represents the end of history is to be sorely mistaken.

Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge Luca Giustiniano and Moshe Farjoun for their generous contributions.

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Chapter 6

Circum ve nt i ng the L o gic an d L i mi ts of Representat i on: Ot h ern ess in E ast –​W e st Approaches to Pa ra d ox Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak

Paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion. (Kierkegaard 1985: 37)

Paradox has become a popular theme in management and organization studies. It has been increasingly employed to understand and deal with the pluralities, conflicts, tensions, and inconsistencies in management and organization theory and practice (Quinn and Cameron 1988; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011; Lewis and Smith 2014). The term is used to refer to many organizational dualisms, dilemmas, and competing demands regularly faced by decision-​makers such as that between maximizing profit and improving social welfare, or the problem of ensuring control and maintaining flexibility, or whether to invest in exploration or exploitation, or whether behavior is attributable to structure or agency, and so on. In contrast to contingency theories that aimed to provide a variety of “if/​then” answers to competing tensions, a paradox approach ostensibly emphasizes a “both/​and” understanding of pluralities and contradictions in organizations (Lewis and Smith 2014). However, despite much progress in the organizational literature we argue that to better understand different types of

126    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation paradoxes, there is still a need to dig deeper into their origins, the underlying generative “sources” of paradoxes, and how they can be adequately resolved or overcome. Not all paradoxical situations are of the same genre, and not all can be easily resolved in the same manner. In this chapter, we argue that the traditional approach to understanding organizational paradox is predicated upon an Aristotelian-​inspired Being ontology and a corresponding representationalist epistemology that emphasizes fixed entities, distinct boundaries, and secure predefined categories as the basis of reality. Organizational phenomena are deemed to be discrete, bounded, and self-​identical and hence amenable to linguistic representation and logical manipulation. Such a logic of representation has been vital for the progress of the inert physical sciences because the assumption of the fixity of phenomena immeasurably aids scientific analysis (Whitehead 1948). It justifies the creation of clear distinctions, enables systematic categorization, and facilitates deterministic causal attribution, and hence helps progress in the physical sciences. Yet, it is patently ill-​equipped to deal with the realities of a dynamic, living, and interminably fluxing social reality. The “cinematographic” snapshots such static analyses produce are patently inadequate to capturing the fluidity of our lived experiences; they “falsify as well as omit” (James 1911: 79). Despite this intractable problem of representation, we regularly mistake such impoverished abstractions for reality itself and the tendency to do so is the real cause of the apparently paradoxical nature of organizational situations. To understand the root cause of paradox, we examine the entire spectrum that we might encounter and show how those discussed in management and organization studies are of the type that Quine (1962) calls “veridical” and “falsidical” paradoxes. Veridical paradoxes are paradoxes in which two or more situations may initially appear irreconcilable or contradictory. Yet, they can be subsequently shown to be coherent and logically plausible. The apparent contradiction is overcome once it is realized that the categories of thought relied upon to comprehend situations encountered are irretrievably ambiguous, inadequate, or insecure. Falsidical paradoxes take the form of a reductio ad absurdum whereby when propositional statements are vigorously pursued logically to the end, its conclusion increasingly appears absurd or untenable. Falsidical paradoxes reveal how propositional statements and the oppositional categories they rely upon are dependent on unwarranted premises that inevitably render the conclusion arrived at incredible or absurd. It points to the problem of the inadequacy of language and logic to capture and represent reality. The philosopher William James (1911: 50) observed that our reality is socially constructed from the “big blooming, buzzing, confusion” of lived experience through the intervening processes of naming, categorizing, and conceptualizing using language and logic. He argued that in attempting to understand life through this logic of representation, however, we often betray the “fullness of the reality to be known” (James 1911: 78). For James as well as other process thinkers such as Henri Bergson (1911) and Alfred North Whitehead (1929), reality is interminably and inexorably fluxing and Becoming and the primary reason why paradox arises is because we persist in using this static, Aristotelian-​inspired logic to fix and name an essentially unfixable and perpetually

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    127 changing reality. Our ability to overcome and deal effectively with organizational paradoxes, therefore, can be substantially enhanced by revising our ontological commitment from one of Being to that of Becoming; one where ultimate reality is deemed to be relentlessly fluxing and changing interminably. From this alternative world view, all efforts at conceptualization and categorization are understood to be acts of simplification; pragmatic ways of dealing with an inherently intractable reality in order to aid comprehension and to make life liveable. All thinking is driven by a will-​to-​knowledge that generates countervailing tensions and hence paradox, as Kierkegaard (1985) noted. One major consequence of revising our ontological commitment from Being to Becoming, is a heightened awareness of a hidden “cost” involved in fixing, naming, and representing reality; an awareness of an “absent” Other ever-​present in representational truth claims. It is an acute awareness of this absent Other that led ancient thinkers of paradox to nurture a proclivity for making seemingly paradoxical pronouncements; pronouncements that force formal logic to “groan” under the weight of its own self-​inflicted contradictions. This is how ancient philosophers, both East and West dealt with the limitations of logic and language. Heraclitus, with his many obscure pronouncements in the Fragments (in Robinson, 1968: 87–​105) exemplifies this tendency in the West. In the East, a similar suspicion regarding the adequacy of language and logic to convey thought and sentiment, pervades the entire traditional Oriental outlook; words are taken lightly and paradoxical utterance is a deliberate strategy in human communication. Lao Tzu’s paradoxical assertions in the Tao Te Ching (in Chan, 1963: 136–​76) exemplifies this way of thinking. These paradoxical pronouncements are intended to stop us in our tracks and to make us pause to reconsider the possibility of a deeper meaning hidden among such assertions. Thus, instead of precision, clarity, and logical argumentation, communication is invariably nuanced, suggestive, and paradoxical; obliquity and allusions are preferred to direct logical assertions. Sensitivity to Otherness, the unspoken, the absent is a crucial feature of this approach. This is how the ancients, both East and West circumnavigated the problem of paradox.

Paradox in Management and Organization Studies Use of the term paradox in management and organization studies began in some earnest in the 1980s as a result of organizational scholars wrestling with “some of the most frustrating issues” facing researchers in organizational effectiveness (Cameron 1986: 540). Underlying this frustration was a paradigm and mindset that struggled to address the “simultaneous presence of incongruent and contradictory patterns” (Quinn and Cameron 1988: 2) in organizational life. A paradox perspective aimed to address this frustration by moving away from an “either/​or” form of reasoning toward a “both/​and” logic, which accepted and even embraced the existence of opposites, contradictions, and

128    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation tensions in organizations. The core premise of a paradoxical perspective is an acceptance of the need to “live and thrive with tensions” (Lewis and Smith 2014: 129). Yet, as Poole and Van de Ven (1989: 564) acknowledged, the paradoxes described in management are mostly construed in “the lay sense” and “are not, strictly speaking, logical paradoxes.” In an important earlier contribution to the literature, organizational paradoxes were defined as “contradictory, mutually exclusive elements that are present and (that) operate equally at the same time” (Cameron, 1986: 546, emphasis added). The mutually exclusive elements include “competing values” that needed to be considered simultaneously by leaders in their decision-​making. This earlier formulation was adopted and revised by Smith and Lewis (2011) who identified a myriad of categories for representing organizational paradoxes along a “competing values” taxonomy that included a temporal dimension; thus, for them, a paradox comprises “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382). Their definition emphasized the “simultaneous appearance” of competing/​conflicting elements as a key feature of paradox. Yet, the simultaneous appearance of two sets of competing values, two theoretical perspectives, two competing demands, or two conflicting choices does not necessarily mean a paradox exists; the situation may indeed be pluralistic but it is not inherently absurd or irrational. Nevertheless, thus defined, organizational paradox refers more to competing demands, conflicting priorities, and the tensions arising therefrom and less to logically irreconcilable propositional statements. There are attempts to nod toward the “logically absurd” character of organizational paradox but this is followed by swiftly moving on to more pragmatic concerns. For example, Lewis (2000: 760–​1) points out that the contradictory elements of a paradox “seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously.” By making this observation, Lewis displays an understanding of how inextricable logic and absurdity are from one another when dealing with paradox. She rightly acknowledges that “formal logic parses phenomena into smaller and disparate pieces” (Lewis 2000: 762, emphasis added) and notes that the either/​or thinking associated with it, renders it incapable of dealing with paradox. Lewis further observed that “language feeds the tendency to polarize” (Lewis 2000: 762), yet, this important insight remains unexplored in subsequent theoretical efforts. We maintain here that it is this very tendency to polarize and parse phenomena into smaller and disparate pieces using logic and language that creates the contradictory tensions and hence paradoxes we subsequently encounter. The practice of parsing phenomena, we argue, entails the forcible “boxing” of fluid phenomena into rigid pre-​established categories using an Aristotelian-​inspired IS/​IS NOT structure of comprehension. An inevitable conceptual “strain” accompanies such “boxing” attempts. The attempt to define phenomena in terms of either/​or generates a corresponding neither/​nor countervailing force that becomes immanent in each of the categorical terms subsequently defined. This neither/​nor intimates an inevitable incompleteness or Otherness in any attempt at definition and representation; meaning is never fully present and unambiguous in linguistic concepts and categories. Why this is the case will be explored further in this chapter. Be that as it may, this Otherness creates an

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    129 inner tension that “festers” within logic itself to produce the paradox we subsequently encounter. Despite Lewis’s (2000) earlier intuition about the problems associated with parsing phenomena and how language tends to polarize, there remains a tendency to do just that in the organizational paradox literature. Thus, Smith and Lewis (2011), for instance, themselves go on to parse organizational paradoxes into several “disparate categories”: learning paradox (between radical/​incremental innovation, stability/​change and old/​new); belonging paradox (between individual/​collective and homogeneity/​distinction); organizing paradox (between collaboration/​competition, empowerment/​direction, routines/​change, and control/​flexibility); and performing paradoxes (between financial and social goals). The oppositional categories generated therefrom are by no means unequivocal and secure; collaboration and competition “infect” one another because of this immanent Otherness. The same goes with polarized categories like individual/​collective, radical/​incremental, routine/​change, and so on. These terms are not self-​identical and secure. Yet, the dominant impulse in the organizational paradox literature is to create evermore disparate and polarized categories to account for evermore missing aspects of organizational situations ad infinitum. For example, Smith (2014) analyzes the explore/​exploit dilemma facing top management teams and breaks down the conflicting tensions observed into further sub-​categories such as resource allocation, organizational design, and product design and so on in order to examine the paradoxical tensions associated with these strategic aspects of decision-​making. Similarly (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013) examine the market/​regulation tensions facing a privatized telecommunications company. They identify this tension as a paradoxical situation and go on to generate further oppositional categories including cooperate/​ compete, and explore/​exploit to explain the predicaments faced by managers in the company. To summarize, for us organizational paradoxes are an outcome of theoretical attempts to linguistically fix, and logically parse an inexorably fluxing reality into ever-​smaller, static, and dichotomous categories. Our very attempt to do this, often retrospectively, creates the very dilemmas and paradoxes we subsequently encounter because of this tendency to polarize. Paradox is inextricable from the logic of representation. In order to appreciate how we can overcome this tendency to parse phenomena, and indeed, to circumnavigate the limits of language and representational logic, we first need to refine our understanding of paradox from that of conflicting tensions to one that emphasizes the absurd and the incredible.

Paradox as Absurd The linguistic origin of the word paradox derives from two Greek words para (beyond) and doxa (belief); a paradox, therefore, is one that is incredible, absurd, or “beyond belief.” Note that, because it emphasizes going “beyond” conventional belief, there is a

130    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation hint of the para-​digmatic nature of paradox so that a situation may well appear paradoxical to someone but not to another from a different tradition, culture, or epoch; there is a relative dimension in the experience of paradox. Notwithstanding this, Nicholas Rescher (2001: 6) maintains that a paradox arises when we meet an “aporetic cluster,” i.e., “a set of individually plausible propositions which is collectively inconsistent.” In other words, individually coherent propositions can collectively contradict one another when rigorously pursued to their logical conclusion. Similarly, Sainsbury (1988: 1) defines a paradox as “an apparently untenable conclusion derived by apparently acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises.” The focus is on the word “apparent.” In both these definitions, there is an emphasis on how individual propositions that are independently logical and coherent when combined together produces an untenable conclusion. Rescher (2001: 12) illustrates this with the Paradox of the Horns by the Greek Eubulides thus: 1) You have no horns; 2) If you have not lost something, you still have it; 3) You have not lost any horns; 4) Therefore you (still) have horns! Here proposition 4 appears to contradict proposition 1; what seems to be individually plausible and coherent propositions have inadvertently produced a seemingly absurd conclusion. Sainsbury (1988) provides a similar example involving the “heap paradox”: 1) A collection of one million grains of sand is a heap; 2) If a collection of n grains of sand is a heap, then so is a collection of n –​1 grains of sand; 3) Therefore a collection of one grain of sand is a heap! In these two examples, what seems very reasonable propositional statements when pursued logically, leads to an absurd or unbelievable outcome. Something about the hidden premises conspire to produce the absurd notion that a “collection of one grain of sand is a heap” or that not having lost any horns means we still have horns. The emphasis throughout is IS (or HAVE in the case of horns) or IS NOT/​HAVE NOT; a key principle of Aristotelian logic as we shall show. Both these examples show how logical propositions with their neatly defined distinctions and categories (i.e., collection/​grain/​heap; not lost horns/​ have horns) can fail when pursued rigorously to the end; a reductio ad absurdum situation. The Horns and Heaps examples intimate an essential insecurity in our categorical distinctions and that the propositional statements deriving therefrom can easily become logically absurd hence paradoxical just because of that. Quine (1962:  84)  defines a paradox as “a conclusion that at first sounds absurd, but that has an argument to sustain it.” He describes three types of paradoxes we can encounter: veridical, falsidical, and antinomic. A veridical paradox describes a situation that is ultimately, logically unproblematic even though it may initially appear absurd. If a man claims that he is celebrating his seventeenth birthday in 2016 at the age of 68, he might raise an eyebrow or two. It may seem quite unbelievable until we realize that being born on February 29, 1948, his birth “day” only happens once every four years. In this case, the apparent paradox is resolved once we separate the category “age” from the category “birthday.” Veridical paradoxes, therefore, often arise from the ambiguities/​overlaps/​tensions surrounding the categories we created for ourselves to apprehend reality. It points to the problem of the security of our analytical categories, for example, the relatively arbitrary

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    131 distinctions we draw between “radical” and “incremental” innovation, between “exploration” and “exploitation,” and between “control” and “flexibility” in defining organizational paradoxes. Falsidical paradoxes are those analogous to the ones identified by Rescher and Sainsbury; that is, the Horn and Heap paradoxes where logic appears to fail. Another more well-​known falsidical paradox is that of Zeno’s arrow. For an arrow fired to reach its target, it will first have to travel half the distance to get there. Once it is half way toward the target, it must now travel the remaining half of the distance to reach the target. Each time the arrow traverses half of the remaining distance to reach the target, it must then travel the shorter remaining half of the distance, down to infinitely infinitesimal measurements. This would lead to the absurd conclusion that the arrow never actually reaches the target; an untenable conclusion that rests on conflating dynamic movement, which is indivisible, with the trajectory of the arrow, which is infinitesimally divisible (Bergson 1911: 120; Chia 1998: 351–​4). Once again, like veridical paradoxes, falsidical paradoxes are derived from hidden false premises relating to the inadequacies and hence confusion surrounding logic and its categories; in this instance, conflating movement with trajectory. The difference between veridical and falsidical paradoxes is more a matter of the degree of “hiddenness” of the false assumptions made and hence how “unbelievable” they appear. Finally, Quine’s “antinomies” include those such as the Cretan liar paradox where the problem of self-​reference creates an unresolvable dilemma as to whether to believe him or otherwise. Quine (1962: 88) calls this an intractable paradox that creates a genuine “crisis of thought.” Such paradoxes are the kind of self-​referential problems that can only be avoided through a profound change in our entire system of comprehension. In the less intractable cases of veridical and falsidical paradoxes, however, it points to a failure in the logic of representation and more specifically to the polarized categories we employ to interrogate reality. The challenge for organizational paradox scholars, therefore, is to consider, for example, polarized categories such as exploration and exploitation to be inextricably intertwined and thus to countenance seemingly “absurd” statements such as “To exploit is to explore; to explore is to exploit”; this would strain our accepted conventions of what each category means but it would make us realize that these are our categories created for interrogating reality post hoc. In summary, a paradox is an absurd or untenable conclusion arrived at through the rigorous application of logic and linguistic categories to a situation apprehended. The conclusion may appear untenable because of an oversight regarding the security of such categories, or because of insufficient scrutiny of false assumptions made as in the case of veridical paradoxes and falsidical paradoxes respectively, or more fundamentally because of the failure of logic to deal with the question of self-​reference as in the case of antinomies. With the exception of antinomies, veridical and falsidical paradoxes, therefore, are more “apparently” paradoxical and it is these apparently paradoxical ones that are regularly raised in the management and organization studies literature. But to understand this better we need to excavate the root cause of paradox; one intimately associated with a representational epistemology.

132    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation

The Root Cause of Paradox: The Inadequacy of a Representationalist Epistemology In An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, Cohen and Nagel (1939: 73–​4) restate two foundational laws of logical thought initially raised by Plato and subsequently reasserted in Aristotle’s Metaphysics; firstly an ontological principle of identity and secondly an epistemological principle of non-​contradiction. Ontologically the identity of a phenomenon A must be distinct and self-​identical; “nothing can be both A and not A.” This assertion is made on the premise that reality is essentially stable and relatively unchanging hence selective aspects of it can be clearly differentiated and accurately named and identified. It entails a commitment to an ontology of Being. A corollary of this ontological principle is the epistemological principle of non-​contradiction; “no proposition can be both true and false.” For Aristotle, “it is impossible for anyone to suppose the same thing is and is not, as some imagine that Heraclitus says” (Aristotle 1933: 162) thereby emphasizing the principle of non-​contradiction that underpins formal logic. These two fundamental principles of identity and non-​contradiction justify the belief that language and linear logic are patently adequate to the task of accurately representing reality. They were resurrected after the Middle Ages and have since dominated modern Western thought and the classical sciences associated with it. In Science and the Modern World, the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead notes that Newton’s first law of motion was underpinned by a then revolutionary idea directly derived from these two foundational principles of thought; that of an “ideally isolated system” (Whitehead 1948: 47). This idea of an ideally isolated system implies that things can be said to be fully present, “here in space and here in time” (Whitehead 1948:  50); phenomena are deemed to be separable, locatable, and identifiable and hence amenable to linguistic representation and logical analysis. Enlightenment thinkers henceforth conceived the world as comprising “a succession of instantaneous configurations of matter” (Whitehead 1948: 51) so that each discrete aspect of reality could be systematically named, categorized, and analyzed accordingly. This is the metaphysical outlook underpinning the “parsing of phenomena” that Lewis (2000) observed to be fundamental to logical analyses. Through this metaphysical impulse, we are able to say with great confidence in propositional terms what a thing IS or IS NOT; this is “exploration,” that is “exploitation”; this is “individual,” that is “collective”; this is “market,” that is “regulation,” and so on. From this confidence in the certainty of identity and meaning we can then proceed to causal analysis and attribution to create proper verifiable knowledge. It is this approach to knowledge creation that we call a “representationalist epistemology” (Chia 1996). The intellectual fixing and naming of things seduces us into mistaking our abstract representations for reality; a tendency that Whitehead (1948: 52) calls the “Fallacy of

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    133 Misplaced Concreteness.” For him this tendency is the true source of paradox: “paradox only arises because we have mistaken our abstractions for reality” (Whitehead 1948: 56, emphasis added). Paradox, therefore, as Lewis (2000) rightly notes, arises from our conceptual apprehension of phenomena and particularly in our attempts to name, categorize, and attribute causal significance to our experiences using literal language and logic. There is no paradox in reality itself; reality is simply “the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly” (Whitehead 1948: 56). It is only when we attempt to linguistically fix this unfixable reality and to forcibly extract meaning from the flux of our otherwise meaningless experiences that paradox emerges. Our ability to circumnavigate paradox is, therefore, predicated upon our ability to think beyond the linguistic impulse to fix and to categorize and create polar opposites; something widespread in much of the organizational paradox literature.

A Logic of Otherness: Rethinking Paradox Most paradoxes, as we have argued, arise because of a conceptual oversight due to the confusion or conflation of categories, because of the intrinsic insecurity of neat oppositional categories, or because of inattention to false, hidden premises. In particular, the security of categories of thought employed to scrutinize our lived experiences are usually taken to be unproblematic because of an Aristotelian-​inspired metaphysics of “Being.” A  representationalist epistemology encourages the “parsing of phenomena” into evermore “disparate pieces” with the attendant contradictory tensions generated accompanying every such effort. This representationalist epistemology must therefore be challenged before the paradoxes generated therefrom can be circumvented. For this a revision of our ontological commitment from that of Being to one of Becoming is crucial. An ontology of Becoming takes its point of departure from the fundamental belief that all of reality is perpetually in flux and changing inexorably so that the explanatory predicament we face is not how to account for change, but how to account for stability. How, if all the world is changing, is stability and hence predictability possible? Likewise, the existential problem confronting us is not so much how to initiate change, but how we manage to fix and stabilize an ephemeral reality in order to make life productive and livable. This is why language, logic and social practices play such a critical role in socially constructing reality. The idea of a socially constructed reality only makes real sense in the context of an ontology of Becoming. Our socio-​linguistic acts of naming, categorizing, conceptualizing, and indeed our material organizing actions and practices are practical ways of arresting, fixing, and stabilizing this ephemeral reality in order to facilitate social and economic exchange and productive action. Language and logic are therefore vital instruments for the human species; practical “tools” for dealing with an otherwise intractable and indeed unlivable reality. Workability, not representational truth claims,

134    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation therefore, is the real object of using language and logic. They help us “harness perceptual reality in concepts in order to drive it better to our ends” (James 1911: 65). Yet, they are “secondary formations, inadequate, and only ministerial . . . they falsify as well as omit” (James 1911: 79). We need to be aware that to understand life through such concepts is to “arrest its movement, cutting it up into bits as if with scissors, and then immobilizing these in our logical herbarium” (James 1996: 244). Reality itself is ever-​flowing and refuses to be “boxed up” and contained by these neat categories. Indeed, “Reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows and surrounds it” (James 1996: 212) and it is this “overflowing” that constitutes the surplus Other generated by the very act of naming and categorizing. Embracing this ontology of Becoming enables us to approach the problem of paradox differently from that conventionally adopted. From this worldview, each attempt at naming, categorization, and representation is fundamentally and unavoidably an act of forcible arrestation; a violent intervening into the flux of lived experience and arbitrarily fixing selective aspects of it for the purpose of analytical scrutiny. It entails the centering (i.e., fixing and locating the phenomenon apprehended) and the censoring (i.e., delineating boundaries) of our fluid, raw experience in order to extract sense and meaning from it. A will-​to-​knowledge underpins this analytical practice of “parsing phenomena” and it is this forcible act of categorization using binary opposites that creates internal tensions thereby generating the contradictory impulses contained therein. But why is this the case? Naming, categorizing, and conceptualizing operates through the making of an arbitrary “incision” (Whitehead 1929: 58); a “cutting off ” process that simultaneously includes and excludes, elevates and suppresses, and in that very process denies important aspects of our lived experiences. Such a logical procedure is necessary to produce the “singleness of the object” (Cooper 1987: 408) in order to facilitate conceptual analysis. Yet, just by doing precisely that, it generates internal tensions because that which is excluded and henceforth suppressed, ignored or forgotten will not be denied expression. It remains an “absent” presence that festers and eventually serves as the source of tension that produces the paradox we eventually encounter. There is an Other immanent in every logical structure of comprehension (Cooper 1983: 202) that irretrievably contaminates and compromises the security of our conceptual categories. This “logic of Otherness” must be understood and embraced so that we can better circumnavigate paradox. In a significant paper on organization theory entitled “Organization/​Disorganization,” Robert Cooper (Cooper 1986: 328) explored the notion of “organization,” not as a discrete, isolatable, and circumscribed entity, but as an ongoing act of forcible ordering. For Cooper, in its most fundamental sense, organization is simply the forceful “appropriation of order” out of an indiscriminate flux that is reality; a primordial condition, which he calls the “zero degree of organization” (Cooper 1986: 321) or what William James (1996: 50) calls the “aboriginal sensible muchness” of raw experience. In forcibly extracting order out of this “chaos” of raw, lived experience, however, any act of organizing (naming, categorizing, ordering) entails a degree of reduction. Organization, then,

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    135 is a fundamental ontological process involving the forcible “producing and reproducing (of) objects through which a community or society can see or think itself ” (Cooper 1987: 407). The function of organization, therefore, is to close off the threat of disorder by suppressing a “contaminating” Other so that these isolatable objects of reality are conceptually presented as singular, discrete, and self-​identical and hence amenable to functional manipulation. Yet, immanent in the apparent singularity of the object of apprehension is an objection to being forcibly sundered from its Other; “The object is that which objects” (Cooper 1987: 408, emphasis original) and it is this immanent objection to being made into an object of investigation that generates paradox. A “logic of Otherness” is immanent and hence ever-​present in all efforts at fixing phenomena through logical analysis and representation. It constitutes the necessary Other of linear logic. Thus, “inasmuch as a screw is a nut without a hole . . . (and) a nut is a screw with a hole” the screw and nut complete each other through the “mediation of lacks and fills”; there is an “in-​one-​anotherness” of one with the other (Cooper (1983: 202–​ 3). What Cooper points to is the inextricable intertwinement of a binary term with its other; that the two simultaneously co-​define and tend toward one another and cannot be neatly separated and rendered isolatable. Thus polarized oppositional terms such as freedom/​unfreedom, individual/​collective, stability/​change, control/​flexibility, exploration/​exploitation are each inextricably interdependent and “contaminate” each other irretrievably and the denial of this “in-​one-​anotherness” is the source of paradox. This logic of Otherness is discernible in the writings of some ancient philosophers in both East and West such as Heraclitus and Lao Tzu who use paradoxical pronouncements to deliberately blur these apparent clear-​cut distinctions.

East–​West Approaches to Dealing with Paradox The inadequacies and limitations of formal logic, language, and reason to adequately represent lived experience, is something that a subsidiary process-​based tradition in the West, exemplified by Heraclitean thought, is well aware of. It is therefore, to Heraclitus that we must first turn to understand the limits of language and logic and to appreciate the need for oblique and paradoxical utterances to convey meaning beyond literal representations. This form of subtle word-​play reflecting a logic of Otherness at work is much in evidence in Heraclitus’ Fragments. For instance, fragment 5.37 says “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hard to find and difficult.” Logically, this sentence is untenable for, if one is able to expect the unexpected, then the unexpected would no longer be the unexpected! The statement is logically absurd yet there is something about such pronouncements which nevertheless seem to intuitively make sense. Such oblique and paradoxical utterances serve as an antidote to linear logic in that it points to potential meaning lying beyond or in-​between concepts and

136    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation categories. This awareness of the Other pervades Fragments. Thus in fragment 5.26, he says “The path traced by the pen is straight and crooked,” in fragment 5.45, “In opposition there is agreement, between unlikes, the fairest harmony,” and in fragment 5.47 he maintains “Aggregates are wholes, yet not wholes; brought together, yet carried asunder” (in Robinson 1968: 95–​7). Heraclitus’ many paradoxical utterances are part of an alternative tradition of understanding that sought to eschew the rigors of linear logic and literal representation. It is a mode of communication and comprehension that remains subsidiary to the dominance of Aristotelian linear logic. It displays awareness of the kind of Otherness immanent in logical assertions, but which is actively denied in formal logic. For Heraclitus, it is impossible to catch qualities or kinds of things without appreciating their passage and ongoing transformation. According to him the very existence of separate, individual things is a myth. What a thing A is, is the inexorable working-​through of internally contested differences that are perpetually in tension; there is no possibility of a secure, stable, self-​contained, and self-​identical entity that can be singularly examined in isolation without “contamination.” No-​thing is precisely what “something” is at any given moment; thingness reflects a tendency rather than a full presence. It is merely the transitory phase of an ongoing internal strife. Far from affirming the principle of non-​ contradiction, for Heraclitus, contradiction is intrinsic to identity. Things Become and in their becoming lies the ongoing working out of these internal strife. To think Becoming, therefore, is to think of A as always already a temporarily stabilized effect of the relentless process of transformation. This is what a logic of Otherness alerts us to. In the East, this appreciation of the limits of language and logic pervades the entire traditional Oriental outlook. Words are taken lightly and rarely literally; like Heraclitus, directionality and tendency are more important that final state. Unlike in alphabetic-​ literate cultures, where precision and clarity in meaning is “regarded as something altogether wholesome and altogether desirable” (Ong 1967: 47), communication in the East is often indirect, suggestive, and symbolic (Abe 1990). Language, logic, concepts, and categories constantly point to an absent and elusive Other lying beyond. There is “a deep-​seated awareness of the incompetence of utterance as the (primary) mode of man’s being” (Nishitani 1982: 31). Hence communication is invariably nuanced, allusive, and paradoxical; meaning is not taken to reside in words but is deemed to be the aggregative effect of minute and suggestive “differences that make a difference” (Bateson 1972: 457). Chinese language, in particular, with its lack of morphology and syntax, differs substantially from the austere language and logic of the West. According to the sinologist Francois Jullien (2000: 18), to understand Chinese is to “learn to decode the conversations” and to constantly seek alternative meanings; to be attentive to both what is said and what is not said. In other words, it is about alertness to a dynamic logic of Otherness; an awareness of temporality, transience, reversals, and tendencies rather than fixed states. Tendencies precede outcomes and a thing or a term is fundamentally an expression of a tendency rather than a solid, static entity or definable state. Thinking Becoming enables us to privilege the propensities and tendencies jointly at work in the formation of effects such as things and final states. Perhaps the most recognizable Oriental symbol

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    137 of this immanent dynamism with its emphasis on tendencies, reversals, and in-​one-​ anotherness is the Yin/​Yang symbol ☯, which emphasizes the inexorable and relentless transformation of things and situations. More than anything else, what the symbol exemplifies is not fixed polarized states but emergent tendencies and propensities; directionality not condition or state is of paramount importance. This emphasis on the logic of Otherness and dynamically evolving tendencies is also very evident in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. We find paradoxical pronouncements similar to that of the Heraclitean Fragments in it. The first few lines read: “The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name; The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth” (in Chan 1963: 139). Why is the named Tao, not the Tao? Why is the Nameless the “origin”? Such paradoxical utterances allude to the debasement that takes place through the process of naming, categorizing, and conceptualizing. “Tao” and the “origin” are nameless, i.e., paradoxically they cannot be named so that even the words “Tao” or “origin” betray that which they allude to; an “originless origin”! Further on, (in Chan 1963: 140) we find the curious pronouncement: “When the people of the world know beauty as beauty; There arises the recognition of ugliness; When they all know the good as good; There arises the recognition of evil; Therefore, Being and Non-​being produce each other.” Here is a good example of Otherness and tendency toward; beauty only makes sense because of its opposite “ugliness,” each produce and co-​define the other. So also with good/​evil, Being/​Non-​being and this leads to the observation that “it is on its non-​being that the utility of the utensil depends” (in Chan 1963: 145). In other words, without the empty “negative” space formed by the shape of a utensil, it would be useless as a utensil. Only through a logic of Otherness can we appreciate the dynamism, in-​one-​anotherness, and hence paradoxical tendency implied in such articulations. What these examples, as with the Heraclitean fragments, show is the patent insecurity of the neat, rigid categories of thought that we regularly rely upon to interrogate reality. They are secondary products of the forcible insertion made into an ever-​flowing reality in order to extract meaning and sense. Yet, in so doing they generate an internal tension that becomes the source of the paradox we subsequently encounter. Thus, in contrast to the insistence on identity and non-​contradiction required in formal logic, in Eastern paradoxical thinking, there is a preference to “circumnavigate an issue, tossing out subtle hints that permit only a careful listener to surmise where the unspoken core of the question lies” (van Bragt in Nishitani 1982: xl). Sensitivity to Otherness, to the implied, the unspoken, the absent is a crucial feature of this approach to transcending paradox. This oblique impulse is predicated upon a Becoming worldview that assumes change to be ever-​present and inexorable and that “big things” and clear distinctions emerge unceremoniously from small seemingly innocuous beginningless “beginnings.” Polarized terms such as market/​regulation, freedom/​unfreedom, exploration/​ exploitation, individual/​collective, and organization/​disorganization are not immaculate conceptions nor are they cast in stone; they come to be so through our struggles with language in the effort to give meaning to our experiences. The word “meaning” alludes to the mathematical “mean”; the averaging out of the sense of a term through its

138    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation continued usage and refinement so much so that these terms always already implicate their Other. Like the inexorable process of “aging” or the erosion of ice caps that happens almost imperceptibly, it implies relentless “silent transformation” (Jullien 2011)  rather than spectacular, episodic change. How things gradually accrete, coalesce, and become what they are is the focus of attention, not final, definitive states nor ready-​made categories of thought. To think in genuinely Becoming terms, therefore, is to think in terms of dynamically evolving differences, tendencies, and propensities rather than in polarized categories and static states. Appreciating how distinctions emerge and evolve enables us to view paradox as symptoms of the inadequacies of a representationalist epistemology with its emphasis on fixed end-​states and clearly defined categories of thought, and hence to find more oblique and allusive ways of expressing the organizational predicaments encountered.

Conclusion Paradox is a byproduct of the passion of thought as Kierkegaard observed. It is a consequence of logical thought driven by its desire for knowledge and certainty. For all its impressive accomplishments in the physical sciences Aristotelian logic and systematic analysis is tested to its limits when it enters the social “sciences” domain where it has to deal with a far more ephemeral and unstable social reality than in the physical sciences. The Aristotelian principles of self-​identity and of non-​contradiction with their IS/​IS NOT structure of comprehension, is incapable of tracking the emergence and Becoming of lives, things, situations, and events. Instead, all it is able to do is to generate evermore polarized categories to account for the minutiae of lived experiences. These oppositional terms do not do justice to our phenomenal experiences or the phenomena we encounter, yet we invariably confuse them for reality. This is when paradox occurs. The widespread analytical practice of “parsing phenomena” into disparate pieces to aid systemic analysis and causal attribution entails an arbitrary act of “cutting off ” our phenomenal experiences in a way that simultaneously includes and excludes and it is this very operation that creates the internal contradictory tensions we subsequently encounter. It generates an Other; an unaccounted excess or “overflow” that is henceforth conveniently discarded. This overflowing Other is actively suppressed, surreptitiously overlooked, or denied in order to sustain the singularity of the object of analysis. Yet, despite its invisibility and apparent absence, it refuses to be ignored; it “festers” like a deep wound and acts to “contaminate” otherwise precise definitions and neat categorical distinctions. This is how paradox emerges; from within the bowels of logic itself. Logical statements with their subject-​predicate structure and rigid either/​or polarizing categories are unable to accommodate that which constitutes the passage through which an end-​state becomes what it is. It is unable to track underlying dynamic tendencies where traces of what was and what is to be have to be acknowledged to fully

Robert Chia and Ajit Nayak    139 appreciate the becoming richness of life in general and organizational life in particular. All that it does is to generate evermore static categories. Each analytical distinction we make produces yet another set of internal tensions ad infinitum; tensions that appear as apparently paradoxical organizational situations. Organizational paradoxes, therefore, are our own academically created dilemmas. How can this problem be circumnavigated or partially overcome? The ancients like Heraclitus and Lao Tzu have resorted, not to making propositional statements, but to confusing subject-​predicate structures and static either/​or categories through their paradoxical utterances; this communicational strategy redirects attention to tendencies and to the inevitable in-​one-​anotherness of the terms employed rather than to identifiable end-​states. Hence Heraclitus’s observation, “changing it rests” (fragment 5.48 in Robinson 1968: 97) and Lao Tzu’s insistence that “The greatest skill seems to be clumsy; The greatest eloquence seems to stutter” (in Chan 1963: 161). The skilled appear unskilled, the eloquent appears tongue-​tied! Each tends toward the Other. Each category: a “grain”/​a “heap”; the skilled/​unskilled; the eloquent/​tongue-​tied; market/​regulation; exploration/​exploitation infect and impregnate one another. They refuse easy conceptual separation because they have been forcibly rent out of the same fabric of an ever-​flowing reality; every full presence claimed depends on a necessary absence. This is why paradox exists and persists and why we need to take oppositional categories more lightly and more playfully.

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140    Circumventing the Logic and Limits of Representation James, W. 1911. Some Problems of Philosophy: A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy. New York, NY: Longman Green. James, W. 1996. A Pluralistic Universe. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Jarzabkowski, P., Lê, J. K., and Van de Ven, A. H. 2013. Responding to competing strategic demands:  How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization, 11(3): 245–​80. Jullien, F. 2000. Detour and Access. Translated by Sophie Hawkes. New York, NY: Zone Books. Jullien, F. 2011. The Silent Transformations. Translated by Krzysztof Fijałkowski and Michael Richardson. Calcutta: Seagull. Kierkegaard, S. 1985. Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lewis, M. W. 2000. Exploring paradox:  Toward a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25(4): 760–​76. Lewis, M. W., and Smith, W. K. 2014. Paradox as a metatheoretical perspective: Sharpening the focus and widening the scope. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(2): 127–​49. Nishitani, K. 1982. Religion and Nothingness. Translated by J. van Bragt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ong, W. J. 1967. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Poole, M. S., and Van de Ven, A. H. 1989. Using paradox to build management and organization theories. Academy of Management Review, 14(4): 563–​78. Quine, W. V. 1962. Paradox. Scientific American, 206(4): 84–​96. Quinn, R. E., and Cameron, K. S. 1988. Paradox and Transformation:  Towards a Theory of Change in Organization and Management. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Rescher, N. 2001. Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution. Chicago, IL: Open Court. Robinson, J. M. 1968. An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy. Boston, MA:  Houghton Mifflin. Sainsbury, R. M. 1988. Paradoxes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Smith, W. K. 2014. Dynamic decision making: A model of senior leaders managing strategic paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal, 57(6): 1592–​623. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381–​403. Whitehead, A. N. 1929. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. New York, NY: Free Press. Whitehead, A. N. 1948. Science and the Modern World. New York, NY: Pelican Mentor Books.

Pa rt  I I

PA R A D OX IC A L P H E N OM E NA I N A N D B E YON D ORG A N I Z AT ION S

Chapter 7

Cri tical M anag e me nt Stu dies and Pa ra d ox Koen van Bommel and André Spicer

Management has become omnipresent. From being restricted initially to factories following the Industrial Revolution and large corporates, management discourse is increasingly pervading public sector and nonprofit organizations (Grey 2008) as well as non-​work spheres such as relationships, family affairs, time, and leisure (Hancock and Tyler 2009). There are many who point to how management practices have changed organizations for the better. However, the increased managerial power has also come with a darker side. Charting this darker side of management is a central task of Critical Management Studies (CMS). Critical management scholars argue that contradictions and clashing power relations abound in organizations and, therefore, that CMS should aim to “both acknowledge and radically transform these relations of power in order to achieve emancipation” (Spicer, Alvesson, and Kärreman 2009: 539). The task of CMS is to reveal and question the structures of oppression and contribute to a progressive force for emancipatory change, that is, a form of management that contributes to more free, just, sustainable, democratic, equal, and caring organizations. Taking to task mainstream scholars for their uncritical acceptance and support of the status quo, CMS offers alternative interpretations and highlights the darker side of what, typically, are considered to be benign management practices. For instance, a critical reading of much of the “liberating” literature on strong organizational cultures replacing stifling hierarchies and rules, highlights the permanence of unequal power relations and the totalitarian aspects of such corporate culture programmes. Rather than providing autonomy, strong corporate cultures can be viewed equally as a more refined and sinister form of (mind) control (Willmott 1993). At the heart of CMS lies a concern for highlighting the tensions, fissures, and paradoxes that swarm over the landscape of modern-​day organizations. The aim of CMS to accentuate rather than to hide tensions and paradoxes, sets it apart from many, if not most, strands of organization and management scholarship. As Smith and Lewis (2011: 382) argue, paradoxes are defined as “contradictory yet interrelated

144    Critical Management Studies and Paradox elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” and comprise “elements that seem logical individually but inconsistent and even absurd when juxtaposed.” They abound in organizations, yet often are silenced or ignored. However, the descriptor critical in CMS signals the propensity to challenge prevailing notions of management and highlight its shortcomings, conflicts, contradictions, and paradoxes (Adler, Forbes, and Willmott 2007; Alvesson, Bridgman, and Willmott 2011). For example, in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature, there are numerous mainstream studies highlighting the “win–​win wonderland” of the business case, while ignoring the many instances of difficult tensions between economic, social, and environmental aspects and the absence of easy win–​win situations (Hahn, Pinkse, Preuss, and Figge 2015). More generally, after decades of liberalization, globalization, and deregulation, the power of corporations has increased significantly. At the same time, we are witnessing an increasingly critical and skeptical public mood toward this trend. These developments open up opportunities for critical scholars to examine the fissures, conundrums, and perversities of current management and organizations. Paradox theory helps to further expose the underlying tensions of organizational life and offers insights into how to embrace, cope with, or manage them. In this chapter, we explore in more depth the relation between CMS and paradox. In particular, after a discussion of the main tenets of CMS, we examine the paradoxes that exist within CMS and the various paradoxes addressed by CMS scholars. In the conclusion, we sketch out a potential research agenda around CMS and paradoxes and offer suggestions about how to locate and examine hidden paradoxes.

Critical Management Studies CMS is an umbrella term covering a potpourri of theoretical perspectives, which have in common a concern with the dominating, oppressive, and exploitative aspects of management and organizations. With the increasing spread of management among organizations (Grey 2008) there has been a power shift toward management and managers. Mainstream management theories are accused of being the servants of the powerful and defenders of the status quo; CMS questions the power relations of current management and organizations. CMS scholars typically regard these power relations as structures of oppression, which favor some (elite) groups and/​or interests at the expense of the possible emancipation and autonomy of groups considered to be disadvantaged, underprivileged, or voiceless (Alvesson 2008). CMS critically scrutinizes mainstream management and organization studies. That is, it accuses these studies of not sufficiently questioning neoliberal capitalism’s relentless profit-​imperative and productivism, and the enduring patriarchal dominance, racism, and imperialism inherent in many aspects of organizational life (see Adler et al. 2007; Alvesson et al. 2011). As exemplified by the domain statement of the CMS division in the Academy of Management, rather than being satisfied with the status quo and continuation of the relentless pursuit of profit and growth,

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    145 critical scholars argue that “other priorities, such as justice, community, human development, and ecological balance, should be brought to bear on the governance of economic and other human activity.”1 While the above might suggest that CMS is a coherent label or “school,” the boundaries of critical and non-​critical management theories are somewhat porous and arbitrary. Moreover, some CMS scholars are, from the outset, inherently sceptical of such labels, which makes it difficult to say where exactly the boundaries between critical and non-​critical should be drawn. Studies within the CMS tradition draw on, among others, Marxism and Labor Process Theory (Burawoy 1979), the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Alvesson and Willmott 1996), Foucault (Townley 1993), feminism (Calas and Smircich 2006), post-​colonialism (Banerjee 2008a), postmodernism (Alvesson and Deetz 2000), and poststructuralism (Contu and Willmott 2003). There are several commonalities in this diverse work that can be classified as “critical”: a focus on de-​ naturalization, an anti-​performative stance and reflexivity (Adler et al. 2007; Alvesson et al. 2011; Fournier and Grey 2000). First, de-​naturalization refers to questioning the taken-​for-​granted and the status-​ quo. Deeply held assumptions on “the way we do things around here” are assessed critically by CMS scholars, whose aim is to reveal the socially constructed and historically contingent nature of organizational arrangements and their underpinning power mechanisms (Adler et al. 2007). That is, what is supposed to be normal and taken-​for-​granted is revealed to be a context-​dependent manifestation of, for instance, Western neoliberal capitalist ideology, white-​male domination, and individualism (Alvesson et  al. 2011). CMS aims to open up avenues for alternatives and to emancipate those who are oppressed by such naturalizations, making way for possibilities of micro-​emancipation (Alvesson and Willmott 1992, 1996) and autonomy (Hardt and Negri 2000). Second, anti-​performativity refers to the attempt by CMS to challenge the notion that social relations in organizations should be considered as primarily instrumental, i.e., as part of a means–​end calculation. A performative (or instrumental) view, prominent in most mainstream studies, assumes uncritically that the purpose of management research, practices, and knowledge is to improve the management of organizations in terms of their efficiency, effectiveness, profitability, performance targets, and the like. As noted by Adler et al. (2007), management schools adhere also to this performative view when they educate students and executives to render them more “instrumentally equipped.” Critical reflection on issues beyond instrumentality (e.g., ethics, power relations, democracy in the workplace) is marginal. Management knowledge and practices are treated and evaluated within the norms of instrumental means–​end rationality, with the (naturalized) ends remaining largely unquestioned. CMS aims precisely to question the unquestioned and broaden organizational performance criteria. A focus on de-​naturalization and anti-​performativity makes CMS susceptible to being accusations of being “non-​practical.” However, anti-​performativity does not mean that

1 See http://​cms.aom.org/​domain-​statement/​.

146    Critical Management Studies and Paradox CMS should get stuck in relativistic and philosophical quibbles. Recent work on “critical performativity” (Spicer, Alvesson, and Kärreman 2016) makes the case that CMS should “actively and pragmatically intervene in specific debates about management and encourage progressive forms of management” (Spicer et al. 2009: 507). Therefore, CMS scholars should become more performative rather than anti-​performative, although considering carefully the type of performativity. In sum, the anti-​performative stance refers typically to the idea of primarily being interested in gaining knowledge about management and organizations rather than for management and organizations in a direct, instrumental way (Adler et al. 2007; Alvesson et al. 2011). Third, the work of critical management scholars is characterized by methodological and philosophical reflexivity (Fournier and Grey 2000). That is, the meaning that researchers and/​or practitioners assign to accounts of organizations and management is influenced by their social position, background, experience, etc. CMS aims for transparency by highlighting the ontological, epistemological, and methodological premises underpinning research. This acts as an antidote to much mainstream research, which typically is less transparent and reflexive about the topics that are researched and the conduct of the research (Alvesson et al. 2011). Typically, CMS pays attention to and often questions the assumptions underpinning the claims about knowledge; research inevitably is conditioned by context and tradition, which influence how the research is performed and represented (Adler et al. 2007).

Paradoxes within Critical Management Studies The primary relation of CMS to paradox theory is that CMS tries to make organizational contradictions explicit. Notwithstanding this aim, CMS also contains various paradoxical elements. These include the relationship to practical issues (performativity and anti-​ performativity), the role of ideal visions (analytical and normative), the aims of CMS (reform and revolution), the focus of CMS studies (theory driven and phenomenon driven), and the role of business schools (something to be opposed and embraced).

Performative and Anti-​Performative First, CMS maintains a paradoxical relationship with management and organizational practices. In particular, in the performativity debate, the difficult balancing act between engagement and/​ or disengagement with management and organization becomes apparent (Fournier and Grey 2000). At one end of the spectrum is the idea that CMS should be strictly anti-​performative and should not engage with managerial practice. Establishing a dialogue or striving for a more humane form of management ultimately

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    147 will lead to selling out and being co-​opted. Management’s performative principles contradict the central premises of CMS and, therefore, offering alternatives is pointless. CMS should not reform management, but should fundamentally critique and destabilize it (Fournier and Grey 2000). Clearly, an extreme focus on anti-​performativity exposes a parasitic aspect of CMS since its existence is based on the things against which it rebels. CMS scholars develop careers denouncing mainstream management practices and studies, but by not offering any alternative through engagement, they maintain the status quo. The risk for CMS is that it becomes an obscure ivory tower of intellectualism that engages with neither management nor organizational practices (Fournier and Grey 2000). Alvesson et al. (2011: 13) describe it succinctly as: “scholars are content to reap the benefits of applications of instrumental reason that produce the economic growth which, in turn, provides the resources for critical scholarship.” The other side of the debate holds that CMS should engage with managerial practice in order to promote and develop more humane forms of management (Fournier and Grey 2000). This position is most clearly spelt out through the idea of critical performativity (Spicer et al. 2009, 2016), which maintains that active and subversive engagement with managerial practices and discourses is needed to achieve social change and reduce critique of CMS to an elite group of intellectual naysayers. Spicer et al. (2009) provide a useful example of this in their reference to taking an affirmative stance. That is, an affirmative stance pushes CMS scholars to go beyond merely denouncing organizational discourse and practices, since it requires engagement with the tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes of organizational life. It is through this pragmatic affirmation of the organization’s full complexity that CMS seeks social change. For example, rather than denouncing the ethical void of the dominant instrumental “business case” perspective on corporate sustainability (Fleming and Jones 2012), a more performative and affirmative CMS would engage with this instrumental view. Scholars would truly embrace the tensions between the interrelated social, environmental, and economic dimensions and push for simultaneous integration rather than a priori prevalence of any dimension (see e.g., Hahn et al. 2015). Through this acknowledgement of and engagement with the contradictions, tensions, and paradoxes it becomes possible to “create a kind of open-​ended space of a drama in which there is a conflict and a tension between various forces without any predefined outcome” (Spicer et al. 2009: 547).

Analytical and Normative A second CMS paradox is the contradictory relationship much CMS work has with ends. On the one hand, as explained above, there is a strand of CMS scholarship which aims to contribute to emancipatory change. Based on that normative position, various managerial practices are assessed as “problematic” (Alvesson and Willmott 1996). Proponents of this normative position argue that critique always implies a set of value judgments. In order to engage in making value judgments, it is necessary to be clear not just about what is seen as bad or problematic, but also what

148    Critical Management Studies and Paradox might be considered good (or less problematic). Thus, it requires a normative vision about what a good organization or good set of organizing practices might look like. Some common normative claims underlying many critical accounts include the notions of autonomy, sustainability, and solidarity (Parker, Cheney, Fournier, and Land 2014). On the other hand, much CMS scholarship notably shies away from articulating the clear normative bases on which these assessments are based (Bohm and Spoelstra 2004; Parker 1995). Scholars making strong claims about an ideal state run the risk of being accused of falling into the trap of being “normative” and risk all the supposed accompanying “bad things” (e.g., utopian thinking). In this way, scholars assiduously avoid making any normative claims and commitments and, instead, see their task as perpetually questioning other normative positions (ideally including those established within the various CMS traditions) (Parker 1995). This would require the constant suspicion and questioning—​an art that many critical theorists seem to consider core to post-​structural thinking. According to this approach, the proper role of the critic is to problematize normative statements and visions, not to try to set their own norms.

Reform and Revolution The third, related paradox within CMS is the ongoing tension between adoption of a reformist or a revolutionary position. For some critics, the objective of critical thinking is to develop ideas which help to edge the critique toward a more just—​or perhaps less oppressive—​social world. Following this approach, critique becomes part of the gradual art of progressive reform (Alvesson and Willmott 1992; Perrow 2008). For instance, by questioning the way corporate culture operates (Willmott 1993), it might possibly lead to a less all-​encompassing and oppressive culture and to a culture that endows employees with more freedom. However, such a move is unlikely to radically change the nature of corporate capitalism. For a reformist, this would be seen as sufficient achievement. However, more radical critics are more demanding. They consider reformist moves to be mechanisms through which critique helps to keep alive the oppressive status quo. For them, the objective of critique should be demands for some kind of radical break or change (Contu 2008; De Cock and Böhm 2007). This is often envisaged to be some fundamental symbolic rupture or revolutionary moment when all assumptions and ideas about institutions are suspended and give way to the coming into being of a fundamentally new means of co-​ordinating organizations. For instance, in the sustainability literature, “corporate sustainability” is considered an oxymoron and there are numerous calls for a complete overhaul of the current neoliberal capitalism system toward “true” sustainable development (Gray 1992). Reformists frequently make the point that these revolutionary visions can be politically crippling or fundamentally impractical (Spicer et al. 2009). However, it is interesting to note that much work in critical theory seems to

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    149 circulate between the radical energies of revolutionary visions, and the more detailed and focused work suggested by more reformist agendas.

Theory and Phenomena A fourth major tension in CMS is between theory-​driven and phenomenon-​driven work. For some time, those working in CMS saw critique largely as involving the application of a number of critical theorists. Being a critic meant using some form of critical theory to understand and question particular managerial practices. There is a particular canon of critical theorists which scholars can select from and, if they are sufficiently bold, might venture to extend through the introduction of some other—​ previously overlooked—​critical theorist. This approach could lead to a relatively stable body of ideas and clear links with other social science disciplines (see e.g., Scherer 2009; Thompson and O’Doherty 2009). However, this approach is also prey to the problems of developing too few original ideas (Oswick, Fleming, and Hanlon 2011), creating narrow and insulated theoretical schools, and nurturing a certain kind of author-​itarianism (Spicer et al. 2016), resulting in CMS scholars spending their time policing the interpretation of particular grand theorists. The flip-​side to this largely theoretically driven approach is a more phenomenon-​driven approach. This tends to create studies from which critical accounts emerge on issues such as academic conferences (Bell and King 2010), leadership (Alvesson and Spicer 2012), cooperatives (Paranque and Willmott 2014), and online dating (Roscoe and Chillas 2014). It has the advantage that it focuses on issues of real societal concern. Its shortcoming is that it can lead to a high level of description and fragmentation among different observations with little in the way of an overarching understanding of how these issues combine. Often, critical work tends to move between these two different extremes of theoretical orthodoxy and empirical description, which might seem contradictory, but at the same time interdependent.

Opposition and Embrace Finally, the institutional location of many CMS scholars in business schools is paradoxical (Alvesson et al. 2011; Contu 2011). That is, business schools typically are not known for radicalism, but are rather mainstream, conservative-​leaning, pro-​business and pro-​capitalism institutions that mass produce MBAs and future managers (Alvesson et al. 2011). Arguably, business schools are among the main proponents and suppliers of the same dominating ideologies, interests, identities, and institutions that CMS scrutinizes. They favor an elite, and marginalize the majority or the non-​privileged. At the same time, as noted by Alvesson et al. (2011), business schools generally are part of a larger university organization and, therefore, need to comply with the academic norms and values of diversity, academic respectability, critical thinking, etc. Despite their institutional location (or possibly because of it since a business school might

150    Critical Management Studies and Paradox provide CMS scholars legitimacy, a rich network, and the possibility to influence large numbers of people), CMS has developed and extended its reach since the early 1990s. Also, in times of corporate misconduct and crises, the message of CMS is increasingly striking a chord, yet that “CMS ideas have been developed within such a pro-​capitalist an institution as the business school could not have been predicted, was certainly not intended, and is nicely illustrative of a key critical concept—​contradiction” (Alvesson et al. 2011: 18).

Paradoxes Addressed by Critical Management Studies As discussed, CMS combines a wide variety of theoretical resources. Below, we discuss a prominent selection of critical work in various theoretical traditions and examine the paradoxes addressed.

Marxism: Capital and Labor A main source of inspiration for CMS is Marxist theory and its focus on the contradictions, and interdependencies, of capitalism through the relationship between capital and labor. In a nutshell, a ruling capitalist class is dependent on, but exploits, a large working class of non-​owners. The working class has its labor to offer to the capitalist in order to achieve subsistence. Paradoxically, rather than resisting exploitation by the ruling capitalist class, workers adhere largely to the capitalist system, or at least tend not to resist to the point of revolution and, thereby, not liberating themselves from reproducing the domination of market forces and the capitalist class. This raises the question of why the working class consents to its own exploitation. While current notions of “the market” typically obscure inequality and power asymmetries in the marketplace, the paradox of capitalism is made more visible in the workplace than in any other location, and is studied by applying Labor Process Theory (LPT). LPT argues that at the heart of the employment relation is the continuing pursuit of profit and dominance by the managerial/​capitalist class, which requires capitalists finding ways to control workers in order to avoid this resistance. Typically this leads to a process of deskilling and fragmentation of jobs, reduced worker freedom and autonomy due to the introduction of management control systems, and overall lower levels of satisfaction (Adler et al. 2007). However, paradoxically, rebellion against these dominant work relations remains limited and largely non-​threatening. An excellent example of this is Burawoy’s (1979) study of machine-​shop workers which shows that, rather than rebelling, the workers contented themselves with smaller pleasures, thereby embracing the fundamentals of capitalism rather than being constrained by them. For instance,

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    151 through a process of “making out,” workers treated much of their daily work as a game—​ trying to beat quotas, getting the best job for the day, conquering the machinery, and so on. Workers did not question the rules of the game though and left the labor versus capital tension largely untouched. Thus, progressive management techniques or the upgrading of work (e.g., employee participation schemes, self-​managing teams, organizational cultures) are, from an LPT perspective, not necessarily liberating. Rather, they are viewed as more sophisticated and, possibly, more sinister attempts at achieving worker control, which, ultimately, maintains and obscures the fundamentally asymmetrical and paradoxical relation between capital and labor (see e.g., Boltanski and Chiapello 2005). In sum, citizens and workers are considered paradoxically as being required to navigate through a capitalist world, which does not offer them a real choice of the fundamentals of this world, but within this world or workplace, offers them a multitude of choices, which obscure the broader picture.

Class: Managers and the Managed A related theme, which has been touched on by CMS research, is the paradoxical relationship between different social classes. Early work clearly was inspired by Marxist analysis and examined the paradoxical relationship between the ruling class and the working class. This body of work gave rise to a number of studies of the ongoing tense relationships between those who managed the workplace and those who were managed. These studies not only showed how the managerial class sought systematically to dominate those who were managed; it highlighted the creation of different identities and cultures within each of these classes—​often by using the other as a way of marking their identities. For instance, in his study of a lorry factory, David Collinson (1988) shows how the men working on the shop floor strived to create a clear working-​class identity which relied on humor, but, crucially also distanced them from those in managerial and administrative positions. We see the reverse situation in a sample of managerial employees who sought to create middle or upper-​middle-​class identities through purposeful distancing from working-​class, shop-​floor employees. Perhaps this is nowhere better demonstrated than in Bourdieu’s (1984) masterpiece Distinctions. He explores how the members of French society reconstructed their class positions through the mobilization of various forms of social, cultural, and economic capital. For instance, those in senior management positions tend to distinguish themselves from others in numerous ways including consumption habits, dress, education, modes of speech, and much more. More recent work on elite professional services firms shows that class structures continue to play a vital role in shaping the employment market for graduates (e.g., Rivera 2015). Often, coming from an elite background means that you have a good understanding of the unspoken and difficult-​to-​codify cultural rules, which are used to distinguish oneself as a member of the executive class. Each of these studies show the way that classes often are mutually intertwined—​but also exist in tension. Many organizations are built around implicit, but often unspoken class structures.

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Bureaucracy: Rationalizers and the Rationalized Alongside conflict over the means of production is the ongoing struggle around the control and application of the means of administration. There is a deep tradition of research within CMS, which explores bureaucracy as a mechanism of control and oppression. It shows that groups that are able to capture the bureaucratic apparatus are able to control how organizations—​and, in some cases, entire populations—​are categorized and administered. This work was built on the major themes, which can be found within Max Weber’s work and which suggests that one of the central features of bureaucracy is the application of instrumental rationality to administrative issues. Critics have pointed to how bureaucracy often involves systematic application to organizations of disembodied instrumental reasoning. This not only operates as a mechanism for controlling people, it serves also as a means for marginalizing numerous aspects of social and organizational life. Class work, such as Alvin Gouldner’s (1954) study of a gypsum mine, shows how the introduction of rationalized forms of management clash with other, marginalized modes of organizing based on kinship relations, local community bonds, and tradition. In his ongoing series of engagements with modern organizations, Gibson Burrell has traced how processes of rationalization have marginalized many aspects of organizational life including sexuality (Burrell 1984)  and the experiences of disorganization, which are common in organizational life (Burrell 1997). A recent example in this tradition is David Graeber’s (2015) study of bureaucracy. Although outside the field of CMS, Graeber reflects many of its preoccupations. He documents how, often, the growth of pro-​market regimes have grown hand in hand with bureaucratic processes. He shows how most ordinary citizens, who have been subjected to this increasing managerial bureaucracy, find themselves overwhelmed by increasingly pointless and constraining rules. So, while pro-​market reforms promise a degree of freedom for consumers, they end up delivering increasingly constrained bureaucratic rule-​following processes.

Feminism: Men and Women The patriarchal nature of organizations and the marginalized position of women have been of interest to CMS scholars. The CMS literature on gender and feminism is vast and diverse (Calas and Smircich 2006) and scholars have identified various paradoxes. Arguably, one of the most noteworthy is the gender paradox, which is related to conventional forms of structuring organizational forms and processes. Bureaucracies provide an interesting case of a gendered form of organizing (Ashcraft 2001, 2011). Focused on rules and masculine values of impersonality, rationality, and objectivity, feminine aspects such as feeling, intuition, and emotions are marginalized and seen as antithetic to the purposes of the bureaucratic organization. However, at the same time, the relevance or even necessity of feelings and emotions is being increasingly recognized, as the “bureaucratic organizing renders feeling dubious and necessary, it sparks a host of

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    153 dilemmas for women and men” (Ashcraft 2011: 310, emphasis in original). These more emotional aspects of work, which typically are performed by women, are, thus, on the one hand recognized as important, but at the same time are often devalued and considered less glamorous and prestigious (Acker 1990). A second gendered paradox emerges when we consider attempts to feminize certain types of (masculine) work, or the inclusion of females in typically male jobs. While their inclusion in such professions may seem an obvious solution, it raises another interesting paradox of how the inclusion of women in typically “male” industries can lead to a strengthening rather than a softening of the masculine values. Miller (2004: 47) shows this in her study of female engineers in Canada’s oil industry, which is maintained by specific masculine values and beliefs; everyday exclusionary interactions, and powerful symbols of the cowboy hero and the frontier myth. While most of the women in the study sample were quite successful in their jobs, their double-​edged strategy for coping with gender differences was not one of an attempt to bring about change, but was largely one of adapting to and, thereby, paradoxically, perpetuating the dominant masculine culture.

Queer Theory: Straight and Queer Queer theory shares many of the concerns of feminism in its focus on gender and sexuality. It questions heteronormativity and how it leads managers and scholars to think in terms of binaries (male/​female, homosexual/​heterosexual) rather than more complex configurations. Also, queer theory can be seen as broader than a strict focus on gender and sexuality issues, although, as queering becomes a more general attitude of unceasing disruptiveness, this destabilizes fixed and taken-​for-​granted ideas (Parker 2002). Thus, queer theory aims to “mess up” commonly held ideas and assumptions, highlighting tensions and paradoxes. In relation to feminism, queering could refer to objecting to the use of such concepts such as masculine and feminine. Such essentialist simplifications deserve critical examination because, “erroneously [they] target individuals, naturalize binary difference, and overlook the influence of systemic pressures” (Ashcraft 2011: 310). For example, Johnston (2005: 4), in her study of gay pride parades, applies queer theory in highlighting the paradoxes surrounding these parades. As parades become part of an emerging queer tourism market and “city marketing,” she ponders on whether “ ‘being proud’ out and visible, is about entertainment, consumption, neoliberal forms of citizenry, and the establishment of relationships with multiple audiences,” thereby highlighting the tension between gay search for identity and being part of the “queer market.” More generally, queer theory highlights the need to question dualisms such as us/​them, for/​against, good/​bad and recognizes that they are two sides of the same coin, two opposing terms which are constitutive of each other. Rather than being “for” or “against” management, queering the practice of management would explicate various positions, but also would reflect upon and acknowledge the constraints and potential hegemony of each position (Parker 2002). In other words, queering management and organizations

154    Critical Management Studies and Paradox means highlighting the contradictions, but simultaneously recognizing their mutually constitutive nature and interdependencies.

Colonialism: Colonizers and Colonized A thriving field of post-​colonial studies of organizations explores the tensions between colonizers and the colonized. This work examines the role of state violence and culture in this process, while research in organization studies explores how these tensions play out in the contexts of organizations. This body of research highlights that some of the earliest forms of modern organizations were founded upon colonial legacies. For instance, one of the first modern corporations, the British East India Company, was a vehicle for Western colonialism (Banerjee 2008b). What researchers working on post-​ colonial issues have highlighted is how, although the story of colonialism was central to the development of modern organizations, it is often written out of our histories of organizational theory (Prasad 2003). Others point to vital institutions, such as slavery, which also have been written out of the history of organizations (Cooke 2003) with the result that our vision of modern organizations is often cleansed of these more troubling aspects. In addition, the voice of the colonized people has also been written out. There is a strand of work which explores how colonial dynamics continue to operate to this day. For instance, in his work on multinational professional services firms, Mehdi Boussebaa and colleagues (2012), examines the neo-​colonial structure of professional service firms—​where the greatest share of rewards and control are in the hands of colonial power centers such as the City of London. Others show how contemporary work on diversity management and cross-​cultural differences, often has a clear colonial bias and marking (Prasad, Mills, Elmes, and Prasad 1997). The more recent practice of sustainable development, for example, has become a mechanism for extending the power of the (neo) colonizers over the colonized people (Banerjee 2008b). Work in post-​colonial theory has encouraged recovery of the voices of colonized. It has sought also to deconstruct the binary between colonized and colonizers. It highlights the potential tensions and paradoxes, while, at the same time, reminding us of spaces for understanding hybridization practices, in which the cultures of the colonized and colonizers are mixed together to create unusual third spaces (Frenkel and Shenhav 2006).

Power/​Knowledge: Knowers and the Known A further contradiction that has been investigated in depth in CMS is the tension between those in positions of knowledge and those who are known. A long stream of research, inspired by Michel Foucault, explores the power/​knowledge relations within organizations. Some studies look at surveillance relationships in organizations. They explore how actors came to be known and watched through a range of surveillance mechanisms, ranging from optical viewing to electronic systems, auditing systems,

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    155 and even bio-​surveillance (e.g., Cederström and Spicer 2015; Hoskin and Macve 1986; Townley 1993). This creates a relationship between those positioned to do the watching (by gathering data and tracking the behavior of individuals) and those being watched (those who become data points for surveillance). Those who are being watched are the subject of knowledge—​they are to be studied, but they are also subject to relations of control and domination. What is particularly interesting is how this process of surveillance is taken up by employees. For instance, in a factory with a just-​in-​time surveillance system, employees often begin to watch their peers—​and then begin to watch themselves (Sewell 1998). Cederström and Spicer (2015) show how the adoption of various forms of bio-​surveillance, such as fitness trackers, allows employers to monitor all aspects of employees’ lives, including their eating and drinking habits, how much exercise they do, and their sleep patterns. These two studies reveal an interesting tension between being the object and the subject of knowledge—​of watching and being watched. Employees are finding themselves increasingly in a position where they are simultaneously watcher and watched.

Ideology: The Believed and Believers Another theme running through CMS is the role of ideology in management and organizations. There is an extensive body of work exploring how ideology works in an organizational context. It explores how popular management ideas work to seduce people into believing in ideas that are difficult to sustain and may be harmful. For instance, Dennis Tourish (2013) explores how ideas related to transformational leadership have become particularly seductive in a range of organizational settings. He shows how these ideas have been adopted enthusiastically by various managerial and non-​managerial audiences—​often with disastrous results. For instance, the dominance at Enron of ideas of transformational leadership was central to the collapse of this once very powerful company. Other studies indicate how an entire leadership industry played a pivotal role in promoting such ideas as authentic leadership, which often provide a way for middle managers to avoid much of the boring administrative work on which they spend their time (Alvesson and Spicer 2016). In both cases, there appears to be an obvious group of individuals which is supposed to be believed (such as leaders) and a group which is supposed to do the believing. However, a closer look reveals a more complex relationship (see also Collinson 2005). Often followers recognize acts of transformational leadership and are not particularly interested in them. Instead, those who believe in these transformational conceptions of leadership are would-​be leaders as it offers them a way to escape from the mundane realities of daily work. What these studies of leadership show more broadly are the strange paradoxes that often are at work between those who propagate an ideology and those who are supposed to buy into an ideology. It frequently transpires that the ideologies we propagate are related more to convincing ourselves than convincing others. We are simultaneously those who need to be believed and those who should be believed in.

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Conclusion In many ways, CMS focuses on paradoxes in organizational life which otherwise are passed over without comment. While it might be interesting for people to debate the merits of centralization versus decentralization, or exploration versus exploitation, it is usually more contentious and challenging to consider such paradoxes as men versus women, oppressed versus oppressor, straight versus queer, ruling class versus ruled class, and so on. Although they might seem impolitic, these paradoxes often act as the unseen dynamics that shape almost all core organizational processes. While scholars of paradox have addressed a wide variety of contradictions (Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016), arguably, they have shied away from the more contentious paradoxes highlighted in CMS. CMS has perhaps uncovered many paradoxes, yet has been less successful at finding ways to cope with them and settle on more sustainable and just forms of organizing. Combining insights from CMS and work on paradox will enrich both literature streams. Below we address three potentially interesting areas for future research. A first potential benefit is the inclusion of CMS themes by paradox scholars. Consider the example of recruitment. There is significant evidence showing the existence of systematic preferences in organizations for people who fit into particular categories (e.g., Rivera 2015). There are often overlooked tensions and paradoxes, which are considered by critical researchers and which simply do not make it into the rational calculus and official versions of strategy making. Locating these hidden paradoxes can be difficult. All too often they may shape what happens, but are referred to only obliquely. One way to examine these paradoxes, which has been adopted by many critical researchers is through processes of othering. That is, when one group seeks to create or consolidate its identity and status by describing (often in a negative way) what they are not. For instance, research in post-​colonialism details how Europeans often were obsessed with creating representations of the “Orient,” which was seen as mystical and completely different from the West (Said 1984). This created a great sense of distance between the modern and rational Occident and the mystical and pre-​modern Orient. Similar processes of othering can be detected in organizations—​for instance, managerial positions typically were represented in male, white, and hetero-​normative terms. Looking for these subtle processes of othering becomes a useful way to detect how the construction of otherness occurs. Second, more direct engagement with power can further extend the paradox literature (Fairhurst et al. 2016). A fundamental feature of paradox is that it contains at least two contradictory, but interdependent elements. While there is a large body of literature which investigates the “resolving” of paradoxes, the typically rather power-​neutral approach to it means we know relatively little about what forces affect the poles of paradox (Schad et al. 2016). However, a more critical position would achieve a deeper insight into the power dynamics, and what constitutes the force of the “winning” pole of the

Koen van Bommel and André Spicer    157 paradox and how it is made sense of. A concern with power is at the heart of CMS and runs through the various paradoxes it addresses. To understand these kinds of organizational processes, paradox scholars need to start by looking at these underlying tensions which have been explored by researchers working in a critical tradition. Doing so could uncover instances of ideology and control in what at first sight appear to be benign paradoxes (Putnam et al. 2016). We thus concur with Fairhurst et al.’s (2016: 177) argument that “paradox insights will be elevated when scholars recognize the multiple approaches by which power informs, and is informed by, paradoxical dynamics.” Third, insights from the paradox literature can contribute to CMS. This chapter has highlighted various paradoxes central to CMS. Much early CMS was somewhat narrow and basic in its understanding of these important paradoxes. The first wave of CMS research, which was inspired by Marxism, focused largely on the tension between managers (and ultimately capital) and the managed. The second wave was inspired largely by post-​structuralism and multiplied the tensions it explored—​examining a wide range of identities including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and so on. In some cases, this led to overly crude binaries in the form of a list of aspects that were considered “bad” and dominating (e.g., management, masculinity, heterosexuality, whiteness) and those that were considered “good” and dominated (e.g., workers, femininity, queerness, non-​ white). While CMS calls attention to several vital tensions and paradoxes, it does not do full justice to the way in which both oppressed and oppressors might find themselves caught up in mutually constituting “double binds.” More recent work in CMS puts to one side many of these political presuppositions and asks about how both those who are apparently powerful and those we might consider to be powerless, can become caught up in mutually ensnaring double binds. For instance, Susanne Ekman (2012) explored how, in some settings, managers can find themselves being dominated by autonomy-​ seeking workers. This applies also to many identity movements which become attached to the very “wounded” identities that they want to question and dispose of (Brown 2004). What these kind of studies show is that these paradoxes of interests and identities frequently entrap people in identities and positions that can be mutually damaging. The central intellectual and political act in this context becomes not just one of valorizing the oppressed side of the paradox over the other (for instance, celebrating characteristics of femininity over traditional characteristics associated with masculinity). Instead, the issue focuses on undoing this binary and creating spaces for the coming into existence of alternative modes of being, which do not remain stuck in the same double binds (Fraser 1997). Finally, a recent body of CMS work considers the aforementioned critical performativity, defined as the “active and subversive intervention into managerial discourses and practices” (Spicer et al. 2009: 538). Trying to escape the deadlock of performative versus anti-​performative, under the critical performativity banner, scholars have sought to achieve meaningful change as opposed to becoming embroiled in academic squabbles. However, this requires actively managing many of the previously discussed paradoxes. As Spicer et al. (2016: 237) argue, critical performativity requires “being able to deal with more general tensions that arise in much critical engagement: circumspection and care;

158    Critical Management Studies and Paradox pragmatism and progressivism; the present and potentialities. The point is not trying to resolve such tensions, but to use them as a springboard for novel ideas.” So far, it has proven difficult to show how to become “critically performative” (but see Alvesson and Spicer 2012; Spicer et al. 2009) and, thus, to come to terms with the paradoxes in organizational life. However, prior studies in the paradox literature have proposed various strategies to manage and (temporarily) “resolve” paradoxes, ranging from accepting and “working through,” to separation or aiming for a synthesis of various poles (Hahn et al. 2015; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Tushman 2005). Cross-​fertilization of these ideas with recent advancements in the critical performative debate could provide interesting insights that deserve attention.

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Chapter 8

Beyond Ma nag e ria l Dilem mas The Study of Institutional Paradoxes in Organization Theory Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed

Paradoxes—​“questions (or in some cases, pseudoquestions) that suspend us between too many good answers” (Sorensen 2003: xii)—​are an inescapable part of life. Experiencing them can be unpleasant and disorienting, challenging our sense of self and asking searching questions of our core values and beliefs. At the same time paradox can be emancipatory and invigorating, allowing us to see the world in a different light, break free from the shackles of our past, and open up new possibilities and ways of expressing ourselves (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016). Sorenson (2003: xii) notes that while our taken-​for-​granted assumptions about the world—​our common sense—​“may seem like a seamless, timeless whole,” it is really “a jigsaw puzzle of giant plates” perpetually in friction. From this perspective, “paradoxes mark fault lines in our common sense world”—​ever present and profoundly influential, while simultaneously strangely imperceptible for much of the time, but brought intermittently and sharply to the fore through “sudden slippage.” From the standpoint of institutional theory, the roots of paradox reside in the institutional architecture all around us (Seo and Creed 2002). Yet, in general, institutional theorists have shown relatively little interest in paradox—​they prefer to speak of tensions, competing demands, or complex environments—​none of which quite grapple with the idea of paradoxes as strangely imperceptible fault lines in a deceptively common sense world. This may or may not be surprising, but we find it disappointing. Our disappointment deepens further when we consider the sorts of institutions most often studied in this work; too often the focus is on narrow practices in particular organizational forms inhabited by elites such as professionals and corporate leaders (Hampel, Lawrence, and Tracey, forthcoming). Unfortunately, there is relatively little research in institutional

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    163 theory that considers the profound and deep-​rooted tensions which characterize the “big” institutions that, at least from our perspective, matter for organizations and societies in a fundamental way. These institutions include, but are not limited to, gender, race, class, and sexuality. For paradox theorists in organization studies, the issue of paradox is, of course, fundamental, and the emerging body of work in this area has done much to focus attention on a powerful set of ideas that have been largely neglected by management researchers. Yet our reading of paradox theory also raises significant issues that trouble us. We see the focus of paradox research as concerned with a particular set of relatively limited organizational challenges—​usually those faced by leaders and other senior people in organizations—​some of which seem more like dilemmas than paradoxes (Leonard-​ Barton 1992). The emphasis is very much on how to manage these situations and to harness them productively (Amason 1996). And like institutional theory, paradox theory mostly focuses on contexts and organizational forms that are linked in some way with corporate effectiveness. Organizational research on paradoxes in the context of their role in the “grand challenges” of our time is sorely lacking (Smith and Tracey 2016). We realize that our opening remarks, which are designed to frame our subsequent arguments, are provocative. We do not mean to undermine or disparage either the institutional or paradox theory communities. Indeed, we are members of both to varying degrees and must accept our share of responsibility for where we find ourselves today. We also recognize a burgeoning of research that draws on ideas about institutions (Mair, Wolf, and Seelos, forthcoming) and paradoxes (Hafner-​Burton and Tsutsui 2005), focused on issues to do with poverty, inequality, and exploitation in the global south, and which may turn out to be the genesis of a turning point in the study of organizations. But we do think it is important to make the point that, from the perspective of people actually seeking to make change in the world—​such as activists and those engaged in areas such as development and social policy—​members of both the institutional theory and paradox communities focus too much on advancing an arguably narrow intellectual agenda in the service of academic and commercial elites, and too little on those at the margins of society and on the prevailing structures of power which reinforce deep-​ rooted social inequalities within and between countries. Of course, the institutional and paradox communities are far from alone in this respect (indeed, they are arguably less guilty than many other domains of management research). But as they are the subject of this chapter, they are where we will direct our comments. Thus our aim in this chapter is not simply to explore the points of intersection between institutional theory and paradox theory and suggest a future research agenda that combines elements of both perspectives, although we recognize the value of such an exercise (see Smith and Tracey 2016). Rather, we seek to make the case that institutional and paradox theorists could and should take account of a much broader range of actors, interests, organizations, and organizational settings. In other words, we want them to consider problems that stretch beyond managerial concerns and corporate performance, to instead focus attention on the paradoxes that characterize the most deep-​ rooted and contentious social issues facing our societies and economies.

164   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas This suggests, we believe, a switch from organizational to institutional paradoxes. This seems to us to be a potentially fruitful way of overcoming the weaknesses of both perspectives while drawing on their respective strengths. For institutional theory, these strengths have to do with a theoretical architecture and vocabulary for understanding macro-​level phenomena from a cultural perspective that highlights the constructed and relational nature of the social world. For paradox theory, these strengths have to do with a theoretical architecture and vocabulary for understanding conflict and contradiction, highlighting that what may appear on the surface to be uncontested and taken for granted, may at a deeper level be anything but. So what do such institutional paradoxes look like and what issues do they raise over and above those already covered in existing work that draws on institutional and paradox theories? To explore this question, we offer two vignettes of what we think amount to bona fide institutional paradoxes, and consider their theoretical implications. By bona fide institutional paradoxes we mean paradoxes that are built into the core social structures of a given society, such as with respect to race, gender, class, and sexuality, and that define what it means to be a member of that society and the role of different groups within it. Recalling Sorenson’s tectonic image, these bona fide institutional theories mark society’s fault lines, which, even if “imperceptible for much of the time,” are nonetheless made vivid and painful with “sudden slippage.”

Vignette 1: Georgetown University and its Tainted Past: Gaining the World, but Forfeiting your Soul? Our first vignette stems from recent discussions of how many of America’s most prestigious and wealthy universities have deep roots, pernicious roots, in the history of slavery in America. We first will focus on recent coverage of a very large sale of slaves by Georgetown University, but by no means is Georgetown alone. Indeed, in the words of one Georgetown historian, the anguish and division over the sale within the Jesuit order was a “microcosm of the whole history of American slavery” (Swarns 2016). In addition, as white men, we want to be clear that we do not pretend that because we live almost two centuries later and have no ties to Georgetown that we are somehow free from the moral taint of this legacy. But, the case of Georgetown, and the ongoing efforts of its Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation (slavery.georgetown.edu), provide a particularly important case of institutional paradox. We take note of the term reconciliation in the group’s name. Reconciliation in the theological sense figures prominently in the Christian faith, which holds that sin separates us from God and reconciliation brings us back into the embrace of God’s love and forgiveness. But despite the heartfelt desire among many members of the Georgetown community to seek reconciliation, nothing

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    165 can make whole the thousands of slaves who suffered as a consequence of Georgetown’s and the Jesuits’ history of slavery. They are long since dead and gone. In the fall of 1838, Georgetown University sold 272 men, women, and children down the river. The phrase “sold down the river” refers to the practice of selling “trouble-​ making” slaves to new owners in the lower Mississippi. It was considered a particularly harsh punishment because the slaves were usually forced to leave their family members behind, and in most cases, once separated, they would never see each other again. Moreover, the living and working conditions—​and the levels of brutality—​that slaves had to endure generally became harsher the further south they were required to go (Rodriguez 2007). The sale in 1838 did not mark the first time that Georgetown and the Jesuit community had sold slaves. Indeed, according to 2016 account from Georgetown’s alumni magazine, there was, spreading from Maryland to Missouri, and southwards to Kentucky and Louisiana, a diaspora of slaves with links back to the Jesuits’ Maryland plantations. Historians speculate that now there are as many as fifteen to twenty thousand descendants of Jesuit slaves scattered across the entire country (Quallen 2016). This is in part because by the mid nineteenth century Virginia and Maryland had become so-​called breeder states, supplying slaves to the Deep South because the international slave trade was no longer legal in the United States: “Slavers in Maryland and Virginia saw their wealth multiply through generations as their slaves gave birth to a new chattel, transforming family life and population growth into asset appreciation” (Georgetown alumni magazine article). So, in one sense, the Jesuit plantations were simply part of that economic trend in the trafficking of slaves. Of course, we use the word “simply” in this context with a painful awareness of its irony. What makes the Georgetown story so interesting is the historical record of how those particular slaves, who were sold down the river, were also Roman Catholics—​baptized, confirmed in the faith, and required to attend Mass. Yet even so, they were forced to labor, they were on occasion whipped, and were ultimately sold as chattel. While the working group’s task entails remembering, there is no need for us here to belabor the gruesome details of the sale, but it ostensibly saved the university from financial failure. In terms of institutional paradox, it is important to know that there was division among the Jesuits at the time. In this, too, it was a microcosm of the history of American slavery. Historians tell us that “the records describe runaways, harsh plantation conditions and the anguish voiced by some Jesuits over their participation in a system of force servitude” (Swarns 2016). Some priests worried that the slaves would not be allowed to practice their Catholic faith if they were shipped to plantations in the deep South, that there would be no priests, and that the families might end up being separated, and resold. Although at the time the Catholic Church did not officially view slavery as immoral, the Reverend Jan Roothaan, S.J., 21st Superior-General of the Society of Jesus, wrote from Rome at the time that the sale was being planned, wrote “it would be better to suffer financial disaster than suffer the loss of our souls with the sale of the slaves” (Swarns 2016). The phrase “loss of our souls” implies of course that he saw it as a

166   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas mortal sin, that is, as a grave sin committed with knowledge of both its sinfulness and its gravity. Nonetheless, apparently he was persuaded by Fathers Mulledy and McSherry, the prominent Jesuits in charge of Georgetown and the Maryland mission, that the sale should go ahead. It was Mulledy and McSherry who organized the sale. To win the support of opponents in the order, Father Mulledy promised superiors that the slaves would be able to practice their Catholicism, that families would not be divided, and that the proceeds would not be used to pay off debt or for operating expenses. According to Georgetown, it turns out that Fathers McSherry and Mulledy honored none of those promises. Given the constraints of space, it is difficult to catalog fully the dimensions of paradox in the story. In the Christian tradition, to be baptized is to become a member of the body of Christ. It is commonplace to say that the baptized are all members of one body, and therefore are “brothers and sisters in Christ.” There is paradox in the idea that Jesuits could ritually welcome their slaves into the body of Christ and still enslave them. There is paradox in the idea that brothers can sell brothers and sisters into cruel servitude. And there is paradox in the idea that some of the Jesuits were more concerned about whether the slaves would be able to continue practicing their Catholicism than they were about their emancipation, particularly given the centrality of emancipation from slavery in so many of the narratives that animate the Christian gospel, from the Exodus from Egypt to the Resurrection of Jesus. These are tensions that transcend notions of managerial dilemmas and rise to the level of bona fide institutional paradoxes.

Vignette 2: Dining Rituals at Cambridge University and the Maintenance of Social Class Stratification in the United Kingdom The second vignette that we consider in order to explore the connection between institutional and paradox theories is focused on the institution of social class. From our perspective, the institution of class is one of the “big” institutions that has been largely neglected by institutional theorists. It has also, to the best of our knowledge, been ignored by paradox theorists. We find this surprising: not only has class analysis been at the forefront of social scientific research since Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, it lies at the heart of many of the most deep-​rooted present-​day social problems with respect to poverty, inequality, and unequal life chances. More broadly, “all complex societies are characterized by some kind of structured social inequality” or system of stratification, and contemporary ideas of social class “are inextricably associated with the development of capitalist industrialism” (Crompton 2006: 561), the legacy of which continues

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    167 to pervade social relations. Indeed, as shown by the pioneering work of British sociologist John Goldthorpe (e.g., Goldthorpe 2002), social class arguably plays as significant a role in contemporary societies as it did during the industrial revolution. The widespread belief that “Brexit” and Donald Trump’s election hinged on the mobilization of a disaffected working class attests to Goldthorpe’s claim. The story that we draw upon to explore the role of paradox in the institution of class stems from a study of social-​class dynamics in the United Kingdom, and more specifically the role of dining at an elite university—​the University of Cambridge—​in maintaining the British class system, as examined by Dacin, Munir, and Tracey (2010). The empirical focus of this study is the college dining rituals in which students at the university regularly participate during the course of their studies. While the ostentatiousness of these rituals varies between the colleges, at the older colleges they can be very elaborate indeed. The halls in which the dinners take place tend to be visually impressive. At the far end of the room is the High Table, at which the Master and the Fellows of the college sit, and which is usually set upon a raised platform. The students are seated at “low tables”—​long refectory tables usually positioned perpendicular to the High Table. According to the authors: During dinner, a team of servers supervised by either the Fellow’s Butler or the Hall Manager waits on those sitting at the High Table. The “low tables” also have a dedicated team of serving staff, often supervised by a “Manciple” (a steward). Participants enjoy a multicourse dinner, which can last up to two hours. Dining rituals consume not only substantial monetary resources but also time and effort on the part of all college members. The opulence reflected in these rituals makes them an obvious target for critics. (1398)

Dacin et al.’s essential argument is that these rituals help to maintain the British class system because of the effects of the ritual on participants outlive the rituals themselves. Specifically, the rituals socialize students, in a subtle way, into particular norms and values that legitimate the notion of social stratification. And because high-​profile alumni often return as guests to the dinners, students regularly rub shoulders with “important” and confident people who are their predecessors and who experienced the same rituals some years before. Repeated exposure to such grand settings, elaborate ceremony, and impressive guests conveys to students the idea that they are “deserving” of a place in the elite. Some of those who participate in these rituals as undergraduates are already from relatively privileged social positions, having been born into affluent families and attended expensive schools. Others, however, are from working-​class backgrounds, and it is the experiences of these students where a core paradox inherent in the institution of social class becomes apparent. Specifically, the authors collected data from working-​class students which indicated that upward social mobility can be a deeply disconcerting experience. For example, some informants described how their relationships with school friends and even family members had become strained, perhaps because they came to be perceived as “posh” by

168   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas members of the working-​class communities in which they grew up, or perhaps because their new life at Cambridge anchored them within different cultural reference points to which people from their “previous” life struggled to relate. Regardless, what came through in the accounts from a number of working-​class informants was a profound sense of dislocation and a feeling that they did not belong either among their new peer group or among their peers from their home towns and cities. The effects of this dislocation can last long after the ritual participants leave the university. From this perspective, attaining upward class mobility—​to which we should apparently all aspire—​can precipitate an identity crisis from which some people struggle to recover and/​or reconcile. Thus, from this study, we see a significant paradox with respect to social class in market economies. On the one hand, a central narrative in most societies is one of upward social mobility—​that individuals have the capacity to change their position by moving higher in the class hierarchy. Ritzer (2016: 223) notes that the notion of upward mobility “is obviously of great personal concern” to many people, particularly working-​class people, because it is “the route out of poverty.” In addition, the narrative of class mobility serves to normalize and legitimate the idea of social stratification. The only way to get people to accept the inherent unfairness of such a system is to tell them a story in which stratification is fair because in “meritocratic” societies like the United Kingdom and the United States there is the chance to “get on” provided people “work hard.” At the same time, each person has a particular class identity. This identity is rooted not only in income or economic standing, it is also cultural (Weber 1978). Thus implicated in social class dynamics are “hierarchical systems of cultural differentiation that identify particular persons, behaviors, and lifestyles as superior or inferior, more or less worthy” (Crompton 2006: 562). Being “multicultural” in terms of class identification can be very difficult. Class identity plays a powerful role in relationship building; it allows those who share class backgrounds to build relationships on the basis of common experiences, interests, values and preferences, while at the same time creating a barrier between those of different classes. By “moving up” the class hierarchy, people may be forced to make difficult choices about which behaviors they display or perform. They may feel compelled, like some of the students in Dacin et al.’s study, to display or perform attitudes and behaviors that are alien to them in order to “fit in.” For those who are “successful,” the implications are permanent. They become part of a different tribe and may come to experience a sense of alienation from their roots; to feel that they are no longer fully accepted in the communities where they have lived in the past, but at the same time not quite “worthy” of their new place in the upper echelons of the social hierarchy. In other words, they feel like permanent “imposters” and frauds (Vander Putten 2001). There is no easy resolution to such a paradox—​no strategy that allows for a “dynamic equilibrium” leading to “peak performance” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 381). Here we see individual actors faced with the reality of powerful institutional forces and having to look inside themselves to find out “who they are” and where they belong (cf. Gray and Kish-​Gephart 2013). Institutional theorists have tended to be blind to the reality

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    169 of the personal angst and emotional turmoil that institutional forces can bring (Creed, Hudson, Okhuysen, and Smith-​Crowe 2014). Organizational paradox theorists have also largely neglected these emotional dynamics, while at the same time emphasizing the positive outcomes that can arise from managing paradox effectively so that it can be “resolved” (Amason 1996).

Discussion We began this chapter by making the claim that both institutional and organizational paradox theorists should broaden the scope of their interests beyond the primarily managerial and commercial, to expressly include institutions of the order of racism, classism, and sexism. Doing so would move us beyond the five institutional orders as described by Friedland and Alford (1991), and which are commonly invoked in institutional theory, but which we believe are unduly narrow and constraining. From our perspective the current path followed by much, though by no means all, organizational research—​retreating further and further into a narrow range of managerial challenges and dilemmas—​prevents us from saying something meaningful about the issues dominating the lives of most of the world’s inhabitants. While both institutional and paradox theories have made significant advances, we believe that the complex nature of what we call bona fide institutional paradoxes will become clearer if we add a very different set of problems to the mix. In this, our final main section, we consider the theoretical implications of our vignettes.

Legitimacy as a Driver of Institutional Paradox The first implication concerns the role of legitimacy in generating paradox. The notion of legitimacy—​“a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definition” (Suchman 1995: 574)—​is among the fundamental building blocks of institutional theory. Thus from an institutional perspective, people and organizations require legitimacy to survive and thrive: it signals that they are productive members of a particular value sphere (Friedland 2013) and that they are “worthy” of support from others. Our vignettes suggest that some institutional paradoxes may be rooted in the overwhelming desire for legitimacy—​a desire so strong that it can harm the (individual or organizational) self. Specifically, the impetus to appear legitimate may require a studied blindness to the ways in which the particulars of a situation run afoul of the values at the center of their value sphere. Humans have an amazing capacity for self-​serving rationalizations. We also routinely engage in motivated reasoning (Haidt 2001)—​the post hoc rationalization of decisions and actions

170   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas motived not by a commitment to accuracy or truth but an evolutionary predisposition to accommodate the world views and preferences of our social groups or tribes. If for the sake of legitimacy with the members of our groups, we can effectively turn a blind eye to the evidence of contradictions between our actions and our espoused values, institutional maintenance may fundamentally run afoul of the personal or institutional values we allegedly maintain and create profound personal or institutional turmoil. There is paradox in the idea that the seeds of institutional degradation are planted and tilled by our efforts to preserve and advance institutions. In the Georgetown University vignette, we saw that Fathers Mulledy and McSherry justified the decision to sell the slaves “down the river” not only in financial terms—​we need to save the university from financial ruin or it will be forced to close and learning will be denied to many—​but also in purportedly religious and humane ones—​we will guarantee that the slaves will be able to continue to practice their Catholic faith and that their families will remain intact. There is paradox in the examples of Fathers Mulledy and McSherry, whose actions show that even the people entrusted with the work of understanding, interpreting, and sharing the most important truths that animate their institutional domains, their value spheres, can miss or distort the essence of the value spheres. It is not possible, even granting that it was a different era and a different historical context, to say that the Jesuits who sold the slaves did not recognize the gravity of their actions. That conclusion does not stem from the hindsight of two twenty-​first-​century men; Reverend Roothaan’s statement that it “would be better to suffer financial disaster than suffer the loss of our souls with the sale of the slaves” suggests that members of the order expressly deliberated amongst themselves the theological significance of the act. Is it possible that many of the legitimating accounts—​saving the university, assuring the slaves would be able to practice their faith—​that sustain our institutions are simply not to be trusted and that the values at the center of our institutions are most vulnerable when they are taken for granted? Or is it that legitimating accounts are trustworthy only when they have been subjected to the challenges that arise from clashes between contradictory accounts? The situation of working-​class students attending the University of Cambridge is of course incomparable to those of the Jesuits who sold slaves. However, it does highlight how following a taken-​for-​granted, highly legitimate cultural script—​ in this case that “moving up” the social hierarchy should be a personal quest for everyone—​can create a set of identity fault lines at the individual level which can leave people feeling a deep sense of social dislocation. Thus we saw how “getting on” sometimes strained relationships between the students and the working-​class communities in which they had grown up, which for some may create a sense of loss that they struggle to reconcile long after leaving university. More profoundly, the recurring feeling of being an “imposter” showed that (in Haidt’s terms) motivational reasoning is not necessarily easily accomplished—​even some of those who buy into the “getting on” narrative may struggle with the idea that they warrant their place among an elite.

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    171

Temporality as Core to Institutional Paradox Both institutional and paradox theories have been at the forefront of the process perspective in organization studies. This represents an important contribution, because it has offered an alternative to the more or less static perspectives that have long dominated organizational research. That said, we think there is an opportunity to push the notion of temporality further in both institutional and paradox research, and that the need to do so becomes greater when focused on paradoxes that characterize the “big” institutions such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, which are the focus of this chapter. Time plays an important role in both of our vignettes. In the Georgetown vignette, the university’s link to slavery had largely been consigned to history, erased from public discourse. Indeed, the university had secured for itself a reputation as an elite, private, Jesuit institute of learning, whose alumni include eight former heads of state, of which former US President Bill Clinton is one. The darker history of the university may well have been forgotten entirely were it not for student-​led demonstrations—​linked to broader Black Lives Matter activism—​that forced the university to confront its past, and put pressure on it to “reflect on, engage with, and learn from its historic ties to slavery.”1 This insight is important, because it reminds us how history—​literally, the stories about past events—​can become distorted, selectively remembered, and forgotten. The work of Mary Douglas (1986: 69–​70) elegantly captures this dynamic: When we look closely at the construction of past time, we find the process has very little to do with the past at all and everything to do with the present. Institutions create shadowed places in which nothing can be seen and no questions asked. They make other areas show finely discriminated detail, which is closely scrutinized and ordered . . . To watch these practices establish selective principles that highlight some kinds of events and obscure others is to inspect the social order operating in the minds of individuals.

But who decides which aspects of history are forgotten and which are remembered? Without meaning to oversimplify, the answer is that those in positions of power (cultural and economic) are best able to shape this process through the narratives that they create and sustain (White 1990). Of course, dominant historical narratives can be challenged, as in the case of Georgetown. But, even when such challenges are mounted coherently, “success” is not straightforward. As Douglas (1986: 91) points out, “the judgement of history covers a paradox.” This is because it allows past behavior to be explained away as consistent with the times in which it was enacted. In this respect, Douglas argues, “the critic of past institutions is helping the nascent institutional structures of his [sic] day to mount their own defense against the past” (92). From this perspective, institutions—​such as universities—​can continue their present trajectory without “real”

1 

http://​slavery.georgetown.edu/​working-​group/​

172   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas acknowledgement of past transgressions, and “reform” merely constitutes symbolic nods which have little effect on current practices. Time also plays a key role in the Cambridge dining vignette, albeit in a very different way than in the Georgetown one: whereas the Georgetown example highlights the role of institutions in selective remembering and forgetting, the Cambridge example highlights how institutions profoundly affect our individual selves in complex ways over time. Specifically, this vignette reveals the way that people internalize institutions and in so doing face profound—​often paradoxical—​identity tensions rooted in discrepancies between our current and our previous understanding of our social selves. In the case of working-​class students at Cambridge, we see that to build a new identity in order to “fit in” to new surroundings, there may be a perceived need to “betray” one’s past. Research in social psychology suggests this experience is not unique to Cambridge students. For example, in their work on the temporally extended self, Peetz and Wilson (2008: 2092) argued that: The illusion of an upward trajectory can be produced in part by the tendency to criticize past selves in retrospect . . . Young adults, in particular, rate their present selves as more accomplished, happier and better socially adjusted than their past selves…. Retrospective criticism of former selves tends to exaggerate any actual improvement by recalling the past as worse than it was.

Yet, our past selves inform who we are and provide anchors that we use to make sense of the present. Indeed, there is a “bi-​directional link” between a person’s memory of his or her past, and the construction of his or her personal identity (Wilson and Ross 2003). In this regard, the denial of the past can lead to profound feelings of guilt, as well as the sense of cultural dislocation discussed above. This dynamic has broader applicability. For example, in a fascinating in-​depth qualitative study, Charmaz (1994) reveals the “identity dilemmas of chronically ill men.” Faced with their own mortality, chronically ill men cannot easily accede to the narrative of continual improvement. Moreover, they may struggle to maintain their sense of masculinity and to conform to culturally prescribed assumptions about male identity. The traumatic tensions between the past and present identities of chronically ill men are compellingly described in the paper, as are the strategies that they adopt in order to cope with them. Charmaz (1994: 283) notes that men in this position often move back and forth between positive and negative conceptions of self, as they evaluate and re-​evaluate their past and present lives: An uneasy tension exists between valued identities and . . . denigrated or shameful ones. A man can gain a strengthened identity through experiencing illness or can suffer a diminished one. These are not mutually exclusive categories. Men often move back and forth depending on their situations and their perceptions of them. The grieving process in men may be negated or cause those who witness it such discomfort that they cannot give comfort. Men may express their grieving in fear and

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    173 rage as well as in tears and sorrow. But for many men who experience progressive illness and disability, grieving instead of being a process, sinks into becoming a permanent depression. Life becomes struggling to live while waiting to die.

What comes through in this account of chronically ill men, as well as the Georgetown and Cambridge vignettes, is the visceral way in which institutional paradoxes may be experienced:  institutional paradoxes are profoundly emotional. These emotional dynamics are often missing in institutional and paradox theories, although we note important developments designed to address this issue (see, for example, Creed et al. 2014; Pradies, Smith, and Vince 2016). We think that incorporating emotion into analyses of institutional paradoxes is important, because it highlights the fundamentally embodied nature of human experience, which has tended to be glossed over in organization theory, but has been extensively written about elsewhere in the social sciences (Simonsen 2007; see also Tracey 2016).

Institutional Paradoxes as Multiple Interconnected Fault Lines, not Dualities Both paradox theory and institutional theory have tended to view paradoxes in terms of fundamental, interdependent, and persistent dualities that can be somehow addressed and managed, sometimes even “solved,” if only for a time. Based on the consequential nature of the institutional paradoxes contained in our vignettes, we believe Sorenson’s image of paradoxes as tectonic plates is a better way to view what we have called bona fide institutional paradoxes. Beneath the surface is no clear, singular fault where the two plates meet in dualistic tension. Instead, many plates rub against each other; the underlying crust is riven with intersecting fault lines. A “sudden slippage” at a paradoxical epicenter only makes us mindful of a particular fault line, while the movement creates increasing pressures at other points where plates rub. Sudden slippages can shock, as the 2016 political events on both side of the Atlantic have demonstrated. While American and British political polarization may suggest a left-​wing/​right-​wing duality, the many factors at play—​class, race, gender, neoliberalism, globalization, income inequality, xenophobia, nationalism, fascism—​show a multitude of fault lines. The notion that institutions—​or at least the institutions of liberal democracy—​possess a level of taken-​ for-​grantedness seems almost preposterous, an artefact of either the hiddenness of the subterranean fault lines or the blindness of the citizenry or both. Could so many tensions ever be reconcilable? Can the crust ever be changed, or is it by its nature forever riven by fault lines? The image of fault lines suggests that bona fide institutional paradoxes are never soluble. This pessimistic view of institutional paradox and its consequences contrasts with the optimistic view that, from our reading, infuses in the organizational paradox literature. The idea of paradoxes as rooted in fundamental and enduring dualities provides a neat framework for understanding, perhaps even controlling, institutional

174   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas change—​a way of imposing order on a social world that helps us comprehend it better. It also resonates with current thinking in institutional theory, much of which is highly agentic and focuses on the capacity of institutional entrepreneurs to develop a deep understanding of their institutional context and to design and implement a strategy for change. But does such a perspective capture a world that seems characterized by its unpredictability; a world that is perhaps moving from a more structured institutional order to a less structured one? In seeking to explain this dynamic, Bauman (2000) argued that traditional understandings of modernity—​a “solid modernity” rooted in ideas of instrumental rationality, order, and progress—​have been rejected because they imposed on people a narrow set of identities and relationships. In their place is a “lique­ fied modernity” in which people desire to be “free” to express themselves through a myriad of experiences and representations of self. The effects of these changes, Bauman argues, is to undermine social order because relationships become more transient and less durable. At the same time, it creates anxiety and social polarization, and precipitates intermittent attempts to impose order—​the fundamental desire to create meaning in these circumstances is perhaps even stronger. In this context, the idea of institutional entrepreneurs engaging with clearly defined dualisms to purposely change the institutional architecture of whole societies seems far-​fetched. We have drawn on an alternative metaphor to propose that institutional change—​or the opportunity for change—​happens when tectonic plates shift, exposing and reshaping the web of fault lines between them. People are of course deeply implicated in such shifts, but they cannot plan them and they cannot simply exploit them for their own ends. In the Georgetown vignette, we see the fault lines of race in America again exposed as current university stakeholders are reminded of the organization’s painful past. But these stakeholders are also reminded of the myriad of contemporary institutions—​from the police, to the judicial system, to the political system—​that reinforce and entrench racial divisions in America today. This provides an opportunity for activism and reform, but does not repair the fault lines; it simply moves the plates a little. In the Cambridge dining vignette, we again see plates shifting, this time at the individual level—​the fault lines that scar the institutional landscape underpinning UK class dynamics may be dramatically exposed for some working-​class students. While many of those affected quickly come to terms with and indeed embrace their new class identities, for others the process of sensemaking may be a lifelong one. The role of power looms large in theories of tensions and contradictions in the social sciences, exemplified most obviously in the dialectical approaches of Marx and Weber. It might be said that paradox research in organization theory has tended to gloss over the role of power, which partly explains why its account of organizational dynamics is an optimistic one. By contrast, while we have not explicitly theorized the role of power, it might be said that our conception of paradox as interconnected fault lines overplays the entrenched nature of power, and as a result we offer an account of paradox at the institutional level that is too pessimistic about the capacity of people to make change and “resolve” the tensions that they face. It is certainly the case that in thinking about institutional paradox in terms of multiple, interconnected fault lines we have chosen

Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    175 a metaphor that emphasizes the awesome complexity of the institutional structures all around us. While we do not mean to be bleak, our vignettes and analyses offer an alternative way of thinking about paradox in organization theory that reflects the difficulties and persistence of the social challenges that we face.

Conclusion Our aim in this chapter was to consider a research agenda for institutional and paradox theories with the potential to take both of them in new directions. We argued that the study of institutions and paradox in organization theory is too narrowly concerned with managerial problems, and suggested that both could benefit from focusing much more broadly on what we termed institutional paradoxes, defined as paradoxes that characterize the most deep-​rooted and contentious social issues facing our societies and economies. An important characteristic of these paradoxes, which renders them particularly interesting from an organization theory perspective, is that there is no obvious solution to them—​they are intractable or, in the language of social innovation, constitute “wicked problems” (Nicholls and Murdoch 2012; Rittel and Webber 1973). To help show the potential of institutional paradoxes as an area of inquiry in organization theory, we described two vignettes—​one focused on the legacy of the University of Georgetown’s slave-​trading past, the other on the identity challenges faced by working-​ class people attending Cambridge University and who, it could be argued, are being prepared for a future life among the elite of British society. We realize that these vignettes are themselves limited by our own experiences and perspective on the world (it is notable, for example, that both focus on social activity within universities in rich countries, albeit activity with profound implications for broader issues and geographies). Nonetheless, we feel that they allow us to make the point that a concern with institutional paradoxes offers a fruitful way forward for organization theorists, with much potential for theory building and the study of neglected organizational forms. Based on our vignettes, we presented three sets of theoretical insights which we believe are core to institutional paradox. The first is that institutional paradoxes may be rooted in a desire for legitimacy—​a desire that can be so overwhelming it can lead people to undermine the very value sphere that they claim to embody. The second is that temporality is a dynamic at the core of institutional paradox. For example, institutions emphasize particular readings of history at the expense of others. When dominant accounts are challenged, paradoxical tensions rooted in a sense of injustice may emerge that cannot easily be reconciled. The third is that the metaphor of multiple interconnected fault lines better captures the complexity inherent in paradox at the institutional level than the metaphor of dualities. From this perspective, institutional paradoxes are rooted in a complex web of issues that make for a fractured institutional landscape, which can change suddenly and without warning, and defy the straightforward resolution implied by paradox as dualism. We certainly do not claim to have exhausted all

176   Beyond Managerial Dilemmas the theoretical implications of our vignettes or of the notion of institutional paradoxes. However, we hope that other researchers will pick up on and extend our preliminary ideas about the study of institutional paradoxes, and in so doing move both institutional theory and paradox theory beyond a concern with the managerial problems, and instead build a research agenda that focuses the most deep-​rooted issues of our time, issues that may or may not be soluble.

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Paul Tracey and W. E. Douglas Creed    177 Peetz, J., and Wilson, A. E. 2008. The temporally extended self: The relation of past and future selves to current identity, motivation, and goal-​pursuit. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2: 2090–​106. Pradies, C., Smith, W. K., and Vince, R. 2016. The lived experiences of paradoxes: Passions, defenses and competing demands. Call for Papers, European Group of Organization Studies. http://​w ww.egosnet.org/​j art/​prj3/​e gos/​m ain.jart?rel=deandreserve-​m ode= activeandcontent-​ id=1442567999321andsubtheme_​id=1442568082455. Quallen, M. 2016. Beyond the 272 sold in 1838: Plotting the national diaspora of jesuit-​owned slaves. http://​features.thehoya.com/​beyond-​the-​272-​sold-​in-​1838-​plotting-​the-​national-​ diaspora-​of-​jesuit-​owned-​slaves. Rittel, H. W. J., and Webber, M. M. 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2): 155–​69. Ritzer, G. 2016. Introduction to Sociology, 3rd edn. London: Sage. Rodriguez, J.P. 2007. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-​CLIO. Schad J., Lewis M., Raisch S., and Smith, W. K. 2016. Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1): 5–​64. Seo, M., and Creed, W. E.  D. 2002. Institutional contradictions, praxis, and institutional change. Academy of Management Review, 27: 222–​47. Simonsen, K. 2007. Practice, spatiality and embodied emotions: an outline of a geography of practice. Human Affairs, 17: 168–​81. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36: 381–​403. Smith, W. K., and Tracey, P. 2016. Institutional complexity and paradox theory: complementarities of competing demands. Strategic Organization, 14: 455–​66. Sorensen, R. 2003. A Brief History of the Paradox: Philosophy and the Labyrinths of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press. Suchman, M. C. 1995. Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20: 571–​610. Swarns, R. L. 2016. 272 Slaves were sold to save Georgetown: What does it owe their descendants? New  York Times, April 16. http://​www.nytimes.com/​2016/​04/​17/​us/​georgetown-​ university-​search-​for-​slave-​descendants.html?_​r=0. Tracey, P. 2016. Spreading the word: The microfoundations of institutional persuasion and conversion. Organization Science, 27(4): 989–​1009. Vander Putten, J. 2001. Bringing social class to the diversity challenge. About Campus, November–​December: 14–​19. Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society:  An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. White, H. 1990. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilson, A. E., and Ross, M. 2003. The identity function of autobiographical memory. Time is on our side. Memory, 11: 137–​50.

Chapter 9

Parad ox e s of Organiz ationa l I de nt i t y Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma 1

Since Albert and Whetten (1985) first introduced the construct of organizational identity, scholars have developed seemingly contradictory perspectives on the nature of the phenomenon. Researchers agree on the general definition of organizational identity (OI) as the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics that define “who we are” and “what we do” (Albert and Whetten 1985; Gioia, Patvardhan, Hamilton and Corley 2013). Yet some scholars treat identity as a social reality that inheres in explicit features and claims about the organization’s social and legal status and tends to be relatively stable over time, whereas others view it as a social construction that arises from members’ collective sensemaking and sensegiving processes and tends to shift dynamically over time (Corley et al. 2006; Gioia, et al. 2013). Scholars also offer divergent views on the plurality of OI, emphasizing either multiple distinct identities or a single, integrated identity, and further differing in whether multiple identities involve contradictory or compatible elements (Pratt 2016; Pratt and Foreman 2000). The purpose of this chapter is to explore how a paradox perspective can inform these debates about the nature of identity. Paradox is found in “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382). We draw on Lewis and Smith’s (2014) suggestion that a paradox perspective offers both a strategy for more creative theorizing and a framework for addressing specific “both/​ and” challenges. Applying a paradox perspective to core debates in organizational identity research, we show how it can offer new insight into the nature and management of OI. We conclude by noting how our analysis of paradoxical tensions in OI can in turn enrich paradox theory by moving beyond paradoxes of belonging (Smith and Lewis 2011) to provide a more nuanced conception of the multiple paradoxical tensions inherent in organizational entity to which members belong. Table 9.1 provides additional

1 

Authorship is alphabetical. Both authors contributed equally.

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    179 Table 9.1  Illustrative examples of key paradoxical tensions in organizational identity

Social reality vs. social construction

Pole 1

Pole 2

Both/​And

Social reality

Social construction

Identity is a social reality that manifests in observable features and claims made by the organization as a social actor (Albert and Whetten 1985).

OI is an ongoing interaction between organizational culture and images. Identity is mirrored in images others hold, reflected in cultural understandings, expressed in claims based on culture, and impressed on others through claims (Hatch and Schultz 2002).

Social reality and social construction Organizational members’ understandings of identity attributes affect members’ claims and associated actions; claims and actions in turn influence members’ understandings (Gioia et al. 2010).

Organizations are social actors with legal and social status in the institutional environment. OI resides in the organization’s contractual obligations to stakeholders (Whetten and Mackey 2002).

Stable vs. dynamic

Stable Endurance is definitional to OI. Change occurs rarely, through events such as loss of an identity-​sustaining element or change in legal status (Albert and Whetten 1985).

OI is socially constructed through sensemaking and sensegiving. Members construe external images and reflect on cultural practices and artifacts to develop identity claims (sensemaking), and they project a desired image and embed new identity claims in organizational culture (sensegiving) (Ravasi and Schultz 2006).

Dynamic Identity change is accomplished through rhetorical techniques for weakening members’ ties to the existing OI and building ties to the new OI (Fiol 2002). Collective field identities emerge in interaction with organizational identities. The process of identity formation involves an identity crisis that is resolved to achieve a coherent identity (Patvardhan, Gioia, and Hamilton 2015).

Members developing a field-​level identity draw from available identity claims but reconfigure them through discourse and practices to create a new identity (Patvardhan et al. 2015).

Stable and dynamic Identity labels often stay the same, but the meanings members attach to those labels can shift, creating dynamism in identity while at the same time allowing for its endurance over time (Gioia, Schultz, and Corley 2000). Senior managers discursively create both OI continuity and change through selective reporting, adding, and subtracting meaning from labels, and choosing themes from a wider discourse (Chreim 2005).

(Continued)

180    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity Table 9.1 Continued Pole 1

Pole 2

Both/​And

Singular In corporate spin-off, initial multiplicity of identity labels and confusion over identity meanings give way to new singular identity (Corley and Gioia 2004).

Multiple and singular Natural foods cooperative has both pragmatist and idealist identities, as well as a common, shared identity (Ashforth and Reingen 2014).

Identity attributes are institutionalized, irreversible commitments that are sustained over time (Whetten 2006). Multiple vs. singular

Multiple Nurses view their unit as having either a rehabilitation or an acute care identity (Pratt and Rafaeli 1997). Symphony orchestra retains both artistic and economic identities (Glynn 2000).

Contradictory Contradictory vs. synergistic Board members in medical nonprofit experience intra-​role conflict between board’s identities as a vigilant monitor and a circle of friends (Golden-​Biddle, and Rao 1997).

Merger of two healthcare organizations leads to creation Distinct social mission of new shared identity (Clark and business mission et al. 2010). elements co-​exist within an overarching social enterprise identity (Smith and Besharov 2017).

Synergistic

Contradictory and synergistic Multiple identities can be Pragmatic and synergistic. Effective strategies idealist identities for managing multiple create inter-​group identities depend on both their conflict in a natural number and the degree of foods cooperative, synergy between them (Pratt yet oscillating shifts and Foreman 2000). in emphasis between the two identities During a discontinuous are functional at Cooperatives have organizational change the organizational normative and utilitarian such as a merger, members’ level (Ashforth and identities which create interpretations of the Reingen 2014). contradictory identity organization’s core features expectations among are synthesized into a new Natural foods retailer members (Foreman and identity (Clark et al. 2010). has contradictory Whetten 2002). social mission and business identities. Pluralist managers use integrative solutions to foster productive rather than destructive tensions between members associated with each identity (Besharov 2014).

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    181 detail on each of the core debates in the OI literature, summarizing illustrative studies on each side of the debate as well as those adopting a “both/​and” approach consistent with a paradox lens.

Paradoxical Tensions in Organizational Identity Is Organizational Identity a Social Reality or a Social Construction? Albert and Whetten’s (1985) initial formulation of the concept of organizational identity treated it as a social reality, arguing that identity resides in and can be known from the contractual obligations, explicit claims, core programs, policies, and procedures created by the organization as a social actor (Whetten and Mackey 2002; Whetten 2006). This “social actor” perspective further emphasized three criteria essential for an attribute to be considered part of an organization’s identity: centrality, enduringness, and distinctiveness. Identity attributes are central in that they represent the essence of the organization, they are enduring in that they show sameness or continuity over time, and they are distinctive in that they distinguish the organization from others. Each characteristic is necessary, and as a set they are sufficient to categorize a thing as organizational identity. A later stream of work, referred to as the “social construction” perspective, adopted an alternative approach, proposing that organizational identity is a social construction emerging from sensemaking and sensegiving processes among members (e.g., Gioia, Schultz, and Corley 2000; Ravasi and Schultz 2006; Corley and Gioia 2004; Dutton and Dukerich 1991; Fiol 1991). Researchers aligned with this view find the social actor perspective limited in telling us about the “nuanced differences that make a difference in perception and action” (Gioia et al. 2013: 170). If organizational identity is socially constructed through members’ collective sensemaking and sensegiving processes, these scholars argue, we cannot know it by studying formal artifacts such as names, policies, or legal status. We must instead attend to meaning-​making, rhetoric, and discourse. Doing so enables scholars to capture the ongoing construction and reconstruction of organizational members’ collective sense of self, how they understand and revise meanings based on the organization’s image, and how they sustain these meanings through interactions between the organization and its stakeholders (Patvardhan, Gioia, and Hamilton 2015). As an interpretivist approach, the social construction perspective is consistent with studies of identity work—​dialogue with self and others about “who we are” that helps actors achieve coherence and distinctiveness (Alvesson and Willmott 2002; Kreiner and Murphy 2016).

182    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity While early research emphasized differences between the social actor and social construction perspectives, more recently scholars have argued that both perspectives are relevant for understanding OI (Ravasi and Schultz 2006; Gioia et al. 2010; Brickson 2013; Gioia and Hamilton 2016). That is, OI is both a social reality that inheres in observable features and claims made by the organization as a social actor, and a social construction that arises from collective interpretive processes among members. Even as these distinct ways of understanding OI are seemingly contradictory, both are necessary for fully explaining the phenomenon. As Gioia and colleagues (2010) explain in their study of identity formation in an information technology school, the social actor perspective emphasizes sensegiving: outsiders relate to the organization based on specific identity claims, and insiders understand how to behave based on messages from leadership about “who we are” as an organization. Yet particularly in situations of new identity formation, such as following a merger or during the emergence of a new field, there may be no available identity claims, or the claims may not be fully relevant. In such cases, interpretive sensemaking processes of insiders are important. Yet the identity claims constructed through such sensemaking processes are only valuable to the extent that they are legitimized by outsiders in the organization’s social field. In other words, members’ subjective understandings of identity affect the claims they make, and the claims made affect members’ understandings. Patvardhan, Gioia, and Hamilton’s (2015) study of the emergence of a collective identity for the new academic field of “information schools” (“iSchools”) illustrates the interdependence of the social actor and social construction perspectives. The authors find that organizational members working to create a new field-​level identity for iSchools did not forego but rather used the available social category-​based identities such as “library school.” At the same time, the iSchools reconfigured these categorical identities by using discourse and practices to create a new coherent identity for the field. By using paradox as a strategy for theorizing (see Lewis and Smith 2014), we can recast this debate about the nature of OI, encouraging researchers to juxtapose seemingly conflicting perspectives to develop new, more holistic insights into the phenomenon. As research on paradox suggests, managing paradox involves differentiating the two poles of a paradox as well as integrating them (Smith and Tushman 2005). Differentiating entails recognizing and honoring differences, for example by separating competing demands in time, space, organizational levels, or cognition. Integrating involves seeking interdependencies and bringing competing demands together cognitively and within a single time and space. Increasingly, scholars stress a dynamic equilibrium approach in which there is continual iteration between differentiation and integration responses to paradoxical tensions (Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith 2014). Applying this idea to the tension between the social reality and social construction approaches to OI invites scholars to not just integrate these approaches and treat them as mutually constitutive, but also to acknowledge and continue to explore their differences (see Gioia, et al. 2013). In other words, both the early scholarly emphasis on differences between the two approaches

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    183 and the more recent emphasis on their interdependence are necessary for generating holistic insights into the phenomenon, and there is value in continuing to attend to the distinctions between them. Paradox theory can also offer strategies for researchers to recognize and benefit from treating identity as both a social reality and a social construction while continuing to maintain distinctions between these two approaches. Doing so requires reflexivity, or the capacity to take a reflective position toward the taken-​for-​granted and “envision alternate modes” (Beckert 1999: 786). Researchers must juxtapose the two perspectives and hold them together despite the complexity in doing so (Hahn et al. 2014), adopting a paradoxical cognitive frame that recognizes both contradictions and synergies between approaches (Smith and Tushman 2005; Sharma and Good 2013; Miron-​Spektor, Erez, and Naveh 2011). While challenging, the potential payoff for OI scholarship is significant. As Poole and Van de Ven (1989) note, “There is a great potential to enliven current theory and to develop new insights if theorists search for and work with inconsistencies, contradictions and tensions in their theories and in the relationship between them” (1989: 575).

Is Organizational Identity Stable or Dynamic? Related to the tension between social reality and social construction approaches to OI, there is also debate over whether OI is stable or dynamic (see Ravasi and Schultz 2006; Gioia, et al. 2013). Researchers adopting a social reality perspective on OI tend to also emphasize its stability over time. In their original formulation, Albert and Whetten (1985) proposed endurance (i.e., stability over time) as a necessary criterion for a “thing” to be identity. As Whetten and Mackey (2002) subsequently explained, organizational identity “enable[s] social actors to satisfy their inherent needs to be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow . . . [It] anchors the stability end of the stability-flexibility dimension” (396). One source of identity stability involves members and groups that identify with and uphold the organization’s identity or particular components thereof, serving as “carriers” of organizational identity, akin to the carriers of institutions as described in institutional theory (Scott 2008). For example, Glynn’s (2000) study of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra shows that musicians understood the organization as an artistic entity while administrators believed it to be an economic entity, and each group’s strong commitment to one particular view of the orchestra persisted, becoming more entrenched over time. Similarly, studying the BancoSol microfinance organization, Battilana and Dorado (2010) describe two sub-​groups of loan officers, those who viewed the organization as a commercial bank and those who viewed it as a social development organization. To the extent that organizational identity inheres in the identities and values of members, identity change occurs through entry of actors who serve as carriers of a different view of OI, as in mergers and acquisitions (Margolis and Hansen 2002) or shifts

184    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity in hiring practices (Zilber 2002; Battilana and Dorado 2010). Hence, identity would be likely to change over extended periods, if at all. A second source of identity stability comes from OI’s role as the “court of last resort” (Whetten and Mackey 2002: 398) that guides organizational decisions in a constitution-​like manner. Identity is found in the organization’s purpose and philosophy, both of which are hard to change without becoming a new organization (Margolis and Hansen 2002). Indeed, when an existing organizational identity is threatened, members actively try to preserve it through cognitive (Elsbach and Kramer 1996) and behavioral (Phillips and Kim 2009) tactics. From this perspective, then, identity change is extremely challenging and relatively infrequent. In contrast, scholars who treat OI as a social construction arising from members’ collective interpretive processes generally adopt a more dynamic view, emphasizing that OI shifts over time (e.g., Dutton and Dukerich 1991; Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991; Gioia and Thomas 1996). This work shows how identity change is possible through rhetoric, sensemaking, and sensegiving. For example, studying a shift in the identity of a technology company undergoing strategic change, Fiol (2002) finds that linguistic markers are critical in enabling members to move through three stages of change and ultimately become identified with a new core ideology. In a study of the merger of two rival healthcare organizations, Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, and Thomas (2010) show how identity change occurs through the construction of a transitional identity that is ambiguous enough to allow multiple interpretations yet familiar enough to facilitate identification with the new integrated identity of the merged organization. Other work emphasizes members’ responses to outsiders’ perceptions as a source of identity change, showing how members reinterpret identity in light of the image outsiders hold of the organization (Dutton and Dukerich 1991; Gioia, Schultz, and Corley 2000; Gioia and Thomas 1996; Corley and Gioia 2004). More recently, scholars have focused on the dynamics of identity formation (e.g., Clegg, Rhodes, and Kornberger 2007; Gioia et  al. 2010; Patvardhan, Gioia, and Hamilton 2015) and resurrection (Howard-​Grenville, Metzger, and Meyer 2013). For example, Clegg, Rhodes, and Kornberger (2007) describe the identity formation process of the business coaching industry in Australia. They find that in the absence of a stable identity, actors in the industry “performed” identity stability over time in their interactions with stakeholders, highlighting similarities and differences between their industry and other more established ones. Through such purposeful interactions with stakeholders, industry actors converged toward a workable identity. Research on “identity work” (e.g., Lok 2010) similarly treats identity as dynamic, focusing on how individuals contest and reconstruct identity elements in their everyday talk, sensemaking, and sensegiving. Fundamental to identity work is actors’ agency in “expanding or contracting their conception of organizational identity” (Kreiner, et al. 2015: 981). While most OI research emphasizes either identity stability or identity dynamism, some studies acknowledge both. In early work emphasizing the dynamic aspects of identity, for example, Gioia, Schultz, and Corley (2000) distinguished between

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    185 identity labels and identity meanings. They argued that labels often stay the same even as the meanings actors attach to those labels shift, creating dynamism in OI while at the same time allowing for endurance over time. This dual nature of identity is further evident in Ravasi and Schultz’s (2006) study of organizational identity and culture at Bang and Olufsen, which shows how outsiders’ perceptions serve as a force for OI change, while organizational culture serves as a force for OI stability. Similarly, Kreiner and co-​authors (2015) find identity stability and change in their study of the Episcopal Church: members experience the Church’s identity not only as a set of enduring attributes but also as an ongoing negotiation of tensions within each attribute. The authors propose the construct of identity elasticity—​defined as “tensions that simultaneously stretch, while holding together, social constructions of identity”—​in order to capture the stable and dynamic aspects of organizational identity and the tensions between them. Smith and Besharov (2017) extend this work by showing how the multiple elements of a hybrid identity can be both fixed and flexible. The authors conducted a ten-​year, longitudinal case study of Digital Divide Data (DDD), a social enterprise whose hybrid identity is defined by a social mission of helping severely disadvantaged citizens move out of poverty through employment and a business mission of running an operationally sustainable IT outsourcing business. They find that DDD’s hybrid identity was fixed, in that the organization had enduring commitments to achieving both a social mission and a business mission, yet this identity was also flexible, in that leaders continually shifted the meanings and practices associated with the dual missions. Studies emphasizing the combination of identity stability and dynamism have clear affinities with a paradox perspective. As the literature on paradox recognizes, an organization can stay the same only if it changes, and it can change only if it stays the same (Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Poole and Van de Ven 2004; Sastry 1997). Moreover, change is rife with tensions (Lüscher, Lewis, and Ingram 2006). Building on these affinities, OI scholars can draw on paradox studies to inform research on the stability/​ dynamism tension in identity. In the language of Lewis and Smith (2014), this would involve “turning to a paradox lens to address a particular both/​and challenge” (138). In particular, a paradox lens can offer new insight into strategies through which organizational leaders and members respond to and attempt to manage the paradoxical tension between identity stability and change. Actors’ responses to paradox often create vicious cycles in which emotional anxiety, defensiveness, and forces for consistency, as well as organizational inertia, lead to an increasing emphasis on just one side of the tension (Smith and Lewis 2011). In the context of the stability/​dynamism tension in OI, this might manifest as members gravitating toward either an existing or new identity meaning, rather than grappling with both simultaneously. Alternatively, accepting paradoxical tensions rather than becoming defensive can trigger virtuous cycles that enable individuals and collectives to explore and enact both sides of the tension (Smith and Lewis 2011). Smith and Besharov’s (2017) study of Digital Divide Data illustrates such an approach: leaders’ paradoxical frames enabled them to accept and actively grapple with tensions between the social and business missions that defined

186    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity the organization’s hybrid identity, and to uphold commitments to both missions over time even as they adapted the meanings and practices through which the missions were enacted. Paradox research further points to specific strategies that contribute to virtuous cycles. One that may be particularly promising for understanding and addressing tensions between identity stability and change is that of transcendence. Transcendence occurs when actors move “outside of the paradoxical system to a new level of meaning” (Putnam, Fairhurst, and Benghart 2016: 65). In the context of identity, this could be accomplished through the creation of temporary physical and/​or cognitive spaces in which new and old identities blur. Similar to the “spaces of negotiation” described in Battilana and colleagues’ (2015) study of a social enterprise, which enabled members adhering to different institutional logics to work through tensions and conflict, such spaces may enable members identifying with old and new identity meanings to discuss trade-​offs between them and come to a mutual understanding. Reflexivity, described above, offers another potential strategy. As Kreiner and colleagues (2015) found in their study of the Episcopal Church, members renegotiate OI by contracting or expanding their conceptions of “who we are” and “what we do.” Building on this work, future research can explore how reflexivity may enable both the dynamic process of identity re-​construction and the development of stable characteristics describing identity.

Do Organizations Have Multiple or Single Identities? While the preceding sections have primarily focused on identity as singular and unified, whether organizations have multiple identities or just one is a subject of much debate. This debate is closely linked with the prior two, in that scholars tend to agree there can be multiple conceptions of “who we are” and “what we do,” yet they disagree about whether such multiple identities endure over time or morph into a single, integrated identity. As Pratt (2016) notes, “research seems to be largely capturing either end of this tension: that is, viewing organizations as either having multiple identities or a single identity” (2016: 116). Research adopting a social reality approach and treating identity as stable tends to view organizations as capable of belonging to multiple externally defined social categories and thereby having multiple identities that endure over time, as in the case of religious universities (Wilkins and Whetten 2012)  and family businesses (Whetten, Foreman, and Dyer 2014). Studies generally emphasize the challenges of such multiple identities, depicting them as sources of conflict and contestation (e.g., Pratt and Rafaeli 1997; Voss, Cable, and Voss 2006; Anteby and Wrzesniewski 2014; Ashforth and Reingen 2014; Glynn 2000; Golden-​Biddle and Rao 1997). In Pratt and Rafaeli’s (1997) study of a nursing unit, for example, tensions between nurses who adhered to the unit’s acute care identity and those who adhered to its rehabilitation identity manifest in conflicts over

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    187 dress: nurses from the former group believed staff should wear scrubs, whereas those from the latter group thought street clothes were more appropriate. In contrast, research adopting a social construction approach and treating identity as fluid tends to emphasize that multiple conceptions of organizational identity are temporary and transitional. Studies show how multiple identity meanings can arise during periods of change and precipitate the emergence of a new unified identity label, even if multiple meanings of this label persist over time (Patvardhan, Gioia, and Hamilton 2015). For example, Clark and colleagues (2010) describe multiple identities during the initial phases of a merger between two previously independent health care organizations. Over time, multiple interpretations of organizational identity led to a transitional identity which coalesced into a single, unified identity reflecting members’ shared understanding of the integrated entity. Corley and Gioia (2004) find multiple identity interpretations creating ambiguity and ultimately leading to a new identity in the context of an organizational spin-​off. Pratt and Kraatz (2009) propose that organizations can have both enduring multiple identities and a single, integrated identity, which they refer to as an “organizational self.” Yet this both/​and possibility remains underdeveloped in empirical research, with just a few empirical studies suggesting the coexistence of multiple and single identities. For example, Dutton and Dukerich (1991) describe multiple identity elements within the Port Authority but also imply that the organization has one overall identity. Ashforth and Reingen (2014) note that the natural foods cooperative they studied has both pragmatist and idealist identities as well as a common, shared identity. Smith and Besharov (2017) describe Digital Divide Data as having distinct social mission and business mission elements within an overarching social enterprise identity. Thinking about the multiple/​singular identity tension as a paradox of belonging (Smith and Lewis 2011) offers a useful lens for further exploration. In particular, scholars can draw from earlier work on belonging tensions arising for individuals within groups and other social collectives (Brewer 1991; Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006; Smith and Berg 1987). Similar to an individual’s need to be distinct from yet also similar to others within a group or broader collective, multiple organizational identities may each need to be recognized as distinct and valuable in their own right, but in order for the organization to cohere, these identities may need to fit within a shared understanding of “who we are.” A paradox lens also provides insight into strategies for managing the multiple/​singular identity tension, such as strategies that combine differentiating and integrating. In discussing the management of multiple identities, Pratt and Foreman (2000) describe differentiating and integrating strategies, yet they implicitly treat them as an either/​or choice. Paradox theory enriches this work by stressing the value of moving between differentiating and integrating toward a “dynamic equilibrium” (Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith 2014; Smith and Tushman 2005). Besharov’s (2014) study of a natural foods retailer alludes to this approach, showing how managers maintained the distinct social mission and business identities held by “idealist” and “capitalist” members

188    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity respectively, while also unifying these identities through “integrative solutions” such as operational practices and product promotion decisions that upheld both identities simultaneously.

Are Multiple Identities Incompatible or Synergistic? The possibility of seeing organizational identity as both multiple and singular depends in part on how one views the relationship between multiple identities. Here too, scholars adopt divergent perspectives. One set of studies focuses on “hybrid” identities involving the combination of “two or more types that would not normally be expected to go together” (Albert and Whetten 1985: 270). Incompatibility between multiple identities is central to the concept of a hybrid. Albert and Whetten (1985) suggested that such incompatibility tends to occur because hybrids combine not just any two identities, but specifically utilitarian and normative identities. A utilitarian identity arises when organizations are “oriented towards economic production,” whereas a normative identity arises when organizations “define their value in terms of their contribution to the broad normative purposes of the society, instead of the more narrow economic marketplace” (Albert and Whetten 1985: 278, 281). Examples of normative–​utilitarian hybrids include research universities (Albert and Whetten 1985), cooperatives (Foreman and Whetten 2002; Ashforth and Reingen 2014), arts organizations (Glynn 2000), and social enterprises (Smith and Besharov 2017; Moss, Short, Payne, and Lumpkin 2011). In contrast, other work distinguishes between having more than one identity and having conflicting identities. For example, Pratt (2016) argues that multiple identities can take a variety of forms including oppositional, complementary, and even unrelated. Pratt and Foreman (2000) similarly argue that multiple organizational identities can vary in their compatibility, as well as in their plurality (i.e., number), whereas early work on hybrid identities assumed two incompatible identities. While most studies of multiple and hybrid identities treat them as either incompatible or compatible, some recent work suggests they can be both, consistent with a paradox perspective. In their study of a natural foods cooperative, for example, Ashforth and Reingen (2014) show how contradictions between idealist and pragmatist identities manifest in conflict between sub-​groups associated with each identity. While such conflict is dysfunctional at the group level, it is functional at the organizational level, as oscillating shifts in decisions and power, together with rituals to maintain and repair relationships, enable the organization to sustain both identities over time. Smith and Besharov’s (2017) study of Digital Divide Data offers another example. The authors show how leaders viewed the dual missions as both contradictory and interdependent, adopting a paradoxical frame that enabled them to dynamically shift meanings and practices associated with each mission, thereby sustaining both over time.

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    189 A paradox perspective can extend this emerging understanding of multiple identities as both contradictory and compatible. Not only does paradox research emphasize both/​ and possibilities, it also offers insight into the conditions under which multiple identities may shift between contradictory and compatible. Smith and Lewis (2011) proposed three environmental factors that turn multiplicity into contradiction: plurality, change, and scarcity. Plurality denotes disparate points of view across actors, such as investors focused on short-​term financial returns and activists emphasizing long-​term social and environmental outcomes. In the multiple identity context, this implies that contradictions may be more likely in ideographic organizations in which separate groups of members represent each identity, as compared to holographic organizations in which multiple identities are shared across all members (on the ideographic/​holographic distinction, see Albert and Whetten 1985). Consistent with this conjecture, empirical studies of ideographic organizations tend to find conflict and tensions between members (Battilana and Dorado 2010; Glynn 2000; Pratt and Rafaeli 1997; Anteby and Wrzesniewski 2014; Ashforth and Reingen 2014). The second environmental factor, change, makes salient the contradictions between short-​and long-​term goals and between multiple approaches to implementing change such as bottom-​up and top-​down (Lüscher and Lewis 2008). The role of change in making identity contradictions salient is implicit in Albert and Whetten’s (1985) initial theorizing, where they hypothesized that identity is especially salient when an organization is being formed; when it loses an important artifact of its identity, as in the departure of a founder; when it achieves its purpose, as in a nonprofit eradicating the social problem central to its reason for existing; and when organizational leaders make budget or resource allocation decisions. These and other key moments of change may be touchstones for transforming multiple identities from compatible to incompatible. Scarcity functions as a third environmental factor that surfaces tensions and contradictions. This occurs in questions of resource allocation, as organizational leaders must divide scarce resources between different activities, such as exploration and exploitation (Gupta, Smith, and Shailley 2006). Scarcity of resources can likewise change the relationship between multiple identities. Pratt (2016) suggests that when resources are abundant, organizations may retain contradictory identities by developing a meta-​identity as a bridging device that connects the identities yet keeps them independent. However, when resources are scarce, contradictions may not be managed so easily, and organizations are likely to experience conflicts between their identities or reduce the number of identities. In Glynn’s (2000) study of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, for example, tensions between musicians and administrators erupted into open conflict only during negotiations over scarce financial resources for musicians’ salaries. Similarly, Albert and Whetten (1985) describe how heightened economic pressures fueled tensions between the medical and business identities of a health care clinic: when managers aligned with the business identity proposed cost-​cutting measures, physicians resisted, expressing concerns about the negative impact on patient welfare.

190    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity Building on these ideas about plurality, change, and scarcity as environmental triggers that shift the relationship between two poles of a paradoxical tension, future research could explore additional factors that influence the contradictory and compatible relationship between multiple identities. One promising direction would be to investigate the role of organizational leaders. For example, Besharov (2014) shows how pluralist leaders who value both sides of a hybrid identity foster synergies by promoting integrative solutions that uphold both identities while also emphasizing distinctions by recognizing and validating the separate identities of each subgroup. The absence of such leaders is likely to change the relationship between multiple identities from relatively compatible to more contradictory (e.g., Voss, Cable, and Voss 2006). Finally, beyond offering insight into factors that influence the contradictory versus complementary relationship between multiple identities, a paradox perspective also emphasizes the endurance of paradoxical tensions over time (Lewis 2000; Lewis and Smith 2014). A key implication for research on multiple identities is to focus not on how tensions between identities are resolved, but rather on the ongoing processes through which they are managed. Smith and Besharov’s (2017) study of a social enterprise emphasizes this point, noting that strategic tensions around who to hire and how to grow continually resurfaced within the organization. In response, leaders engaged in ongoing experimentation with hiring and growth practices, searching for “workable certainties” that would enable them to move forward without resolving the underlying tension (Lüscher and Lewis 2008). Drawing on these insights, future studies can further explore the ebbs and flows of identity tensions over time, looking at how and under what conditions identities become more or less compatible.

Implications and Future Directions Our analysis of paradoxical tensions in organizational identity focused on four key tensions: social reality versus social construction, stable versus dynamic, multiple versus singular, and incompatible versus synergistic. As we noted, these tensions generally align with an overarching tension between social actor and social construction perspectives, both of which are foundational to the study of OI. Yet as research on identity continues to expand, additional approaches have emerged, notably the “institutionalist” and “population ecology” perspectives (Gioia et al. 2013). The institutionalist approach treats identity as primarily determined by external institutional forces (Besharov and Brickson 2016; Glynn 2008), defined as the cognitive, normative, and regulatory pressures that lead particular forms of organizing to be seen as legitimate and taken-forgranted (Scott 2008). The population ecology perspective understands identity in terms of external audiences’ judgments about an organization’s membership in a set of social categories, each one of which specifies a cluster of features that define the organization’s identity (Pólos, Hannan, and Carroll 2002; Ruef 2000).

Marya L. Besharov and Garima Sharma    191 Juxtaposing these additional perspectives surfaces new debates. For example, whereas both social actor and social construction perspectives tend to characterize identity as internally determined by organizational members—​either through members’ claims to membership in social categories or through their collective sensemaking and sensegiving processes—​the institutionalist and population ecology perspectives treat identity as externally determined based on taken-​for-​granted beliefs about what is appropriate within a given field (e.g., Glynn and Marquis 2007; Glynn and Abzug 2002) or based on audience expectations about what features are associated with the social category to which the organization is perceived to belong (Hsu and Hannan 2005). A related debate centers on the extent to which OI involves being different from other organizations, something emphasized more strongly in the social actor and social construction perspectives, or is primarily about being similar to other organizations, as highlighted in the institutionalist and population ecology perspectives (see Gioia and Hamilton 2016). Building on the ideas developed in this chapter, future research can explore the value of recasting these additional debates as paradoxical tensions. For example, extending Besharov and Brickson’s (2016) analysis of factors influencing the extent to which OI is internally versus externally determined, research can consider how both internal and external forces influence OI simultaneously, even as they may pull the organization in competing directions (e.g., Ravasi and Schultz 2006), and how paradoxical management strategies may enable organizations to better navigate such competing pressures on their identities (e.g., Smith and Besharov 2017). In addition, while scholars already recognize tensions around having an individual or organizational identity that is both different from and also similar to others (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006; Brewer 1991; Zuckerman 2016; Gioia et al. 2010; Navis and Glynn 2010), future work can draw from paradox theory to develop new insights into how organizations (and individuals) manage such tensions. Finally, while our chapter focuses on how organizational identity research can benefit from adopting a paradox perspective, our ideas also have implications for how paradox research can benefit from studying organizational identity. By delineating multiple paradoxical tensions within organizational identity, we offer paradox scholars a more complex and nuanced depiction of identity tensions at the organizational level. Smith and Lewis (2011) describe “belonging paradoxes”—​defined as tensions between the individual and the collective—​as one of four core types of organizational tensions. We expand the concept of belonging tensions by showing that there may also be paradoxical tensions about the identity of the organizations to which individuals seek to belong. We do so by noting how an organization’s identity may be both a social reality and a social construction, stable and dynamic, multiple and singular, incompatible and synergistic, as well as internally and externally defined and different from yet similar to the identity of other organizations. Studying such paradoxes can provide fertile ground for empirical research, inviting exploration of new strategies through which organizational leaders and members navigate paradox. In conclusion, we hope the connections we have drawn in this chapter indicate the rich potential in a paradoxical approach to understanding OI, and in OI as a promising

192    Paradoxes of Organizational Identity phenomenological domain for studying paradox. Our aim was to illustrate and inspire, and we hope the conversation will continue in future research.

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Chapter 10

Alternate Pri sms for Pluralism and Pa ra d ox i n Organiz at i ons Mariline Comeau-​Vallée, Jean-​L ouis Denis, Julie-​M aude Normandin, and Marie-​C hristine Therrien

The literature on paradoxes and pluralism has grown over the last decade (Glynn, Barr, and Dacin 2000; Lewis and Kelemen 2002; Kraatz and Block 2008; Denis, Langley, and Rouleau 2007; Lewis and Smith 2014). Both areas focus on multiplicity in or around organizations and study a range of phenomena, such as logics (Besharov and Smith 2014), regulatory pressures (Gotsi et al. 2010), objectives (Michaud 2014), and identities (Pratt and Foreman 2000; McGivern et al. 2015). Despite their converging interests, notions of paradox and pluralism have rarely been directly juxtaposed; analysis has developed in parallel. The aim of the present chapter is twofold: it first brings the two concepts together to discuss their possible interrelation and the implications this suggests for the study of paradox within organizations; second, it contrasts current notions of paradox and pluralism and seeks to expand our understanding of these concepts by looking at them through alternate theoretical lenses. We begin by defining the concepts, describing their features and looking at possible connections between them. A brief literature review identifies the main strategies employed to manage pluralism and paradoxes and leads us to consider alternate theoretical prisms, namely Critical Management Studies (CMS) and complexity theory, which may open new lines of inquiry into paradoxical situations in organizations. The chapter concludes with a discussion based on three interrelated points, which relate to the animation of paradoxes and pluralism, the question of performativity without instrumentality in the management of paradoxes, and, finally, the coexistence of pluralism and paradoxes.

198    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations

Defining Paradoxes and Pluralism A paradox essentially refers to a proposition composed of two antagonistic elements, which generally contradict common sense (Eisenhardt and Westcott 1988; Lüscher, Lewis, and Ingram 2006; Quinn and Cameron 1988. In organization studies, Lewis (2000) states that a paradox is the simultaneous presence of interrelated opposition, and discerns four types of paradox that can occur in organizational life, namely performing, belonging, organizing, and learning paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011). Pluralism usually refers to a situation that presents multiple demands and components. Pluralism can occur in institutions where multiple and sometimes incompatible social arrangements are present (Seo and Creed 2002; Kraatz and Block 2008). Kraatz and Block (2008) call such situations “institutional pluralism.” Pluralism can also come into play at the organizational level. Denis, Langley, and Rouleau (2007) assign three features to organizational pluralism: multiple objectives, diffuse power, and work processes based on knowledge (180). With this clarification in mind, our assumption is that pluralism provides a context that is favorable to the emergence of paradox. We might posit that their ambiguous nature makes pluralistic organizations more inclined to opposing dynamics and tensions. From this perspective, pluralism precedes paradox. However, as we will discuss below, paradox can also impact on the expression of pluralism in organizations.

Connecting Paradox and Pluralism If pluralism is a context that can raise and intensify paradoxes, the questions we need to address are: what paradoxes might circulate within these organizations? And, are specific paradoxes especially related to pluralistic organizations? We now examine the potential links between the features of pluralism and three types of paradox (Smith and Lewis 2011). More precisely, as presented in Table 10.1, we relate 1) multiple goals to performing paradoxes; 2) diffuse power to belonging paradoxes; and 3) knowledgebased processes to organizing paradoxes. For each combination, we look at common responses (strategies) described in the literature to manage these paradoxes.

Table 10.1 Features of pluralism and types of paradox Features of pluralism

Type of paradox

Multiple goals

Performing paradoxes

Diffuse power

Belonging paradoxes

Knowledge-​based processes

Organizing paradoxes

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    199 First, studies of pluralistic contexts reveal the frequent presence of multiple objectives or goals and recognize that this multiplicity presents a challenge to the organization, much like performing paradoxes that emerge when conflicting strategies and goals are supported by a range of stakeholders. Managing exploitation as well as exploration strategies (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), or combining business and community goals in social or not-​for-​profit organizations (Margolis and Walsh 2003; Bull 2008), are examples of inconsistent objectives that can produce performing paradoxes. Tensions arise as the organization struggles to see how opposite goals or demands can be addressed simultaneously, how resources should be allocated toward opposing goals, and what defines success in an organization with antagonistic goals (Jay 2013). Splitting or compartmentalizing, that is, differentiating the conditions for the achievement of each goal, is one way of dealing with such tensions (Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009). For example, in a longitudinal case study, Michaud (2014) shows that a cooperative may be tempted to alternate between governance for collaboration and governance for control. Alternately, a new hybrid identity may be created, which is a synthesis that embraces the previously divergent goals. The synthesis can occur at the organizational level (Jay 2013; Kraatz and Block 2008) and individual level (Eisenhardt and Wescott 1998; Gotsi et al. 2010, Zhang et al. 2015) and contributes to sustainability by allowing an organization or individual to be distinct and unique. Second, pluralistic organizations are characterized by a diffusion of power. This feature seems particularly in line with belonging paradoxes, which refer to tensions between conflicting or ambiguous members and their roles and values (Smith and Lewis 2011). We see diffusion of power in inter-​professional collaboration or cross-​functional teams, which are widespread in pluralistic contexts such as healthcare organizations (Comeau-​Vallée 2015). This type of work can foster contradictions, disruptions, and confusion about competing sources of authority, as leadership is shared (Sergi et  al. 2015) between professionals. Belonging paradoxes appear in questions such as: how can leadership and democracy coexist within a team (Murnighan and Conlon 1991)? How, as a team member, can I be a leader as well as a follower? Is it all right to express myself, even if that means confronting team members? Or more generally, how am I similar to or different from my colleagues in terms of influence? Difference and homogeneity are both common human desires (Brewer 1991), but these two opposite forces become particularly salient in social contexts such as collaboration and teamwork: where decision-​ making is shared and power is diffuse, roles and identity boundaries become blurred. One way of dealing with this tension is to determine specific moments or spaces for the enactment of collective and distinctive roles. Brewer (1991) suggests finding an “optimal balance,” an equilibrium between different members that, in the context of diffuse power and leadership issues, would enable individuals to be sufficiently similar to others that they might accept and follow group decisions, but also sufficiently distinctive from others that they might exert their own leadership. Third, pluralistic organizations generally include work processes based on knowledge, which appear as an additional source of paradox, especially organizing paradoxes that draw on competing designs, configurations, and processes needed to produce

200    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations a desirable outcome (Lawrence and Lorsh 1967, Smith and Lewis 2011). For example, Denis et  al. (2007) argue that pluralistic organizations, such as knowledge-​intensive firms, are likely to encounter problems regarding the balance of autonomy and control. Innovation in knowledge-​based processes requires a degree of organizational flexibility and individual autonomy, along with a measure of organizational control (Feldman 1989). These opposite forces can be managed by adapting organizational design in step with the evolution of the organization, injecting greater flexibility at one time and increasing control during times of turbulence (Volberda 1997). This strategy is referred to as differentiation. According to Robertson and Swan (2003), however, even though organizing paradoxes largely arise from structural tensions, managing them does not always involve changing organizational structures or processes, but rather the development of a compatible culture. Organizing paradoxes can be managed by the production and reproduction of a culture “favouring high ambiguity, that is, a norm developed at the meta-​level which decrees that, at the level of work practice, there should be no norms” (Robertson and Swan 2003: 832). This brief exploration of the literature supports the idea that pluralism and paradox are interrelated in organizations. Moreover, each feature of pluralism appears to foster particular types of paradox. The links we propose are not exclusive, and we recognize that a particular feature of pluralism can also generate other paradoxes. This is especially true as the features of pluralism are interrelated and overlapping. For instance, processes based on knowledge also often involve power sharing, and a paradox generated by a particular issue is likely to stimulate another paradox. This is consistent with Smith and Lewis (2011), who also see paradoxes as interrelated: there may be combined paradoxes (e.g., performing–​belonging, performing–​organizing paradoxes), or one paradox that exacerbates another. Jarzabkowski and Fenton (2006) show how strategizing pluralism imposed from outside an organization (i.e., planning, resource allocation, monitoring to respond to multiple external demands) can provoke organizing pluralism (i.e., structural practices and coordination processes in order to enact the internal organizational identity) within the organization, and vice versa. They found that interdependence between strategizing and organizing pluralism actually exacerbated tensions in the organizations they studied. It is important to note that interrelation, simultaneity, and interdependence are strong characteristics of pluralism. Inherent features of pluralistic organizations pose challenges, but managing paradoxes seems to provide an opportunity to review and strengthen organizational processes. Contemporary organizational studies identify four main strategies to deal with paradox in pluralistic organizations, namely: acceptance, spatial differentiation, temporal differentiation, and synthesis (Poole and Van de Ven 1989). Synthesis seems particularly favored as it encourages going beyond the conflictual character of opposition, and instead valorizing it through the creation of a meta-​identity or meta-​culture. Reconciliation and harmonization are privileged management approaches to dealing with opposing tensions, however it is helpful to look at other literatures for different views on dealing with paradoxes in pluralistic organizations and different meanings attached to the notion of “managing paradoxes.” Even before addressing the questions

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    201 associated with the management of paradoxes, what can we learn from these other perspectives about the links between paradoxes and pluralism? In the next portion of this chapter, we look at two alternate theoretical prisms that are somewhat outside mainstream work on organizational paradox, namely CMS and complexity theory, and discuss how they contribute to understanding the relationship between paradox and pluralism.

Alternate Theoretical Prism I: Critical Management Studies CMS covers a vast spectrum of theoretical positions and perspectives, ranging from Marxist organization studies to postmodernism, feminism, and critical realism, to name but a few (Adler, Forbes, and Willmott 2007; Reed 2009). Our attempt to develop a critical approach to pluralism and paradox in organizations is influenced primarily by the works of Marx (1978), Friedman (1974), Benson (1977), Poole and Van de Ven (1989), Seo and Creed (2002), Adler, Forbes, and Willmott (2007), Spicer, Alvesson, and Kärreman (2009), Bjerregaard and Jonasson (2014), Putnam (2015), Vidal, Adler, and Delbridge (2015), Ingvaldsen (2015), Adler (2015), and Maielli (2015). CMS is identified with a politically progressive position, in which societies and organizations are social constructs that can be challenged and reconstructed by human agency. Reflexivity in research and collaborative relations between researchers and practitioners are essential ingredients for the implementation of the transformative CMS agenda. While scholarship on organizational paradox has expanded significantly in recent years and provides new insights into organizational tensions, we feel that much of this work has neglected the social embeddedness of these tensions. We therefore focus here on a subset of Marxist CMS literature as an alternative theoretical prism to analyze situations of pluralism and paradox in organizations. In a recent special themed section of Organizational Studies dedicated to Marxist studies of organizations, the co-​editors argue for the use of grand theory to overcome the limits of contemporary organizational scholarship: “In contrast to the mainstream focus on middle-​range theory, Marxism provides a grand theory, one that offers a robust platform for combining historical depth and interdisciplinary breadth” (Vidal, Adler, and Delbridge 2015: 406). We will rely mostly on this subset of CMS works to explore the interface between pluralism and paradox. In a nutshell, CMS sees in large segments of managerial practice and research an overemphasis on instrumental reason (Habermas 1985) to resolve problems of performance or organizational dysfunction that jeopardize corporate or elite interests (Adler, Forbes, andWilmott 2007; Spicer, Alvesson, and Kärraman 2009). Managerialism in its various forms, as a predominant ideology, is considered a barrier to social change and to self-​ development at work and in organizations (Adler 2012). Significant social change would

202    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations imply challenging structures of domination between class, gender, generations, and ethnic/​cultural groups. In Marxist studies, social and organizational life is structured by the forces of production (the material infrastructure of society and organizations), the relations of production (the classic distinction between the owners and non-​owners of the means of production as a fundamental class conflict), and the superstructure (the ideational world) (Marx 1978). Materiality exerts at least a soft determination (Vidal, Adler, and Delbridge 2015) on the shaping of social relations and ideas. Not all actors have access to the same capacities to exert influence on organizational becoming—​ power is fundamentally asymmetrical. The interactions among these three components of societies—​and, by implication, of organizations—​are in constant friction and give rise to tensions/​contradictions. From this perspective, social arrangements are essentially pluralistic, and paradoxes are symptoms of deep tensions in the social fabric. Pluralism can thus be analyzed from a more critical viewpoint, as the result of social processes of differentiation in organizations. In his seminal book, Complex Organizations, Perrow (1972) argues that we live in a world where societies and organizations are mutually constituted and constitutive through circuits of influence and power. This attention to power reflects a long-​standing social science interest in the sources of fragmentation and heterogeneity in societies. Various terms have been used to explore social heterogeneity (Bourdieu 1984; Clark and Lipset 1991), including stratification, social differentiation, and social status. More recent work on hybrids and hybridization in organization studies has focused on emergent sources of heterogeneity in contemporary societies (Denis, Ferlie, and Van Gestel 2015; Lamont and Molnàr 2002). While pluralism can be a source of creativity in organizations (Kilduff and Dougherty 2000), it can also, under specific social, economic, and political conditions, lead to conflict and social unrest (Collins and Annett 1975). Framing situations as paradoxes provides a productive lens through which to explore the complexity of organizational reality, however the drive to manage paradox (and implicitly pluralism) in organizations may lead us to overlook situations of objective and subjective incompatibility between social forces that inhabit and are constitutive of organizations.

A Critical Approach to Pluralism and Paradox Table 10.2 presents some of the sensitizing concepts at the core of a CMS contribution to the analysis of pluralism and paradox in organizations. Power is fundamentally asymmetrical and actors with different structural positions in social and organizational arrangements do not have equal access to resources and opportunities that might influence these arrangements (Adler, Forbes, and Willmott 2007; Vidal, Adler, and Delbridge; 2015). Poole and Van de Ven (1989), along with neo-​institutionalist writers (Battilana and D’Aunno 2009; Hallett and Ventresca 2006; Powell and Colyvas 2008; Zietsma and Lawrence 2010) have analyzed the paradox between action and structure in contemporary sociology (Giddens 1979) to elucidate how individuals gain agentic

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    203 Table 10.2  Sensitizing CMS concepts and their contribution to understanding pluralism and paradox Sensitizing CMS concepts

Implications for paradoxes

Possible avenues for future research

Power

Asymmetrical and differentiated experience of paradox by a plurality of organizational actors.

How do disempowered actors develop agentic capacities to navigate and accommodate organizational paradox?

Contradictions

Paradox of unstable entities subjected to contestation and resistance due to a plurality of social forces and positions.

How and why do manifestations of organizational paradox evolve and transform over time?

Praxis

Strategies to manage paradox that are not based on institutional reflexivity will be insufficient and potentially detrimental.

What are the strategies used by actors to explore and transcend the social embeddedness of organizational paradoxes?

Social change

Navigating paradox implies a transformation of social relations among organizational actors.

What are the transformative consequences of strategies used by actors to navigate organizational paradox?

capacity in the context of strong social (structural) determinism. This work may help to assess how realistic the various strategies proposed to deal with organizational paradox might be in a context that is necessarily characterized by social differentiation and plurality. Central to our analysis of pluralism and paradox is the Marxian notion of contradictions, broadly defined as limits to the functional compatibility between structures or elements of a social formation (Friedman 1974). Analysis of the growing tensions in contemporary society, between progress in the technical basis of production (means of production), and modes of organizing and controlling labor, represents a major analytical thrust and contribution of CMS (Adler 2012; Adler, Forbes, and Willmott 2007; Castel 1995, 2011; Boltanski and Chiapello 1999). Social entities such as organizations are necessarily built around a plurality of opposing forces and contain the seeds of their own destruction (Benson 1977). The manifestation of contradictions and their associated latent or manifest conflicts can potentially be suppressed through brute force or through more discrete strategies such as ideological hegemony (Gramsci 2000; Courpasson 2000; Maielli 2015) or contemporary forms of control associated with governmentality (Foucault 2004; Rose, O’Malley, and Valverde 2006). The basic idea here is that tensions between a plurality of positions cannot be reconciled without some form of social change as proposed by Poole and Van de Ven (1989) and Lewis (2000) in their reference to strategies of synthesis, confrontation, and transcendence to deal with organizational paradox.

204    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations Social changes are conceived as significant alterations to the social relations that support stratification among individuals and groups. In this view, conflicts, resistance, and tension can play an integrative and constructive role in organizations (Courpasson, Dany, and Clegg 2012). The potential for social (organizational) change will not be realized without an overt expression of opposing positions, and new compromises must be negotiated by a plurality of social positions (Benson 1977). Managing tensions in organizations can do no more than develop a provisional equilibrium among deep contradictions in the social fabric (Benson 1977). Benson (1977) has underlined that opposing forces offer only potential for social change. The determination of an organizational form and its evolution will result from human action or praxis. Praxis is defined as “the reconstruction of social arrangements on the basis of reasoned analysis.” Paradox can only be transcended through social action based on the reflexive engagement of the plurality of actors who inhabit these opposing forces, and their commitment to renewing social arrangements. From this standpoint, paradoxes in organizations are not all at the same level and do not carry the same significance for organizational becoming and social change. Careful attention has to be paid to the nature of tensions, in which social differentiation takes root and to how human praxis can reveal the underlying mechanisms and causal power at play in shaping organizational situations (Reed 2009). Overall, CMS provides the intellectual resources to take the plurality of social forces seriously in shaping strategies to deal with paradox.

Alternate Theoretical Prism II: Complexity Theory In this section, we use complexity theory to understand the interrelations of issues and stakeholders in and around organizations and the implications for the study of paradox and pluralism. Following the logic of complexity, issues can be contradictory, but still remain interdependent and intertwined in a dynamic process. Principles of complexity show these dynamics to be nested, simultaneous, oscillating, antagonistic, and convergent, and provide an alternate perspective for the study of paradox and pluralism.

Foundations of Complexity Theory The word complexity comes from the latin complexus, which means woven together, and complecti, which means it is composed of different elements (Fortin 2005: 16, our translation). Morin (2005: 21) describes complexity as “a fabric of inseparable, associated and heterogeneous constituents: it poses the paradox of one and of multiple” (our translation). As systems, organizations can be identified as Complex Adaptive Systems

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    205 or Complex Evolving Systems (Mitleton-​Kelly 2003). While there is some variation in the major principles identified in different streams of complexity research, all focus on the dynamics of interaction, the properties that result, and the relation between a system and its environment (Morin 2005; Mitleton-​Kelly 2003; Maguire 2011). According to Morin (2005), three principles define complex systems. First, the dialogical principle is a complex association of phenomena required for the existence, development, and functioning of an organization. It represents a symbiotic unit with two logics, which support, compete, oppose, and fight each other, and can be complementary–​antagonistic, competing–​cooperating, differentiated–​integrated, etc. In collective action, where we frequently encounter permanently evolving tensions, decision-​making is facilitated by taking both logics into consideration rather than attempting to separate them. The dialogical principle assumes that paradoxes are inherent in organizations and that it is counterproductive to eliminate them as they are what drives the system and allows it to grow. It also means that paradoxes cannot be presented as dualisms or opposing forces, but rather as co-​constructive or even co-​destructive forces. Second, the recursivity principle specifies that organizations are both created by the interactions between stakeholders, and act upon stakeholder interaction. Following this logic, stakeholders are considered both a product and producer. Recursivity was also addressed by Thompson (1967), who saw structure and process as interacting (Hernes and Bakken 2003), and looked at problems and solutions together. Applied to the notion of pluralism, the principle of recursivity means that interactions between stakeholders create an organization characterized by pluralism, and that this pluralism produces pluralist stakeholders. This circular causality accentuates pluralism. Finally, the hologrammatic principle considers that the whole is ingrained in each of its parts. The complex organization is reflected in each of its singular parts, and these parts can be understood only in and by their interactions with the whole. The hologrammatic principle means that each element of an organization bears all of an organization’s paradoxes and pluralisms. These three principles show how notions of pluralism and paradox are woven into the very fabric of organizations, making it impossible to understand, model, and potentially manage paradoxes using conventional or positivist managerial instruments without harming or even destroying the complexity that allows the organization to function and grow. Complexity is not complication (Morin 1976), that can be reduced and analyzed with conventional, albeit powerful, managerial models. A complex system cannot be reduced to its various parts for analysis and modelling, as the interaction between parts remains unpredictable. It may, however become intelligible through systemic modeling (Le Moigne 1995). From a practical standpoint, Perrow (1999:  152)  argues that the vulnerability of complex and tightly coupled systems could be reduced by developing an inelegant and robust design: “the environment is never simple and elegant, and the robustness and fractal nature of the environment is best matched by the constructed system.” Perrow uses the word inelegant to describe a decentralized, redundant, and “messy matrix structure” with subgroup autonomy that corresponds to characteristics of knowledge-​based processes of pluralism.

206    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations We are therefore challenged to analyze the dynamics of organizations in a way that includes the three principles described above. Pluralism and paradox are always present in organizations, and complexity offers a systemic perspective that allows analysis to include both interactions between organizational issues, and interactions between stakeholders. This makes it possible to understand the dynamics and interrelationship between issues, see how vicious circles are enacted to create problems, and how virtuous circles emerge to develop creative solutions. According to Richardson (2011), understanding complex systems requires that scholars, as well as practitioners, approach them from many perspectives, that is, from a pluralistic stance. “This pluralist position provides a theoretical foundation for many techniques that have been developed for group decision making, bottom-​up problem solving, distributed management; any method that stresses the need for synthesizing a wide variety of perspectives in an effort to better understand the problem at hand, and how we might collectively act to solve it” (Richardson 2011: 370–​1).

A New Perspective on Paradox: Systemic Principles from Complexity Theories Consistent with Morin’s definition of complexity, principles that animate complex systems have also been identified (Klijn 2008; Mitleton-​Kelly 2003; Maguire 2011). Based on six of these systemic principles, we describe the features and functioning of complex systems and discuss the consequences of this approach to our understanding of paradox in organizations (see Table 10.3). Specifically, we focus on the links between components, roles, and the evolution of paradox. These dynamic systemic features of paradox may be helpful in constructing organizational models that acknowledge complexity without seeking to destroy it. First, connectivity means that organizations are based on multidimensional interrelationships between large number of parts within a system and between a system and its environment (Richardson 2011: 367). According to this principle, a paradox in an organization will also be characterized by connectivity, and must therefore be considered as more than a dyad, or two sides of the same coin. The paradox would be composed of several connecting elements animated by a self-​sustaining paradoxical/​antagonistic force. Second, the interdependence principle stipulates that the parts of organizations are not only interconnected, they are also interdependent. This means the elements that compose a paradox affect each other, but also that paradoxes are connected to other parts of the organization and may have unexpected and unpredictable effects on the entire system, and on strategies implemented to deal with paradoxical situations. Paradoxes can have different impacts depending on whether parts are loosely or tightly coupled (Perrow 1984). For example, pluralistic organizations such as universities or “multi-​ goal agencies,” are considered complex organizations with loose coupling, while organizations in the health sector such as hospitals have tighter coupling (Perrow 1984).

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    207 Table 10.3 Systemic complexity principles and contributions to our understanding of paradoxes Complexity principles

Implications for paradoxes

Avenues for future research

Connectivity

Paradox is more than a dyad. It is Are there paradoxes other than dyadic composed of connecting elements, paradoxes? animated by a self-​sustaining paradoxical force (e. g., vicious/​ virtuous cycle).

Interdependence

Paradox has unexpected and unpredictable effects on the entire system. A system characterized by tight coupling will lead to more numerous and salient paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011).

What are the differences between paradoxes in loosely coupled and tightly coupled organizations?

Feedback

Positive and negative feedback animates paradoxes.

How do we find the right balance between positive and negative feedback?

Emergence

Paradoxes are emergent properties of systems. They therefore act as organizing structures.

Do different types of organizations generate different types of paradox?

Self-​organization

Paradoxes contribute to self-​organization.

How do paradoxes contribute to the processes of organizing structures?

Far-​from equilibrium

Paradoxes are influenced by How are paradoxes influenced environmental changes (positive or by incoming interorganizational negative feedback). environmental changes?

What are the characteristics of paradoxes in each of these contexts?

Paradoxes may be different and develop differently depending on organizational contexts, including pluralism. Also, “the greater the interdependence between related systems or entities, the wider the ‘ripples’ of perturbation or disturbance of a move or action by any one entity on all the other related entities” (Mitleton-​Kely 2003: 5). Dealing with paradox in tightly coupled organizations should then be more difficult and destabilizing than in loosely coupled systems. Third, complex systems are driven by positive feedback, which promotes change (e.g., new ideas, diversity of practices, deregulation) and negative feedback, which tends to stabilize the system (e.g., regulatory functions, routines, coordination) (Stacey 1995). Positive and negative feedback then animates paradoxes, which are continually evolving. Paradox can be approached by managing feedback: too much negative feedback will stabilize the paradox but suffocate the system, while too much positive feedback will amplify the paradox and may provoke a crisis (Morin 1976). The challenge is to find the right balance in a constantly changing environment. For example, in order to manage the paradox of organizing, organizations in high-​risk sectors that are less efficient at crisis management tend to add multiple levels of regulation

208    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations and coordination, rather than structuring the organization around multilevel and multitask systems to better respond to the unexpected event (Macey 2011). These three principles—​ connectivity, interdependence, and feedback—​ underline the multiple interactions that characterize complex systems and the paradoxes they entail. A fourth principle, emergence, sees the properties of the whole as emerging from the properties of its parts. Paradoxes are therefore emergent properties of systems such as organizational learning. This also implies that different types of organization composed of different parts (hierarchical, matrix, pluralistic) will generate different kinds of paradox. Fifth, emergent properties contribute to self-​organization, that is, the spontaneous emergence of order (Mitleton-​Kely 2003). In this context, paradoxes contribute to self-​ organization. These two principles indicate that paradoxes act as organizing structures in organizations. For example, the paradox “encouraging a shared mind versus body respecting the multiplicity of identities” characterizes university–​community partnerships to the point that respect for this tension is a source of success (Strier 2014: 162). Sixth, the principle of far-​from equilibrium considers that systems exchange with their environment and, when pushed “far-​from equilibrium,” create new structures and order; new ways of working are created and news forms of organization may arise (Mitleton-​Kely 2003). A process based on changing in order to achieve a new stability (another paradox) intervenes (Farjoun 2010). This suggests that paradoxes are influenced by environmental changes. Moreover, paradoxes may be inter-​organizational, particularly in systems composed by several organizations in close interdependence (e.g., health system, education system).

Discussion In much of the paradox literature, it is assumed that tensions and contradictions can be creatively accommodated, transcended, and “managed.” At the end of our exploration of two alternate theoretical prisms, we suggest a need to nuance these assumptions. Three interrelated points are highlighted here concerning respectively the dynamics of paradox and pluralism, the manageability of paradox, and the relation between pluralism and paradoxes.

The Dynamic Spiral: Animating Paradox and Pluralism Complexity theory highlights two elements that intersect with CMS and pluralism. First, paradoxes are multiple and their interactions within organizations evolve over time. This underlines that paradoxes are, in fact, at the origin of pluralistic organizations. They are multiple and coexist, sometimes in equilibrium and other times in disequilibrium, revealing that organizations are composed of various tensions or issues that

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    209 interact. The nature of a paradox mirrors not only inherent characteristics of the organization, but also paradoxes in larger society. This is similar to CMS notions of societal dynamics and their intersection with organizations. For example, organizations that reflect pluralistic aspects of society in the makeup of their human resources will be better equipped to face social changes. Second, paradoxes are intrinsic and vital to organizations. Because they are in a dynamic state, they evolve over time, and the tensions they create can become more or less “disturbing” to the evolution and transformation of the organization. A high density of paradoxes may bring the organization to a crisis point. This could be provoked by positive feedback loops that create a destructive amplification of paradoxes and spark a vicious cycle. A low density of paradoxes may block the evolution and transformation of the organization. This could be brought on by negative feedback loops, which freeze the organization and stall its evolution. When paradoxes become too dense, they need to be recognized and brought down to a manageable level. When there are too few paradoxes, the organization evolves slowly because too few interactions are at play. From a managerial point of view, the best option is to accept and understand these dynamics rather than try to control them.

Performativity without Instrumentality: The Management of Paradoxes The first portion of this chapter discussed four main types of strategy for dealing with paradoxes proposed by organization scholars, namely acceptance, temporal separation, spatial separation, and synthesis (Poole and Van de Ven 1989), with a certain favourable inclination toward synthesis. Our exploration of two alternate theoretical prisms reveals that managing paradoxes is challenging at best. In fact, CMS and complexity theory doubt the possibility of really “managing” paradoxes, in the sense of reacting in a way that resolves an uncomfortable situation. Paradoxes are not clearly delineated stimuli to which individuals (including managers) can react by framing rational and effective responses dislocated from social tensions. From a CMS perspective, the accommodation of paradox occurs through social change. Managing paradoxes goes beyond the creation of a new meta-​concept, which can encompass the simultaneous existence of oppositions, and requires exploration of the inherent tensions that are generative of organizational paradoxes and examination of their deep roots in the social fabric, including ideologies and interests. This calls into question the tendency in traditional organizational studies to focus on managers and their agency as the sole locus of action around paradoxes. First, managers are not a uniform group, and are not unlinked to the differentiation process described earlier (e.g., we can differentiate women versus men managers and also a diversity of ideologies held by managers . . . ) and they will not deal with paradoxical situations in

210    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations the same way. Managers inhabit the oppositions that form and animate the social structure and are part of a context broader than their immediate organizational position. Second, managers are not the only agents capable of acting on paradox, and ultimately on social change, within and across organizations. Their actions must be coordinated with other actors and engaged alongside other organizations and societal institutions. Strategies to navigate paradox cannot be considered without acknowledging organizational pluralism. Consequently, CMS brings to the study of paradox a demystifying reinterpretation that opens up new and innovative options for “managing” paradox. The conception of action as praxis inherent in CMS expands the scope of strategies to deal with paradox in organizations. Spicer, Alvesson, and Kärreman (2009) suggest that CMS often falls short when it is time to think about practices in the day-​to-​day life of organizations. To convey the intention of using critical analysis as a guide for action, they use the concept of critical performativity, which seeks to impact on organizational becoming without adopting the posture of instrumental rationality. This suggests, as complexity theory strongly underlines, that there are an almost infinite number of ways to deal with organizational paradox. Complexity theory proposes an innovative approach using systemic features to undertake organizational modeling without destroying complexity. In complexity theory, paradoxes are a fundamental part of organizational systems, and the dynamic mixture of highly interconnected elements—​that may well be antagonistic—​makes the organization viable. Paradoxes cannot always be identified and encapsulated in a set of dual oppositions, as in the categorization proposed by Smith and Lewis (2011), an issue we also see in the tendency within CMS, at least in its Marxian filiation, to interpret organizational reality as a set of opposing tensions. The risk in this dualistic perspective is to neglect the social significance of tensions in organizations. Second, a perspective based on CMS and complexity theory implies that the challenge is not to eliminate paradoxes, play with them (Beech et al. 2004), or live with them (Clegg, Cunha, and Cunha 2002; Lewis 2000), but rather to continually nurture them at a certain dosage, in order to sustain the systemic development of organizations. It is the equilibrium between too high or too low a density of paradoxes that must be managed, not the paradox itself. As stated earlier, this can be achieved through the inducement of positive and/​or negative feedback. Rather than propose one specific strategy to manage paradox, complexity theory encourages the use of a pluralistic, or systemic, vision, which recognizes the benefits of a variety of ways to deal with and reorganize the forces that animate paradoxes over time. In general, an organization characterized by greater pluralism can cope with a higher density of paradoxes, and the evolution of these paradoxes will depend on the forces that fuel the system. Organizations might therefore use complexity theory to understand paradoxes and the dynamics they create over time. However, this requires a determination to invest in cooperative approaches to navigating the intersections between organizational paradox and pluralism.

Comeau-Vallée, Denis, Normandin, and Therrien    211

An Undetermined Sequence: The Coexistence of Pluralism and Paradoxes The above statement regarding a pluralist vision of organizations leads us to re-​assess the interface between the concepts of paradox and pluralism. Pluralism can be used in different ways and can have different meanings. At the organizational level, pluralism is characterized by multiple goals, diffuse power, and knowledge-​based processes (Denis et al. 2007). In the first part of this chapter, we suggested that each of these features could be linked to a particular type of paradox. More precisely, the presence of multiple goals fuels performing paradoxes, diffuse power may lead to belonging paradoxes, and knowledge-​based processes may foster organizing paradoxes. But pluralism in organizations is not limited to these three features. Cultural, economic, and gender diversity, the growing involvement of external stakeholders, and the emergence of networks and inter-​organizational partnerships are just a few manifestations of pluralism present in organizations. Their ambiguous and systemic nature means that these features stimulate the emergence of paradoxes. From this viewpoint, we might say that pluralist organizations are a context that generates paradoxes. The CMS theoretical frame contributes an understanding that organizational pluralism has ramifications in society. Pluralism in organizations, whether groups, class, or gender, reflects with more or less distortion the pluralism of society, not only in terms of composition, but also in terms of relational dynamics. Social heterogeneity (which implicitly contains contradictions and paradoxes) is related to conflictual power relationships and possible social upheaval over time in organizations. Thus, social pluralism and paradoxes can also be at the root of organizational paradoxes. On the other hand, the theory of complexity emphasizes the importance of interactions between elements of pluralism. Beyond the number of elements and their diversity, it is the interaction between elements and the dynamics of these relationships that produce organizational tensions. In addition, complexity theory promotes pluralism (i.e., a systemic perspective) as a better way to deal with and even nourish the dynamics between interrelated paradoxes in organizations. In this sense, pluralism does not necessarily refer to the pluralistic organizational features stated earlier, but rather suggests that organizations should favor diversity in their components. In this chapter, we advocate a broader view of organizational pluralism and paradoxes, and encourage others to resist the temptation to regard pluralism and paradox as sequential and try to find which comes first. Instead, we propose adopting a processual view, where pluralism and paradox coexist and unfold in a mutually constitutive manner. We also suggest resisting the inclination to manage paradox, which is based on the belief that an instrumental approach can solve the complex nature of organizations per se, and disregards their intimitate links to the society in which they evolve. To conclude, paradoxes cannot be managed or accommodated in a definitive way. All “solutions” have provisional status and will be reincorporated into the social dynamic of organizations, producing further tensions and contradictions. In the end,

212    Alternate Prisms for Pluralism and Paradox in Organizations these alternate theoretical prisms tell us that we do not manage paradoxes, but instead reframe and reposition them in a complex and irreducible organizational game that is essentially pluralistic.

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Chapter 11

Parad ox in P o si t i v e Organiz at i ona l Schol a rsh i p Kim Cameron

The re-​emergence of paradox in organizational studies reminds us of the inevitable and ubiquitous presence of paradox in high performance circumstances. Some years ago I argued that “organizational effectiveness is inherently paradoxical, [and] to be effective, an organization must possess attributes that are simultaneously contradictory, even mutually exclusive” (Cameron 1986: 544–​5). Unfortunately, as articulated by Smith and Lewis (2011), organizational studies have still not become very sophisticated in recognizing, articulating, and understanding the nature of paradox nor in learning how to manage and transcend it.1

The Meaning of Paradox Paradox involves contradictory, mutually exclusive elements that are present and operate equally at the same time. Paradox differs from similar concepts such as dilemma, irony, inconsistency, dialectic, ambivalence, or conflict. Specifically, a dilemma is an either/​or situation where one alternative must be selected over another attractive alternative. An irony exists when an unexpected or contradictory outcome arises from a single alternative. An inconsistency is an aberration or discontinuity from past patterns. A dialectic is a pattern that always begins with a thesis followed by an antithesis and resolved by a synthesis. Ambivalence is uncertainty over which of two (or more) 1 

This chapter relies on previously published work on the topic of paradox including Cameron (1985), Cameron (1986), Quinn and Cameron (1988), and Cameron (2008).

Kim Cameron   217 attractive alternatives is preferable. A conflict is the perpetuation of one alternative at the expense of others. In a paradox, on the other hand, both of the mutually exclusive elements are accepted and present. Both operate simultaneously but are contradictory. One of the most important functions of recognizing paradox is that it stimulates an elevation of thinking and, frequently, creative breakthroughs. As Rothenberg (1979: 55) pointed out: two or more opposites or antitheses are conceived simultaneously, either as existing side by side, or as equally operative, valid, or true. In an apparent defiance of logic or of physical possibility, the creative person consciously formulates the simultaneous operation of antithetical elements and develops those into integrated entities and creations. It is a leap that transcends ordinary logic.

A favorite example of paradox is Einstein’s “happiest thought of my life” found in a long-​lost journal some years after his death. He conceived of a man jumping off a tall building and, on the way down, taking from his pocket a wallet, placing it in front of himself, and letting go. It occurred to Einstein that relative to the man, the wallet was stationary. So at that instant, the wallet was simultaneously moving and at rest. Two mutually exclusive elements were present at the same time, yet Einstein’s transcendence of that paradox served as a foundation stone in the development of the theory of relativity.

Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship Another less dramatic example of paradox is illustrated in the emerging field of study labelled positive organizational scholarship (POS). POS is an umbrella concept used to unify a variety of approaches in organizational studies, each of which incorporates the notion of “the positive.” In previously published work, several descriptions have been used to define the domain of POS, including, “the states and processes that arise from and result in life-​giving dynamics, optimal functioning, and enhanced capabilities and strengths” (Dutton and Glynn 2007: 693); “an emphasis on identifying individual and collective strengths (attributes and processes) and discovering how such strengths enable human flourishing (goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience)” (Roberts 2006: 292); “the study of especially positive outcomes, processes, and attributes of organizations and their members,” and a “focus on dynamics that are typically described by words such as excellence, thriving, flourishing, abundance, resilience, or virtuousness” (Cameron, Dutton, and Quinn 2003: 4). These descriptions all emphasize similar terms that describe processes, dynamics, perspectives, and outcomes considered to be positive.

218    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship The trouble is, the term “positive” is somewhat ambiguous in its meaning and has, therefore, generated some misunderstanding and criticism. A review of dictionary definitions of the term positive reveals such a wide range of connotations and so many applications as to defy the establishment of precise conceptual boundaries (e.g., Webster’s, Oxford, American Heritage). On the other hand, some convergence has begun to occur as the term has been employed in POS and applied to POS.

The Meaning of “Positive” in Organizational Scholarship One approach to the concept of positive is a focus on extraordinarily positive outcomes, or positively deviant performance (Spreitzer and Sonenshein 2003). This means that outcomes are investigated which dramatically exceed common or expected performance. Investigations of spectacular results, surprising outcomes, and extraordinary achievements have been the focus of several investigations (e.g., Cameron and Lavine 2006; Gittell, Cameron, Lim, and Rivas 2006; Baker and Gunderson 2005), each treating “positive” as synonymous with exceptional performance. Reaching a level of positive deviance, in other words, extends beyond achieving effectiveness or ordinary success in that it represents “intentional behaviors that depart from the norm of a reference group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer and Sonenshein 2003:209). Investigating the indicators of and explanatory processes accounting for such positively deviant performance is one area where “positive” has taken on a consensual connotation. A second area of convergence regarding the term “positive” has been its emphasis on an affirmative bias, or toward prioritizing strengths, capabilities, and possibilities rather than problems, threats, and weakness. This focus emphasizes positive energy, positive climate, positive relationships, positive communication, and positive meaning in organizations (Cameron 2012), as well as the value embedded in obstacles and challenges (Losada and Heaphy 2004). It includes appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider and Srivastava 1987), positive energy (Baker, Cross, and Wooten 2003), and strengths-​based assessments (Clifton and Harter 2003). It does not exclude consideration of negative events but, rather, incorporates them in accounting for positive outcomes and the best of the human condition (e.g., Dutton, Frost, Worline, Lilius, and Kanov 2002; Weick 2003). A third area of convergence regarding the term “positive” relates to the concepts of virtuousness and eudemonism (Spreitzer and Sonenshein 2003; Cameron and Caza 2004). POS is based on a eudemonic assumption—​that is, that an inclination exists in all human systems toward goodness for its intrinsic value (Aristotle, Metaphysics; Dutton and Sonenshein 2007). Whereas debate has occurred regarding what constitutes goodness and whether universal human virtues can be identified, all societies and cultures possess catalogues of traits that they deem virtuous, or the highest aspirations of human kind (Peterson and Seligman 2004; Comte-​Sponville 2001). Positive change examines the development of and effects associated with virtuousness and eudemonism (Cameron 2003; Bright, Cameron, and Caza 2006; Ilies, Nahrgang, and Morgeson 2007), which is similar to what Aristotle labeled goods of first intent—​or “that which is

Kim Cameron   219 good in itself and is to be chosen for its own sake” (Metaphysics XII: 3). Studies of virtuousness and its impact of individual and organizational performance have begun to appear in the scholarly literature (e.g., Bright 2006; Cameron and Caza 2004; Cameron, Mora, Leutscher, and Calarco 2011; Marotto, Roos, and Victor 2007), and some convergence in POS has occurred regarding positivity as indicated by virtuousness and eudemonism.

The Heliotropic Effect These areas of convergence regarding the term “positive”—​extraordinary performance, an affirmative bias, and virtuousness and eudemonism—​highlight one aspect of the paradoxical nature of the term “positive.” Specifically, the “positive” in POS possesses attributes consistent with heliotropism (Drexelius 1627). Heliotropism is defined as the tendency in all living systems toward positive energy and away from negative energy—​ or toward that which is life-​giving and away from that which is life-​depleting (e.g., Smith and Baker 1960; D’Amato and Jagoda 1962; Mrosovsky and Kingsmill 1985). In nature, positive energy is most often experienced in the form of sunlight, but it may occur in other forms as well (e.g., interpersonal kindness, high quality connections) (Dutton 2003; Erhard-​Siebold 1937; Heaphy and Dutton 2008). A positive environment, according to this viewpoint, is the preferred condition because it provides positive energy, and positive energy is heliotropic. Following this logic, human systems, like biological systems in nature, possess inherent inclinations toward the positive and, thus, toward positive change (Aristotle, Metaphysics; Tutu 1999). Reinforcing the positive would be the normal prescription for unleashing positive change.

The Importance of the Negative Paradoxically, however, positive outcomes also result from negative problems, difficulties, traumas, challenges, and losses. Some of the greatest triumphs, most noble virtues, and highest achievements have resulted from the presence of the negative. In fact, common human experience, as well as abundant scientific evidence, supports the idea that negativity has an important place in producing positive outcomes. Negative news sells more than positive news, people pay more attention to negative feedback than positive feedback, and traumatic events have greater impact on individuals than positive events. An extensive review of psychological research by Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, and Vohs (2001) summarized this conclusion in the article’s title: “Bad is stronger than good.” Human beings, they pointed out, react more strongly to negative phenomena than to positive phenomena. This finding is also consistent with evolutionary theory (Darwin 2003)  which presumes that living systems respond strongly and quickly to stimuli that threaten their existence or that signal maladaptation.

220    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship Baumeister et al. (2001:323) concluded: Events that are negatively valenced (e.g., losing money, being abandoned by friends, and receiving criticism) will have a greater impact on the individual than positively valenced events of the same type (e.g., winning money, gaining frends, and receiving praise). This is not to say that bad will always triumph over good, spelling doom and misery to the human race. Rather, good may prevail over bad by superior force of numbers: Many good events can overcome the psychological effects of a single bad one. When equal measures of good and bad are present, however, the psychological effects of bad ones outweigh those of the good ones.

Support for this conclusion is plentiful and demonstrates the paradox in positive outcomes—​namely, both positive inclinations and negative sensitivities exist simultaneously in human beings and are potential enablers of positive outcomes. An explanation for each of these inherent inclinations—​toward the positive and toward the negative—​is explained in the following paragraphs, and a reconciliation is suggested.

Natural Tendencies toward the Positive Empirical evidence supporting this natural tendency toward the positive is abundant in the social sciences. For example, human beings are more accurate in learning and remembering positive terms than neutral or negative terms (Kuntz 1974; Matlin 1970; Taylor 1991). When presented lists of positive, neutral, and negative words, for example, people are more accurate over time in recalling the positive (Akhtar 1968; Rychlak 1977; Thomson 1930), and the longer the delay between learning and recalling, the more positive bias is displayed (Gilbert 1938). Derry and Kuiper (1982) found that individuals are less likely to remember negative than positive descriptions of themselves. Positive words are also learned faster than negative words (Rychlak 1966; Bunch and Wientge 1933), and people judge positive phenomena more accurately than negative phenomena. Managers, for example, are much more accurate in rating subordinates’ competencies and proficiencies when they perform correctly than when they perform incorrectly (Gordon 1970). As summarized by Matlin and Stang (1978: 138): People are more accurate in processing positive information, whether the task involves verbal discrimination, organizational behavior, or the judgment of emotion. They think about a greater number of positive things than negative things, and each positive thing is thought about for a longer period of time.

Kim Cameron   221 In free association tasks, people tend to respond with positive rather than negative words (Silverstein and Dienstbier 1968; Wilson and Becknell 1961), as when presented with neutral stimuli and asked to identify the first thing that comes to mind. Positive associations are more frequent than negative associations (Washburn, Harding, Simons, and Tomlinson 1925), and positive responses occur more quickly and have larger quantity than the negative. Positive items also take precedence when people make lists (Matlin, Stang, Gawron, Freedman, and Derby 1978), so that people list those things they like before those things they don’t like, most favorite things before least favorite things, and so on. This effect is observed when referring to objects, sentences, movies, evaluations of people, life events, and memories (Matlin et al. 1978). The positive is listed more frequently than and prior to the negative. People more frequently recall positive life experiences than neutral or negative ones, and they mentally rehearse positive items more than negative items (Meltzer 1930; Stang 1975). When asked to recall a summer vacation or past life experiences, for example, positive experiences are identified most frequently, and they increase in frequency over time (Thomson 1930; Koch 1930; Stagner 1931; Steckle 1945). Positive memories tend to replace negative memories, and negative memories diminish or become neutralized over time (Hollingworth 1910; Holmes 1970; Yarrow, Campbell, and Burton 1970). For example, when asked to read three statements from a magazine—​positive, negative, neutral statements—​then report a day later on how much time they spent thinking about the statements (Stang 1978), people reported thinking about positive statements 20 percent longer than negative statements and almost 50 percent longer than neutral statements. People mentally rehearse positive items more than negative items, because, according to Matlin and Stang, (1978: 120): Positive is registered in memory more accurately than negative, so it can be recalled easier and more accurately. Because positive information is stored more accessibly than negative information, it tumbles out more rapidly and accurately.

People tend to seek out positive stimuli and avoid negative stimuli (Day 1966; Luborsky et al. 1963), as when given a choice about looking at smiling faces or frowning faces or pleasant scenes versus disturbing scenes. Moreover, when people see positive and neutral stimuli equally often, they report that the positive stimuli are more frequent than the negative (Stang 1974; Matlin and Stang 1975). Positive stimuli are also judged to be larger in size than negative or neutral stimuli when large size is valued (Stayton and Wiener 1961). When smallness is valued, positive things are judged to be smaller. In judgments of themselves and of others, people display a positive bias. For example, people judge from two-​thirds to three-​quarters of the events in their lives to be positive (Bradburn and Noll 1969; Havighurst and Glasser 1972; Meltzer and Ludwig 1967, 1970), and most people judge themselves to be positive, optimistic, and happy most of the time (Cameron 1972; Young 1937; Goldings 1954; Wessman and Ricks 1966; Johnson

222    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship 1937). In one study in which people rated themselves each day for sixty-​five consecutive days on a scale ranging from +5 (“I have never been happier”), 0 (“This is my normal degree of happiness”), to –​5 (“I have never been more miserable”), people’s average rating was +1.2, meaning that they rated themselves as even happier than they normally are (Johnson 1937). People also tend to judge the future as significantly more positive than the past or present (Watts and Free 1973). According to Hollingworth (1910: 710): “The canonization of saints, the apotheosis of strenuous historical characters, the obituaries of our friends, the reminiscences of childhood, all testify to this natural and universal habit of forgetting the bad and exalting the good.” A similar positive bias is found in language. Positive words have higher frequencies in all the languages studied—​including English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Urdu [India and Pakistan], Russian, Italian, Dutch, Belgian Flemish, Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Serbo-​Croatian. The preponderance of positive words is present in all types of literature, in formal and informal usage, in written and spoken communication, and among both adults and children (Boucher and Osgood 1969; Matlin and Stang 1978). It has also been shown that positive words typically entered English usage more than 150 years before their negative opposites, so that people were “better” before they were “worse,” and “clean” before they were “dirty” (Matlin and Stang 1978; Mann 1968; Zajonc 1968; Boucher and Osgood 1969). Osgood and Richards concluded that: It would appear that from time immemorial humans have been differentially reinforced for strength (rather than weakness), for activity (rather than passivity) . . . that humans have found believing more reinforcing than doubting, certainty more than uncertainty, plentitude more than scarcity, asserting more than denying—​and congruity . . . more than incongruity. (1973: 410)

The inclination toward the positive, in other words, appears to characterize human beings in their thoughts, judgments, emotions, and language. A tendency toward the positive seems to be a natural human attribute, and empirical evidence suggests that positivity is the preferred and natural state of human beings, just as it is of biological systems. For example, Hamlin, Wynn, and Bloom (2007) found that infants, as early as ages three months and up, exhibited a sense of moral virtue in experiments with puppets. Children overwhelmingly preferred puppets that exhibited helpful, generous, and morally virtuous behavior when given a choice of which puppet they preferred to play with.

Explanations for Positive Tendencies Several explanations have been proposed for why individuals experience the heliotropic effect and have inclinations toward the positive. For example, Erdelyi (1974) explained

Kim Cameron   223 positive biases are a product of individuals’ cognitive development. Human mental processes develop in such a way as to favor the positive over the negative. Because of the overwhelming amount of sensory information available to individuals, most information is disregarded. What is retained, or selected, tends to be that which is life-​giving rather than life-​depleting. Perceptual defense mechanisms (e.g., denial, displacement) develop to counteract the effects of negative information, so inclinations toward positivity develop. Selectivity of positive information is not limited to perception; it is not limited to language, or to memory. Instead, selectivity appears to be a condition that cuts across all processes. Selectivity of the positive is inherent in the way humans handle stimulus material . . . this generalization holds true whether the operations . . . include perception, or memory storage, or a judgment process. [A positive bias] does not focus on one segment in the information processing sequence; it operates at all segments. (Matlin and Stang 1978: 195)

Similarly, Becker (1973) explained natural positive biases as resulting from the fear of death. That which is unpleasant is repressed because it reinforces a fear of dying, while that which is positive—​or life-​giving—​is reinforced, so people develop a bias toward it. Learning theorists (e.g., Skinner 1965) explain positive biases as being associated with reinforcement: Every learning theorist’s version of learning principles maintains that activities which are [positively] reinforcing are repeated while activities that are punishing or unpleasant are extinguished . . . selectivity occurs via stimulus selection, a process that assures that stimulus input will be predominately pleasant. (Matlin and Stang 1978: 21)

Brain scan research has also verified a bias toward the positive and explains positive tendencies organically. For example, in an attempt to explain why most people expect positive events to occur in the future even when there is no evidence to support such expectations—​for example, people expect to live longer than the average; they underestimate the likelihood of getting a divorce; they overestimate their prospects for success on the job market; they expect to win more than lose in randomized tasks—​Sharot, Riccardi, Raio, and Phelps (2007) found that the human brain has a tendency to produce optimistic and positive orientations in its natural state. The rostral anterior cingulated cortex is significantly related to positivity and optimism. “The brain generates a tendency to engage in the projection of positive future events  . . .  and is related to optimism” (102). Social process theorists explain positive biases on the basis of the functions they perform in perpetuating social organization (Merton 1968). Simply stated, organizing depends on positive social processes that reinforce mutual benefit. The eudemonic tendency leads people toward helping behavior (Krebs 1987), and when others observe this

224    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship behavior, they feel compelled to join with and build upon those contributions (e.g., Sethi and Nicholson 2001). Observing and experiencing positivity unlocks predispositions to act for the benefit of others, causing an upward spiral and increasing social connections in an organization (Feldman and Khademian 2003). A similar explanation comes from Gouldner (1960), who proposed that role modeling and social norm formation create a tendency toward the positive. Positive social processes are more likely to survive and flourish over the long run than negative social processes because they are functional for the group. Collectivities survive when they are reinforced by positive norms. The universality and function of forming positive bonds and collaboration has its roots in physics as well as social sciences. The point is, several explanations have been proffered for why human beings are positively inclined and heliotropic in their tendencies. Cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally, physiologically, and socially, human systems tend to prefer exposure to the positive, so they develop a natural tendency toward positive change.

The Paradox of the Negative Paradoxically, research has also been produced which demonstrates that human beings react most strongly to negative events. Negativity, the research suggests, usually overpowers heliotropic and eudemonic tendencies. For example, negative feedback has more emotional impact on people than positive feedback (Coleman, Jussim, and Abraham 1987), and the effects of negative information and negative events take longer to wear off than the effects of positive information or pleasant events (Brickman, Coates, and Jason-​Bulman (1978). The negative tends to disrupt normal functioning longer than does the positive. A single traumatic experience (e.g., abuse, violence) can overcome the effects of many positive events, but a single positive event does not usually overcome the effects of a single traumatic negative event (Laumann, Gagon, Michael, and Michaels 1994; Laumann, Paik, and Rosen 1999). That is, a single traumatic event usually has longer lasting effects on behavior than a single positive event. Negative events have stronger effects, according to Berlyne (1971), because they are relatively rare and, therefore, tend to be more salient. In terms of memory, a positive event is remembered more accurately and longer, but a negative event has more effect on immediate memory and salience in the short run (Bless et al. 1992; Dreben et al. 1979). Negative events have a greater effect on people’s subsequent moods and adjustment than positive events (Nezlek and Gable 1999), and negative or upsetting social interactions weigh more heavily on people (they produce more depression and bad moods) than positive or helpful interactions (Manne, Taylor, Dougherty, and Kemeny 1997; Rook 1984). Vinokur and van Ryn (1993) found, for example, that conflict takes a greater toll on people’s mental health than positive social relations helped bolster mental health. People tend to spend more thought time on threatening personal relationships than supportive ones and on personal goals that were blocked than those that were not

Kim Cameron   225 blocked (Klinger, Barta, and Maxeiner 1980). When negative things happen (e.g., people lose a wager, endure abuse, or become a victim of a crime), they spent more time trying to explain the outcome or to make sense of it than when a positive outcome occurs (Gilovich 1983; Pratto and John 1991). Hamilton and Huffman (1971) found that undesirable human traits receive more weight in impression formation than desirable traits. For example, when people acquire a negative trait, fewer instances are required to confirm it in the minds of observers than when people acquire a positive trait (Rothbart and Park 1986). Bad reputations are easy to acquire but difficult to lose, whereas good reputations are difficult to acquire but easy to lose. Bolster and Springbett (1961) found, for example, that in initial hiring decisions, 3.8 unfavorable bits of information were required to shift a decision to rejection, whereas 8.8 favorable pieces of information were necessary to shift an initial negative decision toward acceptance. Skowronski and Carlston (1989) proposed that to be categorized as good, one has to be good all of the time, but to be categorized as bad, one only has to engage in a few bad acts. An impression of moral goodness is easily negated by an immoral act, but an impression of immorality is not easily overcome by engaging moral acts. Baumeister et al. (2001: 328, 362) concluded: Most findings indicate that people react more strongly to bad than good events. The evidence covers everything from minor everyday events and brief experimental exposure to aversive odors to major life events and traumas. Bad events produce more emotion, have bigger effects on adjustment measures, and have longer lasting impacts . . . There are several reasons to think that it may be highly adaptive for human beings to respond more strongly to bad than good. In the final analysis, then, the greater power of bad may itself be a good thing.

Explaining the Inclination toward the Negative When most people were very small, they learned that ignoring negative feedback could be dangerous or produce unpleasant consequences. Ignoring positive feedback, however, usually produces little or no lasting effect. Over time, therefore, individuals learned to suppress their natural heliotropic tendencies and react more immediately and more strongly toward the negative. The predominance of the negative over the positive can be explained by theories of intensity, novelty, adaptation, and singularity. As mentioned above, both inclinations toward the positive and toward the negative are evolutionarily adaptive, but they work in different ways.

226    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship

Intensity Negative events represent threats to survival and species perpetuation, so living systems are keenly affected by them. Negativity is more likely to be experienced intensely (Matlin and Stang 1978), so reactions are usually immediate and strong. In contrast, because positive events are more common and tend to be more generalized in human experience, they are usually less intense. Temporarily ignoring the positive may produce regret but no life-​altering effects. As a result, the negative predominates over the positive when both stimuli are present because the negative tends to be more concentrated and immediate in impact. Gottman (1994) claimed, in fact, that negative events are five times more powerful than positive events in affecting human beings.

Novelty Similarly, since most events in life are positive, any negative occurrence represents an aberration or a novel condition (Holmes 1970). Kellermann (1984) hypothesized that bad is stronger than good because it is usually extreme, unexpected, or unusual and therefore captures awareness. Just as movement in a still room attracts attention, so negative (novel) events capture more attention than positive (normal) patterns (Thorngate 1976; Turner and Barlow 1951). That which is unusual has more impact than that which is expected, explaining why one bad act has more impact in impression formation than one good act (Skowronski and Carlston 1989).

Maladaptation Furthermore, negative events often indicate maladaptation and a need to change. Negative information usually serves as a corrective influence or as a motivation to adapt to new circumstances (Taylor 1991), whereas continuous positive information is not likely to motivate change or adaptation. Personal and organizational change are more frequently stimulated by information about maladaptation—​crises, achievement gaps, threatening challenges—​than by evidence of positivity (Weick 2003; Lewin 1935). Survival instincts are more likely to be triggered by negative events than by positive events.

Singularity In addition, it is usually the case that one single negative thing can cause a system to fail, but one single positive thing cannot guarantee success. For example, one part in an engine, one person on a team, or one organ in the body can cause the entire system to stop working, but a single good part or person cannot cause an entire system to thrive.

Kim Cameron   227 Many things must work in harmony for success to occur in most living systems, but failure can be singular. Hence, more attention is paid to the negative than to the positive.

A Negative Bias in Research These explanations help identify the reason why a bias exists in social sciences toward studying the negative much more than the positive (Seligman 1999; Czapinski 1985). A  larger effect (R2) can usually be detected by accounting for negative phenomena compared to positive phenomena. That is, the bad has stronger effects than the good (Baumeister et al. 2001). It is understandable that researchers focus on the strongest factors accounting for the most variance. Negative effects usually dominate heliotropic inclinations, they account for a larger amount of variance in behavior change, and they capture more attention in scholarly analyses. Consequently, a tendency toward investigating the negative largely dominates in the social science literature. At least as important is the fact that, over time, organizations also tend to emphasize negative phenomena for the same reasons—​survival and adaptation are associated with addressing obstacles, dangers, or threats. If greater immediate organizational effects can be created by addressing the negative, it is logical that organizational policies, practices, and processes will, over time, also tend toward focusing on and organizing around negative factors more than positive factors. Evidence of this tendency is confirmed by Margolis and Walsh’s (2003) findings that negative phenomena dominate positive phenomena in the business press and organizational studies literature by a factor of 4. An examination of articles published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science also produces the same result. Investigations of negatively motivated change predominate over investigations of positive change. Classifying the approximately five hundred articles published in JABS between 1990 and 2007 according to their focus on negative change, positive change, or a neutral topic, for example, revealed that approximately 40 percent of the articles addressed negatively motivated change whereas only 4 percent addressed positive change. (The remainder addressed neutral topics such as biographies, methodologies, the field of OD, or special topics such as IT, architecture, or global culture.)

Prioritizing the Positive Because of the imbalance of attention toward the negative, an important challenge in organizational scholarship is to pay more attention than is currently the norm to the processes and practices that can unleash heliotropic tendencies and produce positive change in human systems. Empirical evidence is clear that when positive factors are given greater emphases than negative factors, human beings tend to flourish to a greater extent than when the reverse is true. Spectacular success has been documented when

228    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship the positive dominates the negative (Cameron and Lavine 2006; Cameron, Bright, and Caza 2004; Fredrickson and Losada 2005). For example, research on Fredrickson’s (1998, 2009; Fedrickson and Joiner 2002) broaden-​and-​build theory confirms that when positive emotions dominate negative emotions, mental capacity, personal resilience, intellectual complexity, knowledge, the capacity to explore, and physiological functioning are all enhanced. Other research has found that dominant positivity also enhances creativity (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, and Staw 2005), interpersonal trust in relationships (Mishra and Mishra 2008), productivity (Bolino, Turnley, and Bloodgood 2002; Rhoades and Eisenberger 2002), and greater mindfulness (Garland, Gaylord, and Fredrickson 2011). Individuals and organizations that demonstrate positive energy are by far the most successful (Baker, Cross, and Wooten 2003), and the attribute of positive psychological capital—​consisting of hope, optimism, resilience, and self-​efficacy—​predicts individual health, motivation, commitment, and absenteeism at work better than does job satisfaction (Luthans et al. 2005, 2007). A focus on and affirmation of positive personal values attenuates psychological stress, cortisol levels, cardiovascular illness, depression, and defensiveness and enhances performance (Creswell, Welch, Taylor, Sherman, Gruenewald, and Mann 2005). Investigations of caregivers for Alzheimer’s patients found that persons in positive, supportive relationships had heart-​rate patterns associated with lower chronological age compared to caregivers with negative relationships (Uchino, Kiecolt-​Glaser, and Cacioppo 1992). Those with positive relationships were not as old physiologically as those without. A study of 10,000 Israeli men (Medalie and Goldbourt 1976) found that among those experiencing high levels of stress, those who had a positive relationship with a spouse had half the rate of angina pectoris (chest pain), and, after a heart attack, the presence of positive relationships doubled the chances of survival six months later (Berkman, Leo-​Summers, and Horowitz 2002). Individuals in positive relationships had greater resistance to upper respiratory infections and less incidence of prostate cancer than normal individuals (Cohen, Doyle, Skoner, Rabin, and Gwaltney 1997). Dutton and Ragins (2007) documented a wide variety of similar effects of positive relationships on human health and performance (also see Ryff and Singer 2001). In organizations, a variety of empirical studies (Cameron, Bright, and Caza 2004; Cameron and Caza 2004; Cameron and Lavine 2006; Cameron, Mora, Leutscher, and Calarco 2011) found that the presence of virtuousness significantly predicted high levels of profitability, productivity, quality, innovation, customer loyalty, and employee retention. In one investigation in the financial services industry, 45 percent of the variance in six measures of financial performance was accounted for by the implementation of positive practices (Cameron and Mora 2008). In addition, financial return in the airline industry after the September 11th tragedy was found to be significantly related (r = .80) to the virtuousness of downsizing strategies (Gittell, Cameron, Lim, and Rivas 2006). A positive approach to this fiscal crisis produced far greater financial return than a negative approach.

Kim Cameron   229 Similarly, the implementation of positive practices at Rocky Flats, Colorado, allowed a nuclear arsenal—​labeled as the most dangerous place in America due to the amount of radioactive and explosive materials on site—​to be closed and thoroughly cleaned up sixty years ahead of schedule, $30 billion under budget, and thirteen times cleaner than required by federal standards (Cameron and Lavine 2006). Losada and Heaphy (2004) found that superior performance among top management teams was characterized by a preponderance of positive versus negative communication. The most profitable, productive, and effective teams had a ratio of five positive statements for each negative statement during their work interactions, whereas the lowest performing teams has a ratio of three negative for every positive statement. This same five to one ratio of positive to negative was discovered by Gottman (1993, 1994) in his predictive studies of successful marriages and divorces. The best predictor of the sustainability and quality of the marital relationship was found to be a similar 5:1 ratio of positive to negative communication events. A similar finding was identified by Fredrickson and Losada (2005) concerning the relationship between experienced emotions and performance. Evidence from several psychological studies found that a ratio of at least three positive emotions to every one negative emotion is associated with flourishing, mental health, and superior individual performance. The point is, empirical evidence suggests that a preponderance of the positive over the negative helps enable positive organizational outcomes. When positive conditions exist—​for example, positive climate, positive relationships, positive communication, positive meaning, and positive energy (Cameron 2012)—​ heliotropic tendencies are able to mitigate negative tendencies and produce positive change. Whereas negative conditions can stimulate positive change, in the absence of the positive they tend toward rigidity and recalcitrance (Staw, Sandelands, and Dutton 1981).

Reconciling the Paradox in Positivity and Negativity One important point to keep in mind in reconciling the positive–​negative paradox—​ that tendencies toward both the positive and the negative are requisite for positive outcomes, but the negative tends to dominate—​is to recognize that an overemphasis on either the positive or the negative is dysfunctional. Over time, a constant focus on the negative leads to paranoia, defensiveness, and degeneration (Becker 1973). In fact, psychological defense mechanisms (e.g., repression, regression, transference) exist to protect against an overabundance of the negative (Freud 1946). Similarly, the effect of constant positivity is also dysfunctional, as illustrated by an unrealistic Pollyannaish perspective or a complete absence of corrective feedback. The Arab proverb is apropos: “All sunshine makes a desert.” People who have a genetic

230    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship insensitivity to pain (i.e., no negative physiological feedback) do not long survive, for example, because they are not able to adapt to their changing environments. In other words, both positive and negative elements are needed for the perpetuation of extraordinarily positive outcomes (Bagozzi 2003). When both are present, however, the survival benefits of attending to the negative tend to create stronger defensive reactions than inclinations toward the positive (Maslow 1968; Alderfer 1966), so the positive requires more emphasis in order for positive outcomes to be produced. A second important point to keep in mind is that, even though a preponderance of positive factors predicts higher performance, the presence of paradox is very important in fostering benefits such as innovation, creativity, and transformation. An explanation for these outcomes can be illustrated by associating paradox with convergent versus divergent problems. Convergent problems deal with logical, quantifiable, reducible elements that are amenable to a single solution. Almost all rational problem-​solving and decision-​making models refer to convergent problem solving (March 1994). Divergent problems, on the other hand, cannot be reduced to a single solution nor can they be easily categorized as a single type. Convergent problems are solved (and, therefore, eliminated). Divergent, or paradoxical, problems produce innovations, breakthroughs, and elevated understanding that would not be forthcoming otherwise, because normal procedures do not lead to a solution. Divergent problems cannot be solved in the sense of establishing a correct formula; they can, however, be transcended. A pair of opposites . . . cease to be opposites at the higher level, the really human level . . . It is then that such forces as love and compassion, understanding and empathy, become available . . . Opposites cease to be opposites. (Schumacher 1977: 126)

Transcending divergent or paradoxical problems implies reaching levels of understanding or action that had not been considered and are seldom available in the absence of paradox. Without the tension that exists in the presence of simultaneous opposites, individuals and organizations seldom push themselves to a higher or transcendent level. People tend to do what they know how to do and think what they have been patterned to think. The presence of paradox provides the motivation to diverge from familiar and accustomed patterns. Bateson (1936) and Morgan (1981) argue that in the absence of paradox schismogenesis often occurs. This is a process of self-​reinforcement where one action or attribute perpetuates itself until it becomes extreme and, therefore, dysfunctional. In organizations, for example, competition becomes dysfunctional unless cooperation also exists. Tight controls become dysfunctional unless flexibility and discretion are also present. Growth leads to dissolution unless constraint also occurs. Teamwork leads to ineffectiveness unless individual initiative is also fostered. Reconciling the positive—​negative paradox can occur, therefore, by celebrating the necessity and the functionality of both positive and negative elements simultaneously

Kim Cameron   231 in promoting creative thinking and transformational actions in addition to promoting the highest levels of human behavior—​in Schumacher’s terms, love, compassion, understanding, and empathy. An overemphasis on the negative—​which is a natural tendency of individuals and organizations—​forfeits the inherent advantages of paradox.

Potential Future Research Because of the prioritization of the negative over the positive, the major challenge for researchers is to uncover more positive variables with which to predict individual and organizational outcomes. Questions such as the following have yet to be systematically addressed: • What is an appropriate ratio of the positive to the negative in predicting successful individual and/​or organizational outcomes? How much sunshine does it take to make a desert? • What factors, and what combination of positive factors and negative factors, leads to the highest levels of performance for individuals and/​or organizations? What is the appropriate mix? • How much tension in paradoxical circumstances is functional in leading toward creativity, innovation, and transformation as opposed to defensiveness and recalcitrance? • When encountering paradox, do organizations and individuals manage the situation differently? Does the complexity inherent in organizations make them more able to capitalize on the advantages of paradox? • What cognitive and decision processes can be developed to better capitalize on the advantages of paradox and minimize the confusion and ambiguity that may accrue? • Can a preponderance of negative practices and negative cultures in organizations flourish over the long term as they seem to do in the short term?

Conclusion Paradox exists in all human systems, and the acceptance and transcendence of paradoxes are almost always prerequisites for excellence. Higher levels of individual and organizational performance accrue when paradox is recognized and managed. Because bad is stronger than good, however, the need to increase the emphasis on the positive is the practical outcome of this positive–​negative paradox. Because extraordinarily positive performance usually depends on an awareness of paradoxical tendencies—​ that is, both a heliotropic inclination toward the positive, and a survival-​based inclination toward the negative—​positivity needs to take its place beside the now-​dominant

232    Paradox in Positive Organizational Scholarship emphasis on negative factors. The challenge, therefore, is to identify previously ignored positive factors in organizational science that have been masked by negative factors, and to be conscious of the necessity of paradox for attaining effectiveness.

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Chapter 12

M anaging Normat i v e T ensions wi t h i n a nd across Organ i z at i ons What Can the Economies of Worth and Paradox Frameworks Learn from Each Other? Jean-​Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud

How do managers deal with tensions that involve conflicting moral values? Aren’t the most difficult paradoxes faced by decision-​makers shaped by conflicting approaches to the common good? How to justify on moral grounds strategies employed to deal with paradoxes? Surprisingly little is known about the normative and moral dimensions inherent to paradox management. Prior paradox theory has usually packaged moral dimensions under the categories of belonging and performing paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011), without fully appreciating that building agreement about moral values may involve activities that are political by nature, in the sense that they point to the construction of shared representations of the common good. In addition, paradox scholarship has been biased toward the analysis of dualities—​empirical studies of paradox have rarely considered more than two opposite elements at once, mainly due to the definition of paradox (Lewis 2000; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016)—​and has overlooked the role of materiality. On the other hand, the Economies of Worth (hereafter EW) stream of studies—​also known as the School of convention or French pragmatic sociology—​has developed a comprehensive framework to describe how ordinary actors engage with multiple normative principles to evaluate the worth of things and people in situations of disputes within and across social spheres (Boltanski [1990] 2012; Boltanski and Thévenot 1999, [1991] 2006). Although the grammar of justification and the EW framework developed by Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) provide relevant conceptual tools to analyze

240    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations how actors deal with multiple normative principles and face moral contradictions, this line of study has mainly focused on situations and critical moments (Gond, Leca, and Cloutier 2015), and is far from having fully explored and theorized all the strategies that actors can use to navigate normative tensions (Cloutier and Langley 2013). This chapter aims at cross-​fertilizing paradox thinking and the EW framework in order to discuss the normative dimensions of paradox management and to provide a conceptualization of how organizational actors can deal with tensions involving moral values—​referred to as normative tensions. We first introduce the EW framework and discuss its relevance to the study of paradoxes in management and organization theory. We then clarify and compare the underlying assumptions of the EW framework and paradox approaches to identify their commonalities and key differences. We finally highlight what each framework can learn from the other, and propose a research agenda based on a new framework.

The Economies of Worth As several reviews of the EW framework and its interest for organizational theory are already available (Cloutier, Gond, and Leca 2017; Cloutier and Langley 2013; Gond et al. 2015; Jagd 2011), we focus on some key assumptions and concepts of the EW, with the aim of enabling the comparison and cross-​fertilization with paradox theory.

Recognizing Normative Pluralism and Coordinating Action EW research has emerged as a single answer at the conjunction of two central critiques that gained ground in the French social science landscape in the 1980s, in relation to the autonomy of actors in coordination contexts and of structural determinism. Central to the reconciliation of agency and structure proposed by the EW is the analysis of actors’ competences to navigate across multiple forms of coordination in critical moments (e.g., disputes, public controversies). In these moments, one can observe how actors search for an acceptable form of coordination: To make an agreement possible, particular persons must divest themselves of their singularity and converge towards a form of generality transcending persons and the situations in which they interrelate. Persons seeking agreement have therefore to focus on a convention of equivalence external to themselves. (Boltanski and Thévenot 1999: 361)

“Worlds” and “orders of worth” are the key concepts used by Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) to describe the principles of equivalency used by actors to build justifiable claims in contexts of disputes.

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    241

A Grammar of Justification: Orders of Worth and Common Worlds According to Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006), justifiable claims rest on a number of orders of worth, or higher-​order normative principles, to which actors turn to justify their position in contexts of disputes or controversies. Each order of worth is an organizing principle that regulates one of the social common worlds (also referred to as cities or polities) and that actors can mobilize in contexts of disputes to legitimate their viewpoint and justify their actions (Boltanski and Thévenot 1999; Boltanski [1990] 2012). These orders of worth point to distinct definitions of the common good. As a whole, they form a grammar of justification on which actors can rely in the context of disputes. To identify these orders of worth, Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006)  draw on empirical data from a variety of fieldwork focused on disputes, as well as from a set of classical texts from political science (e.g., Jean-​Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith), which offer an analytical way of capturing, systematically, distinct approaches to the common good. Indeed, political philosophies “must, in order to be convincing, demonstrate that the common good on which they are based is well founded” (Boltanski and Thévenot 1999: 366). In their foundational book, Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006)  identify six common worlds:  the inspired world favoring passion and grace, the world of fame valuing renown and public opinion, the domestic world based on tradition and personal bonds, the civic world where collective welfare, defined in terms of rights and responsibilities, is key, the industrial world rooted in performance and technical efficiency, and the market world where rivalry and value (in terms of cost and profit) are the higher principles. Over time, the world of projects (Boltanski and Chiapello [1999] 2005) favoring continuous activity and the development of teams and networks, and the green world (Lafaye and Thévenot 1993; Patriotta et  al. 2011), where the natural environment is the higher common good, have extended the model to encompass new normative orders. Table 12.1 describes each of the six worlds, as well as the key objects, beings, and principles of evaluation that organize each of them. As Cloutier and Langley (2013: 366) noticed, each world is built to provide “the full range of arguments, principles, and methods of evaluation, competencies, practices, and so on that actors might deploy when seeking to justify and legitimate a particular course of action.” In providing a set of moral foundations upon which actors can build to either justify or criticize each other’s positions in critical moments, the EW framework can help move from dual to multi-​polar analyses of the role played by value-​laden tensions.

Critique and the Problem of Worth Evaluation Relying on this grammar of justification, Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) analyze how the various worlds are mobilized by actors in contexts of dispute and how actors can reach an agreement to end the quarrel resulting from such clashes. For instance, artists working in an art theatre (operating from the inspired world) may criticize managers for their preferences for performances and shows that fill the theatre (worthy in the market world),

“Common worlds”

Market

Industrial

Civic

Domestic

Inspired

Fame

Mode of evaluation (worth)

Price, cost

Technical efficiency

Collective welfare

Esteem, reputation

Grace, singularity, creativeness

Known, fame

Test

Market competitiveness

Competence, reliability, planning

Equality and solidarity

Trustworthiness

Passion, enthusiasm

Popularity, audience, recognition

Form of relevant proof

Monetary

Measurable: criteria, statistics

Formal, official

Oral, exemplary, personally warranted

Emotional involvement and expression

Semiotic

Qualified objects

Freely circulating market good or service

Infrastructure, project, technical object, method, plan

Rules and regulations, fundamental rights, welfare policies

Patrimony, locale, heritage

Emotionally invested body or item, the sublime

Sign, media

Qualified human beings

Customer, consumer, merchant, seller

Engineer, professional, Equal citizens, expert solidarity unions

Authority

Creative beings, artists Celebrity

Time formation

Short-​term, flexibility

Long-​term planned future

Perennial

Customary part

Eschatological, revolutionary, visionary moment

Space formation

Globalization

Cartesian space

Detachment

Local, proximal anchoring Presence

Vogue, trend

Communication network

Source: Adapted from Boltanski and Thévenot (2006: 159–​211). See Lafaye and Thévenot (1993) and Boltanski and Chiapello (1999: 161–​92) for descriptions of the green and project worlds.

242    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations

Table 12.1  Consolidated overview of six “worlds” according to the Economies-​of-​Worth framework

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    243 whatever their artistic qualities are, whereas managers may regret that plays acclaimed by art critics (recognized as worthy in the inspired world) fail to attract enough spectators. How do actors use the grammar of justification to solve a dispute? How can clashes between distinct worlds result in an agreement? Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) suggest that actors can actively draw on a toolkit made up of the cognitive, symbolic, and material elements that compose all the worlds in order to convince others of what they think is the appropriate belief or action in a given situation. In contrast with the model of habitus, actors are not regarded as bounded to one world. They engage in justification work (Jagd 2011; Patriotta et al. 2011) to evaluate the worthiness of things and beings according to the dominant criteria within one world, but can also contest or argue about which world should prevail in a situation of dispute by actively critiquing the underlying principles from other worlds. Central to the resolution of disputes within and between worlds is the test of worth that aims at removing uncertainty by clarifying what is more or less worthy within worlds (Dansou and Langley 2012): A test of worth cannot be reduced to a theoretical debate. It engages persons, in their bodily existence, in a world of things that serve as evidence, and in the absence of which the dispute does not have the material means of resolution by testing. (Boltanski and Thévenot [1991] 2006: 131)

Although disagreements within one world can usually be solved through a test, a lack of consensus about the world within which to solve the dispute offers a more complex configuration of disputes. In such situations, actors can relativize the controversy or agree to disagree about the situation and a local and/​or temporary arrangement may result from this situation that will lack stability. Alternatively, actors who disagree may develop new terms from which a lasting agreement may arise, forming a compromise. For instance, in their study of the camembert cheese industry, Boisard and Letablier (1987) show how the traditional modes of production (domestic world), threatened by globalization and the mass production of cheeses by agribusiness (industrial world), became protected through the creation of the label “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC)” that guarantees in a standardized manner the application of traditional modes of production. However, according to Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006), such compromises are necessarily fragile, as they can be easily criticized from the perspective of one of the worlds involved in their constitution.

Contrasting Underlying Assumptions Building on a corpus of fundamental texts from the EW (Boltanski [1990] 2012; Boltanski and Thévenot [1991] 2006) and paradox scholarship (Cameron and Quinn 1988; Lewis 2000; Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011), it is possible to highlight some key similarities and distinctions between frameworks. Consistent with our goal of enabling the cross-​fertilization of the EW and paradox theory, we focus first on their most similar dimensions and then move toward their more distinctive aspects. Table 12.2 overviews these commonalities and differences.

244    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations Table 12.2 Comparison of assumptions between paradox and the Economies-​of-​ Worth frameworks Perspective

Paradox

Economies of Worth

Central theoretical questions

• How to engage both A and B simultaneously? • How do paradoxical tensions surface in organizations? • How can leaders and organizations manage paradoxical tensions in organizations?

• How can actors reach agreement, given the existence of multiple representations of the common good? • What worlds do actors draw upon to express their disagreement and to justify their own perspective?

Core premise

Co-​existence of opposite poles—​ Pluralism—​multiple common acceptance and engagement enable actors worlds coexist in society and within to live and thrive with tensions. organizations and bring about inevitable tensions. Multiple worlds can coexist Tensions result from ubiquitous and in the form of arrangements or persistent forces that challenge and fuel compromises. long-​term success. Normative tensions result from the confrontation of different orders of worth (worlds) in the context of disputes.

Agency and mindset of actants (human and non-​human)

Variable agency—​central role of actors’ cognition and cognitive abilities. Different individual abilities to think paradoxically. No specific focus on normative or moral dimensions behind the consideration of tensions between values or goals. Lack of attention to non-​humans and materiality.

Considerable agency—​social actors draw on multiple worlds to build justifications in context of disputes. Actors thus mobilize important social competencies that are cognitive. Moral dimension—​common humanity makes possible the sincere search of agreements for the common good. Consideration of the layperson (beings), and non-​human entities (things) in the constitution of distinct common worlds and in the evaluation of justifications.

Central concepts

• Paradox defined as “contradictory • Worth (orders of worth)—​higher order yet interrelated elements that exist normative principles that can be simultaneously and persist over used by actors to evaluate things and time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382), as beings and justify a perspective in “elements that seem logical individually public disputes. but inconsistent and even absurd • Worlds (or cities or polities)—​distinct when juxtaposed” (Smith and Lewis set of principles and objects. The 2011: 382). worlds form the grammar of justification that actors can use to Paradoxical tensions should not be reach an agreement. confounded with dilemmas and • Test of worth—​mechanism to solve contradictions. disputes by evaluating the worth of a situation, a being, or an object. • Compromise—​new arrangement combining multiple worlds.

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    245 Table 12.2 Continued Perspective

Paradox

Economies of Worth

Conceptualization of tensions

Concept of paradox is central.

No explicit elaboration of the concepts of tension or paradox.

Strategies to deal with paradoxes and/​or to solve disputes and tensions

Categorization of paradoxes in four types that can be combined two by two (Smith and Lewis 2011: 383)

Four generic strategies to deal with tensions according to Poole and Van de Ven (1989): • • • •

Opposition; Spatial separation; Temporal separation; Synthesis.

Focus on what can be labelled normative tensions, i.e., tensions between contradictory approaches to the common good. Three modalities of agreement are proposed by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006) (see also Cloutier and Langley 2013: 368): • Resolution in one world; • Local arrangement; • Compromise.

Additional defensive or strategic responses Fourth approach proposed by Boltanski (Smith and Lewis 2011; Jarzabkowski et al. (2011): 2013) proposed in the paradox literature • Complex domination. across multiple empirical contexts. Key theoretical foundations

Cameron and Quinn (1988); Lewis (2000); Smith and Berg (1987); Smith and Lewis (2011).

Boltanski and Thévenot (1989); Boltanski (2012, 2011); Boltanski and Thévenot (2006); Boltanski and Chiapello (2005).

Central Questions and Core Premises Although both frameworks use a distinct vocabulary to express their core premises and central research questions, they share a common underlying interest for the analysis of how actors deal with contradictions and tensions in the flow of social action: How do actors engage with both A and B simultaneously? How can they reach an agreement despite distinct approaches to the common good? At a higher level of analysis, both frameworks seek to understand how contradictory terms can be put together in order to maintain the flow of organizational (paradox) or collective (EW) action. This interest for the ordinary management of contradictions stems from a shared ontological assumption about the nature of social reality: both theories recognize as natural the co-​existence, in organizational or social life, of contradictory and opposite poles, and both fully assume the pluralistic nature of society. In paradox theorizing, this is reflected in the claim that the coexistence of opposite poles should be acknowledged by organizations and managers that need to “attend to competing demands simultaneously” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 381), whereas in the EW, pluralism is explicit (Jagd 2011) and takes the form of the multiplicity of coexisting worlds (Boltanski and Thévenot [1991] 2006). Although both frameworks differ in their emphasis on the sources of pluralism—​ the existence of tensions being attributed to persistent contradictory forces in paradox

246    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations scholarship and to a distinct conception of the common good in societies for the EW framework—​they both address the problem of actors’ collective navigation in a complex and contradictory world.

Agency of Human and Non-​Human Actors Both frameworks also conceptualize human agency as cognitively equipped and hence relatively autonomous and able to navigate tensions, disputes or contradictions. Smith and Lewis (2011) stress the cognitive capacities required to engage in paradoxical thinking, recognizing the importance of holistic and dynamic aspects involved in tensions management. Boltanski ([1990] 2012) and Boltanski and Thévenot (1999) insist on the reflexivity and critical capacities of actors needed to build justification and find an agreement in a context of dispute. These are, to a large extent, cognitive (Pernkopf-​Konhäusner 2014). However, in relation to the assumptions that explain why actors have autonomy, the EW departs in at least two ways from paradox theory. First, EW scholars regard actors’ competencies as moral competencies grounded in an assumption of common humanity according to which, in the regime of justification, all social actors share a sense of justice. Second, in line with the early development of actor–​network theory (Latour 1987), the EW theory gives agency not only to human beings but also recognizes the importance of non-​human entities both in the evaluation of worth (e.g., devices used in tests of worth) or in the process of justification (Guggenheim and Potthast 2012: 9–​13). In contrast, paradox analyses have rarely considered the importance of materiality nor the specific role of moral dimensions in actors’ cognitive abilities to deal with paradox.

Key Concepts and Conceptualization of Tensions The EW and paradox frameworks also differ in their key concepts. Paradox scholars have refined and specified the definition of tensions and paradoxes, and modelled their management and dynamics in organizational life (Lewis 2000; Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). They distinguish these concepts from related notions such as dilemmas or contradictions, and show the analytical importance of identifying paradoxes, defined as “elements that seem logical individually but inconsistent and even absurd when juxtaposed” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382) while characterizing the temporal dimension inherent to paradox. These works have also specified important generic categories of paradoxes, such as the belonging, organizing, learning, and performing paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011). EW scholars, on the other hand, develop a set of constructs to account for the processes of justification by which morally competent actors can find an agreement in

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    247 contexts of disputes without relying on violence. Their analysis of the disputes, triggered by the coexistence of multiple common worlds that have to be clarified and unpacked so that an agreement can be reached, points to an underlying concept of normative tensions—​namely, tensions characterized by their underlying normative and/​or moral dimensions. Indeed, recurrent critiques addressed from one world to the others can be seen as a map of potential normative paradoxes structuring social life. According to Boltanski and Thévenot (1999, 2006), these critiques are recurrent, and they hence share with the paradox concept a form of temporal stickiness. We think these differences in regard to the distinct emphasis they put on the normative and moral dimensions, on materiality, and their conceptualization of tensions, offer some potential for cross-​fertilization that we will now explore.

How Can the Economies of Worth Enrich the Paradox Perspective? The EW can advance paradox scholarship through its distinct emphasis on normative/​moral dimensions as well as its consideration of both materiality and a plurality of worlds (Table 12.2). These elements can be leveraged by paradox scholars to (a) theorize the normative dimension of paradoxes, and (b) specify the materialization of normative multiplicity.

Unpacking the Normative Foundations of Paradox Smith and Lewis (2011) distinguish between a number of paradoxes, such as the performing, organizing, becoming, and learning paradoxes which correspond, respectively, to tensions around goals, structures, identity, and change. Yet, paradox scholars have rarely assessed any of these paradoxes from a normative viewpoint, and as a result, they tend to overlook how distinct moral foundations can explain the emergence and management of these paradoxes and related tensions. The performing and belonging paradoxes, corresponding to tensions around, respectively, the goals which are the basis of an organization’s raison d’être, and identities or values, are good starting points for showing how the EW framework can help investigate paradoxes by providing a repertoire of normative foundations—​a grammar of justification—​to detect moral contradictions that underlie organizational paradoxes. In relation to performing paradoxes, the EW framework suggests considering the normative dimensions underlying goals that are sometimes presented as morally neutral (e.g., maximizing shareholder value) when they concern the search for efficiency or profit—​rather than reflecting specific moral orders from the industrial world or the

248    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations market world. From an EW perspective, lasting paradoxes related to organizational goals would be regarded as a syndrome of the search for a compromise between different orders of worth. Accordingly, competing claims of multiple stakeholders to shape these goals could be analyzed by considering their moral foundations in distinct worlds. Here, the EW provides a common vocabulary to unpack the normative tensions underlying performing paradoxes. The conceptual tools provided by the EW to analyze the forming of compromises (i.e., configurations that allow the coexistence of multiple orders of worth) can enrich the comparison between different cases, for instance of hybrid organizations (Jay 2013; Jarzabkowski et al. 2013) or corporations in polluting industries striving to be regarded as ecologically sustainable, two cases in which managing performing paradoxes can be particularly salient. By clarifying these normative dimensions, the EW can also help specify the paradoxical nature of managerial constructs such as business ethics or corporate social responsibility, sometimes described as an oxymoron precisely because they combine multiple orders of worth (e.g., civic, green, inspired, industrial, and market worlds). In the case of belonging paradoxes, the EW framework can help clarify the underlying forces that drive clashes between distinct identities and values within organizations. In making explicit the distinct moral foundations of different values, the EW typology of common worlds can help identify which tensions are likely to become salient and/​or lasting within organizations, and how paradoxes are nurtured by social forces pushing in the direction of a specific order of worth. For instance, Chiapello’s (1998) study shows how the tensions between the inspired and the market worlds produce lasting belonging paradoxes in managerialized artistic organizations. Chiapello (1998) shows that these tensions are nurtured by deep social transformations in the French contemporary art world and reflect the integration, by the corporate world, of the traditional artistic critique of business life. The EW framework is hence a relevant heuristic tool to unpack the normative or moral content of tensions in organizations and to help understand how and why some paradoxes will become salient due to broader societal changes. In line with Smith and Lewis (2011) and Schad et  al. (2016), who suggest that there are interactions among the different paradoxes, we argue that the compromise that underlies performing and belonging paradoxes can also inform the other types of paradoxes in an organization and can help explain the link between them, particularly through the notion of composite objects, to which we will now turn.

From Cognitive Dualities to the Materialization of Normative Multiplicity According to Boltanski and Thévenot (2006), because compromises between different orders of worth are always open to tests of worth and, thus, fragile, one way to

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    249 solidify compromises is to embed them in composite objects that serve the common good. Composite objects are: objects composed of elements stemming from different worlds at the service of the common good and endow them with their own identity in such a way that their form will no longer be recognizable if one of the disparate elements of which they are formed is removed. (Boltanski and Thévenot [1991: 339] 2006: 278).

EW scholars have described organizations as compromising devices (Jagd 2011; Thévenot 2001) that are full of composite objects embedding multiple orders of worth. Composite objects refer to concepts and artifacts that emerge from compromise and that help stabilize the coexistence of multiple worlds. For instance, the concept of sustainability (Dontenwill 2012) that combines market, green, and social worlds is materialized by concepts such as the Triple Bottom Line (Elkington 1997) and managed through tools such as eco-​control or the ISO 26000 standard that are all composite objects. For Boltanski and Thévenot (2006), even though these artifacts help solidify compromises, they remain fragile because they can rarely be evaluated through a consensual test combining different orders of worth, and they can be challenged through tests of worth derived from one of the specific worlds they combine. For instance, the same sustainability policy may be regarded as too mild by environmental activists (green world) yet too costly from the perspective of executives (market world). EW inspired research focused on tests of worth (Dansou and Langley 2012; Taupin 2012) can make an interesting contribution to the dynamic equilibrium model of organizing proposed by Smith and Lewis (2011), as they bring to light some of the factors and mechanisms that make tensions salient in organizations. Studying certain types of composite objects, such as performance evaluation systems or management control systems (MCS), can help us unpack how multiple tests of worth are inscribed within formal processes in organizations, and, in so doing, can enrich our understanding of different trajectories of paradox management. Specifically, it can help unpack the role of objects as key elements in the management of belonging and organizing paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011). Epstein, Buhovac, and Yuthas’s (2015) recent analysis of how MCS influence managers’ capacity to engage in paradoxical thinking at five organizations could be deepened by considering the multiple types of worth embedded in these MCS. In sum, the EW perspective can highlight the underlying normative dimension of paradox studies, explain why some paradoxical tensions become more salient or lasting than others, move paradox scholarship beyond its focus on dualities, and refocus paradox scholars’ attention to the role of objects, and in particular of composite objects, that may play a central role in making some paradoxes and tensions explicit within organizations. Table 12.3 summarizes some recent paradox studies and highlights how they could benefit from a consideration of these dimensions according to an EW approach.

Table 12.3  Illustrations of paradox (PDX) studies that could be developed with the Economies-​of-​Worth (EW) framework Study focus

Empirical material

Heracleous and Wirtz (2014)

Main findings

Potential of the EW perspective

Longitudinal study of Deployment of a successful strategy Singapore Airlines. of dual capabilities.

Paradoxes such as cost-​effective service excellence, decentralized Normative dimension and study of composite objects and centralized innovation, follower and leader in service to deepen understanding of the role of technology and development, and standardization and personalization in customer systems. interactions, managed through culture, technology, and systems.

Michaud (2014)

Longitudinal study of an ecological products coop.

Control-​collaboration paradox of governance dynamics Normative dimension of paradox. are explained by two number-​supported micro-​ Different composite objects involving numbers. practices: personalizing/​professionalizing issues and creating new calculable spaces.

French SME in the food industry adopting ISO 26000.

Paradox between two views of sustainability, around different aspects of implementation presented as dualities. Management of paradox viewed as a bi-​directional relation between norm and organization.

Management of paradoxes of governance through numbers. Grimand et al. (2014) Implementation of sustainability in terms of paradox. Jay (2013) Sensemaking around performing paradox in a hybrid organization. Jarzabkowski et al. (2013) Managers’ reactions to paradoxical tensions in a major reorganization.

Andriopoulos and Lewis (2009) Ambidexterity in innovation through a paradox lens.

Lüscher and Lewis (2008) Middle managers’ sensemaking of paradoxes of change.

Normative dimension could be addressed but would need more data to do it.

Longitudinal study of an energy Performing paradox around business vs. public service logic public–​private partnership. evolves through oscillation between one pole and the other, then reframing that transcends the two poles. A model of hybrid organization’s identity dynamics.

Richer analysis of normative dimension. Focus on sensemaking makes analysis in terms of (material) composite objects difficult.

UK telecom monopoly being partly privatized.

Organizing paradox between market and regulatory demands influences belonging and performing paradoxes at the managerial level. Paradoxes coevolve over time, as managers shift from defensive responses (either/​or) to active responses (both/​and). A model of the recursive relationship between different kinds of paradox and its link to organizational structures.

Framing the change as a reorganization makes it, in PDX terms, an Organizing paradox, with EW’s focus on the normative dimension, it could also be analyzed as a Performing paradox at the organizational level.

Five new product design consultancies.

Nested paradoxes of innovation from strategic intent (profit-​ breakthroughs) to customer orientation (tight-​loose coupling) and personal drivers (discipline-​passion). Paradox management as integration and differentiation tactics that fuel virtuous cycles of ambidexterity and as a shared responsibility across organizational levels.

EW analysis to compare different types of paradox from a normative point of view. Beyond dualities toward multiple poles to study ambidexterity as compromise building.

Toy company going through a major restructuration.

Three paradoxes of change (performing, belonging, organizing) each associated with a specific communication pattern and coping strategy. A model of sparring as a collaborative process of paradox resolution.

Normative tensions running through the different paradoxes. Beyond dualities to look at configurations of worlds forming compromises.

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    251

How Can Paradox Theory Enrich the Economies of Worth? We now turn to paradox theory’s potential contributions to the EW framework, by (a) broadening the spectrum of responses to the coexistence of multiple orders of worth, and (b) considering the cyclical dimensions of compromises and disputes.

Broadening the Spectrum of Responses to Orders of Worth Coexistence In EW, the central strategy to deal with coexisting orders of worth is the compromise for the common good. While, in the lay sense, compromise evokes “an unsatisfactory solution” in French and an “honorable concession” in English (Nachi 2004), Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) conception differs: In the compromise, people agree to come to terms, that is, to suspend a clash—​a dispute involving more than one world—​without settling it through recourse to a test in just one of the worlds. The situation remains composite, but a clash is averted. Beings that matter in different worlds are maintained in presence, but their identification does not provoke a dispute. (277)

Using the example of creativity techniques as a compromise between the industrial and the inspired worlds, Boltanski and Thévenot ([1991] 2006) further add that: [a]‌compromise suggests the possibility of a principle, that can take judgments based on objects stemming from different worlds and make them compatible. It aims at a common good that transcends the two different forms of worth in presence but including both of them . . .  (278)

Put this way, the compromise situation described by Boltanski and Thévenot is both similar and distinct from some of the responses to paradox identified in the paradox literature. Poole and Van de Ven (1989: 365) described four different methods for dealing with a paradox, involving the contradictory poles A and B: 1) keeping them separate and appreciating their contrasts (opposition); 2) splitting A and B in different locations or levels (spatial separation); 3) keeping A and B in the same location, yet at different moments (temporal separation), or 4)  “find(ing) some new perspective which eliminates the opposition between A and B” (synthesis, in the dialectical tradition). While Poole and Van de Ven (1989: 365) argue that these strategies “represent a logically exhaustive set of relationships opposing terms can take in the social world,” paradox scholars have since

252    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations greatly refined and expanded the repertoire of potential responses to paradox. Indeed, any review of the paradox literature quickly displays a vast array of responses to paradox, which have been categorized as defensive or strategic reactions (Lewis 2000; Lewis and Smith 2014; Smith and Lewis 2011). Defensive reactions include splitting, projecting, repressing/​denial, regressing, reaction formation, and ambivalence. Emphasizing one pole over the other, such reactions are spurred by the natural discomfort associated with paradox, yet according to Lewis (2000), they eventually intensify tensions. In contrast, strategic reactions such as acceptance, confrontation, and transcendence “seek to embrace, cope with, and thrive through tensions” (Lewis and Smith 2014: 9). Going back to the compromise situation depicted in the EW, one will notice that it has similitudes with multiple responses to paradox, without corresponding to any single one of them. The idea of compromise, in the EW sense, may at first be associated with a potential synthesis, given its ambition to reach beyond the poles by comprising them both—​or even to ambivalence, defined by Lewis (2000: 763) as “the compromise of conflicting emotions within ‘lukewarm’ reactions that lose the vitality of extremes.” But we could also think of compromise as an expression of acceptance (“which helps members avoid debates,” Lewis 2000: 764), or even transcendence (a response that “implies the capacity to think paradoxically,” Lewis 2000: 764). In short, a compromise situation may encompass multiple responses to paradox. Yet the paradox literature offers a wider range of responses and can potentially enrich the EW framework. While Boltanski and Thévenot (1991: 339) mention the fragility of compromises that are always open to purification attempts through tests of worth, they mostly focus on situations of compromise building for the common good. Thus, they overlook many other potential responses to the coexistence of contradictory orders of worth, be they defensive or strategic, to use paradox scholars’ vocabulary. Prior to—​ but also following, or even in parallel with—​the construction of compromises, many other strategies can unfold. In this sense, the paradox literature, through its unveiling of numerous responses to paradox, may broaden the EW’s repertoire of reactions. In line with this consideration of reactions prior-​or post-​compromise, we will now turn to another possible contribution of the paradox perspective with regards to its dynamic dimensions.

Explaining the Cyclical Dimensions of Compromises and Disputes EW scholars focus on compromise situations. Typically, studies based on this framework emphasize well-​defined, situated compromises and compromising devices at a given time. In contrast, a growing number of recent empirical studies of paradox use a longitudinal design (see Table 12.4). We contend that the dynamic equilibrium model (Smith and Lewis 2011) put forward in the paradox perspective explicitly allows for a processual, cyclical view largely absent from the EW framework.

Table 12.4  Illustrations of Economies-​of-​Worth studies that could be developed with the paradox (PDX) framework Empirical material

Oldenhof et al. (2013)

Small-​scale care homes for the Civic/​domestic compromise is challenged by disabled in the Netherlands to large-​ market and industrial critiques as well as within the scale groups. civic world. A new industrial/​market compromise emerges.

Justification work in the case of value conflicts in a period of change.

Findings

Discuss cyclical nature of justification work. Dontenwill (2012) Tensions in sustainable development strategies and objects of contention. Daigle and Rouleau (2010) Compromise between art and management.

Rousselière and Vézina (2009) Legitimacy of financial cooperative identity.

Fronda and Moriceau (2008) Conflicting stories of change.

Integrating a PDX perspective Distinguish compromises in terms of defensive and proactive strategies. Go further than cyclical in terms of dynamics.

Implementation of sustainability in a Conflict between civic/​ecological/​domestic and chain of garden supplies stores. industrial/​merchant worlds give rise to three types of responses: temporal decoupling, false compromise (decoupling) and durable compromise (reframing).

Already analyzed in terms close to paradox strategies (decoupling, reframing, etc.). Could be further developed in dynamic terms.

Strategic plans of three performing arts companies.

Industrial world is dominant in strategic plans, but there are three types of compromises with the inspired and civic worlds: juxtaposition (seduce), reinforce industrial model (persuade), ambiguity (mystify).

Two forms of compromise could be analyzed in PDX terms, but nothing in terms of individual responses or dynamics.

Activity reports of a cultural-​sector credit coop.

Four different worlds: merchant, civic, inspired, and industrial contribute to the coop’s identity. Factor analysis of the relations of opposition and juxtaposition between worlds in terms of compromises.

Difficult to translate in terms of paradox because of the type of methodology used.

Implementation of an American-​ inspired accounting system in a former state owned French organization.

Narrative of top management is discreetly resisted Stories would need to be as evidenced by various antenarratives which reveal analyzed in terms of tensions the presence of multiple worlds. between worlds or of compromises.

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    253

Study focus

254    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations Specifically, the paradox perspective accounts for virtuous and vicious reinforcing cycles (Sundaramurthy and Lewis 2003). According to the dynamic equilibrium model (Smith and Lewis 2011), the nature of the cycle will result from the type of response to paradox:  strategic responses spur virtuous cycles, while defensive ones feed vicious cycles. Defensive responses will exacerbate tensions, as “suppressing one side of a polarity intensifies pressure from the other” (Lewis 2000: 763), which will lead to further negative responses and will drag individuals or organizations in vicious cycle loops. In contrast, the model posits, “acceptance lays the vital groundwork for virtuous cycles” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 392). In sum, paradox theory can help the EW become more operational, from an organizational viewpoint, by opening, specifying, and developing the idea of organizations as compromising devices—​turning the EW into a tool to investigate organizational dynamics marked by multiple orders of worth. Table 12.4 presents some EW studies and discusses how they could be expanded by considering a paradoxical approach.

Managing Normative Paradoxes: A Research Agenda Toward an Integrative Framework Our reflections on how the EW and paradox frameworks can enrich each other points toward the development of an integrated analysis of the management of normative paradoxes, that is, paradoxes that reflect underlying tensions between values, grounded in distinct worlds. Figure 12.1 presents an overview of such an integrative framework that consolidates the key concepts from our analysis (we refer below to the capital letters in Figure 12.1). According to this framework, critical moments, ordinary disputes, or broader social controversies (A) can be used to unveil the processes by which latent normative tensions or paradoxes grounded in distinct orders of worth become salient to actors (B). Once normative tensions or paradoxes are made visible, they can be subjected to a process of worth evaluation (D), even though, according to Boltanski ([2009] 2011), some powerful actors can sometimes escape an evaluation of the worth of their position, thanks to subtle processes of domination (C). The process of worth evaluation (D) can involve justification work (Jagd 2011) as well as the mobilization of tests of worth and hence the reliance on objects, in order to evaluate the position of actors and/​or the quality of the beings and things that are at the center of the controversy—​for example, a new risky technology (Gond et al. 2016), a nuclear power plant (Patriotta et al. 2011), or a new approach to healthcare management (Oldenhof et al. 2013).

Jean-Pascal Gond, Christiane Demers, and Valérie Michaud    255 (C) Avoidance of worth evaluation (domination) (B) Salient normative tensions Conflicting moral principles or values

(A) Moments of critiques Ordinary disputes Controversies

Purification within one world (E’)

(D) Evaluation of worth Justification work mobilizing “worlds”

(E) Strategies for building of compromises between multiple worlds as synthesis, acceptance, or transcendence

Tests of worth mobilizing material artefacts

(F) Relativization or resolution within one common world

Ambiguity (E’’) (I) Latent normative tensions Conflicting moral principles or values

(G) Materialization of compromises within devices (e.g., management control systems, standards, management tools)

(H) Suppression of the normative tension

The suppression of the normative tension may reinforce or generate other normative tensions (vicious circles)

Figure 12.1  An integrative framework for studying the management of normative paradoxes and tensions

At this stage, actors can either agree to relativize the dispute or to solve the normative tension within one world (F), suppressing one of its opposite poles, and thus, ending—​ temporarily—​the cycle of the normative tension’s resurgence (H). Otherwise, organizational actors may engage in strategies to build compromises (E) that can involve the combination of multiple worlds—​hence involving figures that are potentially more complex than dualities—​through strategies of synthesis, acceptance, or transcendence. Of course, compromises remain fragile and can easily be deconstructed through re-​evaluation within a single world—​a process of purification within one world (E’). Fragile compromises can also be maintained temporarily through ambiguity (E’’)—​ organizational actors failing to perceive the contradictory nature of the distinct values that underpin the compromise. Finally, compromises can be solidified (G). In this case, the compromise is materialized in devices, objects, or tools that turn the normative tension it addressed into a latent tension (I), embedded in mundane artifacts of corporate life. The coexistence of contradictory values and normative tensions within organizations, through their materialization, can nevertheless trigger again subsequent critiques, disputes, and controversies, nurturing another new cycle of evaluation and justification (A).

Perspectives to Further Cross-​Fertilize Both Frameworks The integrative framework we sketched out can explain the cycles of critiques (e.g., greenwashing, lack of impact on the competitive advantage) and enthusiasm for hybrid management concepts such as CSR or sustainability that embed distinct and

256    Managing Normative Tensions within and across Organizations contradictory normative principles. It can guide future studies on the management of normative paradoxes within and across organizations. The proposed forms of cross-​ fertilization could be further developed along at least three distinct lines of analysis.

From Morality to Immorality in the Analysis of Worth and Paradoxes A first approach could focus on immorality or irresponsibility, rather than positive behaviors such as CSR or good citizenship in order to enhance the societal significance of paradox studies. Here, the analysis of domination by Boltanski ([2009] 2011) provides useful conceptual tools to unpack why some normative tensions avoid any evaluation. Issues such as tax evasion, dysfunctional incentives or money laundering that create normative tensions and paradoxes in organizations such as banks, audit companies or regulators would be interesting topics.

The Material Embedding of Paradoxes Following the logic of Figure 12.1, a second avenue would be to further document the role of materiality in the evaluation and embedding of normative tensions in organizations. Thus far, paradox scholars have been relatively silent about the role of material devices in the management of tensions (see, as a notable exception, Bouchard and Michaud 2015), or about the possibility, for paradoxical thinking’s cognitive resources, to be distributed between humans and non-​humans (distributed cognition). Future paradox studies could examine the role played by management and impact assessment tools, as compromise devices, in dealing with the constitutive tensions of pluralistic and hybrid organizations such as social enterprises.

Tracking the Sources of Normative Tensions and Paradoxes Third and finally, the cross-​fertilization of the EW and paradox frameworks suggests tracking more systematically the societal roots of tensions deeply ingrained in organizations, and linking paradoxes analysis to broader, societal trends. Boltanski and Chiapello ([1999] 2005) have illustrated the potential of the EW framework to help capture broader trends at the national level that explain why some normative tensions emerge in the workplace. Future paradox studies could move beyond inter-​organizational competitive dynamics to explain the existence of paradoxes by linking them to broader social trends. For instance, the upsurge of hybrids such as social enterprises reflects broader societal trends and capitalist dynamics, and is likely to trigger the development of normative paradoxes for individuals and organizations (e.g., Ghadiri, Gond, and Brès 2015). These organizations offer useful empirical contexts to unpack the societal sources of normative paradoxes.

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Chapter 13

The Role of I rony and Metaphor i n Worki ng throu gh Para d ox du ri ng Organiz ationa l  C ha ng e John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant

Several authors have suggested the potential role of paradox as a discursive resource (Breit 2014; Cutcher 2014; Dameron and Torset 2014: 294; Fiol 2002; Hatch and Ehrlich 1993; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Lüscher, Lewis, and Ingram 2006; Scherer, Pallazo, and Seidl 2013). A paradox helps to coherently frame two contradictory aspects of change together in a convincing way, and so enhances members’ search for understanding about their experience of organizational change. Discussing paradoxes engages with members’ emotions (Antal and Richebe 2009) and enables members to gain insight into how much voluntary agency they feel they have and want to have during organizational change (Tsoukas 2005). Once paradoxes have been expressed, they create choice and alternatives, but further action toward implementation of change requires that the paradox is addressed (Lüscher and Lewis 2008). We argue that metaphor and irony serve as alternative ways of expressing and, at least provisionally, making sense of the complex paradoxes associated with the management of, and participation in, organizational change. Consistent with an integration perspective on the management of organizational paradox (e.g., Smith and Tushman 2005; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), the use of metaphor serves to stress interdependence between seeming opposites by imaginatively reconstituting within the symbolic realm the connection between domains of experience, in order to create consistency of purpose and coherence of values and beliefs. In this way, the two poles of the paradox are experienced as a duality (Farjoun 2010) where, although they are nominally in opposition to one another, they become experienced as synergetic and interrelated within a larger system (Clegg, Cunha, and Cunha 2002). Consistent with a differentiation perspective on the management of organizational paradox (e.g., Smith

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    261 and Tushman 2005; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), the use of irony serves to recognize and emphasize the distinctions between alternative ways of understanding and acting within organizations, thereby highlighting the significance of multiple voices, multiple perspectives, and multiple contexts. Accordingly, the two poles of the paradox remain in tension, and any accommodation is necessarily temporary, subject to continuous negotiation to reflect the ongoing dissonant impact of actions, interests, identities, and interpretations on how participants respond to the roles, routines, and strategies of their organizations. We relate the expression of metaphor and irony to three processes of radical organizational change: preparing for change, implementation of change, and learning from change (Huy 1999). We do this by showing that each stage of radical change variously triggers tensions associated with Smith and Lewis’s (2011) paradox typology. In that typology, they proposed the four fundamental paradoxes of learning, performance, organizing, and belonging. Although paradox represents a means of surfacing the underlying tensions, it is only in their articulation through tropes of irony and metaphor, and the critique and resolution that they imply, that participants may address their complex thoughts and feelings about organizational change, and gain possibilities for movement toward acceptance and ownership of change. In this way, we contend that new possibilities are created for reflexive insight into, and engagement with, emerging and shifting responses to change.

Paradox as a Resource for Surfacing Employees’ Reactions to Organizational Change The study of radical organizational change is increasingly concerned with the responses of those at whom the change is directed (e.g., Balogun and Johnson 2004; Barrett and Cooperrider 1990; Sonenshein 2010). There is also an increasing recognition that organizational change is frequently associated with complex and emotional responses among organizational participants (Antonacopoulou and Gabriel 2001: 435; Fineman 1993; Huy 2008; Kang, Morris, and Snell 2007; Vince and Broussine 1996). Some recent interest has focused on managerial interventions that formulate organizational problems as paradoxes (Lewis and Smith 2014: 135; Smith and Lewis 2011). Smith and Lewis (2011) distinguish paradox from two other framing strategies that address oppositions: dilemma and dialectic. The dilemma raises competing choices in such a way that each competing alternative poses clear advantages and disadvantages (Smith and Lewis 2011: 386) leading to emphasis in favor of one pole of the tension. A dialectic highlights contradictory elements that are resolved through integration and synthesis (Smith and Lewis 2011: 386). Paradox is different from dilemma and dialectic, as it is composed of

262    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 382). Because it has rhetorical force, a paradox helps to coherently and succinctly wrap two contradictory aspects of change together, with their differently signed emotional meanings, in a convincing, epigrammatic way, and so enhances members’ search for shared understanding about their experience of organizational change. Beech et  al. (2004) showed that paradox may be used as an invitation to act in problematic situations. Lüscher et al. (2006) went one step further, by showing that it was possible for practitioners, facilitated by consultants, to express paradoxes. Furthermore, Lüscher and Lewis (2008: 231) found that paradox forced managers to discover new links so that two conflicting principles could be related in new ways in a process they called working through the paradox. Paradox provides a way to link together the routine and the novel, because paradoxes invite new links between opposed poles (Vince and Broussine 1996). This is in line with recent scholarship which considers paradoxes as a way of opposing and relating two things, and suggests that paradoxes are necessary forms of persuasion about strategic change (Farjoun 2010; Lewis 2000; Lüscher et al. 2006; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Seo and Creed 2002; Seo, Barrett, and Bartunek 2004; Smith and Lewis 2011; Trethewey and Ashcraft 2004; Whittle, Mueller, and Mangan 2008). The value of paradox is evident in the increasing emphasis on the relevance and utility of multivocal, distributed models of strategy practices (e.g., Denis, Langley, and Rouleau 2007; Boje 2008), including the ambiguous framing of organizational values and goals (e.g., Palmer and Dunford 2002; Sillince and Brown 2009; Jarzabkowski, Sillince, and Shaw 2010; Sillince, Jarzabkowski, and Shaw 2012) to address and engage with the multiple institutional logics that “play out in the organization as persistent and deep-​rooted tensions” (Jarzabkowski, Matthiesen, and Van de Ven 2009: 285). Scholars have specified alternative approaches to responding to paradoxes that involve accommodating contradictions through some form of integration, which “involves defining a novel creative synergy that addresses both oppositional elements together” (Smith 2014: 1594). Andriopoulos and Lewis (2009) further illustrated this process of integrating contradictory elements in their study of new product design consultancies. Here, they highlighted the importance of communication practices, and, in particular, the constructive role of cultivating a vision that accommodated a dual emphasis on seemingly contradictory strategic priorities. Smith (2014) supported this value of integration in her study of US software firms, citing examples among senior managers to promote commitment to overarching organizational goals to emphasize potential synergies between the interests and objectives of different business units. At the same time, scholars have noted the possibility of accepting and highlighting the contradictory elements of the paradoxical situation through some form of differentiation, where emphasis is placed on the unresolved juxtaposition or contrast between goals, values, and practices (Smith 2014; Lewis 2000: 764). Abdallah and Langley (2014) argue that the articulation of such unresolved tensions between logics in the practice of strategic planning may enable potentially opposing groups to act in parallel on strategic

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    263 initiatives that interest them with relative autonomy. Spicer and Sewell (2010) further argue that an opportunity for proactive change may also be constructed through the appropriation of two or more contradictory institutional logics simultaneously in order to legitimate a new action frame. By raising the conflict and contradiction between differing logics, a creative cycle of discursive negotiation and mutual adjustment may be triggered, leading to new organizational arrangements that involve some recognition by advocates of one logic that an ostensibly opposed logic has at least some degree of legitimacy. Scholars have further demonstrated that cycling between emphasis on differentiation and integration may address different aspects of the paradoxical context. As Smith and Tushman (2005: 329) suggest, “differentiating and integrating are opposing, yet complementary, processes.” Differentiation, by explicitly acknowledging distinctions, leads to an enhanced emphasis on multiple perspectives, interests, goals, and values. Accordingly, paradox serves as a force for disruption (Lewis 2000) and thus has an important role because it has the potential to facilitate the “complex understanding” (Bartunek 1984: 371) necessary to avoid competency traps (Levitt and March 1988) and strategic persistence (Audia, Locke, and Smith 2000). Integration, by seeking to establish new overarching frames that simultaneously embrace contradictory positions, potentially overcomes conflicts associated with differentiation by generating a new common ground. Thus, recommendations for the design and implementation of change include suggestions for alternating (e.g., Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Boumgarden Nickerson, and Zenger 2012; Lewis and Smith 2014; Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith and Tushman 2005) between integration and differentiation in order to achieve balance between the benefits of the contrasting approaches to paradox. We argue that engagement with the underlying tensions generated by such situated sensemaking is facilitated by their discursive reframing through metaphor and irony. Our awareness of the prevalence of metaphor in organizational discourse and its role in framing the complexities of organizational experience is now well established. Defined as a device for talking and, potentially, thinking about the attributes of one object or concept in terms of another (Cornelissen, Holt, and Zundel 2011; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Manning 1979; Morgan 1980; Oswick, Putnam, and Keenoy 2004; Sillince and Barker 2012), metaphoric expression facilitates a conjoined articulation of the familiar and the strange. Through the juxtaposition of two or more points of view, metaphors serve as basic sensemaking devices to enable “organization participants to infuse their organizational experiences with meaning” (Pondy 1983: 157) by finding an imaginative reconstitution of complex and conflicting logics, goals, and emotions (Gioia 1986). As Cornelissen (2005: 751) argues, this entails an active “generation and creation of new meaning beyond a previously existing similarity.” This is because the process of comparison between domains can bridge incongruent and anomalous frames of reference, relying on the sensory and imaginative qualities of metaphors to generate new understanding. Accordingly, metaphorical work is a translation of the paradoxes, uncertainties and ambiguities of organizational life into “a fresh, immediate, and raw form”

264    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox (Cornelissen 2005: 753), thereby engaging with, and providing “access to emotional and unconscious aspects of experience” (Vince and Broussine 1996: 18). Although there are many definitions of irony, we focus here on irony that is based on contrast between anticipation and consequence (situational irony) and on the manager knowing things that the managed do not know (dramatic irony). The use of irony as a framing device is also now well established, as a practice that highlights a fundamental discrepancy within a conventional image, “by overturning or reversing the meaning of the conventional image” (Oswick, Keenoy, and Grant 2002: 299, italics in original). In this way irony “opens up space for the possibility of change” (Johansson and Woodilla 2005: 45–​6). Irony involves a process of comparison for the purpose of creating a disjunction of meaning rather than the construction of congruence associated with metaphor. Thus, an ironic stance differentiates between the superficial similarity of two or more concepts or phenomena and their dissimilarity and divergence at a more contextualized, contingent level of interpretation. Irony may be expressed through humor (e.g., Hatch 1997; Warren 2005), ambiguity (e.g., Eisenberg 1984; Sillince and Brown 2009; Sillince et al. 2012), nostalgia (e.g., Brown and Humphreys 2002), or other forms of rhetoric which acknowledge the validity of more than a single way of seeing, talking about, or understanding concepts or phenomena (Trethewey 1999). The effect of irony is to hold in tension the opposition or contradictions in dominant logics, interests, and values that organizational participants perceive as their organizational realities, which, as Hoyle and Wallace (2008: 1437) contend, “serve both to reduce dissatisfaction and to make policy implementation work in the contingent circumstances of each organization.” In this way, these tropes offer discursive resources for engaging with complexity and contradiction, and the multiple perspectives and orientations from which they emerge. In the following section, we highlight the use of metaphorical integration and ironic critique to processes of organizational change, which, we argue, can offer new insight into how ambivalence among organizational participants may progress toward acceptance and ownership of change. We relate the expression of metaphor and irony to three processes of radical organizational change:  preparing for change, implementation of change, and learning from change (Huy 1999).

Rhetorical Expression during Organizational Change Receptivity Receptivity involves wanting and understanding imminent organizational change (Huy 1999). Wanting change generates tensions such as that between building upon and destroying the past to create the future, and understanding change requires

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    265 simultaneously experiencing tensions based on the reasons for the change arising in the past as well as the eventual changed state that exists in the future. This contradiction between building on tradition by destroying the past in order to create the future has been termed the learning paradox (Smith and Lewis 2011).

Generating Receptivity Using Irony In the context of being receptive to imminent organizational change, irony has its greatest relevance because it can create a sense of something missing, a gap between what is hoped for, expected, or desired in the future and what is feared will actually happen based on past experience. This irony helps achieve differentiation by keeping in tension the two poles of the learning paradox of building on the past and of destroying the past to create the future. It may be used to denigrate the past or present and so creates disappointment, or, more encouragingly, it prepares people for aspiring to something new but warns them that achieving this may not be easy. We give an example of how irony engages with the learning paradox and thereby enhances receptivity toward the process of change. Irony may express the fact that change is not yet understood. In this case, there is an ironic contrast between wanting change and understanding change. In order to motivate change, the past needs to be questioned. This may be deeply discomforting, because existing comfortable arrangements are undermined. Irony provides this critique by denigrating and thus excluding the past and separating it off from a desired future. A past that is labeled bad creates a yearning state of wanting to change. However, wanting to change does not always lead to understanding how that change will happen. For example, in Gioia et al. (2010)’s study of a change program to establish a new school of informatics at a university, they show that faculty leaders were intent on highlighting that whatever was created would not represent a mere continuation from the past. Yet, at the same time, these change agents could not clearly envision how the future organization would constitute a break from the past. Consequently, through the expression of irony, they were able to hold each pole (destroy the past, create the future) in tension. As the dean commented: “The first two years were who or what we weren’t—​it was some version of identity by exclusion. We weren’t computer science, we weren’t library science, and we weren’t MIS. Everyone was always speaking in the negative—​in the sense of articulating to ourselves who we aren’t, not who we are” (Gioia et al. 2010: 14). Irony works by contrasting a statement’s face value and what it really means. The statement’s face value here consisted of an articulation of a new identity claim; its ironization was manifested through acknowledgment that no one could yet assert what this statement served to express. Receptivity is wanting and understanding imminent change (Huy 1999) and so the quote shows that the process of receptivity had started but that it was not yet complete.

Generating Receptivity Using Metaphor Metaphor is relevant to the initial stage of wanting and understanding organizational change because it shows that the future is similar to the past (so people are encouraged

266    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox by the fact that imminent change is made to seem easy) or is similar to the optimal (so people are encouraged by the fact that imminent change is made to seem desirable). With regard to the contradiction between building on tradition or destroying the past in order to create the future, metaphor shows that because it makes the future seem similar to the past it is able to integrate the two poles of the learning paradox by showing that creating the future builds on the past without destroying it. In terms of wanting change to happen, people must feel that they will not abandon their previous identity. Metaphors can fulfill the dual function of enabling change and preserving continuity. In terms of understanding imminent change, metaphors also help people to understand imminent change by making the strange seem familiar (Pondy 1983). Thus a change that might have seemed to constitute a discontinuity can be made to appear continuous with the past. We give an example of generating receptivity using metaphor in which metaphor enables emotional anticipation of change implications. Receptivity to change sometimes requires an intense emotional experience of the implications of forthcoming change. For example, in Engeström and Sannino (2011)’s study of the response to prospective organizational change at a nursing home, a nurse used a metaphor of herself as a policeman to emphasize how she felt in her proposed role as “unfortunate” resource allocator, which might imply restricted provision of nursing care. She said: “I am myself competent in the substance [of nursing], having been there in the field, I  have a terrible agony, about having to be a sort of a policeman and gatekeeper: ‘no we cannot’, ‘no we cannot’, ‘no we cannot’, ‘unfortunately this will be terminated’ ” (Engeström and Sannino 2011: 381). The statement attempted to mitigate the contrast between the future (cutting costs) and the past (nursing services). The metaphor of a policeman linked the past (when care was given) to the future (when care could be withheld) by conveying a need to uphold a necessary structure of order and control for the benefit of many even when this carried adverse consequences for an individual patient. The contrast between the ethos of nursing care and the ethos of financial accountability was translated through the image created by the metaphor of policeman: it was useful for her as a means of expressing negative emotion to others, and as a means of acknowledging the self-​discipline required to make herself accept the enormity of the imminent change, toward drastically cutting costs. The effect was to highlight the new, and likely ongoing, personal challenge that the change represented.

Mobilization of Change Mobilization involves implementing change by rallying and propelling groups to change, accepting an agreed vision of change, and invoking strong motivation and commitment (Huy 1999). We consider in particular the organizing paradox of competing designs and processes (Smith and Lewis 2011: 383–​4). This source of tension is critical in mobilization because implementing organizational change reveals contradictions

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    267 within structuring and leading, between fostering collaboration and competing, by empowering but at the same time directing, and by controlling yet remaining flexible.

Mobilizing Change Using Irony Irony emphasizes these tensions sharply by showing one thing (e.g., empowering) in such a way that it is absurd that it could also coexist with its opposite (e.g., directing). Irony can disrupt established expectations of parties and can encourage new relationships and actions (Forester 2005:  228). Contrasting management’s repeated claims about empowerment with the actual situation of strong controls is ironic differentiation of the organizing paradox by keeping apart the poles of empowering and controlling. By highlighting this inherent contradiction, participants establish a position for themselves where they are able to articulate the agency that they desire within the change programme and how they regard this may enable “real” rather than “superficial” change to take place. An example of irony during mobilization of change is when irony accepts direction but also builds empowerment without resolving this contradiction, thus maintaining a tension between these two poles of the organizing paradox. According to Forester (2005), it is this dynamic of contradiction that creates a readiness to act to implement change. In his study of a change initiative, Forester (2005) cites a senior manager who views irony expressed through humor as a means to foster a devolved sense of responsibility: “Part of what humor does is pull me out of the power . . . out of the power place of saying, ‘I’m the one that knows and I’m bringing you the wisdom from the mountain.’ Part of it is saying things like, ‘Guess what? I didn’t bring the wisdom from the mountain. You all got the wisdom from the mountain in this room, and our whole week is going to be just figuring out how wise you are’ ” (Forester 2005: 244). In change mobilization, people need to feel engaged with change and empowered. Although the speaker is a senior manager who thinks of himself as being seen to be bringing wisdom from the mountain, he subverts this with self-​irony, contradicting this impression. He is able to be both a senior manager who directs (the change process is still ultimately his responsibility) and a self-​ironist who empowers. Ironization of claims of authority, through rhetorical forms such as humor, ensures that both poles (empowerment, direction) of the organizing paradox are held in tension.

Mobilizing Change Using Metaphor Metaphors facilitate change implementation by enabling members to exert their agency yet  also enabling the organization to exert direction, thus integrating the empowerment and direction poles of the organizing paradox. For example, travel metaphors enable people to see where they started and where they will end up, thereby reconciling empowerment (the traveler must reach the destination by his own effort) and direction (the organization can track progress). This effect of metaphor is illustrated in Covaleski et al.’s (1998) study of human resource management in leading accounting firms. A system of mentorship enabled the organization to track the progress of the individual and thus assert control. Yet, at the same time, individuals sought to assert their own

268    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox desire and competences to contribute to the organization. This contrast was shown to be reconciled through the use of travel metaphors: “Mentors offered ‘no punches pulled’ guidance and criticism, and protégés reported on how other firm members perceived their mentors’ placement in the organization and saw them as ‘on the bus’ or ‘on track’ ” (Covaleski et  al. 1998:  314). The metaphor encapsulated the necessity of surveillance (“on the bus”), the empowered individual’s need for exerting competences (“on track”) and socially constructed hierarchy (“how other firm members perceived their mentor’s placement in the organization”). As Covaleski et al. (1998) demonstrate, metaphor facilitates an integration of control with empowerment.

Learning from Change Learning from the change process, and feeding that learning back to the process of evaluating change outcomes, involves the “belonging paradox” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 383) of contradictions between the individual, concerned with personal performance and career enhancement, and the organization, concerned with embedding and institutionalizing change.

Learning from Change Using Irony The use of irony may serve to acknowledge that the individual and the organization (or its senior managers) have learned different things from change. Differentiation arises from an ironic contrast between the organizational leader’s inflated claims of the success of change and the disappointing reality as it appears to the individual, or it may say that what the individual and the organization mean by change are two very different things. During learning from change, irony can be used to critique the organization’s official story about change, thereby challenging unwarranted complacency at the outcome of a change initiative. For example, a study of a federated insurance company whose most profitable region was Australia, showed it was resistant to pressures from the London-​ based CEO, so that one skeptical commentator said that: “[The CEO] will say do e-​ procurement globally but Australia just thumbs its nose at him because he doesn’t kick butt . . . This is not an empowered company. The empowered one is the business unit leader, it’s their territory” (Sillince and Mueller 2007: 160). The ironist holds in tension one pole (CEO is in reality not powerful) with the other pole (CEO claims to be powerful). Irony therefore signals what has been learned from change by that individual in terms of the difference between inflated claims and disappointing reality. The effect of the ironic critique is to potentially legitimize a further cycle of change to address the current disequilibrium between central control and business unit empowerment.

Learning from Change Using Metaphor A substantial barrier to learning from change lies in the contradictory effects of actions undertaken once a new initiative has begun. As Jay (2013) argues, this can lead to stasis, where participants no longer feel confident about how best to continue, or indeed

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    269 whether to continue at all with the change initiative. Consistent with the ironization approach highlighted above, Jay (2013) suggests that a preliminary generative response may entail differentiating between promised change and the reality or between different objectives pursued by sub-​units within the broader change initiative. This may prove fruitful for explaining how organizational change has deviated from its original intentions and for enabling participants to take responsibility for a narrower scope of action. Yet, Jay (2013) further contends that following such differentiation, because of the complex sensemaking associated with the use of metaphor, more integrative, dynamic, and creative framing of collective action may subsequently emerge. For example, Jay (2013) shows that the metaphors of the organization as “laboratory” and then as “catalyst” enable individuals to limit their sense of personal responsibility for adverse, unexpected, or contradictory organizational change outcomes. The metaphors helped participants to integrate multiple outcomes, thereby “leaving open the possibility that unintended outcomes might spur further sensemaking and transformation” (Jay 2013: 154).

Cycling between Irony and Metaphor during Organizational Change We argue that cycling between irony and metaphor offers new possibilities for participants to engage with management-​induced change. The emergence of irony has a destabilizing, exhorting, or challenging effect, ensuring there is no totalizing voice and that the individual is not lost in the collective. At the individual level, ironizing gives expression to personal struggles for coherence and dignity (e.g., Laine and Vaara 2007; Watson 2009, 2012), signals the deeply felt responsibilities and constrictions implied by performance expectations (Hopfl and Maddrell 1996; Iedema, Rhodes, and Scheeres 2006; Sewell and Barker 2006), responds to perceived over-​confidence or over-​commitment to the partial validity of managerial policies and strategies (Humphreys and Brown 2002; Buchanan and Dawson 2007; Ford, Ford, and D’Amelio 2008), and may lead to some negotiation of the roles defined by the corporate rhetoric in order to achieve a balance between individuality and collectivity (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006). Hence, ironic expression provides access to the complex array of hopes, fears, frustrations, and uncertainties associated with individual reflection on organizational experience. This juxtaposition of incongruous claims, concepts, and models may make possible moments of insight, challenging the necessary, desirable or appropriate status of established organizational structures and routines, and asserting the value and potential of alternative, more locally responsive modes of organizing (Trethewey 1999; O’Leary 2003; Sewell and Barker 2006). The inherently speculative structuring of the relationship between differing domains of experience through metaphor displaces the tensions and contradictions conventionally associated with the juxtaposition of their literal representation. The turn to

270    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox metaphor offers a dynamism of meaning through the association of reason with imagination, which, as Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 193) suggest, serves to “comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices and spiritual awareness.” The effect is to produce an “experientialist account of understanding” that combines the need to reconcile an “objectivist” understanding of the functioning of the external world with a “subjectivist” understanding of personal struggles for meaning and significance. The act of constructing parallels between aspects from alternative domains of experience offers new perspectives and hence new opportunities to find common ground with other individuals and groups with different interests, values, and beliefs. We have argued that managing organizational change creates a root irony based on situationally ironic contrast between planned change and outcome, as well as on the dramatic irony of the manager knowing things that the managed do not know. Acceptance of such a root irony gives rise to an ability to cope with unpleasant surprises and to amend performances according to the audience. Moreover, we have used working through paradox as the root metaphor of managing organizational change. Such a root metaphor enables a range of new action possibilities, which extend and explore the scope of its application. As a principal feature of an organization’s symbolic meaning system, such root metaphors, including the organization as drama (Oswick et al. 2002; Smith and Eisenberg 1987), the organization as family (Boje 1995), and the organization as team (Oswick and Grant 1996) valorize particular roles, routines, and resources. For example, roles, routines, and resources associated with managing change as a paradox include boundary spanning, ambidexterity, and ability to use ambiguity. Organizational changes that are consistent with the themes associated with such a root metaphor, even radical shifts in organizational practices, are likely to be perceived as coherent and comprehensible (Marshak 1996)  and more easily embraced by organizational participants. The validity of a dominant root irony or root metaphor is, in principle, provisional and available for continuous re-​evaluation. The construction of common ground through metaphorical categorization is an active process where both the comparative terms and the target context to which they are applied are subject to widespread evaluation for their relevance, generativity, and impact. At the same time, ironic contrast helps maintain a peripheral awareness of difference. Thus, organizational participants may “vacillate between two levels of understanding while being aware that each has an ‘as if ’ quality” (Manning 1979: 661). Yet, over time, through diffusion of the metaphorical framing across multiple contexts, the concept may come to be taken for granted as a literal categorization, and its status as an interpretive device forgotten (Sillince 1999; Cornelissen and Werner 2014). Unfortunately, “metaphors are ‘messy’ constructs because of the constant possibility for reinterpretation” (Vaara, Tienari, and Santti 2003: 447). Although metaphorical expression provides rich and complex imagery for the mutual and reciprocal negotiation of meaning, there is ample evidence of the passing effectiveness of metaphor as a response to underlying tensions

John A. A. Sillince and Benjamin D. Golant    271 experienced by organizational participants. Accordingly, recognition of such limitations of metaphorical resonance is explicitly expressed through irony. Irony “can do the important work of simultaneously recognizing past suspicions and hurts, disrupting the conventional political expectations of parties, and encouraging new actions and relationships” (Forester 2005: 228). This leads to a further cycle of resolution and critique in order for participants to express complex, inchoate feelings about organizational changes. In summary, the critique-​and-​resolution model offered here suggests outcomes with the potential for greater member engagement. Through this process, we propose that there is scope for greater self-​awareness of the links between organizational paradoxes and the experience of ambivalence, derived from experiencing specific feelings while discussing specific paradoxes at different times during the change process. Becoming more connected to one’s ambivalence gives the individual greater confidence about their feelings, and this sense of familiarity and predictability gives them a greater feeling of control during change. This is in keeping with scholarship that has emphasized the role that recipients of change play for its eventual outcome, challenging theories of heroic change leadership that have been criticized for their inaccuracy (Ford et al. 2008) and lack of sociological complexity (Beyer 1999; Alvesson and Sveninngson 2003). We also propose that greater self-​awareness about how much or how little agency the individual has within the organizational change process will either be positive or negative. Positive evaluation will reinforce engagement and sense of ownership of change; negative evaluation, if openly faced, is likely to lead to further cycles of critique calling for new approaches toward their resolution.

Conclusion Our model of rhetorical processes during radical organizational change is consistent with strong process theorists (e.g., Tsoukas and Chia 2002; Beech and Johnson 2005; Chia and MacKay 2007) who argue that the context in which initiatives of episodic transformation take place is more accurately characterized as itself intrinsically dynamic, subject to the stabilizing and transforming forces of interpretation and meaning (Tsoukas and Chia 2002). More specifically, through our consideration of the complementary role of framing change through metaphor and irony, we offer further support to those who advocate the potential value of viewing change as an inherently rhetorical process (e.g., Heracleous and Barrett 2001; Sillince 2005; Sillince and Barker 2012; Whittle et al. 2008). By this approach we have sought, following Grant et al. (2005), to re-​imagine change in a way that acknowledges the fundamental contribution of those affected by the change, and to therefore highlight the central managerial challenge of sustaining recurring cycles of integration and differentiation among contradictory perspectives, values, and interests.

272    Irony and Metaphor in Working through Paradox

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Chapter 14

Reflections on t h e Par a d oxes of Mode rni t y A Conversation with James March Richard Badham (with a “Comment” by James March)

Our modern society of organizations is confronted by paradoxes within and of modernity. As technicians of modernity, we are concerned with the former, providing advice on how to better manage organizations and those within them. This is a rational enterprise embedded in a long and noble intellectual tradition of addressing the problems that a rational society creates (Badham 2015), in this instance by advocating an acceptance rather than avoidance or denial of embedded paradoxical tensions. This includes addressing the competing and paradoxical demands of multiple institutional logics, and modern variants of universal organizational tensions, between exploitation and exploration, centralization and decentralization, and empowerment and control and so on. (see Smith and Lewis 2011 for a comprehensive overview). In contrast, interpreters of modernity are more attentive to the paradoxes of modernity, as cultural interpreters of either the “dark side” of modern “risk society” and the high modernist quest for order and control (Alexander 2013; Bauman 2013; Smart, 1999: 48) or its more comic “lighter” side in promoting or at least enabling, a self-​critical and reflexive modernity (Berman 1982; Haraway 1992; Kundera 1984, 1993; Serres 1997; Mueller 2011). The purpose of the present chapter is to contribute to the latter discussion within organizational studies, by introducing and illustrating the work of James March as a significant and elegant set of insights and reflections on the rhetorics and rituals of a modern rational ethos that we have no choice other than to live by (Lanham 1995; McLoskey 1994; Kegan and Lahey 2009). As March’s co-​author Thierry Weil observes, “Before criticizing and dismissing the dominant paradigm, he [March] displays all its strengths. He uses a very rational, scientific framework to demonstrate the limits of reason . . . March uses the tools of reason

278    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity to demonstrate the incompleteness of reason” (March and Weil 2005: 108). In so doing March argues that, “ambiguity and equivocality are essential to the process, as are irony, paradox, playfulness and metaphor” (March 1994: 211). The use of such methods is exemplified in March’s characterization of and advocacy for a “garbage can” view of decision-​making, the “technology of foolishness” in innovation, mindfulness of the “hot stove” effect in experiential learning, and support for the quixotic dimension of leadership motivation and inspiration (Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972; Denrell and March 2001; March and Olsen 1986; March 1988; March 2006a). In March’s work, these concepts are not mere “rhetorical frosting” (Augier and March 2011: 239) but an exercise of (and recommendation for) serious play (Statler, Heracleous, and Jacobs 2011) in the face of the ambiguities, contradictions, and paradoxes that beset the managerial quest in modern organizations (Padgett 1992). In order to capture some of the range and depth of March’s insights on the inherent paradoxes of modernity, this chapter adopts a particular framework for interrogating his work. James March is seen as identifying and seeking to address three main paradoxes of modernity: a paradox of rationality (involving a consistently rational appreciation of the limits of rationality, given pressures and temptations to relapse); a paradox of performance (that besets attempts to communicate and act on the basis of this knowledge given the tensions between talk and action in modern organizations); and a paradox of meaning (concerning the purpose we attribute to this enterprise, given the limited scope and problematic outcomes of intelligent action). In conclusion, the chapter addresses the implications of the issues raised by March’s insights into these three paradoxes of modernity for adopting a paradox perspective in organization studies.

The Paradox of Rationality A Critical Rationality It did not require the arrival of postmodernism to note the exaggerated and mythological nature of the Western faith in rationality and the claims made on its behalf. From the philosopher David Hume to liberal skeptics such as Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper, and Ernest Gellner, critical rationalists have unmasked the illusory nature of the “Heavenly City” promised by uncritical advocates of rationality. What they, and others, have revealed is the misleading hubris and dangerous consequences of an exaggerated faith in the ability of “modernity projects” to define and deliver a “one best way” of thought and action (Scott 1999) and bring about order and control in human affairs (Smart 1999; Wagner 2012). Within organizational studies, these insights have been reflected in Herbert Simon’s critique of equating the application of “procedural” rationality with the attainment of “substantive” rationality (Simon 1976), and they have informed critiques of classical,

Richard Badham   279 technical, comprehensive, omniscient, and strategic views of rational thought and action in favor of views of rationality that are more reflective (Schon 1983), limited (Lindblom 1959), bounded (Simon 1957), and contextual (Weick 1993) in character. These insights are further extended in modern process, practice, performative and discourse studies (Cabantous, Gond, and Johnson-​Cramer 2010).

A Predictable Irrationality Yet, despite awareness of the limitations and dangers of exaggerated views of what rational thought and action can deliver, the faith in rationality remains strong and influential, fueled by great hopes (Brunsson 2006) and embodied in urgent quests (Bauman 2013). Even critical rationalists, far from decrying or denigrating the use of rationality in any thoroughgoing fashion, actually do the opposite, using logic and evidence to reveal the illusory and counterproductive character of exaggerated and misleading claims made on rationality’s behalf. Within organizational studies, this is exemplified in the focus on systematically identifying sources of “predictable irrationality” (Ariely 2010) as a guide for decision-​ making and action. This has been a central and enduring component of March’s work. His critique of the profit-​maximizing and perfect-​knowledge assumptions of neo-​ classical models of decision-​making, and their replacement by a behavioral theory of the firm, was part of an attempt to provide an improved understanding of actual behavior. His garbage can model of decision-​making was not intended to legitimate chaos but, rather, discern predictable patterns in actual decision-​making behavior (Cohen, March, and Olsen 2012: 25; March in Coutu 2006: 86). His analyses of the “hot stove effect” and the advantages of a “technology of foolishness” were not intended to dismiss the value of experience or technologies of reason, and replace them with recommendations for “silliness” (March in Contu 2006: 87) or establish a “Mardi Gras for reason” (March 1988: 261), but to remind us that while experience may be the “best teacher” it is not a “good one” (March 2010: 115), and that a playful relaxation of the rules of reasoned intelligence may assist us in exploring the goals we wish to pursue (March 1988). Nor was his contrast between “exploitation” and “exploration” a simple critique of a conservative and narrowly rationalistic exploitation in favor of a radical romance of exploration, but an argument for recognizing the inevitable tensions between the two, the need for balance, and the dilemmas of calculating trade-​offs. In all these areas, what March has argued for is greater rational understanding of the character of rational thought and action, informed reflection on the claims made on its behalf, and a balanced appreciation of its contributions and limitations. The paradox of rationality remains, however, even within those committed to a rational appreciation of the limits of rationality, as they are seduced into exaggerating the degree to which their tempered rationalism reveals the “one best way” (the “Real and the Rational,” the “Good” and the “True”), overstating the certainty of the knowledge they provide about means and their understanding and realization of the goals to

280    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity be pursued. As the sociologist Peter Berger once aptly remarked, our cultural assumptions confront us not only as a law from without, but also a conscience from within—​ the seductive religion of rationality often creeps unsuspecting into even the work of its heretics. In regard to both means and ends, Herbert Simon and James March were similarly critical of omniscient views of rational behavior in modern organizations. However, there are significant disparities in how consistently and extensively they follow through on their critical rationality. Herbert Simon, for example, frustrated that the concept of bounded rationality and descriptive behavioral studies of decision-​making were regarded by economists as “outside the Pale” (Simon 1978: 345), focused on persuading his economics colleagues by developing and empirically supporting a superior theory to replace it. In the process he became a self-​proclaimed prophet “prepared to preach the heresies of bounded rationality to economists . . . in season and out’ (cited in Khurana 2011: 263). In contrast, March is much more tentative in his claims and sanguine in his expectations. March presents the garbage can as a model not the model of organizations, a partial viewpoint on behaviors that are “characteristic of any organization in part—​part of the time . . . describ[ing] a portion of almost any organization’s activities, but will not describe all of them” (Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972: 1). March is consistently aware of how the interpretation and take-​up of theories, academic and otherwise, is an emergent and social process. All ideas, he notes, “are incorrigible progeny with endless transformative capabilities to annoy and delight their previous authors” (Cohen, March, and Olsen 2012: 23). Discussing the garbage can model, he remarks that it is most likely to be influential in situations of complexity and in times of chaos. (Cohen et al. 2012: 29). Reflecting on “post-​heroic” theories of leadership, March playfully, yet pertinently, observes that while “Carlyle said that leaders determined the course of history [and] Tolstoy said that leaders had nothing to do with the course of history,” in organizational life “leaders are more inclined to believe in Carlyle in good times and Tolstoy in bad times” (Cohen and March 1974: 203). Most significantly, March is also nuanced and reflective in his observations about the partial, complex, and uneven take-​up of more critical views of rationality within economics and organizational studies. Within the domain of micro-​economics, he argues, the take-​up has been substantial and effective. However, outside this domain, more recognition and acceptance is given to the rhetoric of such critiques (as a rational analysis providing certain “truths” about micro-​economic behavior) than is given to their theories (which challenge the rationalistic assumptions that often lie unquestioned in organizational behavior, marketing, strategy and so on). As a result, he observes, concepts such as “ ‘bounded rationality,’, ‘exploration and exploitation,’ ‘garbage cans’  . . .  have become common part of the education, but their precise implications for practice have been generally less clear and less explored.” “As a result,” and perhaps predictably, “much of the teaching of topics such as leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship that might have pointed to new ways of understanding such phenomena have become instead an echo of an earlier pursuit of ‘best practice’ ” (Augier and March 2011: 232; March 1978).

Richard Badham   281

A More ‘Extreme’ Form of Irrationality A key theme in March’s reflections is his consistent questioning of the exaggeratedly rational assumptions about or interpretations of the preferences, goals, or purposes of action that are served (or not) by instrumentally rational means. In this enterprise, he is more consistently critical in his rational interrogation of the assumptions of omniscient rationality than Herbert Simon. As Simon put it, “Jim has a very large fascination (I have some) with even more extreme forms of irrationality than I do. So, in my organizations, there is still more rationality than in the garbage can” (cited in Augier and Kreiner 2000a: 675). As Augier and Kreiner (2000a) note, the bounded rationality focus of Herbert Simon lay with the psychological restrictions on the ability of human beings to grasp the nature of the world, their limited “computational abilities,” “memory,” and “wits” in the face of complexity. While recognizing the crucial importance of such phenomena, March goes further. For March, the complex time–​space environment is not a given that individuals or organizations have a limited ability to grasp, but is fundamentally unknowable as goals and premises are the “at the same time premises for and outcomes of human and organizational choice” (Augier and Kreiner 2000a: 675). For March, what the garbage can theory identifies is a world in which it is not only the case that the means for pursuing organizational goals are multiple and uncertain, and that people’s attention is partial, fluid, and shifting, but also that the goals being pursued are ambiguous, conflicting, and unstable. This is no minor shift of emphasis. As Perrow (1973) has observed, many human relations and organizational development advocates have questioned the use of mechanistic means to achieve organizational goals, but they far less frequently reflect on the nature and adequacy of those goals themselves. While part of March’s analysis concerns the existence of multiple and ambiguous goals, what he also adds is a recognition of and emphasis upon the shaping and forging of preferences in the course of action. For March, means/​ends are inevitably intertwined, not only in the sense that every means is in some sense an end in its own right, but the fact that ends are re-​shaped in the process of pursing the means for attaining our presumed initial preferences. As March also succinctly puts it, all rational actions are based on a gamble, guesses about future consequences and preferences. Those who initiate action are not only changed in the process of action itself, but also face different circumstances at the end. For March, therefore, there is an inherent unpredictability and irrationality in human action that cannot be countered through rational analysis, however intelligent and critical. March’s response to this situation is to recommend abandoning the “metaphor of search” (March 1988: 258–​9) as the process of “discovery” is also one of “creation,” and advocates, as a “rational” response, a reduction in the faith and use of rationality as a tool for decision-​making, and the value of intuition, foolishness, and play as part of exploration. As our purposes are created, rather than simply discovered, in the course of action, the non-​rational and playful pursuit of apparently “foolish” ventures are not an alternative to intelligence and wisdom, but part of it.

282    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity What this analysis of March’s work reveals, therefore, is a constant tension within the contemporary faith in and pursuit of rationality. On the one hand, the exaggerated and omniscient assumptions of a confident Rationality, assumed to reveal “one best way” of thought and action, have been brought into question by a critical rationality that has uncovered inherent ambiguity, plurality, and uncertainty in the means to be employed, and fluidity, conflict, and unpredictable emergence in the goals to be pursued. On the other hand, there is a temptation to interpret the insights of such a critical rationality as a new “one best way,” certain in its knowledge of the workings of a pragmatic rationality (or predictable irrationality) and confident in the utility and value of its insights. As Kenneth Burke noted in his classic phrase, “Even humility can go to their head”! (in Rueckert 1983: 272).

The Paradox of Performance The Managerial Dilemma The rational analysis of how decisions are actually made in organizations would appear to argue for the explicit adoption of a more pragmatic or reflective view of rationality, shorn of the grandiose, pretentious, exaggerated, and misleading claims and aspirations of omniscient views of rationality. Like the small boy who declares the emperor to be naked, a mark of intelligence and virtue would appear to be to end the foolishness and pretense of mistaken conventional wisdom by simply pointing to the evidence, debunking ignorance and collusion and replacing it with thought and action grounded in the realities of organizational life. What March’s work reveals is that, somewhat paradoxically, such a view betrays the very rationalist ethos that it claims to be implementing. In addition to its debunking of omniscient rationality, what a critical rational analysis of organizational life also uncovers is the essential character of decision-​making as a symbolic performance. In modern Western culture, this mythology is, at least in part, in conflict with the insights and ethos of a pragmatic and reflective rationality, and supportive of a more substantive faith in the ability of rational thought and action to deliver certain knowledge and intended and meaningful outcomes. We ignore this insight at our peril. Failing to understand and take into account these symbolic dynamics of decision-​making is a recipe for ineffective action, personal disillusion, and damaged careers. If we return to the imagery of The Emperor’s New Clothes, it is no accident that while knowing the child’s words to be true, the emperor continues “stiffer than ever” because “the procession must go on.” (Anderson 1907) In this situation, administrators, managers, leaders, and all those working in modern organizations are, March observes, caught in a fundamental performative dilemma. What the critical insights of rational understanding and analysis reveal is a dual, yet inconsistent, requirement for both pragmatic action, improvisation, and exploration in

Richard Badham   283 complex, ambiguous, and uncertain situations and understanding and communicating what they are doing as acting with confidence and certainty secure in their calculative knowledge and the achievement of the consciously and explicitly chosen goals and objectives. As March puts it, it is a “managerial dilemma of speaking a rhetoric of decisiveness, certainty and clarity while experiencing a life of doubt, paradox and contradiction” (March 2010: 68). What this insight leads to is not the moral condemnation of an apparent hypocritical commitment to contradictory omniscient and critical rationalities in the light of a consequentialist faith, but, rather, an acknowledgement of the existence of a required and valuable hypocrisy that is functional (Pondy 1977), aspirational (Christensen, Morsing, and Thysen 2013), and generative (March 1994).

A Productive Hypocrisy As exemplified in the classic analyses of Meyer and Rowan (1977) and Brunsson (1989), in order to secure the legitimacy required from external institutional regulators and resource providers, and cope with the competing demands of multiple internal and external stakeholders, proclamations of rational organization and delivery divorced from actual implementation, may be a requirement for individual success and organizational survival. Moreover, and crucially, the effort of leaders, followers, and their organizations required to overcome the challenges of life in overcoming obstacles and getting things done requires confidence and commitment in their enterprise. As March puts it, “great commitments require great hopes” (March 2007). Without a faith in the beneficial outcome of rationally informed striving, such efforts are likely to be undermined. As March puts it, it may be more desirable for individuals and organizations to strive to achieve more through a “false positive” that exaggerates their rationality and significance, than to undermine their motivation through a “false negative.” Moreover, there is a further positive advantage in striving to attain unrealistic yet desirable aspirations, even if it is impossible to live up to these ideals in practice, “in full consciousness, not in hopes of fulfilling the precepts—​for they would not want to do that—​but in hopes of acting in a better way than they would without the struggle.” (March 1980: 28). Finally, there is an unpredictability in symbolic actions and the unfolding of events, that means that short-​term instrumental hypocrisy may lead to the development of actions, values, and commitments that have beneficial effects that transcend their short-​term motivations. In the long run the proclamation of social values, and the encouragement of oneself and others to live up to them, may lead to unpredicted and beneficial results.

The Dilemma Remains Despite such benefits attributable to hypocrisy, the managerial dilemma remains, however. The intelligent administrator, as March describes her, is faced with a continuing tension between maintaining a dubious mythology and undermining the commitment

284    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity of themselves and others to the significance of their actions. There are drawbacks in not being able to acknowledge this “confusion and ambivalence” (March in Coutu 2006: 21). The dominant omniscient ideology can be used for self-​aggrandizement, social manipulation, and cover up. It can also mislead and delude, as it encourages hubris and pathological optimism, followed by excessive cynicism when such hopes are dashed. It also leads to a lack of openness about the symbolic dimension of managerial work. However, because of the symbolic importance of their work, and the decisions they make, leaders are required to spend a considerable part of their time on symbolic actions. More information is regularly collected than is used, time and resources are spent on strategy and policy development that are not followed up, and considerable time is spent on displays of command of information and competence, holding meetings, developing procedures, and sending memos with the purpose of symbolizing visions of control (March 1994). Moreover, an essential component of this symbolic display is that it is not admitted or recognized as such. Managers and leaders partake, and have to partake, in such activities, yet deny their symbolic activity, to themselves as well as others. March reminds us that managers with successful careers and subject to regular performance reviews marking their progress, are inclined to believe and require reassurance in their capabilities and effects. Such symbolic actions are constitutive of decision-​making processes and the identities of those involved. As March remarks, it “is not that symbols are important to politics, although they certainly are. Rather, the argument is the reverse—​politics is important to symbols, and a primary contribution of politics to life is in the development of meaning” (March and Olsen 1983: 292).

The Reorganization Saga and the Schizophrenic Tour-​de-​Force In order to illustrate what such a recognition involves, we will use two important examples from March’s work, the significance of which have yet to be fully taken up within organizational studies. These are his analysis of the reorganization saga that dominates reform programs, and the schizophrenic tour de force that bedevils the academic and practical contributions of business school researchers. Drawing on insights from public reform in the US political system, March and Olsen (1983) posit the existence of a deeply culturally embedded symbolic performance present in reorganization programs. The “saga” consists of a temporal and cyclical iteration of two rhetorics, an initial reforming “rhetoric of administration” with its “litany of coordination, chains of command, authority and responsibility,” followed up by a “rhetoric of realpolitik,” with its “litany of interests, politics, conflict, bargaining and power” (March and Olsen 1983: 204). Leaders, encouraged by their success in being elected, confident in their abilities, and with expectations upon them to act decisively, initiate organizational redesigns to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. The resulting “rhetoric of administration” is the voice of the “prologue.” Its rhetoric of better execution, reduced expenditure, increased operational efficiency, and consolidation and rationalization in

Richard Badham   285 the pursuit of strategic alignment secures and reassures leaders in their faith, followers in their effectiveness, and reflects the modernist creed of achieving progress through rational intentional action. It also draws on built-​up frustrations at the dysfunctionalities and personal intrusions of established bureaucratic regimes. Over time, however, leaders’ attention tends to shift, strategic crises and the stress of events distract them, multiple networks of power and interest begin to have an effect, reorganization initiatives are traded off for political favors, garbage can processes begin to create a complex and watered down set of projects, and initial enthusiasm is replaced by a lack of systematic attention to implementation or rigorous evaluation of progress. At this point, the dominant rhetoric of administration begins to be replaced by an equally well known and sacred “rhetoric of realpolitik,” the voice of the epilogue, with its language of political constituencies, complex interest representation, and struggle. This rhetoric draws cultural support from suspicion of naive utopian reformers, appreciation of human weakness, and the cynicism of the less successful and that generated by experiences of well-​documented high failure rates. In the face of this (inevitable) saga, March and Olsen (1983: 292) recommends acceptance rather than denial of reorganization as “a domain of rhetoric, trading, problematic attention and symbolic action” and, in a sense, riding the cyclical saga. In reaction against understandable temptations toward hubris and disillusion, or simple programmatic approaches to “improving implementation,” they recommend an “intelligent” and tempered leadership approach based on long-​term strategic incrementalism, legitimacy building, and opportunity taking in what March and Cohen describe, somewhat tongue in cheek, as an exercise in “civic education” with long-​term unpredictable outcomes. The second example is provided in March and Sutton’s (1997) analysis of the schizophrenia that besets business school researchers called upon, and yet skeptical of, providing certain knowledge and practical advice on the cultural and structural initiatives that are likely to increase organizational performance. On the one hand, the success of business schools, and the identities and careers of many within them, depends on their existence as a “culture of advice givers.” The success of this enterprise justifies the schools’ institutional status, generates institutional and research support because of their relevance for business, attracts MBA students, and ensures the marketability of individual and organizational consultancy services, lectures, and publications. On the other hand, they are also a “culture of research workers,” cognizant of ambiguity, and committed to a research agenda that critically interrogates all studies and claims to have identified factors leading to organizational performance (which are often correlational and retrospective). And herein lies the tension. The adherents to the culture of advice givers have to disconnect their work from much of the serious critical and qualified research undertaken on organizations and the prescriptions they offer, or which are offered to them. In tandem, the culture of research workers has to separate their research and insights from the committed knowledge claims and prescriptive remedies provided by their advice-​giving colleagues. Yet each are dependent on the other—​the research workers for the financial inputs and institutional status that supports their research, and the advice

286    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity givers for the academic authority and expert legitimacy provided by the rigor and standing of their research-​worker colleagues. In the face of this contradiction, March and Sutton (1997: 705) advocate resisting the “temptation of finding a resolution,” arguing that there is “no neat solution for neatness itself would be a claim that an essential dilemma has been overcome.” In contrast to the twin “pathologies” of regarding rigorous academic thought as a “dispensable scholarly pretense” or the withdrawal of scholarship into the “relatively safe activities of proving theorems, contemplating conundrums, and writing poetry” (March and Sutton 1997: 204), they argue for a more elegant stance of accepting the tension between supporting a social mythology that provides confidence and meaning and pointing to the probable falsity of such beliefs, acknowledging rather than running away from an inevitable “tension between saying more than we know and understanding how little we can know” (March and Sutton 1997: 704).

The Paradox of Meaning While an understanding of the paradoxes of rationality and performance direct us toward adopting a more reasonable, reflexive, and strategic approach to how we use and talk about rationality, the paradox of meaning raises the stakes to include the challenge of finding meaning in such activities when not only is intelligence restricted, but intelligent action does not guarantee successful outcomes, a world in which “victory is elusive, and virtue is not reliably rewarded” (March 2007). While the paradox of performance addresses the tensions within modernity generated by the requirement to give two contradictory performances, the paradox of meaning is created by the conflict between a commitment to managing this performance as a means of intelligent and effective action and, an equally intelligent, recognition of the limited intelligence of our action and the lack of control that we have over events.

Of Plumbing and Poetry In memorably pointing out, somewhat tongue in cheek, the more mundane “plumbing” aspects of management as “making sure the toilets work and that there is somebody to answer the telephone” (March and Weil 2005: 99), March lists a variety of routine and sensible managerial activities required to keep organizations’ running. We might also add to this list, the equally sensible and pragmatic “muddling through” advice that he offers leaders from his observations on leadership in ambiguity (Cohen and March 1974). There is no space here to do justice to these reflections but they represent a valuable contribution to reflections on the pragmatics of management and leadership. March is at pains, however, to avoid any romantic “heroic” view of leadership. On the one hand, he points to the role of chance and circumstance in determining organizational

Richard Badham   287 outcomes, whatever activities leaders undertake. On the other hand, he challenges the myth of individual effectivity, using metaphors of routine “light bulb” selection and the relative equivalence of Olympians in the 100-​meter sprint to question reliance on singularly bright “lights” or overemphasis on the exceptional talents of individuals. While aligning with post-​heroic views of leadership in emphasizing the “prosaic duties of leadership,” concerned more with routine and plumbing than heroic achievements, March is also concerned with the ability of leaders to exemplify and foster an “exuberance for life,” deploying the “gifts of a poet, in order to find meaning in action and render life attractive” (March and Weil 2005:  98; cf. Grint 2001; March 2006b; March 2013). As he puts it, good leadership involves recognizing “beauty as well as truth, the appreciation of complexity as well as simplicity, the pursuit of contradiction as well as coherence, the achievement of grace as well as control” (March and Weil 2005: 121). While recognizing that for many this “verbiage seems much too romantic for a cynical age,” he goes on to argue “some recent observations of organizations suggest that such a vision may be more common than we realize,” and it is to three sets of such observations that we now turn (Augier 2004).

Of Language and Purpose One of the most sustained features of March’s work is his well-​documented observation and analysis of the limitations of traditional rational theories of the goals governing choice behaviour. In particular, he details (a) the inherently ambiguous, multiple, and contradictory nature of individual and organizational goals and purposes, (b) the inherent uncertainty involved in ordering our existing preferences and guessing our future ones, (c) the endogenous rather than exogenous character of preferences and goals, that our preferences or goals are not “external” to practice, but are modified, created, and transformed in the process of action, and (d) that we, in a sense, “discover” our goals and purposes in an unpredictable and emergent process of attempted realization of what we initially took to be our preferences. Our actions are irreducibly creative in the formation of our purposes. From a strictly rational point of view, therefore, part of the role of leadership is to foster an appreciation of this creative dimension. When March refers to such phenomenon as the need to choose between “stupid” and “sensible” foolishness in innovation (March 1971: 179), or the role of the “naïve and the ignorant” in learning (March 1991: 86), such comments are grounded in pragmatic observation. In this context, March highlights the importance of appreciating the “evocative ambiguity” of language as an “instrument of appreciative interpretation.” Just as information is not a passive resource waiting for discovery but created through action and interaction, and goals and purposes are not pre-​formed and exogenous but endogenous to action, so the language employed by leaders in forging a sense of collective purpose is not simply about communicating prior meanings but stimulating meaning, expanding awareness, and extending our horizons. Like the poet who admits to not wanting the meaning of his work reduced to his intentions (March 1994: 259), the leader crafts

288    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity messages that not only inevitably mean more than (s)he intended to say but are created and appreciated in awareness of this phenomenon.

Of Motivation and Appropriateness As one of the contributors to creating a neo-​institutional view of organizations, March (and Olsen) are well known for their observations on the value of viewing decision-​ making in modern organizations through the alternative lenses of what they term a rule-​based logic of appropriateness, as well as the well-​established and more institutionalized choice-​based logic of consequences (March and Olsen 2009). Traditionally, the struggle of leaders with the paradoxes of rationality and performance are guided and legitimated by a logic of consequences. What this means is that the focus is on strategically manipulating the balance between a public rhetoric of planning and certainty and a private recognition of emergence and ambiguity in order to act effectively and bring about the desired individual and organizational outcomes. Realizing such a performance is, however, a complex, time-​consuming, and strenuous exercise, combining multiple agendas, performing differently to varying audiences, balancing contradictory rhetorics and actions, and all the while facing the ongoing challenges of organizational inertia, the ambiguous and fluid nature of organizational life, and the force of circumstances outside one’s control. Persisting in this enterprise, as March puts it, requires “great commitments” grounded in “great hopes.” Yet, as he argues at length, what the evidence of decision-​making reveals is that such intelligent action, based on rational analysis, is often far less intelligent than many think and with far less impact on the achievement of intended outcomes than we expect. How, then, can what he terms an intelligent decision-​maker generate the required enthusiasm necessary for committed action. It is at this point, that the deficiencies of the logic-​of-​consequences lens are addressed, at least in part, by the logic of appropriateness. What can generate such enthusiasm is a commitment to realizing a set of ideals and values, reflecting and reflected in identities, irrespective of the pragmatic consequences of action (although the achievement of such pragmatic outcomes is, of course, desired and desirable). How the paradox of performance is addressed, therefore, will be—​and, for March, should be—​guided by identities and values that define what is an appropriate behavior in context—​over and above strategic pragmatic considerations. As identified in studies of identification and rhetoric, organizational identity, and institutional selves, this is exactly what occurs in organizations (Bauman and Raud 2015; Gulbrium and Holstein 2000; Hatch and Schulz 2004; Sloane 2001). How people grapple with the dilemmas and tensions inherent in the paradox of performance is only partly determined by pragmatic considerations. They are also affected by identity considerations, as a matter of fact and also of value. A reliance on a misleading and exaggerated logic of consequences to motivate and justify action in the face of inherent uncertainty in outcomes is insufficient and likely to result in disillusionment and deceit. In contrast, leaders and their followers require, as occurs

Richard Badham   289 in practice and as is needed for motivation, some “poetic” or aesthetic appreciation of actions worth doing for their own sake, grounded in conceptions of a life worth living and aspiring to—​not simply as a romantic ideal but as a pragmatic requirement.

Of Elegance and Balancing Acts An understanding of the paradox of performance arguably lends itself to a somewhat romantic view of the desirable role of the manager or leader as an elegant Machiavellian juggler, a tightrope walker, recognizing the contradictory nature of the performances that he or she is required to give, to himself or herself as well as to others, and developing the poise necessary to manage the inevitable balancing act. As observed by Bateson (1979) and re-​affirmed by Tsoukas and Chia (2002), the tightrope walker may appear to be stable, yet his or her whole life consists of making ongoing minor changes and responses in order to regain balance in the face of changing circumstances, changes that the inexperienced do not see or know how to handle. In maintaining this balance, the expertise is that of Gilbert Ryle’s (1949: 21) clown, the deliberateness, excellence, and heedfulness with which the clown exhibits his cleverness in his tripping and tumbling: “He trips and tumbles just as clumsy people do, except that he trips and tumbles on purpose and after much rehearsal and at the golden moment and where the children can see him and so as not to hurt himself.” Such a conscious, reflective, and poised performance is part of the elegance of the managerial performer in his or her response to the paradox of performance. March’s argument for an appreciation of such elegance extends, however, beyond that of strategic success. Human existence, as acknowledged in the consideration of leadership in great literature, is riven with dilemmas, including an appreciation of the limited evidence of effectiveness and success in pursuing intelligent action. Modern cultures provide support for both instrumentally rational and managerialist views of leadership performance as well as recognition of the existential limitations and entrapments of such pursuits (Bell 1996; Boltanski and Thevenot 2006; Taylor 2003). In a modern world characterized by a “heterogeneity of dissensions” (Bauman 2013: 251), part of the resonance and credibility of leaders requires an acknowledgment of such dilemmas. Rather than a simple romantic critique of managerialism, what such a balancing act requires of leaders is less dogmatic commitment to rational certainty, pragmatic consequences, and economic performance, and more appreciation (and communication) of the values and aesthetics of pragmatic action as well as those of its critics, promoting an awareness of “the elegance, dignity, charm and beauty of decision rituals” (March 1994: 218) as well as their human limitations. In conclusion, what March reveals, through his appreciation of not only plumbing and poetry, but also experience-​based and documented grounds for the poetry, is a tempered and considered balance between pragmatism and romanticism, modernity’s enduring commitment to both instrumentalism and expressivisim (Taylor 2003), in crafting a meaningful response to the lack of evidence of guaranteed success flowing

290    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity from intelligent action. This is represented in his consistent refusal to avoid the twin temptations of responding to this dilemma by either uncritically supporting or arrogantly dismissing either the rituals, rhetorics, strategies, and techniques of rationality or romantic and existential critiques of dogmatic commitment to what March (2003: 205), citing John Stuart Mill, terms the “completeness of a limited man.”

Conclusion It would be a surprise indeed if there were not paradoxical tensions in how we understand and approach paradox. One of the purposes of this chapter has been to draw on the work of James March to stimulate reflection on such issues, with a particular focus on how it addresses three embedded paradoxes of modernity—​of rationality, performance, and meaning. In conclusion, we will draw out some tentative implications of March’s analysis for those adopting a paradox perspective within organizational studies. In regard to the study of paradoxes, what the paradox of rationality sensitizes us to is the existence of pressures to provide a rational and certain view of the nature of such paradoxes and the value of the knowledge that is produced about them, while simultaneously recognizing the ambiguous, uncertain, and provisional nature of such knowledge claims and the fluid, contested, and emergent nature of the purposes for which they are employed. There are pressures to avoid or deny this tension, rather than live with and work through it, with all too understandable temptations to become either unreflective paradox hunters seeking out, capturing, and taming paradoxes for domesticated viewing or consumption or indulgent paradox romantics celebrating absurdity, complexity, and mess. Living with this paradox may be assisted by acknowledging the paradox of rationality and, in awareness of the tensions it generates, providing a tempered and self-​critical diagnosis of situational paradoxes and the outcomes of their surfacing and recognition. Such a stance may pursue and celebrate the insights obtained while recognizing that such findings represent at best “a modest beginning, as awareness of paradoxes and their interactions . . . complicates our very understanding of management” (Lüscher and Lewis 2008: 238). What the paradox of performance prepares us for is the challenge of communicating this understanding, to ourselves as well as others, as we (and others) wish to be motivated by the certainties we assert and uncover but also have to be made pragmatically aware of and communicate our uncertainties if we are to grapple effectively with the issues involved and, ultimately, give a resonant social performance. As Lüscher and Lewis went on to argue, adopting a paradox perspective in organizations requires courage, as managers seeking to navigate flexibly and contribute productively to change in adopting such a stance may be seen as inconsistent and unclear by their subordinates. A similar challenge of reception and performance exists for those seeking to communicate the paradoxical tensions in adopting a paradox perspective within organizational studies. The schizophrenic tour de force that March notes in regard to business school

Richard Badham   291 academics will, inevitably, be at play—​with tensions between a “culture of advice givers” advocating the provision of certain knowledge about how a paradox perspective will enhance performance, and a “culture of researchers” skeptical about the validity of the knowledge claims of a fashionable trend in organizational studies. Such tensions extend beyond the academic/​practice domain, to include different views of academic knowledge, with more or less recognition given to, on the one hand, precise analytic contributions and synthetic generalizations and, on the other, the capture of situational ambiguities and processual indeterminacy. Again, in living with and working through such paradoxes it may be wise to avoid, as noted earlier, the temptation of finding a resolution as a neat solution would suggest that the essential dilemma has been overcome (March and Sutton 1997: 705). Beyond the paradoxes of rationality and performance, what the paradox of meaning makes those developing and disseminating a paradox perspective aware of is what Augier and March (2011: 234) describe as the relevance of relevance. Much of the legitimation of knowledge produced within organizational studies, whether academic or practical, is in the grasp of what March et al. terms a utilitarian grip. This remains the case, even though criteria for and evidence of relevance and impact on performance is ambiguous, measurement imprecise, and meaning complex. As the paradox of meaning highlights, the impact of intelligent thought and action on the course of events is far more uncertain (and often less than) is hoped or assumed, and this opens up the question of the grounds on which a paradox perspective should be justified. Whether or not a paradox perspective is taken up and extended within organizational studies, whether or not it continues over time, will be affected by factors other than its intrinsic epistemological qualities. If we pursue March’s argument for an aesthetic, even poetic, rationale for intelligent thought and action, a case could be made for advocating an appreciation of the elegance and poise involved in the balancing act of recognizing, holding on to, and addressing the challenges of paradox, independent of performance outcomes and success over time. Such a rationale may be grounded in an enjoyment of the serious play of recognizing and handling paradox, and promoting the delights of a pluralistic cosmopolitan community respecting diverse perspectives and aware of contradictions in a collective “world in which ends collide” (Berlin 1962). It is important to note that this is not to come down on one (romantic) side of the twin poles of the paradox of meaning. As creatures of modernity we inevitably seek to expand the role of rationality and reason in human affairs and, as March is keen to emphasize, there are many arguments for the value of such an enterprise. There is also an aesthetic component to our technologies of reason that should not be ignored or under-​estimated. A pragmatic and utilitarian wrestling with the challenges of paradox can have a grace, meaning, delicacy, and elegance worthy of appreciation, independent of, and in addition to, its outcomes. If, however, we take seriously the limitations of strictly utilitarian arguments, then advocacy for a paradox perspective could be made into an example of what March (Augier and March 2011: 237) describes more broadly as the “opportunity for making management education and business schools both more useful and more meaningful and beautiful as well. That happy result is not likely to be

292    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity produced by some magical wand that eliminates conflict, but by unending confrontation of the inconsistent voices of a demanding soul.” A COMMENT James G. March, professor emeritus, Stanford University “Flattery”, my father used to say, “does not have to be believed to be enjoyed.” I am not sure that Richard Badham intended his essay as flattery, but I certainly enjoyed it as such. I have often quoted T. S. Eliot’s response to a comment on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “the analysis of ‘Prufrock’ . . . was an attempt to find out what the poem meant–​–​whether that was what I had meant it to mean or not. And for that I was grateful.” I am similarly grateful to Professor Badham. Professor Badham has identified a set of themes from my work, themes that I  think I  would also identify. I  suspect he exaggerates the consistency of what I have said in more than fifty years and fits me more into contemporary debate than I am comfortable being fit; but I think he has read the writings carefully and with understanding. It is, of course, somewhat embarrassing to see the extent to which my many thousands of words can be compressed to a few thousand, and I find it easy to imagine that not everything I have written finds precise expression in the chapter. As the Badham chapter suggests, I believe that life (including the life of scholarship) is much too serious to be sustained without a healthy dose of amusement and skepticism about our efforts to comprehend it. As I have observed from time to time, the destiny of each of us is death, of the species extinction, and of ideas supersession. Those destinies can be resisted with distinction and splendor, but they need not be mourned, particularly in this context. What Professor Badham describes is an enduring effort to celebrate scholarship as a monument to human foolishness, as testimony to the willingness of ordinary humans to confront the paradoxes and contradictions of human existence with neither great success nor unbearable despair. As I have engaged in the struggles that make us human, I hope that I both have seen the elements of absurdity in the struggles and also have taken pleasure, not only in our moments of apparent triumph but also in the beauties (when they are such) of our apparent failures. February 2016

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294    Reflections on the Paradoxes of Modernity Hatch, M., and Schultz, M. (eds). 2004. Organizational Identity: A Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kegan, R., and Lahey, L. 2009. Immunity to Change:  How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and your Organization. New York, NY: Perseus. Khurana, R. 2011. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kundera, M. 1984. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. New York, NY: Harper. Kundera, M. 1993. The Joke. New York, NY: Harper. Lanham, R. 1995. The Electronic Word. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lindblom, C. 1959. The science of muddling through. Public Administration Review, 19(2): 79–​88. Lüscher, L., and Lewis, M. 2008. Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 221–​40. March, J. G. 1978. Bounded rationality:  Ambiguity and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2): 587–​608. March, J. G. 1980 How we talk and how we act: Administrative theory and administrative life. September 25–​6. Seventh Henry D. David Lecture, University of Illinois: 1–​58. Reprinted in 1986. Leadership and Ambiguity, 2nd edn, edited by M. D. Cohen and J. G. March, 273–​90. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. March, J. G. 1988. The technology of foolishness. In Decisions and Organizations, edited by J. G. March, 253–​65. Oxford: Blackwell. March, J. G. 1991. Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1): 71–​87. March, J. G. 1992. The war is over and the victors have lost. Journal of Socio-​Economics, 21(3): 261–​7. March, J. G. 1994. A Primer on Decision Making. New York, NY: Free Press. March, J. G. 2003. A Scholar’s Quest. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12(3): 205–​7. March, J. G. 2006a. Rationality, foolishness and adaptive intelligence. Strategic Management Journal, 27: 201–​14. March, J. G. 2006b. Poetry and the rhetoric of management. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(1): 70–​2. March, J. G. 2007. Management and Don Quixote. HEC Paris. September 16. https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=bztgYMoTEjM. March, J. G. 2010. The Ambiguities of Experience. Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press. March, J. G. 2013. In praise of beauty. M@n@gement, 16(5): 732–​38. March, J. G., and Olsen, J. P. 1983. Organizing political life: What administrative reorganization tells us about government. American Political Science Review, 77: 281–​96. March, J. G., and Olsen, J. P. 1986. Garbage can models of decision making in organizations. In Ambiguity and Command: Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision Making., edited by J. G. March and R. Weissinger Baylon, 11–​35. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. March, J. G., and Olsen, J. P. 2009. The logic of appropriateness. In The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, edited by M. Moran, M. Rein, and R. Goodin, 689–​709. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. March, J. G., and Sutton, R. 1997. Organizational performance as a dependent variable. Organization Science, 8(6): 698–​706. March, J. G., and Weil, T. 2005. On Leadership. Oxford: Blackwell. McLoskey, D. 1994. Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

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Chapter 15

Parad ox at a n Inter-​F irm L ev e l A Coopetition Lens Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-​U llah

Paradox has become a critical topic in organizational research as it implies the existence of tensions that have the potential to affect firm performance (Lewis 2000 1; Smith and Lewis 2011). Paradoxes can manifest at multiple levels and are defined in general terms as “contradictory yet interrelated elements [dualities] that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 387). Despite sharing a common definition, a paradox arising at a particular level is nevertheless distinct from those occurring at other levels. For instance, a paradox that develops between firms (i.e., at the inter-​firm level) significantly differs from one that materializes within the firm (i.e., at the organizational level). Unlike organizational paradoxes that are pursued under the hierarchy and control of a single firm, inter-​firm paradoxes such as coopetition—​simultaneous pursuit of cooperation and competition between firms (Bengtsson and Kock 2000)—​involve two disparate firms with different goals, cultures, and strategic interests (Park and Ungson 2001). The lack of control and hierarchical structures in such settings encourage opportunistic behavior, unintended leakage of knowledge, and private appropriation of capabilities, which in turn increase the likelihood of premature dissolution of inter-​firm relationships (Park and Russo 1996). Moreover, external actors like government and influential customers can also affect the cooperative–​competitive interplay between firms (Mariani 2007). In contrast, for paradoxes emerging within organizations, managers may have greater power to decide how resources and activities should be allocated to different units within the firm, and therefore more easily balance competing demands like exploration and exploitation. Despite such differences, paradox research has paid little attention to inter-​firm paradoxes. We address this gap by exploring the inter-​firm paradox of cooperation–​competition between firms, also known as the coopetition paradox (Raza-​ Ullah, Bengtsson, and Kock 2014).

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    297 The coopetition literature suggests that coopetition is a beneficial strategy (Dagnino and Padula 2007) that combines the best of both cooperation and competition to achieve superior gains (Lado, Boyd, and Hanlon 1997). Firms are increasingly engaging in coopetition with some suggesting that over 50  percent of all cooperative relationships take place between existing competitors (Harbison and Pekar 1998). However, research findings also indicate that more than half of such relationships fail (Lunnan and Haugland 2008). Due to their paradoxical nature, coopetitive relationships are complex, tension-​ filled, and difficult to manage (Bengtsson, Raza-​Ullah, and Vanyushyn 2016; Fernandez, Le Roy, and Gnyawali 2014). Except for a few studies, the literature has yet not explicitly probed into the paradoxical nature of coopetition. Yet, working with the contradictory demands raised in such settings creates tension for managers. The tension in turn affects firm behavior and strategic actions that have consequences for the relationship and for firm performance. Inter-​firm paradoxes, therefore, deserve special attention. To this end, both the paradox and the coopetition literatures have largely remained scattered and disconnected despite the fact that they have great potential to complement and reinforce each other, and thus to advance the current understanding of paradoxical phenomena. We emphasize here the need to eclectically bind these streams of literature, and suggest a dynamic processual model of coopetition to provide a richer account of inter-​firm paradoxes. Central to our model is the concept of paradoxical tension that, we argue, is distinct from the notion of paradox itself, and we propose a multilevel operating capability to manage the paradox and tension. The chapter proceeds as follows. The first section discusses coopetition as an inter-​ firm paradox, its drivers, and its dynamic nature. The second explores the micro foundations of paradoxical tension—​cognitive and emotional ambivalence—​and how their interplay creates different states of tension. It further explicates how managers behave under different tension states and accordingly take strategic actions that in turn affect the paradox and performance outcomes. The third section lays out a preliminary understanding of the paradox and tension management capability required to enhance performance outcomes. The next section integrates the previous sections and presents a dynamic model of inter-​firm paradoxes. This is followed by the conclusion.

Coopetition as an Inter-​Firm Paradox The “coopetition paradox” refers to the simultaneous pursuit of contradictory yet interrelated logics of both cooperative and competitive interactions between firms (Raza-​ Ullah et  al. 2014). It materializes when competitors engage in alliances while still competing with each other, or when two partners become competitors but still maintain their partnership. These contradictory logics of interaction have traditionally been described as the antithesis of each other. The competition logic is based on the orthodox economic approach which suggests that competing firms lower prices, increase innovation levels, and gain distinctive competitive advantages by creating unique value for

298    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level customers (e.g., Porter 1991). Competitive interactions involve action and response dynamics between firms. The frequency, speed, and scope of these moves and countermoves determine the intensity of competition between firms (Chen and Miller 2012). Cooperation with a competitor from this perspective has largely been considered as collusion, which has negative connotations, as it would hamper competitive dynamics and potentially hurt customers. Thus, a successful firm is seen as one that has the capability to fight (and not to cooperate) with other firms and win competitive battles. On the contrary, the cooperative logic, building for example on social network theory, suggests that successful firms cooperate with partners to acquire social capital and knowledge for efficiency and innovation gains (Ahuja 2000; Burt 2005). Trust, commitment, and closeness are important to obtain these advantages, and competition tends to jeopardize such endeavors. Successful partnerships are thus described as based on fully collaborative game structures without competition.

Drivers of Inter-​Firm Paradoxes However, these assumptions have been challenged as fast-​paced, converging, and complex industries have either compelled or provoked firms to become involved in both types of interactions simultaneously. Coopetitive relationships are broadly triggered by macro and micro forces. First, macro forces consist of demands emerging within industries, technological systems, or other contexts of interconnected organizations. These demands vary depending on the type of network or system in which the focal firm is embedded (Peng and Bourne 2009). Many technologies are systemic in nature (Winter 1998), and require the combination of several complementary technologies (Teece 1987). Therefore, numerous components and competencies from multiple firms are combined into larger platforms or architectures (Garud and Kumaraswamy 1995). Firms cooperate to acquire components that they do not manufacture themselves, often subscribing to system-​wide open standards to secure the compatibility between their own and others’ parts of a system. The situation, however, also includes competitive interactions, as many of these firms belong to the same industry and are in any case directly or indirectly competing with each other. Firms often differentiate themselves from competitors through innovation and by developing their own products that fit into the system. Further, they can be proactive in shaping the standards as well as striving to build their own product specifications directly into these standards. Other macro forces such as converging markets and technologies, short product life cycles, and increasing customization (Gnyawali and Park 2011) also compel rival firms to collaborate with each other. Moreover, influential stakeholders such as government, policymakers, and customers can drive firms to simultaneously cooperate and compete (Ho and Ganesan 2013; Mariani 2007). Second, micro forces such as firm-​specific aspirations drive firms to engage in coopetition. Firms constantly scan the environment to proactively exploit several coopetitive opportunities to enhance their performance goals. For example, firms confronting

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    299 rapid technological change tend to seek the best partners who are often capable competitors to complement their capabilities (Garud and Kumaraswamy 1995), penetrate into new markets (Luo 2007), and move higher up in the value chain (Daidj and Jung 2011). Thus by pursuing coopetition, firms leverage critical resources (Rothaermel and Boeker 2008), set industry standards (Gnyawali and Park 2011), and increase their bargaining power and competitiveness (Gnyawali and Park 2009). Furthermore, they may terminate some relationships and forge new ones to maneuver and explore opportunities and adapt to the demands of an evolving technological system. Coopetitive experience and a coopetitive mindset also play a key role in forming coopetitive relationships. Taken together the macro and micro drivers push and pull firms to involve themselves in coopetitive relationships. These drivers do not work in isolation but are interrelated, overlapping, and thus affect each other.

The Dynamic Nature of Inter-​Firm Paradoxes The coopetition literature suggests that the macro and micro drivers shape and reshape the inter-​firm paradox such that the relative strength of the paradoxical elements (i.e., cooperation and competition) undergoes a dynamic change over time (Raza-​Ullah et al. 2014). For example, based on an empirical study of buyer–​supplier coopetition in the Chinese home appliance industry, Liu, Luo, Yang, and Maksimov (2014) show that the drive to share a distribution channel (to jointly reduce costs) strengthens cooperation in the relationship, but firms’ aspiration to improve their own market position (through investments in their own brand) at the same time intensifies competition. Sometimes, while cooperation dominates competition or vice versa, at other times, both cooperation and competition could increase or decrease in their strength simultaneously. This buyer–​ supplier coopetition study sheds light on such dynamics by illustrating how these vertical dyads tend to combine varying degrees of cooperation and competition over time. The coopetition literature depicts the dynamic nature of the paradox by conceptualizing it in terms of two continua, which can be expressed on a 2 x 2 grid (e.g., Bengtsson, Eriksson, and Wincent 2010; Luo 2007) as shown in Figure 15.1. The horizontal and vertical axes represent the two contradictory elements of competition and cooperation (ranging from low to high) respectively. The balanced curve shows both elements increasing or decreasing in strength in consonance with each other simultaneously. In contrast, the unbalanced curve shows how one of the elements dominates the other such that firms are either engaging in intense competition but weak cooperation or vice versa. In such situations, the paradox would be unbalanced and weak (i.e., either competition-​dominated or cooperation-​dominated). The paradox would also be weak when both elements are weak, although still in opposition (i.e., weak balanced paradox). The paradox would be strong only when both cooperation and competition are intense and strongly opposing (i.e., strong balanced paradox). This implies that the paradox has a dynamic nature such that it could be balanced at one time and unbalanced at another.

High

300    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level

Cooperation dominated

Strong balanced

COOPERATION

Balanced curve Unbalanced curve

Weak balanced Low

Competition dominated

Low

High COMPETITION

Figure 15.1  Different degrees of strength of the coopetition paradox

The description of coopetition in terms of two orthogonal continua further advances the understanding of the both/​and logic of the paradox described in the paradox literature (Cameron and Quinn 1988; Smith and Lewis 2011). One can thereby see all the possible combinations of cooperation and competition, which are not possible if the contradictory elements are seen as two poles on one continuum with cooperation on one end and competition on the other. One continuum rather represents the either/​ or logic of a dilemma or trade-​off. Therefore, we suggest that the paradox ought to be conceptualized on two continua, and the word “pole” should be used with caution to describe the “two opposing elements” of the paradox because “two opposing poles” might be misinterpreted to mean the poles of a single continuum.

Paradoxical Tension The concept of paradoxical tension is “often the broadest, most ambiguous of the concepts, and the one that scholars frequently use to signify all paradoxical dynamics” (Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016: 68). That is why sometimes the terms paradox and tension are used interchangeably without establishing a clear distinction, both in the paradox and coopetition literatures (e.g., Jarvenpaa and Wernick 2011; Wilhelm 2011). For instance, Leclercq-​Vandelannoitte (2013: 557) refers to tension and paradox identically as “tensions between control and empowerment . . . paradoxes between freedom and servitude.” Similarly, Vince and Broussine (1996: 7) conceptualize paradox as the “tensions between clarity and uncertainty.” We argue that it is important to distinguish the two concepts so that paradoxical tension can be explored beyond the opposing elements that constitute the paradox.

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    301 The conceptual ambiguity arises when tension is regarded as an inter-​firm or organizational-​level construct just like the paradox. We suggest that in contrast to the underlying paradox such as coopetition that materializes through inter-​firm cooperative and competitive interactions, tension can be seen as an individual-​level construct that signifies managers’ felt or experienced level of difficulty in pursuing contradictory demands simultaneously. Except for a few previous attempts to describe tension as a feeling or an experienced state (e.g., Raza-​Ullah and Bengtsson 2014; Smith and Lewis 2011), studies of micro-​level individual approaches to paradoxical tension are scarce (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016). In this section, we consider tension as a manager’s internally felt state that comprises cognitions, emotions, and their interplay in paradoxical situations like coopetition. We therefore treat tension as a cognitive–​emotional construct.

The Cognitive and Emotional Aspects of Tension Specifically, we define paradoxical tension as the difficulty that managers experience when they pursue simultaneous contradictory demands inherent to the paradox, and cognitively as well as emotionally feel torn between opposing directions. In the case of the coopetition paradox, such contradictory demands may include value creation and value appropriation (Lavie 2007), collective benefits and private gains (Khanna, Gulati, and Nohria 1998), and knowledge-​sharing and knowledge-​protecting (Ho and Ganesan 2013). The more managers get involved in pursuing both dimensions of the contradiction simultaneously and the more intense and consequential such contradictions are, the higher would be the tension. A recent study of coopetitive relationships within the IT and telecom industry for example shows that top executives deeply concerned with both cooperative and competitive interactions and their consequences experienced high levels of tension, while engineers mainly involved in cooperative interactions felt low levels of tension, although the underlying paradox was the same (Bengtsson and Johansson 2012). Working with contradictions activates processes of cognition (what we think), emotion (what we feel), and their interplay. Cognition refers to thinking, appraisals, and judgments. In coopetitive settings, managers tend to cognitively evaluate both sides of the contradictory logic. Bengtsson and Johansson (2012) for instance, show that managers in small telecom firms appraised partnerships with large innovative firms as rewarding because large partners have broad networks, resources, and potential to create more value. However, at the same time, managers were aware that such dominant partners are well positioned to seize a bigger share of the value created, even at their firm’s expense (Lavie 2007). Thus cognitions are likely to clash, as the two opposing logics of value creation and value appropriation seem to pull managers in opposite directions. Such a state in which two opposite cognitions (both positive and negative) exist can be considered as cognitive ambivalence.

302    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level Cognitive appraisal theories suggest that thinking and feeling go hand in hand such that when people appraise an event, they feel positive or negative emotions (Lazarus 1991; Plutchik 1994). Research evidence shows that specific cognitions have a strong relationship with specific emotions (e.g., Reisenzein and Hofmann 1990; Smith and Lazarus 1993). Whereas positive emotions are contingent on an evaluation of a particular type of benefit, negative emotions arise in response to a specific type of harm or threat (Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, and Pope 1993). Thus, managers may feel emotionally positive by sharing knowledge and resources with the partner that likely increase for instance their private learning as well as help solving joint problems. However, at the same time, they may have negative feelings if the partner is stealing knowledge, winning the learning race, or outcompeting them in the market. Such an emotional state in which managers have both positive and negative feelings, known as emotional ambivalence (e.g., Pratt and Doucet 2000), is found to be highly prevalent in coopetitive contexts (Raza-​Ullah et  al. 2014). Under emotional ambivalence, managers would feel torn between conflicting impulses and this in turn can influence their thinking and appraisals. Emotions can influence cognitions either by interfering with cognitions and redirecting the focus to themselves, or by serving cognitions in a constructive manner (Elfenbein 2007). Therefore, when thoughts generate a variety of positive and negative emotions, emotions in turn affect appraisals in the future and give rise to new thoughts and understandings (Huy 2010). Thus, a cyclical process of cognition and emotion takes place resulting in cognitive and emotional ambivalence respectively. Taken together, cognitive and emotional ambivalence and the interplay between both produce paradoxical (or coopetitive) tension1. For example, De Rond (2003) through in-​depth case studies of major biotechnology alliances demonstrates how ambivalent cognitions and emotions emerge. Managers were both content (“I smiled. As long as the collaboration was developing it was a good thing, from my point of view. It meant that we not only got skills in lead optimization but also in lead discovery”) (De Rond and Bouchikhi 2004: 62), and angry (“Yes, but they stole from us and we hate them”) (2004: 76).

States of Tension and their Effect on Strategic Behavior and the Paradox Tension is a function of both the similarity and the intensity dimensions of positive and negative cognitions–​emotions (SIM model; Thompson, Zanna, and Griffin 1995) and the degree of tension varies. The similarity aspect highlights how alike in opposition the 1 

As coopetitive tension is caused by the pursuit of two contradictory logics, it is distinct from related notions such as competitive tension, threat, or conflict. Such tensions are fundamentally unidimensional as they exclusively refer to one side of the coin. For instance, competitive tension relates to the strain caused by competitive moves and countermoves (Chen, Kuo-​Hsien, and Tsai, 2007), and not the tension that develops as a result of working with both competition and cooperation.

High

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    303

More focus on cooperative issues

Likely dissolution

Undue trust

Nonexistent or a trivial paradox

Positive cognition-emotion

106–112

TH

Delays in decision-making Ineffective communication

Defensive behavior

Gather more info to TM make better decisions

Avoidance Balanced & sustained paradox

Opportunities pursued/ vulnerabilities monitored Active involvement in creative win-win Little or no possibilites (proactive) concern about More focus on new opportunities and competitive issues potential risks Reduced sharing of knowledge Passive behavior TL1 TL3 Preemptive behavior

Low

Likely dissolution

Knowledge leakage

Over-embeddedness Increased group-think

TL2

Negative cognition-emotion

Likely dissolution High

Figure 15.2  States of tension, managerial responses, and effects on the paradox

conflicting valences are and the intensity aspect emphasizes how extreme they are (Fong and Tiedens 2002). Figure 15.2 shows different states of tension expressed as TL1, TL2, TL3, TM, and TH in each box. High cognitive ambivalence and high emotional ambivalence respectively exist when two opposing agendas are sought simultaneously and when two opposing emotions are simultaneously felt at similarly high levels of intensity. Thus tension would be high when both the positive and the negative cognitions–​emotions are seemingly similar at high levels of intensity (box TH). For example, in an experimental study, Fong and Tiedens (2002) show that women in high status positions experienced higher levels of ambivalence than those in lower positions. Tension was higher because they were torn between the contradictory issues of relational and power goals and between positive and negative emotions. Moderate tension (box TM) would exist when the opposing valences of the cognitions–​emotions are seemingly similar at a moderately intense level. Low tension is of two types: first, when the valences are alike in opposition but the intensity level is very weak (box TL1) and, second, when both conflicting valences are not same in opposition such that one valence overly dominates the other (boxes TL2, TL3). Figure 15.2 is interlinked with Figure 15.1 such that a strong paradox (i.e., strong balanced) and weak paradox (i.e., weak balanced, cooperation-​dominated, or competition-​ dominated) are related to high or low tension respectively. A  recent study of a multi-​industry sample of 1,532 Swedish firms confirms this by showing that coopetitive tension experienced by managers depends on the relative strength of the coopetition paradox (Bengtsson et al. 2016).

304    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level The cognition–​emotion literature suggests that ambivalence can result in both functional (Fong 2006; Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies 1998) and dysfunctional (Harrist 2006; Stratton 2005) behavior. However little is known about which states of ambivalence (i.e., tension) hurt or help behavioral outcomes. We propose and discuss below that a moderate state of tension is beneficial for constructive behavior while levels of tension that are too high or too low are not. Figure 15.2 depicts such behavior of managers under each state of tension (articulated in each box). We argue that tensions experienced by top managers affect their behavior, which in turn influences firm’s strategic actions vis-​à-​vis the other coopetitive firm. This is in line with Huy (2012) who suggests that emotions felt by a few but very important managers such as top executives have important consequences for the firm. Figure 15.2 also shows how such behavior and thus the firm’s action further impact the paradoxical (i.e., coopetitive) relationship (text with dotted arrows outside each box). We start with tension TL2, which is considered low because managers would not be torn between the opposite valences of cognitions–​emotions. As mentioned above and shown in Figure 15.2 under TL2, positive cognitions–​emotions override the negative ones. This is because TL2 results from a cooperation-​dominated weak paradox. High cooperative endeavors such as joint value creation or solving a joint problem likely gives rise to strong positive cognitions–​emotions. Further, low competitive orientations between firms would imply that negative perceptions and feelings are relatively lower than the positive counterparts. Although this seems beneficial, the behavioral outcomes could be harmful. For instance, too much trust or lack of distrust in the partner might open the door to opportunistic behavior, which could eventually ruin the relationship (Lewicki et al. 1998). To exemplify, consider the Google–​Apple coopetition paradox (Raza-​Ullah et al. 2014). Both firms were considered as strong partners. Google’s CEO even informally used the label “AppleGoo” for a prospective merger, and sat on Apple’s board of directors. The relationship seemed to be imbued by trust with no measures taken to verify it. Eventually, the launch of Android OS, which the late Apple CEO believed was a stolen product, given free to manufacturers by Google (Isaacson 2011) resulted in the termination of closer ties. For a sustainable coopetitive relationship, firms need to get close to each other but also need to keep a reasonable distance. Thus, in a cooperation-​dominated weak paradox, tension (TL2) has to be geared up to better look at the complete picture of the situation including the negative concerns. Being overly positive toward the partner leads to a likely dissolution of relationship in the longer term. Further, if tension is not increased, the excessive commitment to each other can result in over-​embeddedness (Uzzi 1996), groupthink (Pouder and John 1996), and limited creativity and willingness to explore new possibilities. In a similar fashion, tension (TL3) highlights a situation where negative feelings and thoughts such as distrust dominate positive ones. Managers think that the partner is mainly concerned with its private interests, and may feel annoyed because the partner has used their important knowledge in its products or services without permission. After the launch of the Android OS, the Apple–​Google relationship turned from cooperation-​ dominated to competition-​ dominated. With heightened distrust and

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    305 anger, the late Apple CEO threatened to destroy Android (Isaacson 2011), which in turn resulted in the termination of the Apple–​Google cooperative relationship. Lack of trust and higher distrust could further instigate preemptive behavior, where it is believed that the best offense is a good defense (Lewicki et al. 1998). Thus under TL3, managers tend to not share knowledge considering each other more like foes than friends. The coopetitive relationship between Ford and Volkswagen was terminated prematurely because managers perceiving each other as enemies were not willing to share their marketing strategies and design skills (Park and Ungson 2001). Tension is considered high (TH) when managers are highly torn between the strong clashing cognitions and between strong conflicting emotions because both cooperative and competitive sides of the paradox are strong and both have their own worth. High tension affects one’s ability to function well such that “an overwhelming degree of ambivalence involves feeling ‘stuck’, feeling powerless and unable to make decisions and to move on” (Harrist 2006: 89). In such a state, managers would not be able to make quick decisions, or communicate effectively, and would use extra resources to deal with coopetitive issues. Moreover, they may leak important knowledge due to the cognitive overload and emotional stress that can further limit their ability to decide on what should (and what should not) be shared (Jarvenpaa and Majchrzak 2016). The partner can read such behavior, interpret it as focal firm weakness, and consequently dominate it (Rothman 2011), or exploit the firm to its own advantage. This would likely result in an unstable relationship as the partner might break the relationship considering that the firm is not equally competent. One of the main reasons for the Volkswagen–​Suzuki partnership failure was that Volkswagen started to consider Suzuki as its associate and not as a qualified equal (Mukai, Hagiwara, and Kitamura 2011). Another likely reaction to high tension is defensive in nature in which actors try to reduce or eliminate high degrees of tension by tipping toward their preferred side (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009)—​that is, a move to either TL2 or TL3. An empirical study of six public service organizations highlights that ambivalent emotions such as simultaneous pessimism and optimism give rise to such counterproductive defenses (Vince and Broussine 1996). Moreover, avoidance or escapist behavior may be carried out to reduce the high levels of tension potentially moving managers to TL1. In case of low tension (TL1), both positive and negative aspects of cognitions–​ emotions are negligibly (or very weakly) considered and felt. In such a state, managers would tend to think and feel relatively little about the potential opportunities as well as the threats and risks. Scholars argue that such kinds of situations are likely to be ignored by managers as they are considered to have little impact on behavior (Ashforth, Rogers, Pratt, and Pradies 2014). As a result, firms tend to either not engage in cooperative and competitive interactions (i.e., no coopetition paradox), or do so in an extremely limited (unnoticeable) manner (i.e., a trivial paradox). Lastly, in the case of moderate tension (TM), the opposite valences are neither too strong nor too weak. Also one valence does not largely overwhelm the other. Tension remains at a reasonable level such that it builds the necessary pressure and the required motivation to successfully work through contradictions. Thus managers in this state

306    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level would be able to make informed decisions, understand the rationale for simultaneous cooperation and competition, and would keep a balanced view of things. Furthermore, they would embark on the potential opportunities and continually monitor the risks and vulnerabilities that arise in the coopetitive process. The moderate tension thus allows them to be proactive in creating new win–​win possibilities. In an experimental study, Fong (2006) shows that individuals experiencing ambivalence demonstrate greater ability to identify unusual associations between concepts, which are believed to be very critical for organizational creativity. With moderate tension, the firm’s actions would likely be geared toward balancing the cooperative and competitive interactions, as well as sustaining the balanced paradox.

Managing Paradox and Tension Several strategies such as separation (i.e., splitting of paradoxical elements in space, time, or level), third-​party involvement (i.e., a third party is hired to control tension), and integration (i.e., addressing contradictory elements simultaneously) have been suggested to deal with paradoxical tension both in the paradox and coopetition literatures (Bengtsson and Kock 2000; Poole and Van de Ven 1989). These strategies are important yet insufficient to handle tension for three main reasons. First, as paradox and tension are often conceptualized in the same way, the main focus of these strategies has remained on addressing the paradox (e.g., coopetition) and not on the resultant tension experienced by managers as discussed above. Second, separation and third-​party strategies are used to reduce or eliminate tension, which implies that tension is detrimental by default and thus should be avoided. However, as we discussed earlier, tension must exist up to a moderate level, and managing the paradox “does not imply avoiding, fighting or even resolving tensions, but tapping their energy” (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009: 106). Third, regardless of whether a separation or a third-​party strategy is implemented, the top executives are ultimately involved in integrating both contradictory agendas at higher levels (Eisenhardt, Furr, and Bingham 2010). Such integration strategies still cause tension, as they are very much the same as pursuing the paradox and working with contradictory elements. Yet the literature lacks understanding of how the tensions as such can be managed. In this section, we provide a rudimentary understanding of the nature of the required capability to manage the coopetition paradox and the resulting tension such that the former is balanced and the latter is moderately felt.2 We suggest that such a capability mainly addresses three levels—​one at which the paradox occurs (e.g., inter-​firm level in a coopetitive setting), second the level at which tension is felt (i.e., managerial 2  We suggest that it important to manage both the tension and its trigger (i.e., the paradox) for positive outcomes. This is because both the paradox and tension affect each other. The ideal situation would be having a balanced paradox and a moderate level of resulting tension.

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    307 level), and third the level at which the strategic action takes place (i.e., firm level). The capability at an inter-​firm level can build on the notions of analytical capability (Gnyawali, Madhavan, He, and Bengtsson 2016), paradoxical or ambidextrous thinking (Eisenhardt 2000; Eisenhardt et al. 2010), paradoxical frames (Smith and Tushman 2005), and cognitive complexity (Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995). Capability at this level comes into play right from the outset—​that is, at the formation stage of the paradoxical relationship. This capability enables firms to identify and select the right firms to engage in coopetition, to cognitively host contradictions but still function effectively, and to determine and address issues that could cause potential relationship instability. The required capability at the managerial level can be understood by referring to the literature on emotions, and particularly that related to emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso 2004), emotional regulation (Hochschild 1983), and emotional capability (Huy 1999). Although the emotions literature has largely emphasized managing discrete emotions, its insights can also be used to address ambivalent emotions and cognitions. Capability at this level would help managers to accept, understand, and regulate emotional ambivalence and its negative effects (Raza-​Ullah and Bengtsson 2014). Acceptance refers to embracing rather than avoiding emotions. It further implies that feeling both positive and negative emotions is natural in paradoxical relationships. Understanding reflects the capacity to make sense of why ambivalent emotions such as trust and distrust arise, interpret cues attached to both positive and negative emotions, and recognize the adverse implications if both emotions are avoided or only favorable emotions are felt and accepted (e.g., Mayer et al. 2004). Regulation involves controlling the expression of low or high ambivalence to the partner by surface acting (displaying emotions that are actually not felt) such that the partner may not draw negative inferences, such as that the focal firm is uninterested, indecisive, or incompetent (Grandey 2003; Hochschild 1983). Regulation of low and high emotional ambivalence to a moderate level and its display would send a positive signal that the focal firm is competent enough to create and maintain a profitable relationship. However, surface acting alone may not be sufficient and may need to be complemented and then replaced with deep acting (displaying emotions that are actually felt). For instance, if tensions are low, managers could try to increase (and balance) the intensities of the trigger (i.e., cooperation, competition, or both) to match displayed emotions with emotions felt. The required capability at the firm level refers to the strategic actions that the focal firm takes to create and maintain balanced coopetitive relationships such that the tension felt is moderate. Such strategic actions include for example, changing the scope and content of coopetitive relationships (Mom, Van Den Bosch, and Volberda 2009), developing behavioral repertoires or alternative strategies to deal with the changing demands of such relationships (Eisenhardt et  al. 2010), balancing the contradictory demands without jeopardizing common objectives (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004), and establishing routines, processes, and rules of thumb to act in certain ways in the face of low or high tension. A recent study has operationalized this capability and found that

308    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level it positively moderates the relationship between paradox and tension (Bengtsson et al. 2016). Capabilities at different levels overlap and reinforce each other, and collectively contribute to managing tension and the coopetition paradox. For instance, capability at the inter-​firm level also addresses cognitive ambivalence at the managerial level because paradoxical thinking also facilitates integration of contradictory agendas. Similarly, strategic actions are very much influenced by how well managers are dealing with tension (at the managerial level). Taken together, these capabilities would help managers to buffer high tension (TH), reinforce low tension (TL1), counterpoise low tension (TL2, TL3), and ultimately attain the moderate state of tension (TM).

A Dynamic Model of Inter-​Firm Paradox The discussion so far has led us to suggest a dynamic processual model of inter-​firm paradoxes in general, and of the coopetition paradox in particular. As illustrated in Figure 15.3, the model integrates six critical and interlinked contingencies that are present in the paradoxical process but can appear in various ways. The first contingency is that macro and micro drivers either oblige or motivate firms to simultaneously cooperate and compete with each other and thus a paradox (second contingency) materializes. The coopetition paradox spurs several contradictory demands for managers and working with such contradictions activates the process of managerial cognitions (thinking) and emotions (feelings). The ambivalent nature of cognitions and emotions and the interplay between them represent tension—​the third contingency of the process. The different states of tension will affect the behavior of top managers (fourth contingency) in certain ways. We suggest that a moderate state of tension helps, and, low and high states hurt behavioral outcomes. Under a moderate state, the strategic actions of top

Macro and micro drivers

ith g w ions n i k r ct Wo tradi n o c

Paradox

Coopetitive Performance

Paradoxical tension Interplay between thinking & feeling

Capability

Behavior Stra t Act egic ion

Figure 15.3  The dynamic model of coopetition

Maria Bengtsson and Tatbeeq Raza-Ullah    309 executives (i.e., the firm’s action) will gear up to balance the paradox (first contingency), which is crucial to enhance performance (Das and Teng 2000). We have included a fifth contingency of coopetitive performance in the model, because the whole process is initiated to eventually realize performance goals. Coopetitive performance can be seen both in terms of the sustainability of the relationship, and the realization of gains such as enhanced innovation, financial performance, market expansion, and knowledge acquisition from coopetition. As long as the process involves a balanced paradox and a moderate state of tension, it will spur virtuous cycles and performance would be enhanced. However, the chances of self-​balanced relationships in practice are very rare. This also explains why the majority of alliances ultimately fail. Often, alliances are either formed between strong rivals requiring closer cooperation such as between Sony and Samsung (Gnyawali and Park 2011), or are overly dominated by one of the contradictory interactions. This would result in high or low states of tension that would further spur vicious circles, as the responses would either exacerbate the dominating/​favorable side of interaction, or inhibit managers from changing and balancing the paradox. Such a vicious circle would eventually dissolve the paradox or make it trivial, both of which will result in lower (or no) coopetitive performance. To enable virtuous cycles, firms need an essential capability at multiple levels (sixth contingency). This capability at different levels overlaps and collectively contributes to keep tensions at a moderate level, which helps firms to balance the paradox, sustain it, and thus enhance coopetitive performance.

Conclusion In this chapter we focused on coopetition as a manifestation of paradox at an inter-​ firm level. We threw light on the antecedents, nature, and resulting tensions associated with the coopetition paradox. We further explored different states of tension and their impact on managers’ behavior or the firm’s action in changing the dynamics of the paradox, which in turn affects performance outcomes. To achieve superior performance, we suggested a multilevel operating capability to manage the paradoxical process. This chapter and our theory of the coopetition paradox at the inter-​firm level provide several useful insights to advance the research on paradoxes at an organizational level as well. First, we emphasize the need to clearly distinguish the concept of paradox from that of paradoxical tension. Whereas the notion of paradox refers to the simultaneous interactions of contradictory logics such as exploration and exploitation, tension is the felt consequence of working with contradictory demands and involves ambivalent cognitions, emotions, and their interplay. This provides novel insights to study tension as a cognitive–​emotional construct at an individual level unlike the underlying paradox that exists at the inter-​firm or organizational level. Second, the chapter highlights the importance of conceptualizing paradox on two continua instead of seeing its contradictory

310    Paradox at an Inter-Firm Level elements as opposite poles on a single continuum. The two continua conceptualization truly depicts the both/​and and the dynamic nature of the paradox, which further makes it possible to see both contradictory elements (e.g., exploration and exploitation) decreasing or increasing simultaneously. Third, the chapter offers a nuanced understanding of different states of tension and further suggests how a moderate level of tension helps, while states of low or high tension hinder the achievement of superior outcomes. In addition, the chapter lays down a preliminary foundation for considering the required capabilities that operate at multiple levels to bring low and high states of tension towards a moderate level, to maintain this, and consequently sustain a balanced paradox. Finally, the chapter suggests a dynamic processual model of the inter-​firm paradox of coopetition that has potential to be generalized to other levels.

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Chapter 16

Pathways to Ambidext e ri t y A Process Perspective on the Exploration–​E xploitation Paradox Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann

Learning tensions between exploration and exploitation are the paradoxical relationship that has attracted the greatest research attention in recent years (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). Exploration, which relates to radical innovation and experimentation (Benner and Tushman 2003), enables firms to respond to discontinuities. Exploitation, which refers to incremental innovation and refinement (March 1991), allows firms to increase their operational efficiency. A lively scholarly debate on the ambidexterity hypothesis has emerged, claiming that firms’ ability to balance exploration and exploitation is associated with superior long-​term firm performance (Lavie, Stettner, and Tushman 2010; O’Reilly and Tushman 2013; Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008). The eternal challenge behind the ambidexterity concept is that exploration and exploitation form a paradoxical relationship (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Smith and Lewis 2011): while their simultaneous pursuit gives rise to organizational tensions that are difficult to reconcile (Gupta, Smith, and Shalley 2006; March 1991), exploration and exploitation are also complementary, mutually enabling forces that coexist and persist over time (Farjoun 2010; Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, and Tushman 2009). The managerial objective is thus not to resolve or overcome their contradictory relationship, but to accept these dual forces’ interdependent nature and, thus, engage in an ongoing process of “coping with” (Handy 1994) and “working through” (Smith and Berg 1987) this learning paradox. The extant ambidexterity literature provides an extensive range of approaches that allow organizations and their managers to address exploration–​exploitation tensions

316   Pathways to Ambidexterity (see Lavie et al. 2010; Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008; Simsek, Heavey, Veiga, and Souder 2009 for reviews). The most prominent approaches fall into three categories (O’Reilly and Tushman 2013): structural ambidexterity, contextual ambidexterity, and sequential ambidexterity. Structural ambidexterity suggests that organizations address exploration–​exploitation tensions by coordinating structurally separated exploration and exploitation activities (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996; O’Reilly and Tushman 2008). Contextual ambidexterity proposes designing a behavioral context that enables organizational members to divide their time between exploration and exploitation activities (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004; Im and Rai 2008). Finally, sequential ambidexterity argues that organizations temporarily alternate between exploratory and exploitative organizational architectures (Boumgarden, Nickerson, and Zenger 2012; Siggelkow and Levinthal 2003). Despite these rich insights into exploration–​exploitation tensions and the different managerial approaches to address them, scholars have repeatedly criticized the ambidexterity literature for its rather static accounts (Lavie et al. 2010; Zimmermann, Raisch, and Birkinshaw 2015). From a paradox perspective, exploration–​exploitation tensions are persistent over time and addressing them requires ongoing managerial efforts (Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). In this chapter, we argue that organizations facing exploration–​exploitation tensions tend to experience three distinctive stages of managing these tensions. In the initiation stage, they identify the paradox and define a strategic plan to address it. In the subsequent contextualization stage, they design the organizational structures, cultures, and processes to manage the tensions. In the implementation stage, they work through the paradox in their daily operations. By conceptualizing and comparing different pathways that organizations take to navigate these stages, we aim at shifting the ambidexterity debate’s focus from a rather static approach to a process orientation that reflects current paradox thinking (Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith 2014). Our main insight is that the different pathways to paradox management create a certain path dependency. Dependent on their initial framing of the paradox, organizations make specific contextualization choices, which subsequently affect the nature of the implementation process. Given these path-​dependent effects, early organizational choices permit building paradox management capabilities over time, but also imply the risk of causing reinforcing processes, which eventually reduce the organization’s flexibility for addressing new, emergent paradoxical tensions. The process perspective developed in this chapter helps unravel these dynamics and their underlying causes. Building upon these insights, we argue in favor of balancing path-​dependent and path-​breaking approaches to paradox management. Our integrative model suggests that the different pathways to managing the paradox are less mutually exclusive than often suggested. We argue that shifting between pathways is not only possible, but may even be required to sustain paradox management’s effectiveness. However, such combinative approaches demand that organizations break their path dependency when shifts to alternative paradox management approaches are required. Future research should thus

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    317 explore how organizations manage the duality of path-​dependent and path-​breaking activities in paradox management.

Theory Background In today’s globalized business contexts, organizations are increasingly forced to manage paradoxes—​persistent contradictions between interdependent elements—​which require them to structure and manage their activities in new ways (Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). In response to this trend, a large academic literature has emerged around the ambidexterity concept. This literature is focused on understanding how organizations manage exploration–​exploitation tensions (Lavie et al. 2010; Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008). As suggested by March (1991), exploration and exploitation are fundamentally different learning processes competing for firms’ limited financial and managerial resources. Owing to these learning activities’ competing logics, organizations have difficulties achieving a balance between them (Gupta et al. 2006). However, focusing on just one of these activities can lead to self-​reinforcing effects, with either exploitation reducing exploration activities (Ahuja and Lampert 2001), or exploration driving out exploitation activities (Levinthal and March 1993). Despite their inherent contradictions, firms need to balance exploration and exploitation to obtain superior long-​term performance (He and Wong 2004; Junni, Sarala, Taras, and Tarba 2013). Ambidexterity scholars therefore propose a range of organizational approaches to reconcile the dual learning activities’ contradictory requirements. In their review of the ambidexterity literature, O’Reilly and Tushman (2013) recently classified these approaches into three broad categories:  structural ambidexterity (O’Reilly and Tushman 2008), contextual ambidexterity (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004), and sequential ambidexterity (Boumgarden et al. 2012). While all three categories focus on the organizational structures, cultures, and processes enabling the pursuit of exploration and exploitation, they vary strongly in the specific configurations they propose. Structural ambidexterity describes both differentiation and integration as core elements in a firm’s ability to explore and exploit (Jansen, Tempelaar, Van den Bosch, and Volberda 2009; Tushman and O’Reilly 1996). Established organizations create structurally separated exploratory units alongside their exploitative core units. While differentiation allows the exploratory units to develop new skills, tactical integration enables them to leverage the core organization’s existing capabilities (O’Reilly and Tushman 2008). The distance between the two units protects the new unit’s exploratory activities from the established units’ inertial forces (Carlile 2004). However, structural ambidexterity is not without its downsides, since structural differentiation may engender isolation, engrain a singular innovation mode, and impede coordination between varied efforts (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004). Contextual ambidexterity builds on the assumption that the organizational tensions between exploration and exploitation are not insurmountable and that the two activities

318   Pathways to Ambidexterity may thus be integrated within a single unit (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004). Senior managers design a behavioral context that allows lower-​level employees to divide their time between exploration and exploitation tasks. The behavioral context strives to harmonize contradictory, but equally relevant, organizational ambidexterity requirements, such as an internal and an external cultural focus (Carmeli and Halevi 2009). However, contextual ambidexterity also has its downsides, such as the stress and strain put on employees to pursue conflicting tasks in their daily activities (Gupta et al. 2006). Sequential ambidexterity builds upon the core argument that organizations have a tendency to transition between exploration and exploitation phases (Duncan 1976; Simsek et al. 2009). More exactly, they alternate between organizational alignments that promote either exploration or exploitation (Nickerson and Zenger 2002). Since the levels of exploration and exploitation increase and dissipate with inertia when shifts occur (Gulati and Puranam 2009), vacillating between exploration periods and exploitation periods delivers brief episodes of dual capability (Boumgarden et al. 2012). Moreover, temporal separation of the two activities allows for generating high levels of exploration and exploitation, since it permits organizations to avoid some of the tensions that arise when they balance the two activities simultaneously. However, sequential ambidexterity also has its downsides, such as the structural transitions’ costs and highly disruptive effects (O’Reilly and Tushman 2013). Across these perspectives, ambidexterity scholars focus strongly on describing the organizational approaches that senior managers establish at a certain point in time to explore and exploit. Researchers have only recently begun to take a more longitudinal, process-​oriented perspective on how organizations manage exploration–​exploitation tensions (Raisch and Tushman 2016; Zimmermann et al. 2015). From a paradox perspective, these pioneering studies are particularly promising, with scholars calling for more longitudinal research on how organizations manage tensions (Schad et  al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). The paradoxical nature of these tensions requires theory that conceptualizes tension management as an ongoing process. In this chapter, we expand the current ambidexterity literature by developing a process perspective on the exploration–​exploitation paradox. While this perspective contributes directly to the ambidexterity literature, it also provides insights that inform the broader discussion on organizational paradoxes.

A Process Perspective on the Exploration–​E xploitation Paradox In this section, we shift our thinking about ambidexterity from static approaches for reconciling exploration and exploitation to the more longitudinal pathways through which ambidexterity unfolds over time. Based on the ambidexterity literature, we identify three stages that organizations typically experience when dealing with

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    319 exploration–​exploitation tensions:  initiation, contextualization, and implementation. In this section, we summarize prior insights from structural, contextual, and sequential ambidexterity research and integrate them into distinctive pathways through the three stages. We then show how the path dependencies that these pathways create may be overcome in some cases by applying path-​breaking approaches that allow organizations to switch between pathways over time. The initiation stage has only recently gained research attention in the ambidexterity debate. Zimmermann et al. (2015) were the first to empirically examine how organizational units move from one-​sided strategic charters with a pure focus on either exploration or exploitation to ambidextrous ones that aim at harmonizing these tasks. The initiation phase refers to the processes that allow an organization as a whole, or one of its units, to identify the need to engage in both exploration and exploitation. Multiple internal and external stimuli can trigger this strategic decision and affect the subsequent decision-​making process. The contextualization stage has attracted most attention in prior ambidexterity research (e.g., Tushman and O’Reilly 1996; Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004; Boumgarden et al. 2012). This phase encompasses the decisions regarding the organizational design used to either deal with, or nest, the exploration–​exploitation tensions. In this stage, managers select the specific approach to organizational ambidexterity that they intend to pursue (i.e., structural, contextual, or sequential), and then develop the corresponding organizational structures, cultures, and processes (on the unit-​and/​or firm-​level). Prior research on the implementation stage has largely focused on discussing individual-​level competencies and tasks that enable ambidexterity (e.g., Carmeli and Halevi 2009; Mom, van den Bosch, and Volberda 2007, 2009; Rogan and Mors 2014). In this stage, organizational members deal with the exploration–​exploitation tensions in their day-​to-​day business activities. These activities are strongly determined by the organizational contexts in which these individuals are embedded, but also require individual-​level processes and competencies (Mom et  al. 2007; Smith and Tushman 2005). We now build on existing theory to derive the alternative structural, contextual, and sequential pathways that allow organizations to navigate the initiation, contextualization, and implementation stages (please see Table 16.1).

The Structural Pathway Initiation Stage Structural ambidexterity scholars argue that organizational resistance hinders change processes, such as initiating ambidexterity, especially within established organizations. Tushman and O’Reilly (1996), for example, cite Machiavelli: “There is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to be a leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for

320   Pathways to Ambidexterity Table 16.1 A process perspective on the exploration–​exploitation paradox Pathways

Initiation stage

Contextualization stage

Structural

Top-​down/​External triggers

Formal structure/​Corporate Senior team/​Line manager level coordination and paradoxical (e.g., Raisch and Tushman thinking

(e.g., Lavie et al. 2010; O’Reilly and Tushman 2008) Contextual

Top-​down/​External triggers (e.g., Carmeli and Halevi 2009)

Implementation stage

2016; Tushman and O’Reilly (e.g., Jansen et al. 2009; 1996) Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith and Tushman 2005) Informal culture/​Unit level (e.g., Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004)

Line manager internal/​ external networks and behavioral/​cognitive complexity (e.g., Jansen et al. 2006; Mom et al. 2007; Rogan and Mors 2014)

or Bottom-​up/​Internal triggers (e.g., Zimmermann et al. 2015) Sequential

Top-​down/​Internal triggers

Switching contexts/​ Corporate level

(e.g., Boumgarden et al. 2012)

(e.g., Simsek et al. 2009)

Senior executives’ active management of role conflicts; common identity and objectives (e.g., Birkinshaw et al. 2016)

enemies all those who are well off under the old order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new” (1996: 28). Initiating structural ambidexterity thus requires a substantial hierarchical power to overcome organizational resistance. This implies that the decision to reconcile exploration and exploitation has to be taken by those at the top of the hierarchy (O’Reilly and Tushman 2008). O’Reilly and Tushman (2011) maintain that senior leaders often disagree about whether their organization should adopt an ambidextrous orientation. They therefore recommend that firms initiating structural ambidexterity replace opposing managers to ensure the top management team’s whole-​hearted commitment and support. Furthermore, structural ambidexterity researchers focus strongly on external triggers as the initiators of ambidexterity. Mostly, they refer to fundamental threats in the environment (Lavie et al. 2010). Established organizations are most likely to initiate structural ambidexterity when they are suddenly confronted with discontinuities after long periods of incremental change (O’Reilly and Tushman 2004). In these situations, established organizations have difficulties overcoming their heritage and reforming their core businesses—​the foundation of their past success. Structural ambidexterity allows them to address new, fundamentally different, demands in separate units, while continuing to operate their established businesses (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996). Senior managers

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    321 thus often frame the need for structural ambidexterity in the context of discontinuous shifts in their industry.

Contextualization Stage When senior managers decide to engage in structural ambidexterity, they subsequently build high-​ level organizational structures that can accommodate explorative and exploitative units simultaneously (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996). The explorative units are structurally separated from the exploitative units and the two types of units are only loosely coupled. This differentiation helps protect the explorative units from the exploitative units’ inertial forces (Carlile 2004). At the same time, it helps avoid increased complexity at and distraction of the exploitative units. The literature’s focus on structural mechanisms is partly explained by senior executives initiating the move toward ambidexterity (Tushman and O’Reilly 1996). The senior executives can design the firm’s formal architecture in a top-​down fashion, whereas they have more difficulties with directly influencing the less formal cultural attributes. Nevertheless, organizational culture plays an important role as a supportive contextual mechanism for structural ambidexterity. O’Reilly and Tushman (2008) accentuate the importance of creating a common corporate vision and shared values as the glue that holds the separate units together, whereas the distinct business-​unit cultures reinforce the differentiation required to pursue either explorative or exploitative tasks.

Implementation Stage After an ambidextrous structure has been set up, the explorative and exploitative businesses have to be coordinated to benefit from the dual learning processes’ synergistic effects (Tushman and O’Reilly 2008). This is challenging, because the formal separation tends to result in isolation. Ambidexterity scholars thus suggest two coordination mechanisms to ensure cross-​unit fertilization. First, they argue in favor of senior executives taking the lead and thus remaining responsible for the coordination between the differentiated businesses (Smith and Tushman 2005). Second, researchers also suggest that horizontal coordination mechanisms—​such as liaison personnel, task forces, and cross-​unit teams—​that directly link the explorative and exploitative businesses, should complement the lateral coordination mechanisms (Jansen et al. 2009). Coordinating between explorative and exploitative businesses therefore requires both senior executives and lower-​level managers with the cognitive and behavioral capacity to think paradoxically (Smith and Lewis 2011). The dual attention allows them to articulate an overarching vision that reconciles the exploration and exploitation agendas, to take decisions that recognize the varying demands of exploration and exploitation, and to integrate these activities by realizing the opportunities, linkages, and synergies arising from the explorative and exploitative activities (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Smith and Tushman 2005). In summary, structural ambidexterity is usually triggered externally and initiated by senior executives in a top-​down process. Senior executives subsequently design differentiated formal structures and the corresponding informal contexts that support either

322   Pathways to Ambidexterity exploration or exploitation activities. The dual activities are integrated through senior executives’ and line managers’ day-​to-​day coordination activities, which require the ability to think paradoxically at multiple organizational levels.

The Contextual Pathway Initiation Stage Similar to the structural ambidexterity literature, researchers in the field of contextual ambidexterity have implicitly assumed that the initial impulse to reconcile exploration–​ exploitation tensions comes from the top management (Carmeli and Halevi 2009; Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004). However, recent empirical research has presented an alternative, emergent process for initiating ambidexterity (Zimmermann et al. 2015). This bottom-​up process is largely explained by contextual ambidexterity primarily referring to the reconciliation of exploration and exploitation at the unit, project, and team levels (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004). These operational-​level processes frequently emerge outside the focus of senior executives, who instead prioritize strategic, firm-​level decisions. Front-​line managers may thus “see and act on opportunities in their work contexts of which senior executives at higher levels are still unaware” (Zimmermann et al. 2015: 1120). Similarly to structural ambidexterity, changes in the external environment may require firms to engage in exploration, while continuing to exploit their existing competences. Birkinshaw, Zimmermann, and Raisch (2016) use the example of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which responded to the global pharmaceutical industry’s transformation by building contextually ambidextrous research groups to integrate basic research and commercialization activities. However, internal forces can also trigger contextual ambidexterity. When individuals with different functional and/​ or expertise backgrounds come together and succeed in building a common identity, they realize that they could benefit from exploiting one another’s knowledge, but also that they could explore new competencies together. In their case studies of new product development teams in the automotive industry, Zimmermann et al. (2015) showed that such interdisciplinary teams took it upon themselves to reconcile exploration and exploitation, regardless of their primary, top-​management-​driven objectives. To date, there is little research on when contextual ambidexterity is initiated from the top down or from the bottom up, and when internal or external forces trigger the initiation processes. The limited empirical evidence suggests that all these options are possible. A promising path for future research could thus be to study the boundary conditions for the different initiation processes. In a recent study, Zimmermann and Birkinshaw (2016) argue that contextual ambidexterity may be useful in both static and dynamic environments. In dynamic environments, external shifts motivate firms to initiate ambidexterity. Senior executives can easily identify these radical changes and respond by initiating contextual ambidexterity across the entire organization. Conversely, in more

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    323 static environments, the top management is less motivated to initiate organization-​wide ambidexterity. In these situations, ambidexterity is more likely to arise when lower-​level actors perceive internal opportunities that allow them to benefit from ambidexterity.

Contextualization Stage The main task in the subsequent stage is the creation of organizational contexts that enable managers and employees to explore and exploit. Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004) refer to Ghoshal and Bartlett’s (1994) notions of discipline, stretch, support, and trust to describe such ambidextrous contexts. They argue that ambidexterity is enabled by the interplay of a performance context (referring to how goals are set, individuals are promoted, and are held accountable) and a social context (referring to how people are developed, are granted authority, and are provided with the necessary resources). While some of these elements refer to formal rules and organizational processes, Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004) emphasize the dominant role of the informal context for influencing organizational actors’ behavior. Business-​unit managers’ context-​building abilities give them an essential role in this process (Birkinshaw et al. 2016). Moreover, they need to be a good example, modeling the aspired behavior, and subsequently reinforcing it with rewards and recognition (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004).

Implementation Stage Implementing contextual ambidexterity requires front-​line managers who deal with the paradoxical tensions between exploration and exploitation in their everyday business activities (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004). These individuals suffer stress and strain, because the two activities have self-​reinforcing effects. However, there are several approaches to facilitate the balancing activities required for contextual ambidexterity. First, researchers have found that the combination of top-​down, bottom-​up, and horizontal knowledge inflows contributes positively to unit-​level managers’ exploration and exploitation activities (Mom et al. 2007). This specific configuration of knowledge flows provides the breadth of perspectives required to foster the simultaneous consideration of contradictory tasks. Second, connectedness within a unit has been found to contribute positively to unit-​level ambidexterity (Jansen et al. 2006). Close social relations increase individuals’ willingness to combine their knowledge, but also to jointly create new knowledge. Line manager’s external and internal networks are therefore important levers of their ability to behave ambidextrously (Rogan and Mors 2014). Finally, front-​ line managers and employees need to possess a sufficient level of behavioral and cognitive complexity to succeed in balancing exploration and exploitation in their everyday business (Smith and Lewis 2011). For example, Birkinshaw et al. (2016) find that GSK’s success in implementing contextual ambidexterity was rooted in their ability to develop team leaders with blended skills who could be held accountable. In summary, if external factors trigger contextual ambidexterity, senior executives are more likely to initiate it from the top down. Conversely, if internal factors cause contextual ambidexterity to emerge, line managers are more likely to initiate it by means of a bottom-​up process. In both cases, business-​unit managers play an essential role by

324   Pathways to Ambidexterity designing appropriate organizational contexts to enable lower-​level managers to explore and exploit. Finally, implementing contextual ambidexterity requires line managers with internal and external networks, as well as with sufficient behavioral and cognitive complexity.

The Sequential Pathway Initiation Stage In the sequential ambidexterity perspective, the boundaries between initiation and implementation are less clear than in the previously discussed alternatives. Contrary to structural and contextual ambidexterity, companies following this model do not decide to become ambidextrous at a specific point in time. Instead, they repeatedly challenge their strategic focus and eventually change it from exploration to exploitation, or vice versa. It is precisely these recurrent changes to the strategic orientation that, through a sequential pathway, make the respective organization ambidextrous (Boumgarden et al. 2012; Nickerson and Zenger 2002; Siggelkow and Levinthal 2003). As O’Reilly and Tushman (2013) point out, most examples of sequential ambidexterity refer to trajectories that unfold over very long periods of time, often several decades. As these time spans exceed chief executive officers’ average tenure by far, sequential ambidexterity has to be more deeply ingrained in an organization’s DNA. Birkinshaw et al. (2016) use the German car manufacturer BMW as an example. The shareholder who has controlled BMW for several decades has a very long-​term vision. It is primarily this shareholder who guarantees the company’s focus on sequential ambidexterity. Boumgarden et al. (2012) argue that organizations pursuing sequential ambidexterity vacillate between periods of exploration and periods of exploitation regardless of the environmental changes. Shifts only occur when a one-​sided orientation has gradually led to an overemphasis on either exploration or exploitation. Whenever the organization risks losing its ability to balance exploration and exploitation, senior executives initiate the next shift. While the overall initiation of sequential ambidexterity (as a long-​term orientation) may be deeply engrained within an organization’s heritage, top managers play a decisive role in orchestrating the shifts between exploration and exploitation, which enable these organizations to repeatedly (re-​)initiate ambidexterity. Internal organizational processes trigger these top-​down activities to switch the orientation whenever ambidexterity vanishes.

Contextualization Stage Sequential ambidexterity requires repeated changes in “formal structure and routines, practices and procedures, styles and systems of reward and control, and resource allocation” (Simsek et  al. 2009:  882). These varied changes are generally conceptualized as centralization and decentralization moves. For example, Boumgarden et al. (2012)

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    325 describe how Hewlett Packard experienced six structural shifts from decentralization to centralization (and vice versa) between 1982 and 2008. However, such major and recurrent organizational changes can also be a heavy burden for an organization and few companies succeed in managing these changes well. O’Reilly and Tushman (2013) therefore emphasize that structural changes alone are insufficient to enable organizations to explore and exploit. Similarly, Birkinshaw et al. (2016) argue that such changes have to be balanced against stability, which can arise from formal and informal networks that help employees deal with changing tasks.

Implementation Stage Empirical research on how sequential ambidexterity is implemented through organizational members’ day-​to-​day activities is scarce. The explicit management of role conflicts caused by shifts in power between exploration-​oriented and exploitation-​oriented managers is, however, one area that did receive prior research attention (Floyd and Lane 2000). These role conflicts can be resolved by means of conflict resolution practices and open communication flows (Bierly and Daly 2007). However, such role conflicts may also be beneficial, as they foster critical reflection on the current strategic orientation and help identify the right moment to switch focus (Probst and Raisch 2005). In their study of BMW, Birkinshaw et al. (2016) report that the senior managers actively nurtured role conflicts. While the front-​line managers were still focused on exploitation, senior executives had already started exploring the future. Conversely, during explorative phases in the business, such as the development of new models and solutions, the senior managers had focused on the commercial exploitation of the existing models and businesses. Despite these role conflicts, sequential ambidexterity also requires a strong common identity to ensure that the company does not lose focus through continuous transformations. In the case of BMW, it is the fascination with the firm’s cars and tradition that—​in the words of one manager—​provides the “glue that holds us all together” (Birkinshaw et al. 2016). In summary, sequential ambidexterity is triggered internally and senior executives take the necessary measures to repeatedly (re-​)initiate ambidexterity. The contextualization of sequential ambidexterity relies on formal changes to the organizational context at the corporate level, but also requires stability in the networks that span the entire organization. To successfully implement sequential ambidexterity, senior executives have to actively manage role conflicts and promote the emergence of a common identity.

Changing Pathways We discussed three distinct pathways how organizational ambidexterity unfolds over time. Our discussion shows that there is a strong path-​dependent element in all of these pathways. For example, in the structural pathway, the fact that senior managers initiate a firm-​wide reconciliation of exploration and exploitation based on external triggers demands the development of a corporate-​level, formal organizational context to nest

326   Pathways to Ambidexterity the paradoxical tensions. Lower-​level managers might neither have the political clout nor the higher-​level view to deal with such firm-​wide changes spanning across multiple business units or functions. Moreover, changes in the more informal behavioral contexts may not be sufficient to run and coordinate multiple, partly conflicting businesses at the same time. The observation of path dependency is aligned with paradox theory’s use of psychoanalytics (Lewis 2000; Schneider 1990; Smith and Berg 1987), which illustrates well how organizations defensively shift weight toward one favored approach, becoming increasingly blinded to forces calling for shifts in their orientation. Despite these path-​dependencies, however, practical examples suggest that some successful firms also engage in path-​breaking behavior. An example is the case of GSK that we described earlier in this chapter. Before GSK adopted a contextual pathway, it had followed the structural pathway that used to dominate the pharma industries, where some functions were purely science-​driven and exploration-​focused, while others were strongly market-​driven and exploitation-​focused. In 2001, GSK decided to change toward a contextual, more bottom-​up-​driven pathway with a much stronger involvement of the front-​line in balancing exploration and exploitation tasks (Birkinshaw et al. 2016). This illustration leads to the interesting question whether and when path-​breaking behavior benefits an organization’s ability to deal with exploration–​exploitation tensions. Zimmermann and Birkinshaw (2016) suggest that the structural, contextual, and sequential approaches to ambidexterity may be suited to respond to different types of transformational challenges. While continuous improvement and ongoing, lower-​level renewal efforts are most effectively driven by a contextual approach to ambidexterity, structural or sequential approaches may be better suited for responding to firm-​level challenges, such as cross-​functional linking or disruptive reconfigurations. In the GSK case it was a change in the most pressing transformational challenges that triggered path-​breaking activities. Before the rise of the biotech competition, the pharma industry was marked by a largely stable competitive landscape, where those companies were most successful that engaged in cross-​functional development, marketed blockbuster drugs, and seized opportunities by entering new treatment and disease areas. Around the turn of the century, however, the biotech revolution suddenly demanded a fundamental renewal and greater speed and flexibility. This triggered a shift of GSK from its established structural pathway to a contextual pathway (Birkinshaw et al. 2016). Based on this example, we suggest that path dependency in managing the exploration–​exploitation paradox is beneficial as long as the transformational challenges an organization faces remain the same, no matter if they are more incremental or more discontinuous in nature. However, if the transformational challenges change, path-​breaking activities might be required in order to continue to effectively initiate, contextualize, and implement a dynamic balance between exploration and exploitation

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    327 over time. This essential idea is perfectly aligned with Smith and Lewis’s (2011) dynamic equilibrium model of managing paradox. In this model the exploration–​exploitation tension is nested, multilayered, and constantly shifting. We expand this model by drilling down into how such processes could unfold and what pathways they could take over time.

Discussion The discussion of the alternative pathways for managing exploration–​exploitation tensions enables us to derive three main insights to expand prior ambidexterity theory, but also to stimulate reflection and discourse in the larger paradox debate. First, we argue that the different pathways to paradox management create a certain path dependency. Dependent on their initial framing of the paradox, organizations make specific contextualization choices, which subsequently affect the nature of the implementation process. For example, initiation determines who manages the tension between exploration and exploitation within the organization. While the senior team level manages the tension in the structural and sequential pathways, it is managed primarily at the lower levels in the contextual pathway. These differences are important, since those who manage tensions learn more about dealing with them, whereas others in the organization continue to lack the competence to handle paradoxes (Jay 2013; Lüscher and Lewis 2008). It is thus more likely that those who engage with paradox perceive future tensions more rapidly and frame them by drawing on their prior experiences (Smith and Tushman 2005). Moreover, since companies need to invest in building specific contexts and the associated managerial capabilities, these are likely reused to manage new tensions emerging within the organization (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004; Lewis 2000). Based on these combined arguments, we expect that organizations, which pursue one of the three pathways, develop path-​dependent paradox management processes, systems, and competencies. Second, we argue that this path-​dependence may not only increase the organization’s ability to deal with further, similar tensions, but simultaneously reduces the organization’s ability to respond to different transformational challenges. Our framework shows that some pathways—​such as structural ambidexterity—​prioritize external triggers, while others—​such as sequential ambidexterity—​are more susceptible to internal triggers. An organization following a structural pathway thus runs the risk of overlooking internal tensions, while one pursuing a sequential pathway might miss external tensions. Furthermore, some pathways produce senior executives who excel at paradox management, while others produce line managers with this experience. Pursuing either pathway thus implies that an organization runs the risk of failing to address the tensions that different actors need to manage. These combined arguments suggest that pursuing either one of these pathways for long may reduce the organization’s flexibility to

328   Pathways to Ambidexterity deal with varying types of transformational challenges. However, from prior paradox research (Schad et al. 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011), we know that organizations face a wide variety of different types of tensions. Organizations may thus have to experience multiple pathways to build comprehensive competence in paradox management. This requires path-​breaking capabilities that enable organizations to transition from one pathway to another. At its core, paradox management may thus be about dynamically balancing path-​dependent and path-​breaking behaviors. Finally, we accentuate the non-​linear and recursive nature of paradox management (Lewis 2000; Smith 2014). While we described pathways along the three stages of initiation, contextualization, and implementation, these stages form a continuous cycle rather than a linear sequence (Hahn, Preuss, Pinske, and Figge 2014). As argued above, each cycle has self-​reinforcing tendencies that increase the organization’s ability to address further, similar tensions when they become salient. However, recursiveness means more than mere repetitive cycles (Smith and Lewis 2011). We assume that organizations pursuing any one of the pathways eventually face tensions that are difficult to address by following their normal pathway. In this situation, the failure of contextualization and/​or implementation to resolve the tensions could trigger path-​breaking processes that motivate organizations to shift to an alternative, more appropriate pathway. Following this logic, organizations with long-​standing experience in paradox management are likely to experience multiple pathways over time, which, together with the transitions between them, should represent a rich arsenal of tactics to perceive future tensions, frame them accordingly, and address them through appropriate contextualization and implementation measures. Future ambidexterity and paradox research faces a particularly exciting playing field: the dynamics of paradoxical tensions and their management. Our findings and theory-​building arguments require further theorizing and empirical validation. We thus encourage future studies to take a more dynamic, longitudinal perspective on paradox management. It is essential to learn more about how organizations gain experience with and develop increasingly sophisticated competences in paradox management. Some of these organizations may get trapped in path-​dependent processes, while others retain enough path-​breaking ability to transition between multiple pathways. This suggestion leads to a set of interesting questions for future research: What are the factors that distinguish those organizations that pursue one pathway from those that use multiple pathways? How do organizations transition between different paradox management pathways? And how are the three pathways, as well as more complex patterns combining multiple pathways, related to organizational outcomes? Responding to these questions requires paradox studies drawing upon a wide variety of sophisticated research approaches including agent-​based modeling (Axelrod 1997), event studies (Klarner and Raisch 2013), non-​linear approaches (Fiss 2007), and system dynamics modeling (Sterman 2000).

Sebastian Raisch and Alexander Zimmermann    329

Conclusion We hope that the process perspective developed in this chapter serves to effectively motivate and inform future ambidexterity and paradox research. As we have illustrated, persistent contradictions between interdependent elements have to be managed on a continuous basis. Sustaining paradox management within organizations therefore creates its own set of challenges and potential pitfalls. From a dynamic perspective, paradox management is less about resolving specific tensions when they become salient for the organization and its actors; rather, it is about learning from past experiences with managing tensions, while remaining flexible enough to shift to alternative ways of dealing with tensions. We thus conclude that paradox management is paradoxical in itself, reflecting the fundamental paradox between stability and change (Farjoun 2010; Feldman and Pentland 2003). Paradox management requires organizations to continuously balance between path-​dependent and path-​ breaking activities. The learning tensions between exploration and exploitation are thus not only the results of, but also the means to ensure successful paradox management over time.

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Chapter 17

Gender a nd Organiz ationa l Pa ra d ox Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft

Perhaps no other domain in organizational studies is as rife with dualities, contradictions, and paradoxes as is gender studies. Drawn from a societal dualism between men and women and vested in a binary that grows out of patriarchy, gender dynamics in organizations reveal as well as produce paradoxes. These paradoxes have gained attention in management studies as women have entered professional ranks and become key players in the global workplace. Despite much change, paradoxes and contradictions remain crucial to understanding gender, diversity, and organization. This chapter therefore explores the central question: How has the research on gender and organization treated paradox? In this chapter, organizational paradox refers to contradictions that persist over time and develop into mutually exclusive opposites that are vexing, difficult to navigate, and often seemingly absurd (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). Importantly, paradox encompasses a number of related terms, such as binaries, dualisms, tensions, and dialectics. We use the term gender to refer to social identities, relationships, and cultural–​organizational practices linked to sexual differences (Ashcraft 2014). This chapter treats gender, paradox, and organization as mutually unfolding and evolving together through actions and communicative practices (Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016). In its strongest form, this view asserts that communicative processes constitute all three phenomena. Adequate consideration of gender necessarily raises issues of equality and power. In organization studies, feminist perspectives provide the most concentrated accounts of these topics. Acknowledging their variety, we define feminisms as bodies of knowledge about gender and difference that share a perspective for understanding and potentially redressing inequality. This chapter condenses the work on gender and organizational paradox into two broad and diverse approaches: (1) modernist feminism and (2) postmodern feminisms. Our review of the literature demonstrates how gender and paradox are integral to the very nature of organizations. The chapter concludes by exploring a

334    Gender and Organizational Paradox promising third orientation to paradox, one that treats the two types of feminism in collaboration.

Modernist Feminism: Paradox as Debilitating Modernist feminism views gender as a binary or a dualism that drives paradox. Binary signifies a division into two distinct categories, such as men and women. Dualism, as a concept in paradox studies, refers to a clear-​cut boundary that divides opposite concepts into mutually exclusive categories—​an “or” rather than an “and” (Janssens and Steyaert 1999). Binaries develop into contradictions through treating opposites as having the potential to exclude or negate the other while they simultaneously need each other for their very existence. For example, rationality and emotionality are often treated as contradictory terms. Yet, the two concepts are not mutually exclusive; in fact, rational thought often requires emotional engagement (Mumby and Putnam 1992). Drawn from societal practices, the categories of male and female are often aligned with rational and emotional and other dualities that favor one pole (i.e., the masculine and rational) and marginalize the other (i.e., the feminine and the emotional) (Bowring 2004). It is the treatment of male–​female categories as contradictory and the societal/​ organizational privileging of one pole that sets up the notion of gender as inherently paradoxical. To explore how this dualism triggers paradoxes and how organizational members respond to them, we examine the literature on the link between gender binaries and double binds.

Gender Binaries and Double Binds Research in this category casts women and men as essentially different in individual traits, role behaviors, and/​or biological sex (Haslett, Geis, and Carter 1993). Difference then becomes a comparative process in which individual traits shape social identities and group memberships. Given the dominance of masculine traits and norms in organizations, situating gender as sex differences creates a fundamental paradox for women:  either they adopt the masculine practices that dominate organizations and appear unfeminine, or they meet expectations for femininity and appear professionally deficient (Wood and Conrad 1983). In this way, the gender binary becomes an explanation for paradox; that is, either meet appropriate gender expectations or adhere to organizational patriarchal norms. The early work on women in management focuses on the array of double binds that women face (Henning and Jardim 1977). Women in leadership often feel trapped between exhibiting feminine traits such as emotional, passive, and dependent as

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    335 opposed to becoming forceful, aggressive, and independent—​masculine traits typically aligned with effective leaders. A double bind refers to a situation in which making a consistent or logical choice seems impossible; that is, no matter what a person decides, the response is wrong (Jamieson 1995). For example, if a woman employs a feminine or communal approach to leadership, she feels doomed to attributions of weakness and being incongruent with effective leadership; however, if she chooses to be assertive or rely on agentic behaviors, she is often treated as mimicking a man and being inconsistent with femininity (Eagly and Johannesen-​Schmidt 2001; Wood and Conrad 1983). In support of the double bind, recent research reveals that women who adopt agentic behaviors expected of organizational leaders often experience a backlash and are evaluated unfavorably (Rudman and Glick 2001). In this way, irrespective of her choice, a woman faces a perpetual oscillation between unworkable alternatives, or a feeling of “being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

Double Binds and Gender Paradoxes The research on gender differences and double binds reveals three types of organizational paradoxes: (a) identity, (b) in/​visibility, and (c) meritocracy. The identity paradox stems from presumed incompatible relationships between gender and organizational positions or occupations. This paradox is intertwined with sex-​role stereotypes; that is, with societal prescriptions about what men and women as distinct groups should do. For example, identity paradoxes arise in being a woman who happens to be a manager or a manager who happens to be a woman (Martin 2004) or being a woman engineer who distances herself from being a mom (Jorgenson 2002). It also occurs in performing job functions classified as masculine and feminine ways of working, for example, using hard facts, rules and structures, and short conversations in customer service as opposed to listening, supporting, and nurturing customers (Korvajärvi 1998). Importantly, gender bias, or the devaluing of feminine characteristics, enters into sex-​role stereotypes and intensifies identity paradoxes (Haslett, Geis, and Carter 1993), such as women managers who experience put downs and jokes aimed at undermining their efficacy or trivializing their accomplishments (Martin 2004). In the modernist tradition, then, sex-​role stereotypes and gender biases feed identity paradoxes through embracing gender dualism. Another factor that contributes to identity paradoxes is gender neutrality, a concept that refers to suppressing awareness of gender or discriminatory issues (Van Den Brink and Stobbe 2009). When faced with conflicts between professional and gender identities, customer service workers in Korvajärvi’s (1998) study define themselves as “persons, not women” and women engineers adopt masculine-​centered definitions of an ideal engineer (Eisenhart and Finkel 1998). Similarly, women graduate students in the earth sciences proclaim an absence of gender discrimination while acknowledging that professors and staff treat them differently in fieldwork projects and career mentoring (Van Den Brink and Stobbe 2009). Through enacting gender neutrality, women paradoxically

336    Gender and Organizational Paradox reproduce their own subordinate status by denying discrimination while acting in ways that sustain it. Closely related, the visibility paradox focuses on the degree to which women engage in practices that stand out and make them visible versus becoming invisible by blending in with the dominant culture. Focusing on earth sciences, Van Den Brink and Stobbe (2009) note that women students become invisible through acting physically strong, not being afraid to get dirty, and dressing in a masculine way, thus, “becoming one of the boys” (Van Den Brink and Stobbe 2009). They also dissociate themselves from the “girly girls” who wear skirts, are too talkative, and are deemed unsuitable. In contrast, to be successful in their careers, they demonstrate visibility through displaying excellence, performing better than their male counterparts, and becoming a showpiece or a representation of their gender. The visibility paradox also encompasses the dilemmas that women of color face in deciding whether to be visible and reveal problems of inequity and unfair treatment or remain silent to avoid reprisal and rejection by the dominant group (Karambayya 1997). Gender paradoxes then often silence complaints, promote separatism, and support the hegemony of the male culture (Katila and Merilaine 1999). The paradox of visibility extends to affirmative action programs that single out marginalized groups for special treatment, thereby rendering them hyper-​visible and vulnerable (Zanoni et al. 2010). Although these programs have changed over the years, many diversity models continue to reinforce binary categories, such as women–​men, white–​black, and old–​young, ones that often privilege one group over the other (Prasad and Mills 1997). In this way, the strength of a marginalized group stems from isolating its members and classifying them as weak and vulnerable (Schwabenland 2012). Thus, the paradox of visibility–​invisibility shows how organizational practices create double binds that reinforce sex-​role stereotypes. The meritocracy paradox focuses on the contradictions that surface in evaluating the performance of women professionals. Even though women often surpass their male counterparts, subordinates and colleagues continue to attribute their accomplishments to luck, perseverance, or being an exception to the norm (Powell and Graves 2003). Meritocracy or rewarding employees based on clear performance criteria leads to ironic outcomes. In three studies of MBA students in which women excel over men in general reward formulas, men surpass women in a meritocracy system (Castilla and Bernard 2010). Meritocracy then provides criteria for assessing “fairness,” but it also triggers stereotypes about performance that conceal bias. Untangling discrimination in performance evaluations is enmeshed with the paradox of meritocracy in that managers often fail to give constructive feedback to women and minorities (Karambayya 1997). In effect, organizational paradoxes—​ especially those of identity, visibility, and meritocracy—​are experienced differently for men and women. As this inequality accumulates over time, organizational actors affirm and exacerbate gender divisions and hierarchies. Paradox then is both a consequence of gender dualism and a means of perpetuating it since reactions to the double bind often instantiate sex-​role stereotypes and gender biases.

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    337

Responding to Paradox In the modernist tradition, women often respond to paradoxes by choosing one pole over the other (either/​or), denying the tensions, and/​or engaging in defensive mechanisms (Lewis 2000). For example, in identity paradoxes, women often choose professional/​occupational roles that reinforce gender stereotypes and marginalize feminine norms and practices. Gender neutrality becomes a form of denying tensions through ignoring discriminatory practices. With the visibility paradox, women tend to separate the poles (also known as splitting, see Putnam et al. 2016) by being invisible in gender appearance and behaviors, but visible in enacting a strong professional identity. In this split, they make the successful woman into a “showpiece” or an exception to the rule. Responses to the meritocracy paradox often try to integrate the two poles by invoking fairness as a middle point or a forced merger between equal–​unequal for men and women. Yet, the merger breaks down as gender bias creeps back into meritocracy systems. Choosing one pole over the other (either/​or), separating the poles, and even forcing them together continues to entrap women, often leading to vicious cycles or recurring negative spirals that perpetuate double binds (Masuch 1985; Smith and Lewis 2011). A vicious cycle is a self-​reinforcing loop that stems from responses to contradictions and paradoxes, particularly ones that feed back into the double bind (Putnam 1983). For example, behaving as a professional woman who denies any femininity and rejects the “girly girls” perpetuates the gender binary and produces a self-​feeding cycle of continual marginalization. Accepting the masculine pole by becoming aggressive and tough often leads to labels of “bitchy” and “bossy,” negative terms that contribute to gender bias. In contrast, embracing the feminine pole, such as showing empathic concern (Gentry et al. 2015) or nurturing styles of customer relations (Korvajärvi 1998) often results in career derailment because these activities are devalued or deemed inappropriate for the job. This feeling of being paralyzed then stems from responses to paradoxes that fuel continual negative cycles of unavoidable entrapment. To break the cycles, scholars recommend exposing, subverting, and/​or fighting the paradoxes by decoupling opposites, redirecting circular actions, or uniting with other women to “take it on” (Jamieson 1995; Long et al. 2008). For example, research shows that women use humor to create ambiguity and to shift the targets of identity away from gender (Martin 2004) or they engage in learning through turning opposites into new understandings, known as a process of dialectical sensemaking (Foldy 2006). Dialectical sensemaking entails engaging in a struggle between stereotypical notions of difference and similarity that produces a new synthesis or enacts a contingent understanding of gender practices. Reframing and transcending gender-​based contradictions are also options. In reframing, women situate the oppositional poles in a new relationship to form a new whole or a novel perspective (Putnam et al. 2016). In transcendence, individuals redefine boundaries of opposites to address the social conventions that create them. Specifically, some women redefine the situation (e.g., what it means to be a

338    Gender and Organizational Paradox professional), redirect workplace practices that fit a new perspective, or call out social and organizational conditions responsible for creating double binds (Wood and Conrad 1983; Karambayya 1997; Long et al. 2008). Yet, in modernist feminism, the capacity to intervene in the relationship between gender and paradox is limited by its reliance on the gender binary. As long as scholars treat gender-​related categories as self-​evident, dualistic, and hierarchically related, these versions of difference along with the double binds and vicious cycles that accompany them will likely persist. The goal then is to identify approaches to gender that minimize dualism and the subsequent treatment of paradox as negative and debilitating.

Postmodern Feminisms: Paradox as Productive Postmodern feminisms challenge the very foundation of gender by refusing to treat the binary as inevitable. In this view, gender becomes an effect rather than a cause of organizational paradox. For paradox scholars, the contradictions linked to gender categories do not stem from pre-​set binary divisions; rather, the process of continually enacting these contradictions is how we produce gender difference and how we make this binary seem real and unavoidable in organizational life. “Doing” paradox then becomes central to the very making of gender and organizational identities. The concept of performativity or ways of enacting the gender binary is important here. For example, when we segregate workplace tasks into male and female categories and when we perform contradictory feminine and masculine leadership styles, we engage in creating (not merely expressing) gender as a dualism. This activity of performing gender is discursive and constitutive; that is, organizational members do not invent their gender performances out of the blue. Rather, they call on available discourses or common social constructions to enact gender “scripts” in different organizational situations. For postmodern feminists, the main question is: how do we “do” gender and organizing through paradox? How do discourses and social interactions produce “managers,” “employees,” “work,” and “organizations” as gendered entities? How are tensions and paradoxes etched into these discourses and how are they interactively managed? Two broad branches of research address these questions: (1) gender identity in organizations and (2) gender and organizational form.

Gender Identity in Organizations In postmodern feminisms, scholars reframe gender identity as a fluid social accomplishment rather than a fixed attribute. Much of this work grows out of the concepts of doing gender and doing difference (West and Zimmerman 1987; West and Fenstermaker

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    339 1995), as well as Butler’s (1999) notion of gender performativity. Specifically, doing gender hinges on a fundamental contradiction: to meet societal gender norms, organizational members must conform to the gender binary, but doing this often defies the very dualism it aims to affirm. Given that the doing of gender entails other differences such as race, class, or occupation, organizational identity performances become complex and often contradictory (Allen 2004). Doing—​as well as redoing or undoing—​gender (Connell 2010; Deutsch 2007) is distinctive in organizational and occupational settings. Typically, social discourse casts organizations as part of the male-​dominated “public” sphere, in contrast with the feminine “private” sphere. Since women and femininity are clearly present in organizations, they live the overlap or co-​mingling of “separate” spheres. This co-​mingling, known as dual presence, forms the basic contradiction of doing gender in organizations (Gherardi 1995). It raises such questions as: how can we navigate expectations for binary difference while minimizing the hierarchy that usually accompanies it? Simply put, how can we do gender in organizational life without subordinating the female and feminine to the male and masculine? Postmodern thinking rejects the modernist view of identity as a stable essence and instead treats it as shifting, fragmented, and frequently contradictory. Accordingly, gender identities are relational and emerge within specific situations. When people draw on particular discourses or scripts, they engage in identity work (i.e., individuals constructing their identities through interactions) and negotiate identity regulation (i.e., collective efforts to control identity work) (Alvesson, Ashcraft, and Thomas 2008). To illustrate this move, consider how the double bind of assertiveness surfaces in the modernist tradition, that is, women are either “weak” or they are “bitchy.” From the postmodern view, when a woman uses “hesitant” speech to qualify an assertion, she is not exhibiting a fixed, internalized gender (i.e., expressing her identity); rather, she is navigating her dual presence through intersecting the discourses of being both a “woman” and a “professional.” Once she inhabits this dual presence, then, the next line of her “script” becomes clear (e.g., to qualify any attempts to be assertive, so as not to step on any male toes). Postmodern feminisms thus bring a twofold awareness to the study of organizational paradox. On the one hand, paradox is pivotal to the negotiation of gender and organizational identities. At the same time, while paradox may trigger destructive gender dualisms, it is never a guarantee of double binds and entrapment. Paradox activates constraint and creativity as well as impossibility and potential. To illustrate, we examine four main arenas of postmodern research on gender identity in organizations: (a) gender and leadership paradoxes, (b) control-​resistance dialectics, (c) paradoxes of diversity, and (d) managing paradox through conflicting identifications.

Gender and Leadership Paradoxes This line of research treats leadership as an interactive process of constructing identity, one guided by the gendered performances of leading and following. Fletcher (2004) demonstrates how meta-​narratives of leadership depend on gender discourses for their

340    Gender and Organizational Paradox sensibility, yet they often deny these associations. For instance, “post-​heroic leadership” is typically cast as a gender-​neutral opposite of the individual-​based heroic model glorified in military, political, and sports leadership metaphors. Depictions of the post-​ heroic model, however, rarely acknowledge how it invokes the gender binary. Fletcher claims that the subtle gender politics in play may explain why masculine models consistently co-​opt the potential of radical alternatives. Other work depicts leading as a constant juggling act among multiple contradictions. For instance, women leaders of Mac User student teams enact complex identity constructions in response to simultaneous encouragement and discouragement from team members (Anderson and Buzzanell 2009). Through their expert use of one-​liners, dedication to Mac products, and micro practices of caring, women leaders embrace the contradictions between supportive and unsupportive behavior and between empowering yet disempowering discourses of technological expertise. Similarly, Riad (2011) treats leading as an ongoing negotiation in which multiple contradictions become contested. Her historical analysis of Cleopatra’s leadership as portrayed in literature, art, and film identifies tensions in embodiment (queen–​ lover), spheres of influence (public–​ private), race (white–​ black), and empire (Rome–​Egypt). Here again, the constants entailed in the leadership paradox are the perpetual fluctuation of tensions and the ongoing process of responding to, rather than resolving, them. In a study of fictional representations of gender, Bowring (2004) demonstrates how Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager presents two diverse trajectories of leadership. In the first, Janeway becomes trapped amid debilitating choices posed by the gender binary. In the second, she reconstitutes an identity fashioned around lesbian aesthetics by embracing “strange” and seemingly opposite hybrids, such as nurturing and authoritative, emotional and controlled. As these examples attest, this literature reveals how doing leadership engages with the situated paradoxes of performing gender and difference. Identity remains provisional and continually negotiated and paradox is the lifeblood that fuels this process.

Control and Resistance Dialectics For postmodern feminists, organizational control unfolds in a dialectical relationship with resistance (Mumby 2005). Dialectics in this work refers to the unity and interplay of interdependent opposites as they enable and constrain one other (Putnam et. al. 2016). In this spirit, research reveals how oppositional practices often reinforce the very gender dualisms they seek to contest. For example, women in a Japanese factory challenge managerial control through developing a counter-​cultural identity that ends up legitimating the masculine hierarchy (Kondo 1990). Other projects show how engaging in a dialectical struggle creates opportunity to negotiate new gender identities. In their research on microfinancing for South Asian women, Papa, Auwal, and Singhal (1995) demonstrate how a program run by the

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    341 Grameen Bank, on the one hand, emancipates women by leveling the economic lending field, yet on the other hand, subordinates them to the paternalism of the bank. Studying the paradox of upholding masculine values while expanding women’s roles, Hoffman and Klyukovski (2004) note how three Benedictine communities incrementally change the church liturgy to celebrate women’s leadership during Mass. In this process, they engage in a continual interplay between inclusion–​exclusion, equality–​hierarchy, and empowerment–​disempowerment by embracing both poles as ways to create new spaces for action. This research points to the importance of ambivalence and ambiguity as discursive strategies for examining control and resistance. Sotirin and Gottfried (1999), for example, show how the practices of secretarial “bitching” enable secretaries to accommodate yet also critique traditional gender identities. The dynamic of complaining while complying creates a state of ambivalence or fluctuation between the two that allows employees to maneuver their conflicted identities. Similarly, women flight attendants in Murphy’s (1998) study rely on humor, backstage conversations, and bending the rules to create ambiguity as they simultaneously accept and reject managerial control of their identities. Specifically, they engage in teasing pilots about “needing hydrating” during a one-​hour flight to counter the rule of “attendants must offer water to prevent pilot dehydration” and they mock appearance rules by figuring out when and where to break them. These strategies create ambiguity in that flight attendants can own or deny the intent of their actions, if they are confronted about them. Drawing from these off-​line performances, flight attendants eventually unite to overturn stringent weight requirements—​a major change in the airline industry (see Katila and Merilainen 2002, for another example of how embracing contradictory rules creates ambivalence that aids in shifting power relations). Overall, this literature shows how embracing opposite poles, such as compliance and resistance, can open discursive spaces to negotiate alternative identities and make change.

Paradoxes of Diversity Diversity issues, as previously noted, are riddled with contradictions. Rather than treating them as double binds, however, postmodern feminist research examines how individuals navigate diversity work as a discursive paradox. For example, organizational diversity consultants encounter two types of tensions: (a) promoting change to meet organizational imperatives versus addressing historical inequality and (b)  targeting individuals versus organizations in making changes (Mease 2016). Rather than choose one end of the pole, consultants aim to bridge organizational imperatives and social justice concerns by targeting individual changes that readily transfer to organization practices. Thus, in doing diversity work, consultants try to transcend the individual–​ organizational divide and develop safe spaces for learning about historical inequalities (see also Ashcraft et al.’s 2012 discussion of re-​branding occupations as a way to address the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion).

342    Gender and Organizational Paradox Paradoxes and dialectical tensions also characterize doing difference, or the ongoing performances of enacting multiple social identities. Bringing a postmodernist cast to the visibility–​invisibility paradox, Forbes (2009) depicts the paradox of “co-​modification” in which the black female body is physically and sexually visible yet professionally and intellectually invisible. She shows how the struggle between owning one’s body versus being exploited creates tensions in speaking out or remaining silent. “Co-​modification” focuses on how black women participate in their own oppression through responding to racially and sexually insulting situations with silence and accommodation. However, responses that both accept and fight back (for example, staring down the other party but not directly commenting on a sexual remark) allow black women to create ambiguity and potentially reframe their sexual/​racial identities (see also Gill 2012; Billett et al. 2011; Trethewey 2001 for exemplars of studies on gender, class, and aging). Taken together, the research on diversity paradoxes highlights the complexities of negotiating multiple identities in the workplace.

Responding to Paradox through Conflicting Identifications Managing organizational paradox through identity work entails aligning with while creating distance from particular social identities. Accordingly, this research introduces several options for responding to paradox, such as counter-​identification and dis-​identification as well as variations of these two (e.g., Elsbach and Battacharya 2001; Elsbach 1999). Counter-​identification refers to actions that take issue with and oppose formal identity regulation, but still work within the dominant discourse (e.g., “we are not that” OR “we are not only that”) (Pecheux 1982). In Holmer-​Nadesan’s (1996) study, women service workers resist managerial definitions of their organizational identities by taking advantage of lax supervision and capitalizing on a contradictory merit system. Even though they expand their spaces of action, they also spy on each other and thus comply with managerial control. Another example of counter-​identification occurs as part-​time employees in Dick and Hyde’s (2006) study challenge their formal designations as low-​status workers. Instead, they see their identities as being free of burdensome responsibilities and as achieving work–​ life balance. Even though their identity designations counter formal regulations, they continue to work as marginal employees who receive comparatively poor pay and benefits. Dis-​identification entails switching to an alternative arena and sidestepping formal identity regulation (Pecheux 1982). Even though new identities bring their own set of constraints, they differ from formal organizational designations. As an example, Murphy (2003) explores how female strippers circumvent their organizational identities by renegotiating the tensions between power and powerlessness. Specifically, participants cast their work as just another form of employment (“all employees are objectified in some way”) and a source of pride (“our dance is artistic”) and thus transcend their formal designation as illicit sex workers. They also find ways to maximize their own profits by circumventing managerial control. Such tactics sidestep dominant identity

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    343 constructions and even exert power through the ways that employees profit materially from recasting their identities. Women entrepreneurs provide another example of dis-​ identification. Gill and Ganesh (2007) observe that some women entrepreneurs reject the traditional individualist image and replace it with a collective one characterized by social support, mental stimulation, and overcoming hardship. This reframing, however, brings its own constraints, such as devaluing “labors of love” and failing to confront managerial authority about discriminatory practices. Nonetheless, they introduce new identity terrains that help transcend situated gender paradoxes. Re-​identification, another response to the paradoxes of doing gender, entails affirming an identity while simultaneously reworking it. Ashcraft’s (2005) research on the professional identity of commercial airline pilots demonstrates how pilots ironically resist managerial control by embracing yet revising managerial discourse. Specifically, when faced with an industry mandate to empower crew members and reduce the captain’s authority, pilots reposition themselves as benevolent rather than omnipotent fathers, who willingly show generosity to subordinates. In this way, they recalibrate masculine identity to retain authority while supporting management’s mandate. Although these four areas of research overlap, they illustrate how identity work and the negotiation of gender are intimately tied to paradox. Managing rather than resolving multiple contradictions (as in leadership paradoxes), holding opposites together in a dialectical interplay (as in ambivalence), embracing the discursive paradox of diversity (as in navigating the tensions from co-​modification of black women), and enacting alternative forms of identification (as in counter-​and dis-​identification) are just some of the ways that marginalized employees can open spaces for coping, developing creativity, and enacting change. Importantly, doing gender is an indeterminate process fraught with politics of performance that can take unexpected turns. The second cluster of studies in this section focuses on the role of paradox in gendering organizational forms.

Gender, Paradox, and Organizational Forms In this research, gender and paradox surface in the collective enactment of governance structures. This work stems from the feminist critique of bureaucracy as a fundamentally gendered system (Ferguson 1984) and the corresponding search for counter-​ bureaucratic alternatives (Feree and Martin 1995). Bureaucracies are seen as gendered because they create a split between public and private, embrace practices rooted in rationality and objectivity, adopt standardized rules, and rely on division and hierarchy drawn from historically masculine experiences (Acker 1990, Ashcraft 2001). In short, “gender is encoded in bureaucratic DNA, inseparable from the operation itself ” (Ashcraft 2014: 139). To explore alternatives, scholars look to organizing practices and systems that enable gender empowerment. Feminist organization, as one alternative, privileges emotionality, equality, and participatory systems (Ferree and Martin 1995), but often leads to disabling

344    Gender and Organizational Paradox contradictions between values and the practical demands of organizing, especially in capitalist environments (Ashcraft 2001). Other alternatives graft feminist principles onto conventional bureaucratic organizations, but these efforts often lead to masking ideology and conflating feminism with women-​owned organizations (D’Enbeau and Buzzanell 2011) or to collisions between objectifying versus empowering clients (Trethewey 1999).

Feminist Bureaucracy Another approach, feminist bureaucracy, aims to harness contradiction as a hybrid form (Ashcraft 2000). Feminist bureaucracy welcomes dissonance as a continual dialectical interplay of presumed opposites. It deliberately embraces conflicting configurations and practices, such as hierarchical and egalitarian power, centralized and decentralized control, formal and informal sources of expertise, rational and emotional logics, personal and professional concerns, and open communication through discursive closure (Ashcraft 2000, 2006). In such a form, contradictions become an opportunity for situational dexterity in a contradictory world. Two studies of feminist bureaucracy demonstrate how organizational members enact and sustain dissonance. Ashcraft (2001) reveals several tactics through which organizational members perform and thereby transform the tensions that stem from contradictions of equality and inequality and decentralized centralization. For instance, members satirize the exercise of power with the use of irony and parody, and they develop strategic ambiguity to ensure participation amid centralized decision-​making. In a follow-​ up project, Ashcraft (2006) demonstrates how dialectical tensions between “old” and “new” forms become pivotal to enacting everyday practices rooted in similarity–​ difference, instrumental–​moral performance, and universal–​particular formalization. Organizational members hold these tensions in play through employing contradictory actions, such as developing standardized but contestable rules, formalizing the informal, and establishing ideological hierarchies to enhance transparency and the potential for resistance. As these examples suggest, irony, parody, strategic ambiguity, and dissonance are crucial to accepting and responding to perpetual tensions in hybrid organizational forms (Hearn 1998). Specifically, irony enables dissonance by signaling incongruity between what is expected and what occurs and by triggering a degree of consciousness of incongruent encounters. In Trethewey’s (1999) study, for instance, clients adopt an ironic frame by vacillating between dominant and marginalized discourses in ways that disrupt an orderly system and enable change.

Responses to Paradox Postmodern feminist studies of both gender identity and organizational form treat contradictions and paradoxes in similar ways. Namely, whereas modernist feminism views contradiction as emanating from gender dualisms that become debilitating, postmodern feminists see a dual presence that motivates identity as a situated performance

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    345 engaged in negotiating tensions. This performance is open and evolving rather than a fixed game with a pre-​determined outcome. Responses to paradox are contingent and provisional; replete with ambiguity, irony, parody, sabotage, and ambivalence; and thus potentially enabling and stifling. Organizational members contend with contradictions by complying and resisting, accepting confinement while discovering room to maneuver, and holding opposing tensions together while playing in the spaces between them. At the same time, possibilities for responding to tensions shift dramatically across situations, relationships, and practices.

Contributions and New Horizons From this review, we identify three major contributions that modernist and postmodern feminist studies make to the work on organizational paradox. First, organizational paradox is intertwined with power and politics. Far from being neutral, paradox actively participates in the relations of power that define organizational life. In effect, power in organizations is saturated with gender and difference, and paradox plays a critical role in maintaining these interfaces. Modernist and postmodern feminisms, however, develop this idea differently. Specifically, modernist feminism follows a conservative path of treating the binary as a dualism that creates a fundamentally contradictory and hierarchical relationship between men and women. This approach casts gender as a coherent set of individual traits and behaviors drawn from established social and organizational hierarchies. In organizations in which masculinity is normalized, this false dichotomy creates an inevitable bind for females, whose anticipated difference renders them already suspect and inferior. Rather than embracing the gender binary as self-​evident, postmodern feminist scholars see it as the problem and as detrimental to pursuing gender equality. Instead, they problematize how organizational members engage in “doing” gender and negotiating difference amid local circumstances. Paradox then is the lifeblood of performing gender, sometimes enacted in a debilitating way but also becoming a potentially generative force. Paradox produces our capacities as organizational subjects through the ways we inhabit multiple and often conflicting discourses (e.g., occupation, race, gender, and sexuality) that surface as tensions and dilemmas. Studies of routine organizing practices—​such as leading, controlling, resisting, managing diversity, and working in teams—​show how the paradoxes of identity work and regulation are never pre-​determined, but always provisional. Hence, while situations vary widely in the range of possibilities they afford, actual identity practices often maneuver paradox in creative and surprising ways. Postmodern feminists view paradox as productive for developing governance systems as well. Similar to identity, organizational forms embody “scripts” for preferred

346    Gender and Organizational Paradox power relations, and members enact these scripts in everyday life. Because gender dualisms are a constitutive feature of such scripts, paradox is regarded as normal rather than an exceptional pattern of organizing. Moreover, different organizational forms can only be known in relation to each other. Bureaucratic and feminist organizations, for instance, embody opposite orientations to gender dualisms, like rationality–​ emotionality and public–​private. This comparison means that hybrid forms like feminist bureaucracy surface as strategic dissonance that runs on friction rather than through a crippling dualism. In short, gender and organization are continually constituted through and as paradox. For this reason, enacting gender and organization become intertwined and their mutual fates play out as “tendencies, not destinies” (Ashcraft 2006: 78). Based on these claims, a second contribution that feminist scholarship makes to organizational paradox is to affirm that paradox is integral to the ontology of organization. In other words, the very process of engaging in organizing is fundamentally a paradoxical activity. Organizations are not consistent entities; they are paradoxical in their very nature. This view holds that paradox is not an aberration that occurs within an already formed and mostly rational organization (Trethewey and Ashcraft 2004). Paradox is not only normal; it is constitutive of all organization. Modernist feminism inches toward this insight by showing how routine organizational life rests on gender dualisms, contradictions, and paradoxes. Yet, even though this work treats paradox as fundamental to organizations, it idealizes order and embraces the goal of controlling paradox. Seeds of an alternative view grow out of the postmodern claim that paradox is productive. This claim challenges the enduring stance that organizations are systems of order defined by rationality, consistency, and equilibrium. In this view, paradox emerges as an irrational, chaotic force that threatens an organized system. In sharp contrast, postmodern feminisms embrace irrationality and disorder as the modus operandi of organizing. To claim that paradox is productive situates organization as emerging from and depending on disorganization for its mode of existence. As Cooper (1986) explains, the fundamental paradox of organizing is that disorder is what “energizes or motivates the call to order or organization” (321). Organization is thus “the appropriation of order out of disorder” (328), or “the forcible transformation of undecidability into decidability” (323). The term “forcible” acknowledges that some form of power makes order out of disorder, and thus becomes a necessary feature of the paradox of dis/​organization. This deeper ontological role of paradox is clearly a daunting prospect for organizational scholars, but feminist theorizing offers a distinctive and useful guide. As Harris (2015:  1)  explains, “Rather than resolve or avoid contradiction, feminist scholarship dwells in it.” This habit of embracing and sustaining contradiction engenders a unique model, which she dubs feminist dilemmatic theorizing, and which hints at a third major contribution of feminist scholarship to the study of organizational paradox. Admittedly, this final contribution remains on the horizon, and our goal here is simply to bring it within view.

Linda L. Putnam and Karen L. Ashcraft    347 If, as outlined above, the ontology of organization is the politics of paradox (i.e., the enactment of power to make order out of disorder) then scholars need a conception of organizing to handle this insight. Neither of the two reigning ontologies—​realist (i.e., organizations have a material existence independent of what we say about them) or constructivist (i.e., organizations are socially constructed and exist only in discourse)—​ capture this insight. The current chapter offers “proof ” of that claim, as well as evidence of the challenge it poses. Specifically, modernist and postmodern feminist lenses (i.e., linked to realist and constructivist ontologies, respectively) reveal different pivotal features of the organization–​paradox relationship. Neither is adequate without the other, and most management scholars treat realist and constructivist ontologies as opposing and incommensurate, locked in a paradoxical relationship in which only one can be chosen. Embracing this paradox, says Harris (2015), is the key to a meaningful alternative. Applied here, the third contribution from this chapter is that theorizing paradox as fundamental to organizing necessitates embracing organization as both realist and constructivist, or in other words, the developing of theory from this ontological paradox. To illustrate, we contrast the Harris (2015) proposal with the Smith and Lewis (2011) quest for a meta-​theory of organizational paradox. The latter authors question whether paradox is best understood through realist or constructivist ontologies. They respond with a “both/​and” answer, by conceiving of paradox as both latent (i.e., always present but ignored) and salient (made present and recognized). Arguably, however, in a situation in which tensions exist but lie dormant until awakened through social construction, some form of realist ontology has already won. The latent–​salient distinction privileges a material reality and relegates social construction to a secondary role, that is, as the expressive activity that reveals reality. Like the Smith and Lewis (2011) proposal, the Harris (2015) model of feminist dilemmatic theorizing seeks an innovative merger that rejects the incommensurability of competing ontologies. But whereas Smith and Lewis tip the ontological paradox in favor of a realist view (i.e., choosing one pole), Harris keeps the paradox alive and then harnesses it. In Harris’s approach, constructivism and realism operate on a genuinely even footing—​“a theory of action in which words and worlds are mutually constitutive” (Harris 2015: 3), “the co-​agency of material-​discursive worlds” (Harris 2015: 16). As applied to this chapter, most scholars would align modernist feminism with realist ontologies and postmodern feminisms with constructivist ontologies, thus framing these two as mutually exclusive and incompatible. Customarily, the chapter might be read as a sequential or linear tale of scholarly history, such that postmodern feminisms come later and emerge as the progressive choice. Yet the counter-​reading that Harris provides suggests something different; namely, both orientations enact conflicting yet equally crucial desires to capture and intervene, to describe and reconstruct realities, and to show the constitutive force and the mutual vulnerability of both discourse and matter. Specific to paradox, both orientations suggest that “paradox

348    Gender and Organizational Paradox exists” and “paradox is a social construction,” that “paradox constitutes organization” and “organization suppresses paradox.” Indeed, the capacity to hold together and honor conflicting ontologies through this sensibility is the hallmark of feminist theorizing. Because feminist dilemmatic theorizing models the ways that realist and constructivist ontologies can be held in tandem, it is especially promising for organizational paradox studies. It arises as part of an emerging family of perspectives known as “new materialist” and “post-​humanist” feminisms which are making profound interventions in social theory (e.g., Barad 2007; Stavro-​Pearce et al. 1994). Such an approach redirects the quest for a meta-​theory of organizational paradox (e.g., Smith and Lewis 2011) to focus on an ontology of organizing that is premised on paradox. In so doing, it may be possible to deliver what Smith and Lewis (2011) pursue, but fall short of, namely, a way of theorizing grounded in the ontological paradox of organizational paradox studies. We began this chapter with the question: how has the research on gender and organization treated paradox? We answer this query by concluding that organizational paradox is indispensable to the production of gender, power, and difference, and is paramount to the constitution of organizations. From this view, the issue at stake is not so much “organizational paradox” as it is the paradoxical ontology of organizing. In this way, we point to nascent feminisms as playing important roles in developing novel theories of paradox and organization.

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Chapter 18

Navigati ng the Para d ox e s of Sustaina bi l i t y Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant

Sustainability has become a buzzword in management and politics. It stands for a wide range of troublesome socio-​economic and environmental issues, and an even wider range of practices and policies to address them. For the private sector, its attractiveness lies in the notion of “win–​win” capitalism, and the idea that business can create lasting benefit for customers, employees, suppliers, investors, communities, and future generations. For the public and civil sectors, sustainability captures the hope of enduring programs and organizations for public benefit, immune to the tumult of political and funding cycles, perhaps achieved through ties to the marketplace. These contemporary views of sustainability disguise a set of fundamental paradoxes that lurk within the past, present, and future of the term. While some “win–​win” syntheses are possible, these are special accomplishments of people’s navigating these paradoxes. In this chapter we explore the “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time” (W. K. Smith and Lewis 2011) in the theory and practice of sustainability. We suggest the conditions under which these paradoxes become most salient and problematic. We highlight avenues for research and practice that might deepen our collective understanding of the paradoxes of sustainability, and our ability to navigate them.

The Modern History of “Sustainability” Most writers trace contemporary usage of “sustainability” in the global sense to the Brundtland Report from the UN World Commission on Environment and

354    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Development in 1987. Popularized during the first Earth Summit in 1992, this study defined sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland et al. 1987: 24). In the private sector, the Summit led to the creation of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a network of companies working toward this ideal.1 “Sustainability” gradually became shorthand for sustainable development. Sustainability reports by companies, and sustainability strategies came to include a wide array of programs toward social inclusion, natural resource conservation, and responsible commerce practices. Eventually the term came to complement or replace terms like corporate social responsibility or corporate citizenship, as a catch-​all term for expanding the purview of business roles in society. For example, our analysis of voluntary sustainability reports issued by the Fortune 100 American companies showed that between 2006 and 2012, the terms “citizenship,” “CSR,” “ethics,” “social,” “stewardship,” and “sustainability” all increased in usage (per report). Yet the frequency and increase of “sustainability” surpassed all other terms, increasing from forty-​six times/​report to seventy-​four times/​report.2 The advent of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) is a recent example of this usage. SASB aims to set standards for how companies account for a wide range of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that might bear on their performance and strategy. Those standards are based on a notion of materiality—​ a way to categorize issues based on their most significant impact on both firm profits and society. It applies a “five factor test” for materiality that includes “direct financial impacts and risks” as well as “stakeholder concerns and social trends” (SASB 2016). SASB thereby elides the notion of sustainability of a business itself with sustainability of the wider societies and environments within which businesses exist. It suggests a kind of unity between the economic growth of enterprises and social progress. Debates persist, however, around the notion of materiality—​issues are material to whom, namely, do investors or other societal stakeholders have more power in defining the responsibilities of the corporation? We can understand these debates better if we go one step further back in history, before the Brundtland commission. The notion of sustainable development itself was a reaction to a particular clash in the discourse of the 1970s and 1980s: between a neoliberal notion of economic growth, and the Limits to Growth study released by the Club of Rome in 1972. The former suggested that the path to poverty alleviation and social 1  Note that sustainability has also become an important concept in the public and nonprofit sectors, referring to the economic sustainability of programs amid limited and shrinking government budgets. Below we describe how the retreat of the welfare state creates scarcity and makes sustainability tensions salient. We have chosen to focus this chapter, however, on sustainability as it appears in the private sector. 2  We used QDA Miner to conduct frequency counts of all sustainability reports issued by Fortune 100 companies in 2006 (46 reports), 2009 (61 reports), and 2012 (76 reports). We normalized the counts by reports issued in each year to explore trends in word use.

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    355 progress would be expansion of trade, free markets, and economic activity: “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—​to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits” (Friedman 1970). The latter suggested that unconstrained economic growth would overshoot the carrying capacity of the planet and lead to the collapse of civilization. Vicious debates between these two perspectives created a strong desire for some kind of synthesis, in part to ease the tensions between an emerging civil society and increasingly powerful multinational corporations. Thus the notions of sustainable development and sustainability were born. This synthesis did not, however, extinguish controversy and debate around the topic of sustainable development. In fact, the UN sustainable development “Agenda 21” became an object of fierce opposition and conspiracy theories by conservative movements in the United States in the 2010s. This opposition stemmed from fears that UN-​ led global sustainability efforts would compromise the national sovereignty of the United States and the property rights of individuals (Frick et al. 2015). When we see this kind of conflict arising at multiple points in time, the paradox perspective calls us to deconstruct and understand the persistent contradictions and interdependencies that might exist in the notion of sustainability.

Paradoxes of Sustainability Consider the word sustainability. Sustainability, as a part of speech, is a noun. It is not a thing, however. It is a property, a characteristic of some thing or some process—​the capacity to endure. It is intimately related to the adjective “sustainable.” Both words demand some kind of object—​sustainable development of a country, a sustainable society, a sustainable planet, a sustainable organization, or a sustainable lifestyle. We are going to suggest that the terms sustainable and sustainability are most often applied to systems, that is collections of elements—​teams and organizations of people, communities of people and infrastructure, value chains, ecosystems of organisms, nations, the planet as a whole. Very often those assemblies of elements are complex: they have many elements that interact in a large variety of ways. Sustainability describes something about those complex systems. John Ehrenfeld goes so far as to say that sustainability is an emergent property of a complex system (J. Ehrenfeld 2008). This means that sustainability is a property that we can only observe by observing how the whole system works—​we can’t understand the sustainability of the system only by looking at the behavior of parts of the system. Lest this get abstract, consider a fishery. If we want to know whether a fishery is sustainable (i.e. are we going to run out of lobster in Maine or not? Will the fishermen there continue to have a livelihood ten years from now?), we need to understand the interaction between the fishermen and the marine animals. We cannot look at either in isolation, asking if a single fish or fishing company will survive or thrive (although they

356    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability contribute to the whole). In fact we may have to look at the effect of rising ocean temperatures amid a changing climate. Sustainability is a property of whole systems. Now let’s look at that property of something being sustainable—​it means that its character and its performance can continue into the future. If we find ourselves as advocates for sustainability, that means that we care about the system and its future. Nevertheless, when we try to act on whole systems, we act as parts of the whole. Individuals, companies, and other types of organizations are one among a collection of elements in a system. Those parts act out of their past experience, and a limited horizon of future considerations.

Parts–​Whole Paradoxes Smith and Berg (1987) in their seminal work on the paradoxes of group life, identified part–​whole relationships as fundamental sources of paradox. Parts and wholes define one another, and yet they contradict. In sustainability these contradictions take at least two forms. The first is that as a part of a system I have limited perspective on the whole. As in the parable of blind men understanding an elephant by touching only a single appendage, views of the properties of the whole can contradict and conflict. To return to the fisheries example, debates rage among fishermen and with scientists in almost every fishery as to the accurate assessment of fish population, and therefore the appropriate stringency of regulation. Each has their own experience with the frequency of sighting and catch of the fish. The second contradiction is that as a part of a system we care about our part as well as the whole. Sometimes those self-​interests (particularly the long-​term ones) are aligned with the health of the whole system—​we are, after all, a part of the system. Our kids will get to eat fish if the fishery is sustainable. But sometimes my individual interests and others’ interests, or the collective interests, are in conflict instead. I certainly want to eat fish now, even though I know it might undermine the system as a whole, particularly if we all do it. The famous “tragedy of the commons” idea (Hardin 1968) captures that contradiction. In the face of these contradictions we might seek to create new language such as resilience (Sheffi 2015), thrivability (Russell 2013), or flourishing (J. R. Ehrenfeld and Hoffman 2013), but these are still properties of whole systems and subject to the same fundamental paradox. It can be useful in this context to get clearer about the various layers of parts and wholes that enter into discussions of “sustainability” as shown in Figure 18.1. With this picture in mind, we can consider the specific array of part–​whole tensions that will arise: between community economic development in a mining town and the health of the wider ecosystem; between the health of a department and the health of the company or organization as a whole; between the competitive advantage of a particular company and health of an industry. Any notion of sustainability that seeks alignment in the perspectives and interests of multiple levels must begin with understanding the contradictions that exist. In Table

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    357 All life Nation/State Industry Company Department Individual

Figure 18.1  Layers of parts and wholes of sustainability

18.1 we highlight a few key issues that arise when interests conflict across these levels. Each of these issues is characterized by a kind of tension, even polarization. Some people advocate for the good of the part or the good of the whole in that polarity. Others may hope to synthesize or transcend these contradictions.

Temporal Paradox: Parts and Wholes in Time We can also think about parts and wholes in time. Consider paradoxes of short-​term versus long-​term thinking that have been identified in the sustainability literature (Ortiz-​deMandojana and Bansal 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2012, 2015). Here it is possible to think of “the long term” as a whole that includes many “short-​term” segments or parts of the timeline. In this way, long-​term well-​being means well-​being at each segment of time into the future. Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of each present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Nevertheless there are contradictions. Businesses often reward employees for short-​term performance, which undermines their ability to improve performance on sustainability issues that may impact the company over a longer time frame (Eccles, Ioannou, and Serafeim 2014). A short-​term focus on earnings alone results in longer-​term decline in both earnings (Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal 2006) and sustainability performance (Russo and Fouts 1997). However, companies that are able to realign their incentives to motivate a focus on sustainability concerns are able to engage in more innovative solutions that lead to greater long-​term profitability (Eccles, Perkins, and Serafeim 2012). Firms that adopt responsible social and environmental practices, have lower financial volatility, higher sales growth, and higher chances of survival over a fifteen-​year period than firms that do not adopt these sustainability practices (Ortiz-​de-​Mandojana and Bansal 2015). As notions of sustainability become more prevalent in our culture and institutions, organizations increasingly take on social and environmental issues in their practice,

358    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Table 18.1 Examples of issues that arise when interests conflict across multiple levels Other/​Whole Part/​Self

Individual

Company

Individual

Work–​life Compensation balance among and fair wage spouses and colleagues

Company

Market niche/​ Competitive advantage

Industry

Industry

Nation/State

All life

Professional Taxes, association dues immunizations and agenda

Lifestyle footprint

Openness of platforms and intellectual property

Wages, labor standards, and inequality

Corporate footprint

Disruption (e.g., coal, gas vs. solar, wind)

Social Industry externalities, footprint (e.g., product health impacts)

Nation

Resource rights National (e.g., water) footprint Sovereignty

All life

Climate change winners and losers (e.g., jellyfish vs. coral)

policy, strategy, and even identity. With them come the various part–​whole tensions in space and time that we describe above. This happens across a wide spectrum of organizations. Publicly traded corporations like Walmart and Nike create sustainability strategies and departments. Mission-​driven and “for benefit” companies like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s differentiate themselves based on their approach to sustainability. Various forms of social enterprise arise to provide social services with market-​driven business models. Nonprofit and government agencies take on revenue streams to buttress their own financial sustainability. As they do, the inherent tensions of sustainability become part of organizational fabric.

When Sustainability Paradoxes Become Salient It is not the case, however, that these tensions arise in every context in every moment. The paradoxes of sustainability are “latent tensions” in Smith and Lewis’s (2011) dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. They become salient and actively navigated under a

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    359 few specific conditions. These conditions include plurality, change, scarcity, and actors’ paradoxical cognition. Plurality of stakeholders is a defining feature of sustainability efforts, whether in corporations, hybrid organizations, or cross-​sectoral collaborations. Stakeholders include “primary” business stakeholders like employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and communities, as well as secondary stakeholders like NGOs who seek to represent the interests of marginal populations and future generations (Freeman et al. 2010). This pluralism subjects organizations to multiple discourses and “rules of the game” (Kraatz and Block 2008). Sometimes companies find this plurality foisted upon them, as when mining businesses come under attack by local environmental and community development activists. When this happens, companies undertake a process of stakeholder engagement and management, and in so doing they surface a variety of latent tensions in the community. While they may have thought the mine’s economic development to be an unequivocal “good” they encounter a set of issues about disruption of wider wholes: the culture and ecology of the region. Other times companies invite plurality more actively, as when Walmart engaged the Environmental Defense Fund and the US Environmental Protection Agency to inform their strategy, and identified an array of issues including toxic “chemicals of concern” in their supply chains (EDF 2016). In either situation, the latent tensions between growth of the business and health of the wider ecosystem become salient, through debates between actors driving these diverse agendas. Change, from dominant practices to a new set of sustainability-​oriented practices, also defines many such efforts. For example, sustainability efforts sometimes entail creating new metrics of social and environmental performance for manufacturing processes and supply chains. In so doing, attention and analysis come to those processes, exposing latent tensions between individuals and organization as well as the relationships to society and environment. In early 2013, facing the aftermath of one of the deadliest garment-​factory accidents, the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, H&M changed their previous supplier management processes. They added metrics for employee wages, true cost of labor, safety inspections; they took more control over certain factories; and they joined industry accords for worker safety. These changes highlight different, and often conflicting, motivations between factory owners, employees, and H&M. They also raise larger questions about the feasibility of the “fast fashion” industry to achieve sustainability—​an underlying tension not salient until attempts to implement new policies. Scarcity has two forms in the context of sustainability efforts. One is the scarcity of natural resources that defines part of the environmental sustainability agenda. An increase in oil, metal, food crop, or other commodity prices can help expose inefficiencies in industry that forces reassessment of the business’ footprint and adjacent exposures. Coca-​Cola faces the challenge of water scarcity in their bottling operations in Rajasthan, India. During drought conditions, extraction of water for production caused conflict with farmers, local citizens, and governing agencies. The combination of resource scarcity and stakeholder concerns led Coca-​Cola to reassess plant locations and operations,

360    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability as well as launch a broader water conservation strategy. As significant as the scarcity of natural resources, however, is the scarcity of organizational resources—​money, attention, and skill. Organizations must constantly allocate these resources among priorities, some of which are aimed at short-​term growth and profitability while others are aimed at long-​ term success and societal contribution (Soderstrom and Weber 2011). In times of plenty, companies may be able to be magnanimous with both shareholders and societal stakeholders, but when budgets get cut, the latter are the first to notice. This can spark the fire of conflicts glossed over by temporary abundance. In fact, it is exactly these processes operating at a macro level that create salience for the organizational notion of sustainability, particularly in the nonprofit sector. Scarcity of government funds in mature economies has led to offloading and outsourcing social services of the welfare state. The resulting independent nonprofit organizations become “social enterprises” tasked with assuring their own “sustainability” through market-​ based revenue and grant writing. In the process, a wide variety of tensions between social mission and financial surplus become visible. It is not that these tensions did not exist when part of a government bureaucracy; they were just being held and navigated by a narrower set of actors allocating budgets (Lyon et al. 2015; Sepulveda 2015). The final condition for salience of tensions is paradoxical cognition on the part of organizational members. This can occur when they actively seek out contradictions, or have them illuminated in dialogue with outsiders, including consultants and action researchers. For example, Jay (2013) describes how the Cambridge Energy Alliance encountered a paradox in their business model. They were doing free home and business energy audits, in the hopes that they would spur the purchase of insulation and other energy efficiency services, and generate both revenue for CEA and greenhouse gas reductions for the city. Instead, customers engaged CEA’s competitors to provide the efficiency services, yielding public mission success but business mission failure. The organization glossed over this tension, however, until the researcher brought out the notion of paradox. Then the leadership took on a notion of “catalyst” as a synthesis frame. Doing so helped illuminate new pathways for capitalizing on their role as a catalyst in the market (turning their “failures” into “successes”), rather than getting mired in unproductive debate about the nature of success. The salience emerged from the paradoxical cognition facilitated through action research.

Navigating Organizational Paradoxes Once the paradoxes of sustainability have become salient, how do people and organizations navigate them? How can we use a paradox lens to understand the patterns of organizational strategy for sustainability? Here again we can look to the paradox literature to help make some patterns visible. Responses to paradox are varied but at a high level they include a mix of defensive strategies that seek short-​term relief from paradox, and active strategies that acknowledge and grapple with paradox in a more ongoing

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    361 way (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). Defensive strategies include opposition, divisional compartmentalization, and temporal splitting. Active strategies identified in the literature include acceptance and reframing (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Lewis 2011). We observe these in the sustainability domain and highlight them below, and explore an integrative approach to sustainability paradoxes that can yield innovation and flourishing.

Defensive Strategies Opposition One way of navigating paradox is through opposition, which occurs when two contradictory ideas, theories, or ideologies coexist in the same social conversation at the same time. The contradictions can create confusion or even conflict without some form of direct confrontation and navigation. As one example of this pattern, Battilana and Dorado (2010) describe the development of a microfinance organization in Bolivia, BancoSol, which hired two disparate populations of employees. One set of people had social work and religious backgrounds that put them in touch with the poor communities that BancoSol aimed to serve. The other set had banking, finance, accounting, and control backgrounds, and understood the operations of a financial institution. The two groups co-​mingled in the organization, in similar roles, but had very different theories about the purpose of the organization and how it should operate, so as to serve the community while also managing its own financial risk. Despite efforts to teach each group about the other’s complementary skills, the result was a “cultural schism,” a pattern of opposition without resolution. In this case, the results were harmful to BancoSol and its clientele, leading to significant layoffs and decline of the borrower population and lending portfolio. At a much wider scale, consider the coexistence of two ideologies about sustainability in American political culture. On the one hand, there is a strong libertarian streak, grounded in a few key ideas: individual liberty creates the opportunity for people to pursue their interests; economic exchange allows for synergy between these interests; free markets provide all the necessary coordination of that exchange; voluntary contributions of charity in a market of religious organizations and other NGOs will address any inequities or externalities. On the other hand there is a welfare state ideology that markets are pernicious and exploitative of people and natural resources, thus requiring an active hand of government to regulate, tax, subsidize, and direct resources toward correcting the failures of capitalism. These two theories exist in opposition to one another and shape a polarized political debate. For example American political discourse about climate change hinges on whether government-​led mitigation efforts will “destroy the economy” or if unregulated climate change will do the same. These debates pit environmental and economic interests against one another, reminiscent of the Limits to Growth debates, but reflect the underlying opposition of ideologies.

362    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Corporations who participate in the political process find themselves pulled in these very different directions. Consider the case of Nike, which was simultaneously part of the “Businesses for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy” coalition organized by the environmental group Ceres to promote a price on greenhouse gas emissions, and the US Chamber of Commerce, which took an almost universal stance against government climate policy. Nike withdrew from the board of the Chamber over this issue in 2009, placing itself in the cross-​hairs of the culture wars (Clark 2009).

Compartmentalization A key response to these conflicts and contradictions is what Van de Ven and Poole (1989) call spatial splitting and Jarzabkowski et  al. (2013) call compartmentalization. This involves a structural separation so that one part of the paradox operates in one physical or social locus, while another operates in a different locus. At the macro political level described above, one response to the opposition between libertarian and socialist ideologies is to follow the Milton Friedman doctrine that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” This theory recognizes the tension between part and whole, individual, organization, and society, but allocates focus on each part to different actors. Business engages in profit through market exchange. Government engages in social welfare. Friedman argued that governments should actively tax and subsidize to correct market failures and account for externalities, setting the rules of the game that companies could then play for profit alone. There are several reasons, however, that this macro regime of compartmentalization can break down. One is that it fails to solve social issues because the game of business is not static. Companies constantly move into new technologies, new business models, and new markets that have new externalities. Mortgage-​backed securities, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and bisphenol-​A (BPA) plastics provide just a few examples where government oversight and regulation has lagged behind business practice, with consequences for economic, human, and environmental health. These delays suggest that an ideal regime of business and society would involve businesses’ more proactive assessment of social and environmental responsibility around innovation and strategic decisions. The second issue with the Friedman formulation is that it relegates businesses to profit generation while the actual people who make up business organizations have wider concerns in mind. They are citizens, community members, and parents of future generations in their own right. Many firms pursue sustainability strategies not only to deal with reputational and regulatory risk, but to win the hearts and minds of employees who seek a sense of purpose and contribution through their work. As a result, companies increasingly pursue not just economic goals, but social and environmental concerns as well. When this happens, a second layer of compartmentalization can occur, separating contradictory perspectives and interests into different organizational groups. For example, many corporations have created a VP-​level sustainability officer or department, whose job is to advocate for social and environmental performance internally and report on corporate activities for outside stakeholders. This legitimized role recognizes that some degree of agitation and innovation is valuable. The risk is that sustainability

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    363 departments become a form of structural decoupling (Meyer and Rowan 1977), comprising well-​meaning people who engage externally with NGOs and other societal stakeholders, but are isolated from having real impact on the organization. In fact companies constantly wrestle with how to embed sustainability more systematically into organizational culture (Bertels, Papania, and Papania 2010). One approach is to create more fine-​grained compartmentalization—​for example, embedded sustainability staff inside the supply chain/​ procurement function of the company. This shifts the opportunity for agitation and innovation down the working-​group level. It does not, however, remove the paradox. The same part–​whole tensions between the good of the organization and the good of society and environment still exist. They have now just entered the working-​group level, arising as tensions in interpersonal relationships.

Temporal Splitting Another response to paradoxes of sustainability is what Van de Ven and Poole (1989) called temporal splitting. This means claiming that one pole of the paradox is relevant during one time period and the other pole in another. As a simple example, we have heard startup companies argue that given minimal resources, their essential focus is on short-​term cash flow and building a customer base with the cheapest inputs available. Later, once they have success, they believe they can focus on how that success can be “sustainable.” This is an example of temporal splitting of sustainability tensions. Another example is the ongoing debate about whether sustainability is a “developed world” concept, relevant only to rich countries. While this would appear to be a compartmentalization of sustainability ideals at the national level, the underlying logic is often a temporal one: it is based on the idea of a trajectory over time of development and industrialization. In a purported timeline of that progression, “developing” or “emerging” countries must focus on economic growth and wealth building for human beings alone. Once they have passed a threshold of economic security, then they can afford to be more concerned about rainforests and endangered species—​the wider ecological whole.3 Note that there are two important nuances here. First, it is important to maintain the distinction between part–​whole and temporal paradoxes, and compartmentalization versus temporal splitting of those paradoxes. In Table 18.2, we illustrate this distinction, which can be difficult to tease apart for scholars and practitioners alike. Without these distinctions, the tendency is to manage “sustainability” along only one dimension: on one hand, think of a mining company’s community relations department that addresses immediate stakeholder demands without ensuring the long-​term viability of the commitments they make; on the other hand, think of a bottling plant

3  It is worth noting that this idea is problematic. There is no teleological trajectory or single timeline of development—​there are many pathways through the technological and political landscape of industrialization. As a result, countries at the same level of economic prosperity range widely in their degrees of social progress and environmental progression (Porter, Stern, and Green 2015).

364    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Table 18.2 Compartmentalization and temporal splitting can be responses to both part-​whole and temporal paradoxes Part-​whole paradoxes

Short-​term long-​term temporal paradoxes

Compartmentalization

Procurement people focused on getting the best price for the company. Sustainability staff arguing for paying a price that allows living wage and sustainable business for suppliers.

Finance teams focused on quarterly earnings, while sustainability staff argue for investments to help long-​term cost, risk, and revenue management.

Temporal splitting

Focusing on basic performance characteristics during the product development phase, while considering social and environmental impacts during the manufacturing ramp-​up phase.

Seeing a short-​term focus on profits as appropriate in the startup phase, while mature organizations can think about long-​term sustainability of the enterprise.

preserving its water supply for its own ongoing operations, but ignoring the community’s demands for water and the opposition they might mount. The second nuance is that while compartmentalization and temporal splitting appear to provide more relief from paradox than opposition, neither resolves paradoxes. For example, the sustainability department of a company, and the leaders within it, are parts of a larger organizational whole. They face new kinds of paradoxes. Is sustainability a specific department and role? Or is it everyone’s job, to be embedded throughout the organization? Different companies approach this very differently, and companies may even move back and forth among various strategies. Nike took its public relations (PR) department and rebranded it as a Corporate Responsibility (CR) department while handling the sweatshop labor scandals of the 1990s. Then it worked to create sustainability expertise through the company. Then it merged CR with advanced R&D to create Sustainable Business and Innovation, while having a few sustainability roles embedded in supply chain and other corporate functions (Paine, Hsieh, and Adamsons 2013). Walmart started out saying it would make sustainability an add-​on to a variety of people’s jobs, and organize them into cross-​functional “value networks.” Then the company ended up investing more heavily in a centralized sustainability function (Denend and Plambeck 2010). This kind of oscillation is common in the midst of paradox. It can be a result of deliberate temporal splitting—​arguments about the appropriate timing of short-​versus long-​term thinking, and strategies for the bottom line versus contribution to society. Oscillation can also be the result of compartmentalization into factions, plus the rise and fall in influence and power of one group over another. When understood and

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    365 managed deliberately, oscillation can be a strategy for ongoing learning and adaptation (Johnson 1996). On the flipside, it can create confusion, churn, and transaction costs with each reorganization and reframing of people’s roles.

Using Paradox as Fuel for Innovation and Flourishing What, then, might it look like for organizations to take a more proactive and mindful approach to sustainability paradoxes? The first element of a proactive approach is to reframe paradox itself in the context of sustainability. Given the various challenges described here, it would be easy to see paradox as a problem—​an obstacle that sustainability leaders must overcome. It is possible, however, to see paradox as fuel for innovation, and not just innovation toward short-​term organizational performance, but toward the ultimate goal of sustainability efforts—​the flourishing of human and other life forever (Ehrenfeld 2008; Ehrenfeld and Hoffman 2013). Let us explore this idea further. At the core of paradox theory is the idea of interdependent elements with persistent contradictions between them. The tendency in some corners of sustainability research and practice has been to address contradictions by emphasizing interdependence: if we celebrate the interconnectedness of humans and other life, somehow the contradictions will disappear. As a caricature of this view, imagine inviting a gas-​guzzling race car driver to meditate in the woods, or contemplate the flow of oil from Middle East dictatorships to greenhouse gases; perhaps he might be more inclined to ride bicycles instead. Repeating this exercise might help to create a cadre of “low-​impact people” but they will face the same contradictions between their old and new world view when they re-​enter their organizations and communities. The paradox perspective suggests that instead we confront and engage contradiction: the desire for the rush of a fast car and the desire for a clean and safe environment, holding both as real and valid. If we impose both of these constraints simultaneously, with equal vigor, we more actively seek options to break the trade-​off. In a vehicle design process, for example, we might end up with a high-​performance electric car like a Tesla. Would that technological innovation resolve the paradox? Certainly not. While an electric car emits nothing from the tailpipe, it relocates emissions to an electric power plant and battery factory that may burn coal. It opens more geographic distance in the part–​whole contradiction. Even if that whole system has greater energy efficiency, thus reducing total pollution for each vehicle, the result will be to encourage more individualized vehicle purchase and enable greater consumption in the future—​the so-​called “rebound effect” (Greening et al. 2000). It displaces effects from the short term to the long term, and the temporal paradox remains (Slawinski and Bansal 2015). The innovation can, however, make a difference, especially when coupled with other innovation processes like renewable energy for the electric grid. The same process of confronting and breaking trade-​offs, applied in wider circles and considering longer time scales, can help move in the direction of sustainability.

366    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Along the way, people involved in these innovation processes have access to a special experience. Humans by our nature are bundles of contradictory interests and desires. We care for our own prosperity, and we care for the people and world around us. In environments of opposition, compartmentalization, or temporal splitting, we are asked to place one or more of these cares aside, to pretend to care about what our work places in the foreground. A work environment that embraces paradoxes of sustainability is one in which more of people’s conflicting motivations have legitimacy. While this can create discomfort and ambiguity, it can also create flourishing through an experience of wholeness. As an IT systems analyst in a beverage company put it: I’m super thankful to be here . . . We work hard . . . We want to see what the most new and exciting things are. But man, if we can do it and remain sustainable in culture and environment, making a consumable product, if we could still honor all these things, that’s a great place to work.4

How might this process look, for navigating paradox toward sustainability-​oriented innovation and flourishing of the people involved? We propose there are five interrelated processes for using paradox as fuel: discovery; reframing; championing ambivalence; experimentation; and scaling across levels.

Discovery This involves seeing that a paradox of sustainability exists, and acknowledging it. Here is where the very notion of paradox can help practitioners. While they may experience a conflict between stakeholder groups, or a dilemma in their strategy, something deeper is at play.

Reframing This kind of reframing involves accepting the paradox as not only inevitable but a useful tension to drive innovation. For example, some organizations have grappled with where to embed sustainability in the organization, and notice that they are conflicted about it. They notice their own tendency to oscillate back and forth between centralized and decentralized approaches to sustainability departments. In the process, some leaders have come to a conclusion—​the tension is healthy. Designated professionals are valuable, as is a distributed network of people thinking about sustainability. The professionals are not experts, however, but rather facilitators of conversation. They help drive innovation by helping people hold apparently competing values at the same time. One phenomenon that occurs in the process of reframing is promoting language that articulates multiplicity, for example, “we have a double bottom line.” While many companies adopt this language, or similar idioms like “shared value,” or “stakeholder

4 

Excerpt from a forthcoming doctoral thesis by Gabriel Grant.

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    367 capitalism,” they vary in the degree that they explicitly acknowledge the persistent contradictions.

Championing Ambivalence The core of an active approach to sustainability paradox involves cultivating “champions of ambivalence”—​creating a culture that does not seek to resolve tensions easily or defensively. A vivid example comes from the outdoor apparel and equipment company Patagonia. In 2011, the company launched a “product life-​cycle initiative” aimed at taking a comprehensive view of the environmental impact of consumption. Part of the effort included encouraging customers to avoid unnecessary purchases of its products. This took a highly visible form on the consumerist holiday of Black Friday in November, 2011, when the company took out a full-​page New York Times ad imploring “Don’t Buy This Jacket” over a picture of their own best-​selling fleece. The text of the ad said that despite the company’s best efforts at environmental responsibility, there is still an impact of each garment, and customers should consume thoughtfully. Sales in the coming weeks were at record levels. The company had to grapple with the paradox—​was this ad a success in driving sales, or a failure in driving the environmental mission? At one company meeting, a debate ensued about how to make sense of this result, and they asked the founder and Chairman, Yvon Chouinard, to resolve the question. Silently he stood up, turned around, and walked out of the room. This was a gesture to avoid resolving the contradiction, and force the employees to continue grappling with the ambiguity in their mission (O’Hara 2013). It is also possible to champion ambivalence through formal mechanisms, such as multiple strong performance criteria for projects, products, and people. When Nike first made forays into environmentally “considered” design, it made compromises in product aesthetics and performance; one example was a “Trash Talk” shoe sewn together from factory-​floor scraps. Seeing poor sales for the product, the company decided to stand firm on environmental and aesthetic and athletic performance simultaneously. These strong criteria forced product teams to debate their design choices, search further afield for new materials, and come up with novel designs to break trade-​offs. In the absence of senior leadership support of ambivalence, or these formalized mechanisms, it can fall to individual sustainability professionals to be champions of ambivalence. They are often trained system thinkers, who work to understand how the company’s use of natural and human resources might feed back to constrain its options and performance in the future. They often have the time and license to engage with NGOs, academics, and other trend-​spotters and trend-​makers, who can help the company identify emerging social and environmental issues. At the same time, these professionals have little information, reality check, or ability to implement initiatives, without the people in manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, sales, HR, and other functions. Thus sustainability staff members have to do a blend of convening, influencing, and framing in order to bring a more complex, usefully ambivalent perspective alive in the organization.

368    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability

Experimentation As paradoxical thinking and performance expectations spread, experimentation ensues. People pilot-​test new physical designs, practices, policies, and messages that break trade-​offs and embody both/​and thinking. At Nike, this occurred when the Nike Air shoe product team sought an alternative to sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas, an extremely potent greenhouse gas. To replace SF6 with environmentally inert nitrogen gas, they would have to replace the bladder material to ensure the gas would not leak and erode athletic performance. The result of a wide search for new materials was a bladder with greater structural integrity. This prompted a redesign of the shoe with a bladder extending the full length, thus increasing athletic performance beyond what had previously been seen as possible. At Patagonia the experimentation was with new messaging to promote low-​ consumption lifestyles, for example a “Worn Wear” campaign to celebrate used clothing via the stories and experiences embodied in them.

Scaling across Levels The final component involves inviting others into the paradoxical thinking, to expand the process of sustainability-​oriented innovation and flourishing. The first destination is scaling to the level of the organization. This can involve creating hybrid organizational forms that have multiple objectives built into their mission statements, governance structures, and core decision processes. Such organizations accept paradox into their culture in a fundamental way (Battilana et al. 2015; Battilana and Dorado 2010, 2014; Jay 2013; Pache and Santos 2013; Smith, Gonin, and Besharov 2013). The next level is scaling to the level of industry and deliberately surfacing contradictions with competitors, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders. Patagonia and Nike both helped found the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, whose aim is to build strong social and environmental performance criteria into product design and supply chain management processes. Some organizations even aspire to create a broader social conversation that helps people confront their contradictory interests and motivations. Patagonia’s “Don’t Buy This Jacket” ad was part of a larger campaign called the Common Threads Initiative with an aim to shift consumption habits and engage other companies in the dialogue. As one example, REI closed for Black Friday 2015 in an effort to support its employees’ time with family.

An Integrative Approach It is important to acknowledge that this active trajectory of discovery, reframing, championing ambivalence, experimentation, and scaling across levels is not mutually exclusive with other paradox strategies. In fact, compartmentalization and temporal

Jason Jay, Sara Soderstrom, and Gabriel Grant    369 splitting can be useful tools for champions of ambivalence. They allow organizations to keep tensions alive through healthy sparring between groups, and forced checkpoints in time to rebalance. Along the way, however, that healthy sparring occurs in a context of respect for conflicting points of view, accepting it as inevitable in a paradoxical organization. There is a kind of rhythm, which Smith and Lewis (2011) point out with their framework. Paradoxes and tensions become salient, there is splitting, there is innovation toward a temporary resolution. The tensions become latent again, to be salient at some future point. By spurring virtuous cycles of responses, we may continuously move closer to the ideal of sustainability as the capacity to endure and flourish. A corollary to this idea is that not every organization has to be a hybrid organization that combines social and business mission. Not every leader and employee can be called upon to navigate sustainability paradoxes everyday. The cognitive developmental demand is too high (Kegan 1994). Furthermore, there is a risk that leaning too heavily on corporate virtue and sustainability may collapse the broader institutional tensions in favor of neoliberal and libertarian ideology. To oversimplify, if all corporations were responsible, there would be no need for government policy. In fact, a healthy tension between institutions may be essential to ensuring both individual liberty and the collective good. Thomas Friedman’s division of labor between business and government may be a useful one to ensure a voice for the parts and whole of our economy and society. The key is respect for both. From this perspective, for businesses that seek to promote sustainability, it is essential to both behave efficiently and help advocate for government policies that internalize externalities, thus forcing themselves and other businesses to continue evolving. This paradox perspective departs from the “business case for sustainability” idea that we often see in practitioner literature, suggesting that we can easily go from “Green to Gold” (Esty and Winston 2006) if we just quantify and exploit the economic benefits of environmental strategies. There are certainly “win–​wins” to be had—​ways that short-​ term and long-​term concerns can intersect. This occurs through energy efficiency and logistics optimization programs, for example, which save cost, fuel, and emissions. As more businesses grapple with the paradoxes inherent within sustainability, however, the questions change: from “Is there a business case?” to “How can a business case occur?” (Margolis and Walsh 2003). From the paradox perspective, this creation of a business case is an accomplishment of actively navigating the paradoxes of sustainability (Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, and Figge 2014). That is the crux of moving from “short-​ term profit maximization” toward sustainable development (Gladwin, Kennelly, and Krause 1995). In fact, we have to go beyond just the business case for social or environmental responsibility, to consider the full spectrum of part–​whole relationships. The paradoxes of sustainability deal with the relationship between individuals, organizations, societies, and all life. They can only be navigated at a wide institutional scale, calling on a wide range of “champions of ambivalence.” Only then can we create the personal–​business, society–​planet, present–​future case. That is the path to flourishing.

370    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability

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372    Navigating the Paradoxes of Sustainability Slawinski, N., and Bansal, P. 2012. A matter of time: The temporal perspectives of organizational responses to climate change. Organization Studies, 33(11): 1537–​63. Slawinski, N., and Bansal, P. 2015. Short on time: intertemporal tensions in business sustainability. Organization Science, 26(2): 531–​49. Smith, K. K., and Berg, D. N. 1987. Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass. Smith, W. K., Gonin, M., and Besharov, M. L. 2013. Managing social-​business tensions: A review and research agenda for social enterprise. Business Ethics Quarterly, 23(03): 407–​42. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381–​403. Soderstrom, S. B., and Weber, K. 2011. Organizational sustainability agendas:  An interaction ritual perspective on issue mobilization. Working paper, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Chapter 19

T he Parad oxe s of T i me i n Organiz at i ons Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal

Time is critical to organizing. As Schein notes, “the perception and experience of time are among the most central aspects of how any group functions” (1992:  105). Organizations possess temporal structures that shape the rhythm and pace of organizations, and how actors view the world and frame problems and solutions (Orlikowski and Yates 2002). Time also shapes organizational strategy and individuals’ beliefs, and creates challenges and conflicts in organizations (Ancona, Okhuysen, and Perlow 2001b; Bluedorn 2002; McGrath and Rotchford 1983). Conceptions of time have found their way into management thinking for over a century, from Frederick Taylor’s influential time and motion studies to Henri Gantt’s study of project scheduling. Although time research explaining organizational processes and outcomes has been around for decades (Butler 1995; Mosakowski and Earley 2000; Schein 1992), only in the last fifteen years has this research gained any real momentum (Ancona, Goodman, Lawrence, and Tushman 2001a; Crossan, Cunha, Vera, and Cunha 2005; Slawinski and Bansal 2015). Two main assumptions have surfaced in organizational time literature. First, organizational time is often expressed by referring to opposing elements, such as short term and long term, objective and subjective, and clock time and event time. Such opposing elements imply trade-​offs; researchers often choose to focus on one element or the other, thereby ignoring or missing the generative properties of the opposing elements’ interrelatedness. Second, most organizational research assumes a short-​term time horizon (Laverty 1996) and Western clock time, where time is viewed as absolute, invariant, linear, and mechanical (Reinecke and Ansari 2015). This orientation to time comes with attendant costs and problems for organizations and society (Slawinski, Pinkse, Busch, and Banerjee 2015). A paradox lens explores how organizations can simultaneously attend to competing elements (i.e., tensions) (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). Here, tensions refer to

374    The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations contradictions between opposing elements, whereas paradox refers to the interrelatedness and persistence of such tensions. To date, only limited organizational research has applied a paradox lens to understanding temporal tensions. Among those few studies, Slawinski and Bansal (2015) describe “temporal ambidexterity” as firms’ ability to manage time paradoxes in the context of sustainability, and Reinecke and Ansari (2015), in the context of hybrids, refer to this ability as “ambitemporality.” The “both/​and” orientation of a paradox lens has the potential to offer insights into not only how organizations work but also some of the more difficult challenges they confront, such as managing the temporal tensions inherent in organizing (Laverty 1996; Marginson and McAulay 2008). In this chapter, we explore the value that a paradox lens can bring to the organizational time literature, and vice versa. Paradox research has hinted at, as have other literatures that explore notions of time and paradox, the importance of managing temporal tensions to achieve peak performance in both the short and long term (Smith and Lewis 2011), but there is considerable opportunity to deepen such analysis. Conversely, some of the depth that is absent from paradox research may be provided by the time literature (e.g., Bluedorn 2002). Given the limited consideration of temporality and paradox in organizations research, our chapter examines the existing literature on organizational time, particularly its focus on temporal tensions. We then explore the consequences of treating time as a trade-​off. Next, we examine, in a variety of domains, research that has explored the intersection of time and paradox. We end with a discussion of the gaps in current research and recommend future paths for research on temporality and paradox.

Temporal Tensions Given that time is often expressed as either a specific element or opposing elements, it is not surprising that researchers see temporal tensions in all aspects of organizations and organizing. Reinecke and Ansari (2015: 622) note: Temporal conflicts arise between organizational units, such as mature and young (Ancona et al. 2001a); functions, such as R&D and marketing (Ancona and Chong 1996); professional groups, such as scientists and administrators (Dubinskas 1988); and internal and external referents, such as managers and investors (Gersick 1994). Temporal conflicts also arise in managing different processes, such as exploitation and exploration or change and continuity (Ancona et al. 2001a).

In this section, we explore some of the temporal dimensions that have garnered research attention by management researchers. By understanding the different dimensions of time, especially as expressed in trade-​offs, it becomes possible to reflect on the contradictory nature of these dimensions (see Table 19.1). Later in the chapter we explore their interrelatedness.

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    375 Table 19.1 Previous organizational research on time dimensions Temporal dimension

Tension

Previous organizational research

The ontology of time

Objective vs. subjective

Mostly treated as contradictory (e.g., Mosakowski and Earley 2000); limited research examines their interrelationship (e.g., Orlikowski and Yates 2002).

Temporal perspectives

Clock time vs. event time

Clock time and event time are often explored as opposites; some research on their interconnectedness (e.g., Crossan et al. 2005; Reinecke and Ansari 2015).

Temporal focus

Past vs. present vs. future

Often studied in isolation (e.g., Ashkanasy et al. 2004); limited research has examined how they are interrelated (Kaplan and Orlikowski 2013).

Temporal depth

Short term vs. long term

Mostly studied as distinct or as an “intertemporal choice” (e.g., Laverty 1996); recent research examines their paradoxical nature (Hahn et al. 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2015).

Speed

Fast vs. slow

Usually assumed to be opposites. We found no studies that examine their paradoxical nature.

The Ontology of Time (Objective versus Subjective) The ontology of time refers to whether time is assumed to be objective or subjective. This distinction is sometimes expressed as Chronos (time as measured by the chronometer) or Kairos (“the human and living time of intentions and goals” (Jaques 1982: 14–​15)). Objective time is independent of human experience. As Mosakowski and Earley note, “an objective view suggests that time is based on some external (to individual perception) metric, such as the decay of cesium atoms, which formed the basis for an atomic clock, or ‘internet time’ ” (2000: 797). In other words, time is real and can be observed by anyone. Time also has physical properties, making it central to the study of the physical and natural sciences (Mcnaughten and Urry 1998). For example, research on temporal coordination often assumes an objective ontology. Zerubavel (1979) focused his attention on the temporal structures of hospital life. Every day of the year, hospitals rely heavily on temporal coordination; failure to do so has real and often immediate, observable consequences on patient health. Temporal coordination is needed in all aspects of hospital life, from managing careers to scheduling operations. Doctors and nurses even refer to wall clocks, rather than their own watches, to ensure that they are coordinating to the same time. This approach to time assumes that time can be coordinated

376    The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations among actors and with the biophysical environment, and its measurement is indisputable (George and Jones 2000). Failure to coordinate time can lead to conflicts between people or organizations, but time itself does not conflict. In contrast, subjective time is dependent on, and gains meaning through, human experience and interpretation (Reinecke and Ansari 2015). Different people experience time differently. Whereas one person may dwell in the past, others focus on the future. Research on organizational time orientation explores how organizations differ in how they conceive of and use time (Ancona et al. 2001b). These temporal perceptions dominate most time research in organizational studies (Ancona et al. 2001a; Bluedorn and Denhardt 1988). Researchers often study time as being either objective or subjective; it is rare for both to be considered within the same study. Orlikowski and Yates note that most researchers tacitly assume one or the other view, which has led to “a fundamental dichotomy underlying much of the social sciences in general . . . between objective and subjective realities” (2002: 685). What is missing from extant organizational research, however, is an explicit discussion of the ontology of time, and of how objective time and subjective time can be bridged, both in research and in organizations.

Temporal Perspectives (Clock Time versus Event Time) An organization’s temporal perspective refers to its preference for either clock time or event time, which has been linked to, respectively, objective and subjective views of time (Orlikowski and Yates 2002). A clock view of time has dominated Western culture since the Industrial Revolution (Bluedorn and Denhardt 1988), and has permeated organizational studies for more than a century (Crossan et al. 2005; McGrath and Rotchford 1983). Clock time is linear, and advances in a single direction as time’s arrow (Ancona et al. 2001b; Mosakowski and Earley 2000)—​a view of time that physicists now dispute (Mcnaughten and Urry 1998), but the perspective by which many people approach organizational life. Time is discrete and can be divided into measurable units, such as minutes, days, months, and years. Because time can be measured, it is often commoditized and treated as a scarce resource (Schein 1992; Zerubavel 1981). It is this clock view of time that has contributed to many scientific advances (Jaques 1982). For example, in the late nineteenth century, Frederick Winslow Taylor coordinated work schedules and other organizational processes by using a stopwatch to measure the pace of work. Whereas most industrialists at the time believed they were as efficient as possible, Taylor believed—​and was able to show—​that greater efficiencies could be gained by breaking time into discrete segments (Ancona et al. 2001b). Clock time is most pervasive in organizational practices and rhythms, as reflected in the timing of quarterly earnings reporting, budget cycles, just-​in-​time inventory management systems, and most manufacturing operations. These practices become legitimized by serving as powerful templates for organizing and shaping how organizations approach problems and solutions (Huy 2001; Orlikowski and Yates 2002). But clock time

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    377 has also been argued to have contributed to the temporal myopia and short-​termism that has plagued organizations for the past decades, which we discuss in greater detail below (Laverty 1996; Slawinski and Bansal 2012). In contrast to clock time, event time is often linked to a more Eastern view of time (Chen and Miller 2010). This perspective of time is marked by events, not clocks. Time is open, relative, organic, and cyclical (Reinecke and Ansari 2015). Event time is process-​ oriented, rather than deadline-​oriented (Bluedorn and Denhardt 1988). In contrast to clock time, which is linear and not repeated, event time is cyclical, as events are often viewed as repeating over time. An organization that applies clock time is deadline-​ oriented, while an organization that applies event time is process-​oriented (Reinecke and Ansari 2015). Event time tends to be continuous, rather than discrete, and emphasizes the sequence of events, rather than the units between them. In organizations research, and strategy research in particular, a subjective view of time has been neglected (Mosakowski and Earley 2000). This omission may have occurred because variance studies tend to rely more on clock time; yet, process studies (Langley 1999) tend to view time as events. Although clock time and event time are inherently different, they are not incompatible. Indeed, scholars have called for a greater understanding of the interplay between clock and event time in organization studies (Reinecke and Ansari 2015).

Temporal Focus (Past versus Present versus Future) A firm’s temporal focus refers to the emphasis it places on the past, present, or future (Bluedorn 2002). Mosakowski and Earley (2000) describe this focus as the referent point that anchors an organization in the past, present, or future. Nadkarni and Chen (2014) argue that a CEO’s temporal focus affects a firm’s rate of new product introductions. Through their empirical work, they found that a temporal focus was not a continuum but rather discrete, and that an organization can accommodate more than one focus, although most organizations tend to have a dominant focus. Organizations that focus on the present over the future prioritize efficiency over learning, and exploitation over exploration; organizations that focus on the past over the future tend to favor tradition over innovation (Ashkanasy, Gupta, Mayfield, and Trevor-​Roberts 2004; March 2008; Mosakowski and Earley 2000). In addition to research on temporal focus at the organizational level, research on time perspectives at the individual level has also informed organizations research. Temporal research at the individual level of analysis has largely focused on cognitive biases that shape individual behaviors, such as planning and decision-​making (Fraisse 1963; Klineberg 1968; Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger, and Edwards 1994; Zimbardo and Boyd 1999). Zimbardo and Boyd define time perspective as “the often nonconscious process whereby the continual flows of personal and social experiences are assigned to temporal categories, or time frames, that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to those events” (1999: 1271).

378    The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations In other words, individuals’ time perspectives are rooted in the past, present, or future. Individuals who focus on the past rely on previous experiences to guide their decision-​making, whereas individuals who focus on the future often envision what the future can be (Shipp, Edwards, and Lambert 2009). Those with a present time perspective perceive only a weak relationship between current actions and future consequences. Thus, for these individuals, current actions do not increase the probability that a desired goal will be achieved (Waller, Conte, Gibson, and Carpenter 2001). As a result, they are generally less goal-​directed, more impulsive, and less likely to plan (Amyx and Mowen 1995). Individuals who have a future time perspective believe that their current actions increase the likelihood that a desired end will be achieved in the future (Jones 1988). Thus, compared with those who have a present time perspective, future-​oriented individuals are more goal-​directed and more willing to delay gratification (Amyx and Mowen 1995; Zimbardo and Boyd 1999). Finally, individuals who have a past perspective are more risk-​averse than individuals who have more of a future focus (Zimbardo and Boyd 1999). Some debate surrounds whether time perspective is a stable trait or a state that changes with the context (Roe and Inceoglu 2016; Shipp et al. 2009), so the degree to which the temporal focus of individuals can be generalized across contexts is not clear.

Temporal Depth (Short versus Long) Temporal depth, also known as time horizons in strategy and organizations research, has been described as the length of time relevant to decision-​making (Bluedorn 2002; Das 2006). Bluedorn distinguishes between temporal depth and temporal focus: “Temporal depth is the distance looked into past and future. Temporal focus is the importance attached to the past, present, and future” (2002: 141–​2). As such, short term and long term refer to the distance one looks into the past or the future, or both. Organizational researchers have mostly treated this temporal dimension as a trade-​ off in organizations, calling it intertemporal choice (Laverty 1996). Furthermore, researchers have long argued that organizations tend to exhibit a short-​term orientation at the expense of long-​term goals. This perspective has led to the emergence of a body of work that is dedicated to short-​termism in organizations, which we discuss in the next section. At the individual level, researchers have studied managerial myopia, including its antecedents and consequences (Loewenstein and Prelec 1992). For example, Mannix and Loewenstein (1994) found that CEOs nearing retirement favor projects with shorter-​term payoffs to share in the rewards of their decisions. Furthermore, Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal (2005) found that 78 percent of the executives they surveyed would sacrifice projects that have positive net present value (NPV), if adopting them was likely to result in the firm falling short of its quarterly earnings expectations. Far less research has explored the long-​term orientations of managers (Bluedorn 2002).

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    379

Speed (Fast versus Slow) Temporal speed in organizations has been mainly researched in the context of decision-​ making, where it is often assumed that faster is better to more quickly help people and organizations adjust to an increasingly dynamic environment (Eisenhardt 1989). Management consultants advise business how to do things faster, better, and cheaper, and bookstores carry such titles as Accelerate and The One Minute Manager. The fields of dynamic capabilities (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen 1997) and hypercompetition (D’Aveni 1994) were born out of efforts to emphasize the importance of speed in organizational studies. Organizational researchers have argued that speed can be a source of competitive advantage (Eisenhardt 1989; Vinton 1992). Yet others have found that an emphasis on speed can have detrimental effects. For example, Perlow and colleagues’ (2002) research on speed linked organizations’ pressure for speed to poorer-​quality decisions. In their study of an Internet industry start-​ up, they found that an emphasis on speed can lead to a “speed trap,” in which a temporal context is created that encourages a faster pace, which in turn creates more pressure for speed, and so on (Perlow et al. 2002). Morales-​Maya and Bansal (2015) illustrate the costs of speed by comparing Coca-​Cola with PepsiCo. Coca-​Cola operated at faster speed than PepsiCo, as exhibited by its higher rate of CEO turnover, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and equity turnover. By analyzing newspaper reports, the researchers showed that, compared with PepsiCo, Coca-​Cola experienced considerably more mishaps and demonstrated lower levels of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In a quantitative survey study, Schriber and Gutek (1987) found thirteen temporal dimensions of organization culture, including speed versus quality. Study participants were asked questions such as whether it is better to make bad decisions quickly or good decisions slowly to see whether the organization’s temporal norms valued speed or quality of decisions. Speed and decision quality were seen at opposite ends of the spectrum. Also, counter to some studies, speed may not necessarily be desirable, as it can lead to poor decision-​making (Perlow et al. 2002). To summarize, organizations research on each of these time dimensions has tended to either explicitly or implicitly treat these dimensions as trade-​offs. In addition, time research in organization studies has been dominated by objective clock time. This focus on clock time has in turn been linked to negative outcomes, which we discuss next.

The Negative Consequences of Temporal Trade-​offs The above literature on time in organizations offers insights into the influence of different temporal dimensions on organizational priorities and outcomes. In this section, we examine how both treating these dimensions as trade-​offs and the dominance of clock

380    The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations time in organizations have contributed to negative outcomes for organizations and for society.

For Organizations: Short-​termism Researchers have studied the organizational outcomes related to different time frames in decision-​making. However, most of this work has focused on the negative outcomes of a short-​term lens (Laverty 1996). Short-​termism is defined as “a preference for actions in the near term that have detrimental consequences for the long term” (Marginson and McAulay 2008: 274) and implies that a trade-​off exists between the short and long terms. Such preference for the short term has been found at both the individual and organizational levels. Individuals prefer instant gratification, so will often favor the short term over the long term (Zimbardo and Boyd 1999). Similarly, organizations favor the short term over the long term because doing so limits search costs and reduces uncertainty (Cyert and March 1963). The combination of individual and organizational preferences contributes to short-​ termism. For example, DesJardine and Bansal (2016) argue that managers’ time horizons shorten when financial analysts downgrade their earnings expectations of firms, and lengthen when financial analysts upgrade their earnings expectations; however, the effect is asymmetrical, with downgrades exerting a greater effect than upgrades. Other scholars speak to the impacts of short time horizons on organizational decision-​making. For example, organizations with shorter time horizons are less likely to launch new products, invest in research and development (R&D), and take major strategic initiatives because the senior executives making the decisions will not be around to experience the benefits (Matta and Beamish 2008). Souder, Reilly, Bromiley, and Mitchell (forthcoming) argued that short-​term capital investments can compromise a firm’s financial performance by forcing managers to rush to quick judgments. Flammer and Bansal (2014) argued that short-​termism will lead to the narrowing of the available options that are considered, and found that firms that implemented long-​term executive incentives experienced an immediate impact on their share price, longer-​term impacts to their operating profits, and higher investments in R&D and CSR. And Porter (1992) argued that long-​term assets allow for greater efficiencies. As well, an argument could be made that long-​term strategies can actually reduce uncertainty, rather than increase it, through employee training and environmental stewardship. The temporal dimensions listed above combine to contribute to short-​termism (Slawinski and Bansal 2009). Corporations that are oriented to the short term tend to apply clock time, and exhibit a present focus, a short horizon, and fast speed. In an effort to do everything faster, they can compromise long-​term outcomes in favor of the arguments that we described above. Although considerable rhetoric surrounds the costs of short-​termism, there is little evidence of these costs in the management literature. Souder and Shaver (2012) show

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    381 that firms are unable to make long-​term investments when their short-​term performance is poor. Using regression discontinuity design (RDD), Flammer and Bansal (2014) show that the adoption of long-​term incentives in close-​call shareholder resolutions leads to an increase in firm value, higher operating performance, more innovation, and increased levels of corporate social responsibility—​arguably all positive outcomes for the firm. Similarly, Ortiz-​de-​Mandojana and Bansal (2016) also found that companies that invest in social and environmental practices, which they argue require long-​ term, sustained investments, builds organizational resilience that contributes to higher sales and higher survival rates.

For Society: Unsustainable Development Treating time as a trade-​off and focusing on clock time has also been linked to negative societal impacts through research on organizational sustainability. Sustainability scholars have examined how temporal trade-​offs and short-​termism lead to negative outcomes for businesses, society, and the planet (Hahn, Pinkse, Preuss, and Figge 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2015). For example, Slawinski and Bansal (2015) found that the concept of sustainable development encompasses tensions and paradoxes of time that, if not addressed, can result in negative consequences for both businesses and society. Indeed, according to the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) report Our Common Future, sustainable development is development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (1987: 43). The WCED argued that in conditions of natural resource constraints, excess resource use today could compromise future economic development. Consequently, at the heart of the notion of sustainable development is the notion that intergenerational equity will inevitably require intertemporal trade-​offs in conditions of natural resource constraints (Bansal and Desjardine 2014; Slawinski and Bansal 2015). As with corporate short-​ termism, the failure of economic development to be sustainable can be attributed to an overemphasis on clock time, a present focus, short horizons, and excessive speed. Whereas corporate short-​termism applies to the firm level of analysis, however, sustainable development explores the impact of corporate behaviors on the macro level of analysis over the long term. Excess natural resources used today will undermine the ability of the Earth to fully regenerate those resources, which occurs at specific rates, and therefore will compromise the natural resources available for future generations. Because natural resources are embedded in ecological systems, failures in one part of the system can affect other parts. For example, deforestation means not only fewer forestry products but also a build-​up of carbon in the atmosphere. Yet, if current generations cannot feed themselves without removing forests for agricultural land, then important questions are raised as to whether the world’s forests should be preserved for future generations that may never be born.

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Research Linking Paradox and Time Recent research suggests that organizations are capable of transcending conflicting polarized temporal perspectives (Crossan et al. 2005). As such, researchers have begun to explore how firms navigate temporal tensions; to explain the nature and management of these tensions, some have turned to the paradox lens (Reinecke and Ansari 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2015). Researchers have also explored temporality and paradox, both explicitly and implicitly, in a variety of research streams and contexts, including paradox research (Smith and Lewis 2011); ambidexterity (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004; Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, and Tushman 2009); improvisation (Crossan et al. 2005); hybrid organizing (Reinecke and Ansari 2015); and the practice perspective (Orlikowski and Yates 2002). We outline below the temporal paradoxes that have been explored in each of these literatures, including the nature of these paradoxes and their management.

Paradox Research Paradox research, which incorporates subjective and objective perspectives of reality, offers much promise for understanding how objective notions of time interact with subjective, socially constructed views of time (Smith and Lewis 2011). Smith and Lewis (2011: 389) describe how “the adaptive nature of systems spurs temporal tensions associated with paradoxes of learning and organizing as the demands of today differ from the needs of tomorrow.” They argue that choosing among competing tensions may lead to improved performance in the short term but not in the long term, given that “long-​term sustainability requires continuous efforts to meet multiple, divergent demands” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 381). Therefore, Smith and Lewis propose a dynamic equilibrium model that enables a virtuous cycle in which awareness of the tensions spurs acceptance instead of defensiveness, and leads actors to treat the tension as a paradox instead of a duality. Both acceptance and resolution strategies enable the management of paradoxical tensions. Resolution involves iterating between splitting (choosing between opposites) and integration (finding synergies between opposites) (Smith and Lewis 2011). By iterating between alternatives, managers can make choices in the short term that result in contradictions in the long term. Thus, accepting the tension between the present and the future and treating it as a paradox is, in the long run, at the heart of superior organizational performance. However, missing from the paradox research is both a deeper exploration of these particular temporal tensions and recommendations for specific management approaches.

Ambidexterity A related stream of literature in managing paradoxes emerges from research in exploration and exploitation. The ambidexterity literature examines how organizations navigate

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    383 the tension between the exploration of future opportunities and the exploitation of past or existing knowledge (March 1991). The intertemporal tension is inherent in this literature, given that exploration is necessarily both future-​oriented and long term, whereas exploitation tends to be present-orientated and short term. Because organizational resources face multiple demands, especially temporal demands, researchers have assumed that organizations must choose between exploration and exploitation. Recent research, however, has applied a paradox lens to show how organizations can manage both simultaneously (Gibson and Birkinshaw 2004; Raisch et al. 2009). For example, Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004) proposed that organizations can create a business unit context that allows employees and managers to use their own judgment to simultaneously allocate time and resources to both alignment and adaptability processes, thus overcoming the tendency within organizations to polarize the two. Slawinski and Bansal (2015) argued that ambidexterity does not necessarily require a separation of the two approaches to time. Using an inductive case study approach, they examined the responses of five firms to the climate change issue and found that, compared with firms that polarized time, firms that juxtaposed short-​ term goals and long-​term needs, and therefore exhibited temporal ambidexterity, were more likely to view climate change as a complex societal issue. The firms that exhibited temporal ambidexterity also took a broader approach to finding solutions to climate change. The intertemporal tensions that surfaced in these firms were due to the long-​term nature of the climate change issue, including long-​term investments in climate change mitigation, which in many cases contradicted these firms’ short-​ term financial goals. Three practices, in particular, allowed firms to view and address the tension as a paradox. Combining quantitative and qualitative planning encouraged firms to examine multidimensional data on climate change. Two-​way extensive stakeholder engagement allowed the firms to develop a richer understanding of the climate change problem. Finally, extensive industry and cross-​sector collaboration broadened the solution space of the climate change problem. As Slawinski and Bansal note: By juxtaposing different time frames, firms exhibit temporal ambidexterity, which exposes the different time frames’ paradox—​their opposing yet interrelated nature. In other words, because short-​term decisions seem so different from long-​term decisions, it is often easy to see only one or the other. However, by following these three practices, firms can come to see the temporal connections rather than the trade-​offs (2015: 545).

Finally, research that examines the role of time in culture has proposed that firms need to be “ambicultural,” meaning they need to be ambidextrous in combining two modes of management that incorporate a long-​term-​oriented relational Eastern culture and a short-​term, efficiency-​oriented Western culture (Chen and Miller 2010). Chen and Miller (2010) propose that such ambicultural management can improve organizational performance.

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Improvisation Crossan and colleagues (2005) propose a different approach to managing the time paradox, which does not force an either/​or choice. They argue that learning and improvisation can allow both exploration and exploitation to surface simultaneously. Improvisation has many definitions, but Moorman and Miner (1998:  702)  express it simply as: “the degree to which composition and execution converge in time.” Drawing on metaphors from jazz and theatre, they argue that improvisation is facilitated by such attributes as experimentation, real-​time information, teamwork, and expertise. Improvisation helps manage the tensions between event time and clock time, and between cyclical time and linear time. Improvisation enables individuals to create new approaches to temporally anchored problems by acting quickly and adapting to unexpected contingencies. In doing so, they can meet the demands of team members’ different time perspectives.

Hybrid Organizing A rich body of work is also emerging on hybrid organizing. Hybrid organizations embody two different, often paradoxical logics, goals, beliefs, or values. The most discussed aspects of hybrid organizing pertain to the integration of pragmatic, consequential business logic with more needs-​based, community logic (Battilana and Dorado 2010). Much of this research focuses on the management of competing dualities in value systems. Although much of this literature does not explicitly explore temporal paradoxes, it is beginning to examine the underlying temporal tensions inherent in hybrid organizing. For example, Reinecke and Ansari’s study of Fairtrade International, an organization that seeks to secure better wages for farmers, examines time paradoxes, which they describe as “seeing different temporal orientations as contradictory” (2015:638). Fairtrade International sought to reconcile the competing goals between market demands and the needs of development. Such a tension led to conflicting temporal demands between clock time, which dominates a market logic, and process time, which is embedded within a development logic. The authors found that organizations that exist at the intersection of such temporally distinct worlds engage in “temporal brokerage,” which enables them to transcend the duality of clock time versus process time. Such “ambitemporality” allows organizations to navigate not only conflicting goals but also the distinct temporalities associated with these goals. Two mechanisms in particular contributed to ambitemporality: temporal reflexivity and a mutual appreciation of interdependencies. As well, Sharma and Bansal (forthcoming) describe the paradoxes in partnerships between businesses and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are aiming to address issues of poverty and gender inequality. They describe the short-​term, clock-​time orientation of businesses and the long-​term, event orientation of NGOs.

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    385 Whereas both organizations held the same goals, businesses approached the partnership with an expectation that the women targeted by the joint venture would ensure that goods and services would be provided on time, whereas the women that were providing the goods and services were often interrupted by the demands of family. These differences in time orientations led to tensions. Sharma and Bansal (forthcoming) suggest that the projects that were best able to overcome these conflicts were those in which the participating organizations did not categorize each other into sharply defined categories of business and NGO. Those organizations that saw each other’s category as more fluid were more likely to create new solutions that transcended the temporal tensions.

Practice Perspective Orlikowski and Yates (2002) describe how a practice perspective can help to reconcile ontological differences in time—​that is, between objective time and subjective time. Time is neither objective nor subjective, but realized through actions. An objective view of day and night would see these periods of time in relation to the rotation of the Earth around the sun; a subjective view may see day and night as being related to something cyclical, rather than linear. However, a practice view would point to the actions that are performed during periods of daylight and night, and the structures that evolve during those periods. Whereas, for some people and organizations, day and night are central to operations (e.g., farming), for others, day and night are less relevant (e.g., emergency room doctors). Orlikowski and Yates note that “Weekly meeting schedules, project deadlines, academic calendars, financial reporting periods, tenure clocks, and seasonal harvests have typically been understood as either objective indicators of an external phenomenon, or as the social products of collective sensemaking” (2002:  685). The authors argue, however, that temporal structures, like all social structures, shape and are shaped by human action, and can bridge the divide between objective and subjective approaches to time (Giddens 1984). Kaplan and Orlikowski (2013) invoke a practice-​based perspective to shed light on the interrelatedness of past, present, and future. Whereas prior approaches to tackling temporal tensions and paradox focused on cognition and actions, the practice perspective assumes that actors and actions cannot be disentangled. Knowledge, technology, and time orientations are embedded in the processes between actions and actors; they do not stand apart from their context. Kaplan and Orlikowski studied the daily practices of employees at CommCorp. The 2002 collapse of the Internet bubble sent the employees of this Internet-​based company into disarray as they tried to connect their futures to their past, which had been ruptured. Employees, therefore, engaged in temporal work that helped to connect past, present, and future, thereby eliminating the temporal tensions that are often assumed among these temporal foci. There are some gaps in this prior research. First, this research has, for the most part, not explicitly examined the nature of temporal paradoxes. For example, we

386    The Paradoxes of Time in Organizations know little about how time dimensions are both contradictory and interrelated, as most research has addressed temporal tensions implicitly. Second, we also know little about how to manage and/​or overcome the tensions. For instance, researchers have not explored the mechanisms that allow for temporal tensions to be transcended. In the next section, we examine these gaps in greater detail and offer some directions for future research.

Future Research on Paradox and Temporality in Organizations In the past fifteen years, research on organizational time has increased, resulting in the exploration of numerous temporal dimensions. This research, however, has predominantly taken an either/​or view of time, instead of treating contradictory conceptions of time as being interrelated. Part of the reason for this trade-​off approach to time may be linked to our dominant focus on clock time, which discourages temporal diversity (Bluedorn 2002). Indeed, treating time as a trade-​off may have led to short-​ termism. Applying a paradox lens could allow us instead to examine the interrelatedness of short-​term and long-​term goals, which might lead both to better theorizing on time and to better prescriptions for how managers can avoid short-​termism in their organizations. In addition, our dominant clock-​time approach may have already had detrimental consequences for organizations, society, and the natural environment (Bluedorn and Waller 2006; Hoffman and Bazerman 2007). Indeed, clock time, with its focus on efficiency rather than learning (which is enabled through event time), does not enable individuals and organizations to work toward sustainability or development goals (Reinecke and Ansari 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2015). And yet, as a result of a more turbulent environment, and growing challenges for organizations, balancing a variety of time perspectives may be more beneficial to firms that face a very uncertain future or multiple institutional logics. For example, hybrid organizing may offer innovative approaches for dealing with the temporal tensions inherent in different temporal dimensions, as hybrid organizations face divergent temporal structures emanating from their various social and financial goals (Reinecke and Ansari 2015). However, this research, especially from a temporal perspective is still nascent. Without explicit attention to the tensions that ground different perspectives of time, we are unlikely to address some of the challenges faced by organizations and society that are due to short-​termism and a lack of sustainable development. A paradox lens has the potential to inform time research, and likewise, time research can also shed light on paradox research. In this section, we explore current gaps in the research on time and paradox and explore how each literature can fill these gaps and inform the other.

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    387

How Paradox Research Can Inform the Time Literature Numerous gaps exist in time research that can benefit from a paradox lens. The first is the prevalent approach of treating temporal dimensions as trade-​offs. In other words, researchers focus on either one element of the polarity or the other. For example, firms are typically either short-​term-​oriented or long-​term-​oriented, leaving a gap in our understanding of the interrelatedness of such contradictory elements. Another gap is the dominance of a Western “objective” view of time without due consideration of Eastern, process, and subjective views of time (Chen and Miller 2010). Finally, by ignoring temporal tensions, time research has also ignored the management of such tensions. The paradox lens presents important opportunities to address these gaps in the time literature. Firstly, a paradox lens examines the nature of tensions—​that is, how contradictory elements are distinct and yet also interrelated. For example, while much research points to the distinctiveness of a clock (objective) versus event (subjective) time perspective (Bluedorn 2002; Jaques 1982), few researchers have sought to bridge these two ontological perspectives (for an exception, see Orlikowski and Yates 2002). And yet delving into the distinctiveness, but also the interrelatedness, of these two contradictory ontologies could prove fruitful for understanding the interplay between them and why the tension persists. For instance, it has been suggested that despite their apparent contradictory nature, both views of time are indeed socially constructed. As Bluedorn and Denhardt (1988) note, our Western dominant view of time as objective, mechanical, and invariant has gained prominence since the Industrial Revolution, and is itself socially constructed. At the same time, some elements of time can be considered to be objective. Thus, a better understanding of the nature of this tension would be useful and could also shed light on how to manage the tension. A paradox lens can move researchers away from focusing on clock time (and other dominant views of time such as objective, short-​term, present, and fast) to looking instead at the interplay between the dominant poles and their interrelationship with the other poles of time (Crossan et al. 2005; Orlikowski and Yates 2002). While scholars have begun to explore this interplay in a variety of contexts and literatures, including ambidexterity and hybrids (Reinecke and Ansari 2015; Slawinski and Bansal 2015), the focus has rarely been squarely on the temporal tensions, and yet time paradoxes are a promising area of study in their own right. Finally, paradox research has explored a variety of approaches to managing paradox, and such approaches may offer a starting point for how to manage temporal tensions. For example, paradoxes can be addressed through acceptance or resolution strategies (Poole and Van de Ven 1989), including iterating between splitting and integrating temporal dualities such as cyclical and linear time. However, a deeper exploration of temporal tensions will require both research questions that address time specifically and research designs that can tap into the processes by which temporal tensions emerge, and their nature and management.

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How Temporality Can Inform Paradox Research Paradox research could also benefit from a more nuanced approach to time. Paradox scholars have pointed to the temporal tensions that exist in learning and performing paradoxes, given that the demands of the present differ from those of the future. As Smith and Lewis note, “learning and performing spur tensions between building capabilities for the future while ensuring success in the present” (2011: 384). The learning paradox emerges when organizations engage in change, renewal, and innovation. To create a new, competitive future, organizations must both build on the past and destroy the past. Other temporal tensions also emerge, for instance between episodic and continuous change (Mosakowski and Earley 2000), and may highlight other ways in which the learning paradox plays out. Meanwhile, performing paradoxes arise when distinct stakeholders possess competing strategies and goals. Some of these goals, such as social goals, may exhibit longer time frames, while others, such as financial goals, often reflect shorter time horizons (Slawinski and Bansal 2015). Yet, despite this centrality of temporal tensions in the paradox literature, such temporal tensions have rarely been explored in their own right. Research on time may provide additional dimensions worthy of exploration. In addition, given the dynamic and cyclical nature of paradoxes, paradox research could benefit from greater insights into circular and event-​based Eastern views of time. Research on event time has revealed, for example, that viewing time as process-​oriented and not easily manipulated lends itself to working on social goals, which are open-​ended and resistant to a deadline-​oriented clock-​time approach. Our understanding of paradoxes, which requires actors to navigate uncertainty, may benefit from a deeper understanding of how actors navigate cyclical, open, and relative event time.

Conclusion In this review of the temporality and paradox literatures, we found that the organizational time literature continues to be dominated by two main assumptions—​and these two assumptions have held back this body of work. The first assumption is that temporal dimensions are often seen in tension; in other words, organizations must choose between one element and another. For example, actors must decide between short-​term lower returns and long-​term higher returns (Laverty 1996), taking a fast pace and a slow pace (Morales-​Maya and Bansal 2015), and focusing on the present versus the future (Nadkarni and Chen 2014). Similarly, when researching time in organizations, scholars have had to choose between taking an objective view of time versus a subjective view of time (Orlikowski and Yates 2002). The second assumption is that clock time, which views time as absolute, mechanical, and linear, has continued to dominate in organizations since the Industrial Revolution.

Natalie Slawinski and Pratima Bansal    389 While these two assumptions may hold in certain situations, they also limit the range of possibilities for studying organizations and temporality. A paradox approach, which views contradictory elements as interrelated and persistent, offers opportunities to develop a richer understanding of temporality, and to unearth insights unavailable through a polarized view of time. Contemporary research has begun to take a paradoxical view of time, which has led to more positive characterizations of organizations, such as research on hybrid organizing and improvisation. We believe that important opportunities exist for both researchers and managers to perceive time, not as either/​or, but as both/​and. Understanding, for example, how managers and organizations can be both short-​term and long-​term oriented allows them to respond and adapt to short-​term challenges, while maintaining a long-​term vision (Slawinski and Bansal 2015). Research on the paradox of time is only just now emerging and has the opportunity to address some of the most significant challenges facing organizations and society.

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Chapter 20

On Organiz at i ona l Circul a ri t y Vicious and Virtuous Cycles in Organizing Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha

In this chapter we selectively review strands of organizational research that have been informed by the underlying image of the feedback (or causal) loop and explore the different kinds of circularity proposed, and how this circularity contributes to paradox. We tease out the main assumptions of research on organizational circularity and suggest ways in which relevant research may expand to account for the unfolding of paradox. Feedback, one of the most important concepts to have been developed in the social sciences since WWII, originated in engineering and has been subsequently drawn upon in other fields too. The development of cybernetics and systems theories, in particular, has given it an important boost, so much so that, today, it is hard to imagine a social scientific model of a social phenomenon without some sort of feedback loop (Hayles 1990, 1991; Richardson 1991; von Foerster 2013). Simply put, feedback indicates the dependence of a future state of a system upon an earlier state or, more technically, the iteration of a function upon itself (Kellert 1993; Tsoukas 2005). The best way to depict feedback is a loop, in which each of two variables influences the other (Meadows 2008). Feedback denotes interdependence and circular causality, whereas, for a long time, social scientists have been used to searching for unidirectional causality, whereby an independent variable X causes change in a dependent variable Y. There is no shortage of such examples in social and organizational research: leadership style affects productivity, teachers’ particular traits increase teacher effectiveness, parents socialize children, etc. (Richardson 1991: 2; Weick 1979: 86). However, it has increasingly been recognized that causality runs also the other way: employee productivity can influence leadership style, teacher effectiveness is the result of interaction between teacher and student, children socialize parents, etc. Accounting for social phenomena in terms of unidirectional causality has turned out to be limited: the social world, pretty much like the

394   On Organizational Circularity natural, is acknowledged to be based on interaction and inter-​dependence (Capra 1991). Circular causality is abundant (Bateson 1972). Similar insights have emerged in organizational research, sensitizing both scholars and practitioners to the feedback loops permeating organizational life and the associated circular phenomena feedback loops give rise to and sustain. Indeed, it is the endurance of feedback loops over time that often makes organizational problems intractable to analyze, manage, and change (Senge 1990; Smith and Berg 1987; Smith and Lewis 2011; Tsoukas 2005; Weick 1979).

Organizational Circularity Research: Key Definitions and Contributions In this section, we define key terms in organizational circularity research and briefly review the work of Weick, Senge, and Lewis and Smith, since the research of each one of them has not only explicitly engaged with and contributed to a better understanding of organizational circularity, but exemplifies also a distinctive perspective on the topic. Our review is not meant to be extensive but illustrative.

Key Definitions The causal loop has become an important building block of social and organizational theorizing (Elster 2007; Richardson 1991; Stinchcombe 1968; Weick 1979). The polarity of a causal loop provides it with analytical power (Richardson 1991: 5), since the polarity reflects the tendency to either reinforce or counteract a change in any of its components. Thus, a causal loop that tends to reinforce (or amplify) a change is called a positive or reinforcing or deviation-​amplifying loop: “once a variable begins to move in a particular direction, either up or down, the variable will continue to move in that same direction until the system is destroyed or until some dramatic change occurs” (Weick 1979: 72). In other words, minor disturbances (welcome or not) are amplified and may have major consequences (Meadows 2008: 25–​34; Weick 1979: 157). There are two kinds of reinforcing loop, on which we will focus in this chapter: vicious and virtuous circles (see Figure 20.1). A  vicious circle is a deviation-​amplifying loop that turns a bad situation to worse. Two interesting examples are provided by the ever-​ so-​perceptive George Orwell in a suggestive analogy, in his classic essay “Politics and the English language” (Orwell 1968). He writes: “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts” (Orwell 1968: 127–​8). And he notes in

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    395 Virtuous circle Reinforcing Vicious circle Feedback loop Virtuous stabilizing loop Stabilizing Vicious stabilizing loop

Figure 20.1  Types of feedback loops

a quasi-​cybernetic spirit: “an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely” (Orwell 1968: 127) (for one more literary example from Honoré Balzac, see Meadows 2008: 30; Richardson 1991:  54–​5). Another, organizational, example:  the more an organization emphasizes control, the more distrust it begets, which drives defensiveness and turf wars, which, in turn, result in the need for more controls (Smith and Lewis 2011: 391). A virtuous circle is the reverse: a deviation-​amplifying loop makes a good situation better. Examples abound. An interest-​earning bank account is a deviation-​amplifying loop: the amount of money in the account affects how much money comes into the account as interest (Meadows 2008:  31); the more money you have, the more interest you earn. Similarly, the more people experience positive emotions, the more they broaden their thought–​action repertoires, which leads them to build enduring personal resources (intellectual, social, physical), which enable people to experience more positive emotions, and so on (Fredrickson 2003, 2009). A causal loop that tends to counteract a change is called negative or deviation-​ counteracting or stabilizing or self-​ sustaining loop (Meadows 2008:  27–​ 30; Richardson 1991:  5; Weick 1979:  73–​4). A  stabilizing loop is a goal-​seeking (or stability-​seeking) loop: it aims to keep a variable at a given value or within an acceptable range of values (Meadows 2008: 28–​9). Adding or removing clothes to keep one’s body temperature within an acceptable range, or adjusting the raw materials ordering process to changes in the incoming orders, are examples of stabilizing feedback loops. The distinctive feature of a stabilizing loop is the seeking of self-​correction to maintain a goal or target (Senge 1990: 84). Importantly, when the goal is virtuous or vicious, we can talk, respectively, about a virtuous (e.g., maintaining a culture of openness) or vicious (e.g., maintaining a culture of corruption) stabilizing loop (see Figure 20.1). Moreover, since organizational outcomes are multiple, heterogeneous, and sometimes conflicting (e.g., cost reduction vs. customer satisfaction; productivity vs. safety; short-​terms profits vs. long-​term survival), the same causal loop in an organization can be seen as either a vicious or a virtuous circle. This is possible because to the extent strategic priorities are defined by top management, they may be organizationally legitimate

396   On Organizational Circularity but not necessarily logically or contextually compelling. Thus, while cost reduction may trigger a vicious circle (e.g., cost reduction → poor quality of products → reduced medium-​term customer satisfaction), in different circumstances, as, for example, when the organization aims at growth to capture market share, it may trigger a virtuous circle (e.g., cost reduction → lower prices → higher demand in the short run). In this sense, one circle may be perceived as either virtuous or vicious depending on the selected goal. To this extend, a vicious circle (i.e., a downward spiraling crisis), may be seen as an opportunity to fundamentally challenge a system, whereas continued success can be interpreted as a precursor of failure (Clegg et al. 2002).

Karl Weick: The Circularity of Organizing One of the first and most influential organization theorists to have systematically worked with the concept of feedback is Karl Weick. In his classic The Social Psychology of Organizing, the notions of “feedback,” “causal loop,” “causal maps,” “interlocked behaviors,” “interdependence,” “double interacts,” and “circular causality” feature prominently. Indeed, the entire book strongly reflects systems and cybernetic thinking, inspired particularly by Maruyama’s (1963) and Bateson’s (1972) work on cybernetics: organizational and social phenomena are represented through diagrams in which interconnecting loops of interdependent variables are depicted. Weick shifts analytical attention from organization(s) to processes of organizing. The raw material for organizing, he argues, is interlocked behaviors. When people interact, the behavior of A is a stimulus for the behavior of B, and vice versa. Out of repeated interactivity, certain patterns emerge. Organizing is like a grammar in the sense that it provides the rules by which interlocked behaviors are assembled to form intelligible patterns. Moreover, organizing is based on consensual validation in the sense that it is grounded in agreements concerning what is real. Organizing is directed initially at any input that is unfamiliar and not self-​evident, for the purpose of making it more familiar and predictable, namely less equivocal (Weick 1979: 3–​4). Thus, organizing, for Weick, is the process of reducing differences among interacting actors. Or, to put it differently, organizing is the process of generating recurrent behaviors through drawing on consensually validated cognitive categories. The process of organizing resembles the process of natural selection. The elements of organizing are ecological change, enactment, selection, retention. Of these elements, the one most relevant to organizational circularity is enactment. Enactment is the generation of differences in a flow of activity, through the undertaking of action by an actor. Or, to put it differently, it is the generation of raw data through the undertaking of action to bracket and single out some portions of the stream of experience for further examination (Weick 1977: 284). Enactment involves undertaking action, which produces ecological change; change, subsequently, constrains what the actor does next, which, in turn, produces further ecological change, etc. In other words, actors act on the basis of learned scripts and, by so doing, they create the constraints and opportunities they face. Actors produce part of the environment they face. For example,

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    397 when Apple decided to make its operating system for MacIntosh proprietary, it created part of the environment it subsequently faced. “The activity of enactment,” says Weick, “parallels variation because it produces strange displays that are often unlike anything that the individual or the organization has seen before” (Weick 1979: 130). From the above, it follows that an “organization” can be seen as an emergent phenomenon: it emerges from the coherent and constrained interaction of several individuals. Similarly, there is no such thing as “the environment.” The latter, more appropriately, are “enacted environments”—​human constructions; products of managerial beliefs and actions. Individuals in organizations act and, in doing so, they create the materials that become the constraints and the opportunities they face (Weick 1995: 31). As Smircich and Stubbart (1985: 726) remark, drawing on Weick: “Organizations and environments are convenient labels for patterns of activity. What people refer to as their environment is generated by human actions and accompanying intellectual efforts to make sense out of their actions.”

Peter Senge: The Circularity of Managing Senge’s influential The Fifth Discipline was probably the first book to have popularized very successfully systems thinking. Senge’s aim was to help managers better understand, design, and operate learning organizations. Although he was not the first to have introduced the idea of a learning organization, what Senge did so well was to describe both the intellectual requirements and the mechanisms through which deep, generative learning may be achieved. “At the heart of a learning organization,” notes Senge (1990: 12), “is a shift of mind—​from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something “out there” to seeing how our own action creates the problems we experience. A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it.” Systems thinking provides practitioners with the tools to think about interdependence and its corollary, namely the awareness that there is no outside in a system, only interconnecting nodes (Luhmann 2013). Agency is grounded on seeing the big picture and understanding the system(at)ic interconnectivity among actors. Once this is accomplished, agency involves intervening in feedback loops in such a way as to remove limitations, address hidden or implicit goals, and explore points of leverage. Senge’s main instrument is the concept of feedback, in both its forms—​reinforcing and stabilizing. Organizational problems, he argues, tend to recur. Learning to see their patterns of recurrence (what he calls “systems archetypes,” Senge 1990: 94), enables practitioners to become aware of broader “unseen forces” (op. cit) that keep them trapped and, thus, think about ways of changing those patterns. Senge identifies two systems archetypes: “limits to growth” and “shifting the burden.” The limits-​to-​growth archetype is created when a reinforcing loop, set to produce a virtuous outcome, generates both a spiral of success and secondary effects

398   On Organizational Circularity (manifested in a stabilizing loop) which, in time, come to limit the success. Once this is appreciated, change will need to address the underlying stabilizing loop and tackle the forces that limit growth. For example, organizational initiatives to improve quality lead to more open communication and collaborative work, which causes enthusiasm for more quality initiatives (reinforcing loop). However, this upward spiral may be limited by the implicit management goal to maintain control, which threatens managers’ traditional understanding of control, thus slowing down the previously developing reinforcing loop (hence a stabilizing loop has been activated) (Senge 1990: 100). The shifting-​ the-​ burden archetype consists of two connected stabilizing loops, both of which aim to solve the same problem symptom. The difference is that one loop addresses the symptoms superficially (symptomatic solution), thus alleviating temporarily the problem but, by doing so, making it harder to apply the fundamental solution that is provided by the second loop (Senge 1990: 104–​7). For example, in politicized state bureaucracies, administrators have historically tended to lack important managerial abilities, prompting ministers to use political appointees as advisors. Such a tactic however, although temporarily helping overcome managerial weaknesses, further reduces administrators’ managerial abilities. In other words, ministers’ quick fix “solves” the problem quickly, but only temporarily. The fundamental response, which takes more time to carry out, involving the strengthening of institutional memory through creating an impartial, depoliticized administrative echelon, is postponed (Cunha and Tsoukas 2015; Tsoukas 2012). Over time, the burden shifts to increasing reliance on symptomatic solutions.

Marianne Lewis and Wendy Smith: The Paradoxes of Organizational Circularity The tensions that are inherent in organizing are explicitly highlighted and conceptualized in paradox studies (Lewis 2000); Smith and Lewis 2011). In particular, vicious and virtuous circles often stem from the multiple paradoxes underlying organizational life (Schad et al. 2016). Smith and Lewis (2011: 387) define paradoxes as “contradictory yet interrelated elements (dualities) that exist simultaneously and persist over time; such elements seem logical when considered in isolation, but irrational, inconsistent, and absurd when juxtaposed.” Drawing on their own earlier research, as well as on earlier research on paradox (Quinn and Cameron 1988; Smith and Berg 1987), Smith and Lewis (2011) have suggested a dynamic equilibrium model for the management of organizational paradoxes. Tensions are not treated as dilemmas inviting actors to conclusively choose between alternatives or make trade-​offs, nor necessarily as a dialectic according to which tensions will be absorbed in a new synthesis, but as inviting simultaneous attention to both poles of the paradox. Smith and Lewis’s model distinguishes between latent and salient tensions and between management response strategies that include receptive and defensive

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    399 Receptive resolution

Virtuous stabilizing loops

Defensive resolution

Vicious circles

Handling paradoxical tensions

Figure 20.2  Resolving paradoxical tensions

resolution of paradoxical tensions. In particular, tensions are inherent and persistent in organizing (e.g., short term vs. the long term, explorations vs. exploitation, individual vs. the collective). They may remain latent (i.e., unacknowledged) until both environmental and cognitive factors force actors’ attention on them, in which case paradoxical tensions become salient. Once salient, paradoxical tensions cause management responses, which can be defensive or receptive (see Figure 20.2). Defensive resolution gives rise to vicious circles. The cultural, cognitive, and behavioral drive for consistency and the emotional anxiety caused by low tolerance of contradictions compel organizational actors to create defense mechanisms (e.g., denial, repression) to avoid inconsistencies, thus reinforcing commitments to past behaviors, exacerbated by organizational inertia. As Smith and Lewis (2011: 391) remark: “Individual and organizational forces for consistency fuel a reinforcing cycle by becoming increasingly forced on a single choice.” The receptive resolution gives rise to virtuous stabilizing loops. When individuals have developed cognitive and behavioral complexity and emotional equanimity, and the organization possesses dynamic capabilities, awareness of paradoxical tensions may trigger their receptive resolution, enabling “purposeful iterations between alternatives in order to ensure simultaneous attention over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 392), thus enhancing organizational effectiveness over time. To put it more generally, a receptive resolution of organizational paradoxes amounts to creating a virtuous stabilizing loop, since the end purpose is to maintain the long-​term success of the organization. Thus, when paradoxes are managed in ways that enable the organization to unleash their creative potential, they emerge as positive forces, sustaining virtuous stabilizing loops. When, however, paradoxes are ignored or handled in a dysfunctional way, they trigger vicious circles, with the persistent tension between the paradox constituents (i.e., the poles of the paradox) dis-​equilibrating the system and, ultimately, threatening its existence. To put it differently, from a paradox perspective, paradoxes are at the core of feedback loops: when organizations maintain the fundamental paradoxes of organizing, performing, belonging, and learning (Smith and Lewis 2011) in a state of balance, they may produce virtuous stabilizing loops. When they move away from balance they may end up producing vicious circles and unsustainable dynamics.

400   On Organizational Circularity

Organizing Produces Spirals Organization theory has approached the circles involved in managing and organizing on the basis of three assumptions: holism, recurrence, and surprise. These assumptions imply that it is difficult to track and tackle circles, given the latter’s complex nature as well as their normalization in organizations. Organizational circles unfold over time, result from the interaction of multiple forces, and manifest unexpected responses to attempts at intervention. Organizational circles defy traditional forms of mechanistic diagnosis and intervention and are, therefore, difficult to understand and change. Next, we explain the assumptions underlying the study of organizational circles. First, the holistic assumption indicates that to understand circles one needs to consider organizations and the paradoxes they face in holistic terms. Isolating elements or exploring the relationship between just a few of them is insufficient to grasp the nature of circles. For example, mastering the paradox of performing, namely mastering the tension arising from competing strategies and goals to be found in any organization (Smith and Lewis 2011: 384), is irrelevant if the organization tackles the other paradoxes inappropriately. Organizational systems are too complex to be captured in limited cross-​sections of organizational phenomena. As Weick (1979:  7)  notes, feedback loops are connected to form complex causal circuits in which, sometimes, one element (variable) neutralizes the influence of another, whereas, at other times, it amplifies its effect. The interdependence between variables may produce forms of reciprocal causality that lead to deviation-​amplifying loops, or spirals, in which “a deviation in one variable . . . results in a similar deviation in another variable . . . which, in turn, continues to amplify” (Shea and Howell 2000: 792). The term “spiral” has been used by Lindsley et al. (1995) to describe patterns of consecutive increases or decreases that manifest as upward spirals, downward spirals, or self-​correcting circles. To understand the manifestation of these sequential effects one needs to consider the organization as a holistic system. Secondly, the assumption of recurrence (Ashforth 1991; Weick 1979) indicates that, in organizations, an action is re-​evoked in subsequent actions—​patterns tend to form. Thus, from a circularity perspective, organizational processes (e.g., budgeting, planning) are cyclical processes, i.e., they are seen as forming recurrent patterns. Moreover, by imposing labels on phenomena, as organizations must for social activities to become organized (Tsoukas 2005), organizations create realities that will subsequently be reaffirmed. The label, and the belief underpinning it, become the reality (Ashforth 1991). As Rosenhan (1973) has shown, once a belief is installed, an organization gets circular. This circularity is manifest in a number of social processes, including the well-​known self-​ fulfilling prophecy (Merton 1948; Weick 1979).

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    401 The assumption of recurrence (and the accompanying circularity) suggests that networks of causality are dense and lengthy enough to recur so that an organization takes time to perceive that, at some point, it is facing a circle, especially a vicious circle or a vicious stabilizing loop (Senge 1990). By the time sufficient awareness has been created, it may be too late to correct the vicious circle that has already built up, given resource exhaustion (Masuch 1985). Teleological narratives (Van de Ven and Poole 1995), embedded in the organization, along with routine operations, may simply leave managers unprepared to understand the circularity of organizational time and process, which, in turn, facilitates the deepening of circular processes until they reach a threshold that makes them unstoppable. Mindfulness helps counteract the delay in developing awareness of a developing circle (Langer 1989; Vogus and Colville 2017): by being alert and paying attention to presently ongoing, recurrent processes in context, organizational members are able to draw new distinctions and notice new aspects of a situation, thus better intervening to prevent a vicious circle from building up for too long. Weick (in Coutu, 2003: 86) has vividly described how mindfulness prevents the activation of a vicious circle as follows: “Workers in [High Reliability Organizations] do not monotonously watch dials, read printouts, or manipulate graphic displays and then breathe wearily at the end of the day: ‘Terrific—​I’ve just had another dull, normal day.’ On the contrary, these workers make judgments and adjustments and comparisons to keep their days dull and normal” (italics in the original). Third, the operation of circles tends to create surprise. Surprise has been an under-​ researched topic in organization theory (Yanow and Tsoukas 2009). Organizational theorists’ preference for uncertainty reduction (Tsoukas 2005) perhaps helps to explain the deficit of attention paid to surprises. The latter, defined as events that happen unexpectedly, or as expected events that take unexpected shapes (Cunha, Clegg, and Kamoche 2006), are integral to the unfolding of organizational circles. The confrontation with a vicious circle usually comes as a surprise, even when abundant warning signals may have been in place. The reason is that, the more warning signals become evident, the more individuals tend to cognitively normalize their meanings. When normalized, brushed-​aside signals accumulate so that they can no longer be ignored, they are manifested as “crises,” triggered usually by precipitating events. The construction of a virtuous circle can be explained as a surprising process as well. Strategy and entrepreneurship research is replete with examples. Honda’s well-​known capturing of the American motorcycle industry in the early 1960s (Pascale 1986)  and Mintzberg and his associates’ several examples of emergent strategies that began, often by chance, as small experiments by particular organizational members (see Mintzberg 2007) fit the same pattern: individuals, in their own local contexts, try to do what they think is the right thing and come to realize, often unexpectedly, that they have created something useful, valuable, or extraordinary, which is also appreciated (in various degrees) by others. Similarly, Senge et al. (1999: 41) describe organizational change that is built on learning as a “virtuous reinforcing cycle.” The latter involves “repeated opportunities for small actions that individuals would design, initiate, and implement themselves.”

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How Circles Inform Paradox Theory As seen earlier, according to paradox theorists, there is a relationship between organizational circles and paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011). Interactions between paradoxes produce the dynamic feedback loops that create circles and that sometimes change their direction. In this section we expand on how paradoxes are connected with organizational circularity.

Vicious Circles as Self-​amplifying Spirals Organizing contains a potential to amplify—​upward or downward (Maruyama 1963). Although upward amplification may be beneficial, it may turn out to be unsustainable, leading potentially to instability. Downward amplification can be threatening and potentially self-​destructive. From the perspective of paradox theory, vicious circles are the result of unsophisticated (i.e., defensive) approaches to paradoxical tensions (Hampden-​Turner 1990; Smith and Lewis 2011). When decision-​makers defensively resolve complex tensions via simple solutions (e.g., by interpreting contradictions dualistically, ignoring one pole; see Smith and Lewis 2011), they create conditions for amplifying loops, as their persistent ignorance of one pole will create a pressure that will ultimately emerge: the growing investment in one pole progressively depletes the other pole, thus leading to instability. Not much is known about the moment in which spirals change direction, and this is a gap to be explored further in research. Tang, Li, and Yang (2015), for example, have shown that hubristic, innovation-​oriented CEOs push innovations forward in their companies, which, up to a point, are positive, but the authors also indicate that this relationship is mitigated when the environment becomes more complex. In the case of self-​amplifying upward spirals, the organization progresses toward achieving some desirable end state, with more leading to more. The organization accumulates success, and success breeds more success. This leads to a number of symptoms well dissected in the organizational literature. For example, the organization can acquire the illusion of invulnerability, which is reinforced through cognitive processes such as groupthink (Janis 1982). Feeling invincible, senior executives may not heed the warning signals indicative of problems stemming from previous decisions. Cumulated success can feed CEO narcissism (Kets de Vries 2004) and, ultimately, hubris (Hayward 2007), which, again, stimulates amplifying processes—​leaders have a tendency to keep on track even in the face of disconfirming evidence (Probst and Raisch 2005). As a result, an organization may progressively simplify its mode of thinking (Miller 1993). People in such organizations gradually learn to hide their doubts, thus reinforcing the status quo (Argyris 1993, 1999). This, in turn, strengthens the architecture of decisional simplicity, depriving the organization of the attitude of doubt that is critical for self-​correction.

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    403 A plethora of cases illustrate the destructive power unleashed by the above processes. People silence their voices for a number of reasons, including the fear to speak up, but also genuine leader adulation (Kets de Vries 2004; Probst and Raisch 2005). In the case of upward spirals, the organization may genuinely believe that it progresses (Miller 1990), until it finally collapses. In the case of self-​amplifying downward spirals (vicious circles), the organization may realize that a major crisis needs to be addressed. If top executives are not trapped in overoptimistic estimations, they realize that they need to act promptly and introduce a number of measures to counter the circle. However, once a threshold is crossed, the organization may no longer have the capacity to regenerate itself (Masuch 1985). There are numerous examples of the viciously downward spiral. Bureaucracies offer rich illustrations. To control budgetary indiscipline (hence inefficiency), a state bureaucracy enforces more rules and laws. However, in an over-​managed system, the introduction of yet more rules makes the system even more inefficient, since people spend increasingly more time tackling the newly imposed administrative duties and less time fulfilling their mission. Similarly, as Ballas and Tsoukas (1998) have argued with respect to chronic tax evasion in Greece, persistent government attempts to reform the tax system over the years have failed, since introducing more rules to monitor dishonest behavior accentuates the mistrust that has historically existed between the taxpayer and the Greek state. In other words, in low-​trust societies with a paternalistic and clientelistic state, to address problems of bureaucracy, legislators tend to issue more laws and decrees, thus adding to the bureaucracy! At the end, the system resembles a Kafkaesque castle (Rice and Cooper 2010), riddled with absurdity. A new bureau (e.g., a Ministry or Secretariat for Administrative Simplification, as has appeared in some European countries) is created, which will potentially add more bureaucracy to the problem of bureaucracy it purports to address (Crozier 1964). Thus, if a vicious circle is treated with a false remedy, the problem will be aggravated. Ironically, the participants at some point start realizing the vicious state of affairs they have been involved in, but they may not be able or bold enough to think out-​of-​the-​box and offer fresh organizational solutions. Defective answers to paradoxical demands help generate vicious circles. Paradox scholars help us to better understand this problem. They note that: (a) paradoxes are manifestations of persistent contradictory tensions (Schad et al. 2016), (b) therefore, paradoxes require continuous attention for them to be productive in their functioning, and (c) when tackled in a persistently inadequate (i.e., defensive) way, paradoxes can evolve to become vicious circles. The latter can thus be theorized as persistence matching persistence, in a twisted formulation of the law of requisite variety. The persistent enforcement of a symptomatic “solution” makes the underlying problem more wicked (Watzlawick et al. 1974). When it happens, paradox becomes a source of tension and aggravation: the more a wicked problem is tackled, the more it gets out of control. At some point, the paradox acquires a life of its own; it is no longer manageable and proves extremely defiant to intervention. If nothing radical happens it is the fastest route to self-​destruction.

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Virtuous Circles as Self-​correcting Spirals In some cases, organizations find ways to sustain self-​correcting behaviors through negative feedback loops. As seen earlier, although such cases, formally speaking, do not constitute virtuous circles, nonetheless self-​correcting behavior is virtuous, insofar as it generates ever more sophisticated, sustainable stability. A virtuously operating stabilizing loop can be understood as an organizational system that is appreciative of the critical value of doubt and of the importance of rich feedback. Weick (1979:  221)  has offered a compact explanation of the relationship between doubt and sustainable growth: “to doubt is to discredit unequivocal information, to act decisively is to discredit equivocal information.” As a corollary, “when things are clear doubt; when there is doubt, treat things as if they are clear” (op. cit.). This attitude of ambivalence combines two important inputs: it stimulates decision-​makers to doubt their beliefs, searching for information that may invalidate their sensemaking (therefore countering crystalized interpretations), and it invites them to hold on to their beliefs and act firmly in times of equivocality (therefore stimulating sensemaking rather than confused paralysis). In a virtuous stabilizing loop the organization synthesizes doubt and certainty in a fruitful way. Certainty stimulates action, while doubt offers an antidote to potential hubris. Once installed, such circles tend to persist. A culture of speaking up, or no blame, for example, may lead to the installment of psychological safety (Edmondson and Lei 2014). This, in turn, may facilitate learning that will stimulate further learning and development. However, learning is never guaranteed, since it involves the protection of the culture that originally supported the virtuous stabilizing loop.

Developing Further Organizational Circularity Research Increasingly, in line with the rest of social science (Richardson 1991), organizational research has moved from using mainly linear types of reasoning toward embracing feedback-​based modes of thinking (Tsoukas 2005). “Traps” and “pathologies” have increasingly been explored, thus foregrounding the circularity of organizational phenomena (Hall 1976; Perlow, Okhuysen, and Repenning 2002; Repenning and Sterman 2002; Van Oorschot et al. 2013). As the field searches for and develops more complex forms of inquiry (Tsoukas 2005, 2016b), we anticipate this trend will be amplified, especially since it resonates with wider developments in late modernity, particularly inter-​ connectivity, and instantly available, global communication (Hayles 1990, 1991). More research on organizational circularity will further sharpen scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of key organizational phenomena. In this section we attempt to shed light on research gaps and how they may be filled in. In doing so, we consider three broad areas aligned with the assumptions explored in a previous section.

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    405

Cultivating Holistic Views One reason why studying organizational circles is difficult stems from the fact that these imply holistic, multi-​causal views of organizations. Most organizational research is not fit for this type of approach. We are not contesting the rigor of existing research but, rather, pointing out that the majority of studies adopt theoretical and methodological perspectives that impede the exploration of circles. To take circles seriously, traditional theoretical and methodological lenses need to be challenged. A number of approaches have been advanced that allow researchers to explore organizational phenomena in holistic ways. Systems dynamics (Repenning and Sterman 2001), historical methods (Maclean, Harvey, and Clegg 2016), mental maps (Calori, Johnson, and Sarnin 1994), and process approaches (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, and Van de Ven 2013) represent conceptual and methodological tools adequate to explore organizational phenomena non-​cross-​sectionally. Methods that are sensitive to time, looping, feedback effects, and non-​linear explanations seem necessary to engage with circles. In the domain of management practice, holistic views are also in short supply. Organizational systems are too complex and measures of organizational success are possibly too simple to stimulate executives to cultivate holistic forms of organizational explanation. Managers, immersed in their daily practices, may have an insufficient awareness of their organization’s potential to trigger circles. That helps explain their revealed passivity in face of spirals (Hambrick and D’Aveni 1998), and the documented managerial limited capacity to make sense of traps involving the co-​evolution of physical, economic, social, and psychological forces (e.g., Perlow, Okhuysen, and Repenning 2002; Van Oorschot, Akkermans, Sengupta, and Van Wassenhove 2013). The lack of attention to and appreciation of loops and spirals, in turn, caused “little discernible impact” (Stacey 1991: 134) of academic research on spirals on the action of practitioners. Explicit theorizing about circles and educating managers about the potential of circular reasoning (Masuch 1985; Tsoukas 2005; Weick 1979) may sensitize managers to more holistic forms of understanding. An interesting line of research would be to explore comparatively how the economic and institutional environment of organizations impacts on managers’ modes of reasoning and how the latter change over time. For example, in certain business systems (Whitley 2000) short-​termism is institutionally stronger than long-​term thinking, reinforced by short CEO tenure. Such a combination is conducive to a deficit of managerial awareness to long-​term-​operating circles, and a bias for short-​term results (Bruch and Ghoshal 2004). Speedy action, in turn, may give rise to what is described as racing to the bottom (Morales-​Raya and Bansal 2015). Too much action can be as self-​amplifying as too little action.

Embracing Circularity Most conceptual models in management are graphically depicted through arrows connecting boxes. In process research, the arrows become at least as important as the boxes.

406   On Organizational Circularity Embracing circularity fundamentally challenges management research to explain the importance of events at the boundaries. The inner/​outer boundaries are important conceptual spaces for explaining circles. Organizational research assumed, perhaps with too much enthusiasm, the idea that organizations are open systems, as if boundaries were not problematic. Organizations certainly express characteristics of open systems, but they also exhibit features of closure, buffering themselves from undue external influence (Thompson 1967)  and developing cultural codes for meaning to be settled and communication to become possible (Luhmann 2013; Tsoukas 2013). Circularity is necessary because every organization develops an identity that counters excessive change. But openness prevents self-​referential closure. Organizing implies recurrent action (Tsoukas 2001, 2005; Weick 1979), but productive recurrence always involves an element of adjustment. Recurrence reproduces the organization and re-​enacts it each time as a different organization; recurrence is the vehicle for becoming (Tsoukas 2016a, 2016b). To this extent, repetition is not the opposite of change, but the two are mutually constituted. Recent research draws attention to circularity as a source of deviation (change) (Feldman and Pentland 2003) as much as a source of conservation (stability). Paying attention to the micro-​processes of circularity may, therefore, reveal some thus-​ far neglected dimensions of unfolding circles. For example, improvisation has mostly been discussed as an organizational tool to deal with the unexpected (Cunha, Miner, and Antonacopolou 2016). However, improvisation is possibly better viewed as a critical organizational repair process (Lok and de Rond 2013). By improvising around unexpected events, organizations preserve their logic. Given the predominance of teleological approaches (Van de Ven and Poole 1995) observers have been trained to think about organizations as entities evolving along arrows of time. Cultivating sensitivity to circularity requires a different way of understanding organizations and organizing. To embrace circularity means to understand the extent to which recurrent circles are the background for the improvisations that keep systems healthy via the capacity to self-​repair on an ongoing basis. Improvisation is the building block of organizational circularity; maintaining the circle’s corrective capacity is as important as the plan that is the building block of the teleological arrow. It is necessary to complement attention to plans with a heightened sensitivity to improvisation as self-​corrective process (Gustafsson and Lindhal 2015). Good improvisation maintains virtuous stabilizing loops, while the lack of it leads to mechanical repetition, which ultimately may be destabilizing. Thinking about organizations in terms of circles may create new organizational vocabularies and stimulate a new appreciation for a number of organizational processes thus-​far hidden under the grand narratives of teleological progress and their majestic, dominating arrows.

Understanding Surprise The orientation of organization theory toward the study of uncertainty reduction has been paralleled by the lack of attention to organizational surprise. However, attention

Haridimos Tsoukas and Miguel Pina e Cunha    407 to one process should not imply inattention to the other. Even if organizations try to limit uncertainty, complex systems necessarily contain potential for surprise (Tsoukas 2005). Research may use circular thinking to explore the way organizations normalize events with surprising potential as well as the unfolding of surprises. Other possibilities to understanding and managing circles may consist in paying attention to heedful collective interpretations (Gavetti and Warglien 2015) and diagnosing situations corresponding to the “vicious circle of futile efforts” (Masuch 1985: 31), in which more and more energy is used to correct a case that is no longer correctible (the classic case of sunk costs—​see Plous 1993). Circles also matter for managerial practice. Organizations may benefit from knowing more about a number of issues related to circular processes. First, how can they install virtuous circles and prevent vicious ones from arising and developing? Researchers tend to concur that the best way to deal with vicious circles consists in preventing them, since, as discussed above, once installed, they can be very persistent. Their removal may require powerful external disturbance but evidence shows that external intervention sometimes aggravates the amplification process (Watzlawick et al. 1974; Cunha and Tsoukas 2015). To sever a vicious circle one often needs “political agitation” (Ashforth 1991: 464), but political agitation may backfire, thus creating even greater political agitation. The more complex and embedded the process, as in the case of state bureaucracies, the more it will be marked by causal interdependence and ambivalence, and therefore the less predictable the outcomes of change interventions. Second, how can organizations prevent defensive reasoning (what Argyris (1991, 1999) called Model I)? Several remedies have been advanced. Cultivating doubt, favoring an aesthetics of imperfection, nurturing genuine curiosity and interest about errors as signals of deviation, developing cultures of speaking up, removing fear, reading early warning signals, and spotting problems based on collective knowledge and expertise rather than on the basis of deference to hierarchy all promise to develop alertness to loops that have the potential to turn into vicious circles. Admitting the presence of a vicious circle usually favors the acceptance of brutal truths. Therefore, the development of a managerial-​oriented literature on the causes and symptoms of vicious circles (in line, for example, with Senge 1991) is valuable in increasing awareness of, and decisiveness in, the face of circles. Robust governance designs that include checks and balances may play an important role in alerting managers to weak signals and preventing the maintenance, or enabling the disruption, of vicious circles.

Conclusions Organizational circularity is a challenging research theme. Circular processes illustrate how practitioners create realities they cannot control. When organizing is built on values commonly shared and institutionally valued, circles can be virtuous. When, by contrast, organizing is built on (usually implicit) values that undermine organizational

408   On Organizational Circularity effectiveness, vicious circles or vicious stabilizing loops tend to emerge. Circles are a preferential observation point over organizations as complex systems. Weick (1979: 102) warned that managers sometimes create systems beyond their own comprehension. Circular processes are interesting in part because they seem to gain a life of their own. In this sense they constitute a privileged position to study organizing as an emergent phenomenon. Circles explain organizational destruction better than any other process. Once organizations are caught in vicious circularity, they have difficulties in exiting the circle. In this sense if we want to know more about the dynamics of self-​destruction we can start by looking at vicious circles. But circles, when virtuous or virtuous stabilizing loops, also open conceptual windows to viewing well-​functioning organizations. Circles are ideal processes to explore agency and structure as intertwined, how things change, and how the excess of something good may turn to be no longer positive (Pierce and Aguinis 2013; Ropo and Hunt 1995). Circles are apparently pervasive, occurring at multiple levels, from the individual (Wender 1968) to the institutional (Tsoukas 2012). They can offer opportunities for the study of the embeddedness of organizational phenomena. Post-​hierarchical organizational forms (Robertson 2015) may constitute a fertile ground to study how new organizational designs inform organizational functioning. More organic forms should, in principle, provide distinct, more polyphonic spaces, open to new conversations, new ways of thinking, and new ways of diagnosing, preventing, and interrupting vicious circles and vicious stabilizing loops. These new forms, however, may themselves create their own variants of vicious circles, which need to be explored. Nothing good lasts forever. Learning to live with paradox requires organizations to be attentive to the presence of circles. The importance of circles can hardly be overstated, as they are easy to create, difficult to understand, and impossible to completely master. Weick (1979: 86) has warned that “most managers get into trouble because they forget to think in circles.” This chapter may be read, overall, as an invitation to think in circles. Paradoxically, thinking in circles may constitute the most sustainable path forward!

Acknowledgments We are grateful to Luca Giustiniano and Ann Langley for useful feedback on earlier versions.

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Chapter 21

T ensions in Ma nag i ng Hum an Res ou rc e s Introducing a Paradox Framework and Research Agenda Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges 1

Of all areas of management and organization science, one cannot imagine an area where tensions are more evident than in human resource management (HRM). Paauwe holds “we are finding increasing evidence of the dualities and paradoxes entailed in HRM today” (Paauwe 2004: 40). Stiles and Trevor (2006) further assert “the theoretical position that embraces the notion of tensions or paradoxes or dilemmas seems to be the most accurate reflection of the lived experience of HR professionals” (Stiles and Trevor 2006: 62). Notwithstanding, HRM researchers have not extensively mobilized paradox theory to understand tensions. Also, paradox theorists—​who study a wide range of management issues such as leadership (Manz, Anand, Joshi, and Manz 2008; Zhang, Waldman, Han, and Li 2015), strategic decision-​making (Smith 2014), innovation (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), and managerial decision-​making (Lüscher and Lewis 2008)—​have engaged little with HRM (for exceptions see Aust, Brandl, and Keegan 2015; Ehnert 2009; Kozica and Brandl 2015). In this chapter, we examine previous research on tensions in HRM, focusing on the contributions and limitations of these perspectives for understanding and handling tensions. Second, we focus on what characterizes the dynamics of coping with tensions. Here, we draw on paradox theory to consider conditions for alternative response/​coping strategies and processes that characterize reinforcing cycles. We offer insights from the (limited) body of work in HRM that draws on paradox theory. Thirdly, we offer a paradox framework to aid the study of HRM tensions. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for further HRM research on tensions and coping responses enriched by insights from a paradox perspective. 1 

The authors contributed equally and are listed alphabetically.

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Tensions in HRM: Sources For Watson (2010), tensions in HRM systems are nothing new (e.g., Legge 1978; Watson 1977) but are linked with the core purpose of HRM which is the managerial utilization of human efforts, knowledge, capabilities, and committed behaviors in the context of the employment relationship, that is, “the connection between employees and employers through which individuals sell their labor” (Budd and Bhave 2008:  51). This exchange can enable “the enterprise to continue into the future” (Watson 2010: 919) but is also fraught with uncertainty inherent to employment relationships where “employers compete for employees while . . . employees seek to maximize their opportunities and rewards from employers. But, simultaneously, employers are competing with others in product and service markets, and are under pressure to minimize labor costs in order to sustain and improve profits or other benefits” (Delbridge and Keenoy 2010: 802, emphasis added). Based on these realities of capitalist economic relations, some theorists doubt if tensions between the interests of employers and employees can ever be managed for mutually benefical partnerships (Dobbins and Dundon 2015). Others see the diverse interests inherent in the employment relationship as spurring both cooperation and conflict at work (Bélanger and Edwards 2013; Godard 2004) and where HRM tensions are common though not necessarily negative. Research also, at least implicitly, suggests that HRM tensions persist over time, often having no “solutions.” This implies considerable challenges for those coping with tensions, particularly HRM practitioners who are often not very powerful within the organization (Caldwell 2003), which makes the task of handling tensions even more difficult (Legge 1978; Woodrow and Guest 2014). Despite the apparent importance of tensions to understanding HRM systems, indepth study of how actors cope with and respond to tensions lags compared to other areas of management theory. Before discussing how this lag may be addressed, we first examine prior research on HRM tensions, contrasting two prominent positions in the literature—​pluralist strategic SHRM (pSHRM) and critical HRM (cHRM).

Coping with HRM Tensions The discussion of tensions in HRM systems has mainly taken place in two broad streams of literature in the field. These are pluralist strategic human resource management (hereafter pSHRM) and critical human resource management (hereafter cHRM). Both perspectives acknowledge the existence of tensions, however, the analysis of sources of these tensions, about their (non-​)paradoxical nature and about how to handle them vary considerably.

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    415

The pSHRM Perspective on Coping with Tensions pSHRM researchers acknowledge the existence of tensions and view these primarily as a potential threat to performance and competitive advantage (Boselie 2009, 2014; Boxall and Purcell 2016; Paauwe 2007). Tensions are seen to arise due to different simultaneous HRM-​related managerial goals and managerial roles. In the context of his model of HR business partners, Ulrich (1997) argues that “success in the multiple-​role framework requires that HR professionals balance the tension inherent in being a strategic partner on the one hand and an employee champion on the other” (Ulrich 1997: 45, emphasis added). Others cite tensions between cost-​effectiveness versus social legitimacy (Boxall and Purcell 2016) and economic values versus moral values (Mueller and Carter 2005; Paauwe 2004, 2009). Boxall and Purcell (2016), for example, identify contradictory economic and social goals that managers must resolve to ensure viability and achieve differentiation. These include cost-​effectiveness, social legitimacy and flexibility. Boselie (2009) also identifies diverse HRM-​related managerial goals and holds that pursuing social legitimacy without adequate financial or operational performance, as is the case in some public sector organizations such as the National Health Service in the United Kingdom (Bach 2004), can threaten organizational survival; conversely, pursuing financial performance without achieving mininally sufficient levels of social legitimacy can lead to difficulties recruiting employees and even corporate scandals (Boselie 2009: 95). In the pSHRM perspective, tensions encountered between managements’ HRM-​related goals must therefore be resolved because “in the most severe cases of conflict over these tensions, firms experience “motivational crises” which depress productivity and profitability, and can threaten their viability” (Boxall and Purcell 2007: 95). Boon, Paauwe, Boselie, and Hartog, (Boon, Paauwe, Boselie, and Hartog 2009: 492) hold that “HRM tensions are strategic tensions that managers must respond to . . . Organizations balance between the degree of conformity and the degree of differentiation from competitors regarding HRM” (emphasis added). The pSHRM view on tensions is embedded in a managerial perspective where theorists combine institutional theory with the resource-​based view (RBV) to describe HRM systems (Boselie 2009)  that accommodate tensions between competing pressures. Responses to HRM tensions are framed by “a more sophisticated approach to contingency theory” (Boxall and Purcell 2000: 188) where tensions are resolved by managerial design (Evans 1999: 333). To be successful in the long run according to the “strategic balance perspective” advocated by Boselie means “the more HR fit the better” (Boselie 2014: 21). Managers can cope with tensions through strategies of fit and alignment between different internal and external contingencies. For example, they can achieve an “optimal level of conforming” (Boon et al. 2009: 505) to institutional pressures and differentiation from competitors. Fit, including institutional fit, is a critical issue in how pSHRM researchers view the resolution of tensions. Some focus on consistency with key internal and external systems (Boon et al. 2009; Boselie 2014) while other theorists mainly focus on

416    Tensions in Managing Human Resources external fit (Boxall and Purcell 2016). Responses to tensions from multiple demands consequently go beyond approaches that choose a one-​dimensional fit as in earlier contingency HRM models (Baird and Meshoulam 1988; Schuler and Jackson 1987), but non-​fit-​oriented solutions to tensions in the pSHRM literature are rare. One notable exception in the SHRM field to conceptualization of tensions—​and their handling—​is “duality theory” proposed by Evans and colleagues (Evans 1999; Evans and Doz 1989; Evans and Génadry 1999). They offer an alternative lens highlighting “the oppositions of duality” (Evans 1999: 333) and eschewing fit/​alignment models for resolving tensions. Evans and Génadry (1999) hold that “emphasis on fit leads to a design optic where change is a variable outside the field of view. With its focus on tension, the duality optic focuses on development processes” (Evans and Genadry 1999: 392). Evan’s duality thinking can be interpreted as an early attempt to shift theorizing on HRM tensions toward a dynamic paradox HRM perspective (see also Chung, Bozkurt, and Sparrow 2011; Ehnert 2009; Guerci and Carollo 2016). Notwithstanding, the endorsement of (a more sophisticated) contingency theory remains the key basis for arguing how organizations should cope with HRM tensions that threaten competitive performance and viability. This dominant fit approach to coping with tensions has limitations. It downplays the dynamic facets of HRM tensions emerging from continuously changing formal arrangements outside organizations (e.g., employment legislation) and from informal accommodations within specific workplaces for coping with disintegrative forces (Watson 2012). The postulate to minimize or avoid tensions implicit in some pSHRM work also ignores the potential for tensions to spur innovation and change by developing more ethical, human-​centred HRM systems where fairness, work–​life balance and health-​related well-​being are core concerns in and of themselves (Bolton and Houlihan 2007; Ehnert 2009). While alignment and fit are offered as key solutions to tensions, what these entail on a concrete day-​to-​day basis for HRM practitioners and others is not well specified. What exactly practitioners can do cognitively and emotionally, or in terms of mindset, attitudes, or skills, are issues that remain somewhat vague. Finally fit/​alignment strategies suggest trade-​offs between contradictory goals or interests, and either/​or thinking on coping with HRM tensions is prevalent in this literature.

cHRM Perspective on Coping with Tensions cHRM researchers view tensions as rooted in the employment relationship and its embeddedness in global capitalism. Discourses of market individualism and financialization play a key role in decisions on HRM systems that impact negatively on employees in terms of their rights, well-​being, and ethical treatment (Thompson 2011). cHRM research is underpinned by an emancipatory ethos where writers strive to ensure that “the voices of those who tend to be excluded from mainstream analysis are better represented in HRM theory and practice” (Delbridge and Keenoy 2010: 807). Researchers study tensions caused by work intensification in high-​performance work systems (Ramsay, Scholarios, and Harley 2000), the shrinking employee champion role in HRM

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    417 functions (Francis and Keegan 2006), and the politico-​managerial changes associated with globalization (Keenoy 1999). They highlight the voices excluded in mainstream HRM (Delbridge and Keenoy 2010), and the subjectification of employees in performance management systems (Hoedemaekers and Keegan 2010; Townley 1993). Legge’s (1978) seminal analysis looks at tensions faced by personnel managers constrained by a capitalist context in advancing humane and employee-​centred personnel management solutions. She identifies ambiguities facing personnel managers, and vicious cycles associated with their roles. First, lack of power results in the non-​ involvement of the HR department in the planning of issues relevant to people management. This leads to a series of HR problems (such as inadequately trained staff) that are typically left to the HR department to resolve, forcing HR managers into a reactive stance. The second vicious cycle emerges because HR managers are uncertain about their priorities and therefore welcome being reactive and busy, in turn reinforcing line managers’ negative views of the HR department (Drucker 1954). The third vicious cycle emerges because the HR department lacks status and has a bad reputation among career-​aspiring employees leading to a relative lack of personnel with strategic capacities in HR work reinforcing the lack of authority of HR departments. Watson (2004, 2010) and Legge (1999) highlight the constraints on managers to freely define or pursue humane HRM goals in organizations, and Watson (2010) urges scholars to go beyond simplified HRM prescriptions for best practices to seek richer contextualized understandings of managerial HRM actions in response to tensions (see also Godard 2004). cHRM writers also recognize the dynamic instabilities pervading any HRM solution. All solutions are seen as containing seeds of their own instability. Solutions premised on accommodating employee/​employer conflicts contain latent tensions due to changing conditions that influence the relative power of employees and employers. A sensitivity to dynamic tensions is evident in cHRM writing rather than grand design solutions premised, for example, on optimal levels of alignment or fit. As a legacy of the emancipatory drive, “contra-​ argument,” or deconstructive (Alvesson, Hardy, and Harley 2008) modes of cHRM studies (Harley and Hardy 2004; Janssens and Steyaert 2009), critical HRM theorists fail to offer practical insights on ways HRM practitioners or other actors (employees, line managers, or HR specialists) cope with or work through tensions. cHRM scholars are influenced mainly by Marxist thinking that recognizes contradictions as fostering revolutionary change in society at large, whereby suppressed actors can overcome tensions between principles of autonomy and control (McGovern 2014). This working assumption has limited the utility of critical HRM writing for understanding responses to tensions within organizations. Similarly to the pSHRM perspective, it suggests that tensions can be resolved, albeit through more radical activities. It also overlooks empirical evidence showing that actors are sometimes able to cope with tensions and adapt HRM systems so that vicious cycles leading to collapse do not necessarily happen (e.g., Dobbins and Dundon 2015). The cHRM perspective currently does not offer explicit answers on how actors cope with tensions or use tensions as opportunities for transformation, creativity, and change in the context of HRM systems.

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The Dynamics of Coping with Paradoxical Tensions The dominant perspectives in HRM research on tensions neglect a focus on how actors approach and frame paradoxical tensions. Nor do they focus on practical, concrete ways of coping with dynamically evolving paradoxical tensions. Paradoxes are impervious to resolution due to the simultaneous and contradictory nature of relations between elements (Fairhurst et al. 2016). Insight on dynamics of paradoxical tensions, responses, and vicious and virtuous cycles associated with paradoxes and response strategies are needed in the HRM field. Smith and Lewis (2011) hold that organizations and individuals are not automatically victims of tensions and vicious cycles, but that (ongoing) response strategies can postively impact long-​term outcomes. In their constitutive perspective on paradox, Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart (2016) also stress the praxis of everyday coping for explaining individual and organizational outcomes from responding to paradoxical tensions. Smith and Lewis (2011) outline conditions for alternative response strategies incorporating both organizational factors (i.e., inertia, dynamic capabilities) and individual factors (i.e., drive for consistency vs. complexity, emotional equanimity). Further, in their review of the organizational literature, Smith and Lewis (2011) distinguish vicious and virtuous cycles based on how actors frame and respond to tensions. They associate both/​and approaches to paradoxes with virtuous cycles, and either/​or orientations with vicious cycles. Their model explains how virtuous cycles encourage organizational sustainability. The paradox lens commends a focus on the ongoing nature of tensions and a dynamic view of coping with and responding to them. Tensions cannot be resolved (Fairhurst et  al. 2016), but require iterating responses. For example, oscillating between splitting and integrating strategies over time can achieve transcendence and synthesis. The stance of the paradox lens and the assumption of the permanent and dynamic nature of tensions reminds us that managing is about finding “paradoxical coping strategies” rather than achieving “balance.” An organization that manages paradoxical HRM tensions via iterating or alternating responses in a dynamic way may be more viable than one that balances HRM tensions via finding optimal fit. Recent examples of HRM scholars mobilizing paradox theory to study HRM tensions and responses place emphasis on dynamics and ongoing tensions. An example is research by Kozica and Brandl (2015). In an ethnographic study of performance appraisal systems, they find support for the dynamic processes that characterize responses to paradoxical tensions. They argue that performance rankings, which arrange tensions between individual proliferation and collegial solidarity, will eventually deteriorate or diminish and need to be reformed by arranging the competing elements in a different way (see also Meyer and Gupta 1994).

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    419 A paradox perspective on HRM tensions could also support a shared understanding in the organization about the permanency of the challenge of managing tensions. Models, such as Ulrich’s model of the HRM function, do not address how tensions could be handled. Instead, they likely reduce capacity to deal sustainably with tensions by obscuring the simultaneity and contradictory nature of HRM as both strategic and operational, and people-​and process-​oriented, having both strategic and employee-​ facing aspects (Gerpott 2015). Managing tensions cannot be delegated to HRM specialists even if they play an important role in framing tensions and responses. Tensions are also not balanced by frameworks.

A Paradox Framework on HRM Tensions We now build on previous sections and on recent paradox theory to present a paradox HRM framework as an aid for systematically studying HRM tensions. Our framework serves as an illustration to highlight the main features of a paradox HRM perspective: (1) paradoxical HRM tensions and influences that render them salient; (2) perspectives on tensions; (3) responses to tensions; (4) dynamic outcomes of responses to tensions (see Figure 21.1).

(1) Paradoxical HRM Tensions and Influences that Render Them Salient. HRM systems comprise many different paradoxes that are constituted in different contexts. It is impossible to identify all these paradoxes, ex ante. However, for the sake of (1) Paradoxical HRM tensions and influences that render them salient (1a) HRM tensions of performing, organizing, belonging, learning: - Contradictory - Simultaneous - Persisting - Interrelated

(1b) Plurality, Change, Scarcity

(2) Perspectives on tensions (2a) Multiple actors’ experiences, cognitions, emotions, actions

Employer Employee

(2b) Context (incl. families, societies); power

Figure 21.1  Paradoxes of the employment relationship

(3) Responses to tensions

(4) Outcomes of responses to tensions

(3a) Passive: - Ignoring - Denying - Splitting (space/time) - Scapegoating

(4a) Vicious cycles: - Anxiety - Discomfort, ambiguity - Inertia

(3b) Active: - Opposing - Accepting - Confronting - Transcending (Synthesizing)

(4b) Virtuous cycles: - Creativity - Innovativeness - Sustainability - Ambidexterity

420    Tensions in Managing Human Resources illustration and discussion, we follow Smith and Lewis (2011) and discuss paradoxes of performing, organizing, belonging, and learning, as well as their interrelationships at different levels. In industrial capitalist societies employees, managers, and broader stakeholders (e.g., families, labor representatives) look to HRM systems for appropriate relations between autonomy and control. They look for fairness in rewards and opportunities for advancement based on social equality and achievement rather than on class or gender (Watson 2012). HRM actors are therefore confronted with multiple HRM tensions, that is, simultaneous, contradictory, and interrelated principles that persist over time (1a). Performing paradoxes surface when employees want high wages while employers want to contain labor costs reflecting opposing, simultaneously desired outcomes. Developers of compensation systems face tensions while employees and their representatives may accept or contest the outcomes defined by organizational policy. Learning paradoxes arise when employees want to invest in general skills to increase their employment possibilities while employers want to invest mainly in firm-​specific human capital. Tensions between these aims can also lead to under-​utilization of HRM systems when emerging policies are not in line with employees’ desires or interests. Belonging paradoxes arise when HRM specialists seek to develop HRM systems for employee well-​being on the basis of their professional values and perceived duty of care to employees. At the same time HRM specialists increasingly need to respond to business values as strategic partners by developing work systems that produce high levels of work pressure for individuals (Ehrnrooth and Björkman 2012; Ramsay et al. 2000; Van De Voorde, Paauwe, and Van Veldhoven 2012). Finally, combinations of organizing and performing paradoxes emerge when decentralized HR responsibilities are assigned to middle managers but are in opposition to demands for managers to conform with strict HRM rules and regulations when at the same time devolved HRM systems rely on self-​directed learning and performing of HR work by managers (Link and Müller 2015). The question for HRM researchers from a paradox perspective is how individual actors constitute such tensions (Putnam et al. 2016), and what this means in terms of developed responses (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013). The role of power is crucial though not determinative, and the dynamics associated with this are worthy of study. As Figure 21.1 shows, our framework highlights the ever-​present and dynamic nature of (latent) HRM tensions due to contradictory elements and how these become salient at particular points in time. Tensions between employee/​employer interests that relate for example to compensation policies, workforce differentiation strategies, HRM role divisions, or work-​life balance regulations, can become salient due to factors such as plurality change, and scarcity as highlighted in current paradox theory (e.g., Smith and Lewis 2011). There are many examples in the HRM literature, although not based on paradox theorizing, that suggest increased plurality and knock-​on effects for tensions and their management. Plurality derives from diversification of types of employees/​groups in the workplace with different interests, preferences, terms and conditions of employment, formal employment relationships, etc. Technological changes and innovations

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    421 (Meijerink, Bondarouk, and Lepak 2013), rationalization and restructuring of HRM functions (Caldwell 2003)  and the growing prevalence of temporary and networked organizations (Bredin 2008; Keegan, Huemann, and Turner 2012; Swart and Kinnie 2014) all increase plurality in terms of employees, line managers and contract workers. A paradox perspective on tensions in HRM would highlight how these are being perceived, constituted and handled by HRM practitioners and other actors including trade unions and employees themselves. Change is endemic to HRM systems and is related to dynamism in institutional/​ legal arrangements regarding employees’ rights and employers responsibilities; product market competition; introduction of new organizational strategies for competing; new models for the HRM function; new technologies and how these order and shape employment relationships and possibilities for employees to interact with the HRM function, etc. Boxall and Purcell (2016) hold that change causes tensions in terms of managements’ goals for HRM systems and ways of managing these tensions. Finally, scarcity is linked with contextual or internal developments including loose/​ tight product and labor markets; increasing/​decreasing firm financial resources; fluctuations in labor supply/​demand; changing societal norms regarding training and development of school-​leavers. As sustainability is one of the outcomes of managing human resources (Ehnert 2009; Kramar 2014), broader contextual environmental, social and human resource scarcities can be taken into account (e.g., dysfunctional educational systems). Our framework provides a starting point for in-​depth and rich contextual analysis of latent tensions regarding performing, learning, belonging, and organizing and how they become salient.

(2) Perspectives on Tensions Part 2 of the framework highlights that when tensions are rendered salient by different factors (see 1b) it impacts the experiences, cognitions, emotions, and actions of different kinds of actors (2a). Exactly what elements are contradictory, simultaneous, persistent, and interrelated is linked to context (2b). The paradoxes of performing facing a small domestically operating firm may differ from those facing a globally operating organization (Chung et al. 2011; Evans and Doz 1989). The belonging paradoxes a HR specialist faces in a context where trade unions are powerful and professional HRM training emphasizes parity in employment relationships may differ from those facing HR specialists in highly unitarist corporate systems and low levels of employment regulation. From a paradox perspective, HRM systems are inherently tenuous (Lewis 2000). Simultaneous, paradoxical HRM elements are manifest in competing organizational discourses and HRM functions’ distributions of tasks and priorities. However, regardless of how the policies and practices are developed to manage employment, this never completely resolves HRM tensions because contradictory and simultaneous elements inherent to the paradoxical relationship between employees and employers persist over time.

422    Tensions in Managing Human Resources Our framework guides researchers to attend to HRM tensions from the perspectives of a wide range of actors (2a)—​employees (different groups within and between organizations); lower-​level HRM specialists, line managers, trade unions, families, communities, and society as well as high-​level managers, and to incorporate emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects in different spatial and temporal domains, including, for example, families of employees and the long-​term consequences of paradoxes on individuals. It recognizes the presence of multiples as enriching understanding of tensions, their sources, and influences in working through them (Putnam et al. 2016). It is additionally complicated that the source of tensions can be both within and outside of organizations. For example, employees experience tensions at work that arise primarily in a non-​work context but spill over to the employment setting (Bolton and Houlihan 2007). Awareness of the different perspectives on tensions of different involved actors, as well as the domains in which tensions can arise, is an important aspect of a paradox HRM perspective on tensions. In particular, the emotional aspects of coping with HRM tensions have tended to be overlooked to date in favor of a focus on improving performance outcomes by strategically (and cognitively) managing tensions (Ehnert 2009). Performance paradoxes (multiple conflicting goals) or belonging paradoxes (identifying with ethical professional and transcendent humanistic values and business values, e.g., Pohler and Willness 2014) can lead to HRM specialists struggling with what they perceive as absurd double binds in their daily work (Putnam 1986). Their emotional reaction to tensions can affect the way they deal with employees and line managers and in turn how HR specialists deal with each other (Rynes 2004).

(3) Responses to Tensions Responses to tensions between simultaneously contradictory elements can vary greatly from one actor to another (Lewis 2000). Research suggests that individuals may accept, deny, ignore, embrace, and accommodate paradoxical elements (Poole and Van de Ven 1989). Research also suggests that responses are influenced by the social, relational, managerial, and discursive context (see 2b) (Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Putnam 1986). Power not only influences the creation of tensions, as employers in industrial capitalist societies usually have more power than employees (Godard 2010) (2b), but it also plays a role in the “resolution” of, or reponses to, tensions (Putnam 1986; Putnam et al. 2016). However, employers cannot fully ignore employees’ interests and aims due to the indeterminacy of human labor as a resource input to work processes (Watson 2004); the volatility and scarcity of labor markets (Boxall and Purcell 2016); and the unpredictable and creative potential of human beings to reflect on and shape their life-​worlds, including their reactions to HRM systems (Bolton and Houlihan 2007; Janssens and Steyaert 2009). When confronted with conflicting performance goals relating to their work and non-​ work domains, employees may cognitively construe work and non-​work commitments

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    423 as either/​or dilemmas to avoid paralyzing emotions associated with perceived double binds relating to commitments to behave adequately in each domain. Either/​or construal of performance paradoxes may result, for example, in voluntary turnover or overinvestment in work at the expense of family or leisure time which over time can lead to unsustainable health-​related effects (Ehnert 2009; Ehrnrooth and Björkman 2012; Mariappanadar 2014). Understanding how employees construe paradoxical tensions in organizations is an important issue that has not gained much attention in the current HRM literature (for an exception see Brandl and Bullinger 2017) even though research indicates that some HRM systems, for example, high performance work systems, confront employees with simultaneously maintaining ever higher performance levels and their own health-​related well-​being (Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Paradox theory suggests that responses are partially shaped by context and how well it supports paradoxical thinking and responses. Organizational actors can be trained to approach tensions as both/​and paradoxes (Lüscher and Lewis 2008). They can be enabled to accept and accommodate the absurdity of paradoxes in the form of mixed messages and contradictions (Putnam 1986) in order to be able to work through them. However, actors can also be paralyzed by tensions in a context where open dialogue and feedback are not facilitated (Lüscher, Lewis, and Ingram 2006; Putnam 1986). Research that explores what contextual factors shape HRM actors’ responses to tensions can create valuable practical and theoretical insights. Our paradox HRM framework addresses the contextualized nature of paradoxes and guides researchers to understand how actors respond to tensions, and what the outcomes are for those actors, their organizations, and the broader community and society.

(4) Outcomes of Responses to Tensions Outcomes of responses to paradoxes depend on how well the context facilitates actors to work through tensions by maintaining a focus on elements as both/​and paradoxes (Lewis 2000; Putnam 1986). Outcomes of constructing tensions as either/​or dilemmas can include emotional anxiety, discomfort, ambiguity, and inertia resulting in vicious cycles (4a). This occurs as problems do not get accepted (Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Vince and Broussine 1996) or appear repeatedly; therefore adequate solutions, however provisional in the face of plurality, change, and scarcity, cannot be developed. Paradox theory suggests that either/​or responses can fuel reinforcing cycles, undermining sustainable solutions as actors respond to simultaneous opposing elements (e.g., pressure on HRM specialists to focus on employee needs and business needs) by choosing one or the other element (Jay 2013). Both/​and responses allowing acceptance and even transcendence of paradoxes fuel virtuous cycles (4b) of creativity, innovativeness, ambidexterity, and sustainability (Lewis 2000). Current categorizations of outcomes include vicious cycles and virtuous cycles and their correspondence with individual and organizational characteristics spurring these (Smith and Lewis 2011). Our framework guides HRM researchers to examine outcomes

424    Tensions in Managing Human Resources of responses to tensions at individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels as well, considering how contextual factors enable and constrain acceptance or transcendence of paradoxes, or developments of both/​and or more/​than (temporary) responses (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Putnam et al. 2016).

A Worked Example: Telework To illustrate how our framework can be used to guide paradox HRM analysis, we provide a worked example of the case of telework (Taskin and Devos 2005). Paradoxical HRM tensions (1a) between the organization and individual (i.e., interaction with co-​ employees vs. working by oneself) as well as between autonomy and control (individual responsibility vs. value for the organization) are highlighted when telework is introduced as a change to work organization (1b) in a particular context (2b). Handling of such tensions from a paradox perspective means, first of all, that the HR function takes into account not only the importance of pressures for organizational objectives but also simultaneously questions that will arise for the quality of work life of teleworkers and possibly their families (2). In addition, a paradox perspective recognizes that the goals of implementing telework (e.g., increased personal autonomy, more flexible interaction with other colleagues) may have unanticipated negative consequences (e.g., work intensification, loss of commitment to the organization) and that these consequences may even undermine the achievement of the very goals at the heart of deciding to implement telework arrangements. This highlights the simultaneously contradictory and interrelated elements in telework arrangements that create performance paradoxes for teleworkers (work autonomously and flexibly and continue to share knowledge and coordinate with co-​workers) and organizations (devolve responsibility and maintain control). Viewing teleworking arrangements this way, it is possible to analyze the dynamics between various opposing poles of the paradoxes in play. Telework changes (1b) the interaction between co-​workers, employees, and their managers rendering latent organizing and performing tensions salient. What does the absence of direct interaction imply for the sharing of knowledge with others? How does autonomy over scheduling one’s work affect the short-​term and long-​term results? How does the transfer of responsibility (and devolvement of risk to employees) influence the psychological contract (i.e., the company’s relation with the employees and their retention)? Because there are no straightforward answers to these questions, the very act of asking these questions may raise discomfort and anxiety (2a) for those who must make decisions including managers but also employees who are considering teleworking as an option. The posing of questions makes dynamic and complex relations apparent: the short-​term gains in flexibility are viewed differently in the light of increasing risk to employee well-​being in the long run as a result of the added pressure that occurs when responsibility for workplace conditions (e.g., equipment, silence) required in order to

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    425 accomplish work-​related tasks are actually transferred to the employees. An appreciation of paradoxical tensions offers a possibility for constructive engagement with them and opportunities for more elaborate discussions to stay with and work through the paradox (4). What is avoided are simple assumptions regarding linear effects, one-​size-​fits-​ all permanently and win–​win solutions. Defensive responses to tensions in telework such as ignoring (3a) (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Lewis 2011) may provide relief for a short time but can then potentially lead to vicious cycles (4a) because paradoxes have not adequately been dealt with. When paradoxes need to be addressed over and over again this can be costly in the long term. In the example of teleworking arrangements, defensive responses to tensions could include “splitting” (Poole and Van de Ven 1989), which refers to occasional telework (1–​ 2 days per week) or agreements for a defined period after which the employee returns to the work site, that is, spatial or temporal separation of the poles (Poole and Van de Ven 1989). Although this solution might seem favorable and produce minimal conflicts between employee work–​life balance and increased flexibility, this mode of coping reduces the possibility of tensions occurring and could be seen as an “avoidance tactic” (Ehnert 2009; Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). Such a response prevents actors wishing to explore telework and all its possibilities from finding solutions at higher levels (see also Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), including, for example, reconceptualizing actors’ perceptions of the paradox (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). To achieve virtuous cycles in response to paradoxes (4b), active responses to tensions are needed that deal with paradox long term (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). For example, “opposing” is a coping mode, which keeps tensions continuously high and requires from actors that they continuously take contradictory poles into account and that they accept the tensions involved, or that they confront and work through the tensions actively. For teleworking, employers may offer training in time management to work against the undermining of long-​term productivity through work intensification at the home office. Co-​workers may participate in performance assessments and space could be provided for social activities to emphasize the importance of interaction with other employees that is needed for knowledge transfer and commitment. Whatever resolutions actors develop as they work through these tensions, the concrete resolutions cannot be viewed as final. What matters more is “purposeful iterations between alternatives in order to ensure simultaneous attention to them over time” (Smith and Lewis 2011: 392).

Discussion and Avenues for Research Building on our framework, HRM tensions arise from elements that are opposing, simultaneous and persistent. A  focus on persistent coexistence of opposing HRM elements can enable learning because it challenges academics and practitioners to stay with the paradox (Vince and Broussine 1996: 4), which, as the telework example

426    Tensions in Managing Human Resources suggests, can promote organizational sustainability via HRM. Paradox HRM takes the viewpoint of employees and managers as human beings, as well as their families, communities, and societies (Ehnert 2009; Peters and Lam 2015). Decisions regarding work conditions, compensation, and development are all broadly relevant and highly impactful issues not only for employees but also for managers charged with implementing policies, communities, societies, and families who are affected by HRM systems (Bolton and Houlihan 2007; Ehnert 2009; Janssens and Steyaert 1999, 2009; Winstanley and Woodall 2000). Paradox theory is a powerful but currently underutilized lens for studying HRM tensions and responses to tensions. As a metatheoretical perspective (Lewis and Smith 2014), it can be combined with other theoretical lenses to conceptualize tensions and responses. Although currently rare in HRM research, examples of combining a paradox view with other “academic languages, concepts and practices” (Janssens and Steyaert 2009: 152) include Kozica and Brandl (2015) using paradox theory and convention theory to study performance appraisal, and Ehnert (2009) and Guerci and Carollo (2016) combining paradox theory and sustainability theories to study HRM systems. The potential for further development of HRM analysis of tensions based on paradox theory is significant in our view. Paradoxical tensions cannot be resolved or avoided, nor do they inevitably lead to vicious cycles. Tensions may become a source for creativity and sustainability as well as individual and organizational development. It is vital for HRM theorizing to move beyond the conceptualization of tensions as static configurations of opposing elements (e.g., cost-​effectiveness vs. social legitimacy) and adopt alternative perspectives on tensions that involve multiple actors’ concerns, contexts, and power (Figure 21.1). HRM actors do not only need to balance dualities (Evans 1999), but cope with dynamically evolving and interrelated tensions, Developing paradox-​handling capacities of all actors in organizations to continuously cope with the emotional and cognitive demands is important. Consequently, a consideration of the presence of multiples (Putnam et al. 2016) in terms of HRM tensions, and incorporation of trade unions and employees in constituting tensions and developing responses, could support a more dynamic and inclusive orientation to research on HRM tensions in the employment relationship. However, we also explicitly advocate a focus on concrete handling strategies. The proposals forwarded in mainstream HRM research tend to offer little practical guidance for HRM actors regarding tensions. Neither abstract prescriptions for “optimal alignment” or “multiple simultaneous fits” provide guidance to HRM practitioners and other actors on what this means on a daily basis. It is unclear if this requires a change in mindset, different negotiation skills, or a particular emotional or cognitive capacity for coping with paradoxical tensions. Critical HRM writers have been more explicit about the sources of instability in HRM solutions to tensions, but the emancipatory ideals of critical HRM writing also mean HRM actors are not given guidance on practical aspects of responding to and working through tensions as continuously evolving aspects of their working lives. Our aim in this chapter has been to advance a framework that guides the

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    427 systematic study of HRM tensions, responses to tensions, and the consequences of these responses. A paradox perspective is useful to this end because it: intentionally introduces contradictions that exist simultaneously to discussion, thereby initially prompting a degree of confusion and feelings of anxiety to stimulate creative thinking that moves beyond either/or toward both/and understandings. (Lewis and Dehler 2000: 708)

Future Research on HRM from a Paradox Perspective Our paradox framework and perspective on conceptualizing the multi-​dimensional and changing nature of HRM tensions draws on a systems view of organizations and we are aware that there are different possibilities for understanding organizational processes, individuals, and HRM processes than a paradox perspective. Notwithstanding, a paradox HRM perspective does suggest a number of valuable avenues for future research. It is a useful starting point for a more fine-​grained examination of tensions involved in achieving sustainable employment relationships and supports a renewed look at the fundamental question of what it means for HR specialists to be “strategic.” Encouraging line managers with shorter-​term and specific objectives to also focus on long-​term skill patterns and employee commitment levels is a theme that can be supported by a paradox perspective on HRM. This involves actively managing the likely resulting tensions between specialists and line managers that arise from such questions. A paradox perspective means we also need to consider employees as agents with their own desires, needs, and motivations, as well as capacities for pursuing them (e.g., Bolton and Houlihan 2007; Janssens and Steyaert 2009). Watson’s suggestion (2012: 486–​7) to constantly monitor and influence comparative treatment of employees across the organization with the aim of achieving a degree of perceived fairness of treatment may be an important pillar to prevent the organization from vicious cycles of social disintegration and crises. While viewing employees as agents with their own desires, concerns, and motivations as well as capacities for pursuing them (e.g., Bolton and Houlihan 2007; Janssens and Steyaert 2009) is important, we also believe that HRM actors could more systematically explore how stakeholders to the employment relationship, like families and labor representatives, influence the processes through which employees are working through tensions. Our framework highlights how both employees and employers use HRM to achieve their goals, as well as the tensions they and others encounter. However, we believe that the paradoxical nature of HRM highlighted in our framework also offers input for researchers in the domain of paradox theory. For example, HRM topics could inspire paradox researchers to enrich the types of paradoxes they study in work organizations,

428    Tensions in Managing Human Resources to sharpen the focus on sources for paradoxes including inequalities in power and voice, and to examine the role of emotions more systematically when studying paradoxes. A focus on the employment relationship may help paradox researchers to further elaborate on paradoxes operating in organizational settings. For example, employment relationships generally involve the competing demands on HR actors to be both controlling and caring (Caldwell 2003), producing tensions that cannot be handled by abandoning one of these requirements (Watson 2012: 492). The analysis of requirements for HR actors for building both positive relations and conflicts with trade unions to secure their influence (Brandl and Pohler 2010) offers insights to identify how actors handle ambivalent relationships toward each other. Similarly the extensive literature on tensions HR actors experience in terms of their responsibilities (e.g., Colling and Ferner 1992; Link and Müller 2015) could provide inspiration to researchers examining the processes whereby organizing paradoxes operate in organizations. And lastly, HRM may be a fruitful field for paradox researchers to study how actors ensure that formal processes (e.g., certificates), increasingly pervading contemporary organizations with the promise to support their work, do not distract them from their “actual” work (Watson 2012: 492). With regards to sharpening the focus on sources of tensions, literature that considers the socio-​economic context in which HRM operates might inspire paradox researchers to further explore the root causes of contradictory elements in organizations. Watson and Watson’s study in a UK university setting highlights tensions that arise between different actors and their roots in deeper societal problems giving rise to such tensions (Watson and Watson 1999; see also Watson 1986). Their work points out that the practical tensions, which managers face in their day-​to-​day work, are rooted in conflicting relations between basic societal principles. In industrial capitalist societies, these principles are control versus freedom/​autonomy. The tension between them is enduring since the principles are embedded in the institutions of formally free labor, employment (i.e., selling capacity to work to others) and rational organization (Watson 2012; Watson and Watson 1999). Different institutions may play a role in sustaining the tensions that paradox scholars have identified, for example, organizing, learning, and performing, and HRM research has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of these issues. Research looking at the perception of tensions by actors through studying their emotions is also highly valuable. The emotional implications of tensions are a vital though largely untapped source of information on how organizations in the aggregate, and their individual members, cope with tensions. Thanks to the interest of HRM scholars in vicious cycles, the HR literature offers a rich empirical setting for studying individual crises (Brandl and Bullinger 2017; Frost 1989; Steers 2008) which provides a useful starting point for capturing the circumstances under which tensions become manifest and with what effects on individual outcomes. Research on identity work within the interpretative and critical research tradition (e.g., Brandl and Bullinger 2017; Creed, Hudson, Okhuysen, and Smith-​Crowe 2014)  could reveal more fine-​grained insights on the individual responses to competing elements. These individual responses not only have implications for understanding organizational outcomes, but may also generate advice for practitioners for developing coping strategies.

Ina Aust, Julia Brandl, Anne Keegan, and Marcia Lensges    429

Conclusion Tensions and paradoxes are of major relevance for HRM practice. In this chapter, we began by identifying traditional sources and coping strategies of HRM tensions. We then proposed studying HRM tensions via a new paradox framework aimed at making HRM theory more relevant for practice. With our framework, we wish to stimulate research on the conditions of rendering latent HRM tensions salient and on exploring the interrelatedness of HRM tensions. We also suggest that this framework can inform research on the multiple perspectives of HRM actors on tensions and their contextual influences, as well as the different responses and combinations of responses to tensions on both individual and collective levels and the dynamic outcomes of the responses to tensions.

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Chapter 22

L o oking at Cre at i v i t y t hrou gh a Para d ox  L e ns Deeper Understanding and New Insights Ella Miron-​S pektor and Miriam Erez

Creativity has long been considered essential for prosperity and success in modern life (George 2007). Ideas and products are deemed creative if they are both new at a given time and context and are perceived as useful and practical (Amabile 1996). Creativity is multidimensional, with many factors contributing to its development and expression. Many researchers have examined psychological and contextual forces that affect creativity (Anderson, Potonik, and Zhou 2014; Shalley, Zhou, and Oldham 2004), and gained insight about the creativity process (Guilford 1957; Lubart 2010; Mumford and Gustafson 1998). Researchers examined traits, mindsets, motivations, and emotions of creative individuals (Baas, De Dreu, and Nijstad 2008; Kirton 1976; Shalley 1991), structures and processes of creative teams (Hargadon and Bechky 2006; Harvey 2014; Hülsheger, Anderson, and Salgado 2009; Taggar 2002), and leadership behaviors and organizational environments that cultivate creativity at work (Amabile 1996; Mainemelis, Kark, and Epitropaki 2015; Miron, Erez, and Naveh 2004; Scott and Bruce 1994). Most of these studies theorized and examined idea novelty and usefulness together as part of a single creativity construct, assuming that they “travel together in creative ideas” (Berg 2014: 1). Recent evidence, however, suggests that creativity’s novelty and usefulness dimensions can be contradictory in the evaluation process (Mueller, Melwani, and Goncalo 2011), and may derive from seemingly opposing yet interrelated processes (Berg 2014; DeFillippi, Grabher, and Jones 2007; Ford and Gioia 2000; Grant and Berry 2011; Litchfield 2008; Miron-​Spektor, Gino, and Argote 2011). The most creative ideas are both novel and useful and the most creative people excel at both creativity dimensions. Novelty involves generating divergent insights that break assumptions and rules, while usefulness depends on a convergent focus of adherence to needs, boundaries, and constraints (Guilford 1957). The more novel an idea, the more

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    435 uncertainty exists regarding its practicality, feasibility, and usefulness (Mueller et  al. 2011). In opposition, useful and practical ideas usually rely on working solutions that have been established in the past (Audia and Goncalo 2007; Grant and Berry 2011). Novelty and usefulness are also interdependent, informing and reinforcing one another in the creativity process (Lewis 2000). Novel insights can help improve product usefulness, and considering usefulness issues can inspire novel ideas. In fact, very often new ideas are generated in response to constraints or needs that must be resolved (Bledow, Frese, Anderson, Erez, and Farr 2009; Grant and Berry 2011). This contradictory yet interdependent nature of novelty and usefulness renders creativity paradoxical (Smith and Lewis 2011). Paradox denotes persistent contradictions between interdependent elements, elements that seem logical individually but inconsistent when juxtaposed (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). In referring to the inherently paradoxical nature of creativity, we mean that when individuals and teams engage in creativity, they experience contradictory yet interrelated thoughts, processes, goals, identities, and perspectives (Andriopoulos 2003; Gotsi, Andropoulos, Lewis, and Ingram 2010). For example, they need to be both generative and evaluative (Harvey and Kou 2013; Harvey 2014), flexible and persistent (Baas, Roskes, Sligte, Nijstad, and De Dreu 2013), passionate and disciplined (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009), and learning-​and performance-​ orientated (Miron-​Spektor and Beenen 2015). Our framework delineates contradictory yet interrelated creative outcomes, processes, and identities of individuals, leaders, and groups (See Table 22.1), as well as strategies for managing the creative tensions and paradoxes this process creates. By looking at creativity through a paradox lens, we are asking what additional dimensions and processes can be brought to our understanding of creativity, much as a second eye enables us to see depth that we cannot experience with one eye (Smith and Berg 1986). This chapter offers several important theoretical contributions to research on creativity and paradox. For decades, scholars investigated psychological mechanisms and contextual conditions that influence creativity, and developed multiple theories for explaining creative behavior (e.g., Amabile 1996; Anderson, Potonik, and Zhou 2014; Ford 1996; George 2007; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin 1993). This research, however, provides limited insight about the complex relationship between novelty and usefulness, and about conditions and processes that enable them both (Litchfield 2008). Moreover, studies that recognize multiple pathways toward creativity (Baas, De Dreu, and Nijstad 2011; De Dreu, Baas, and Nijstad 2008) tend to see them as mutually exclusive and rarely consider their complementarity and simultaneity. We acknowledge the complex relationship between novelty and usefulness and suggest possible strategies for combing alternative pathways to enhance creativity. In doing so, we draw from related research on innovation management, attention control, and goal setting (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Bledow et al. 2009). We also contribute to theory on paradox that mainly includes qualitative and macro-​oriented studies. We focus on individuals and teams, and review theories as well as quantitative and experimental

436    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens Table 22.1 Creativity paradoxes Creativity paradoxes

Contradictory yet interrelated elements

Creativity outcomes

• Novelty and usefulness • Creativity and practicality • Creativity and efficiency

Andriopoulos 2003; Berg 2014; Diehl and Stroebe 1987; Erez and Nouri 2010; Ford and Gioia 2000; Gaim and Wahlin 2016; Grant and Berry 2011; Hargadon and Douglas 2001; Litchfield 2008; Miron, Erez and Naveh 2004; Miron-​Spektor and Beenen 2015; Miron-​Spektor, Gino, and Argote 2011; Mueller, Melwani, and Goncalo 2011

Creativity processes

• Divergent and convergent thinking • Flexibility and persistence • Idea generation and evaluation

Guilford 1957; Goldschmidt 2016; Goldschmidt 2014; Baas, De Dreu, and Nijstad 2008; Baas et al. 2013; De Dreu, Baas, and Nijstad 2008; Roskes, De Dreu, and Nijstad 2012; Harvey 2014; Harvey and Kou 2013; Berg 2014; Mehta and Zhu 2015.

Learning and creativity

• Exploration and exploitation • Learning and performance goals

Audia and Goncalo 2007; Andriopoulos 2003; Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Dobrow, Smith, and Posner 2011; Gebert et al. 2009; Miron-​Spektor and Beenen 2015

Creative identity

• Art and business identities

Gotsi et al. 2010; Eikhof and Haunschild 2007; Hackley and Kover 2007

Creative groups

• Individuality and collectivity • Uniqueness and conformity • Pro-​self and pro-​other motives

Smith and Berg 1986; Beersma and De Dreu 2005; Nemeth and Gonacalo 2005; Bechtoldt, De Dreu, Nijstad, and Choi 2010; Nemeth, Personnaz, Personnaz, and Goncalo 2004; Smith and Tushman 2005

Creative leadership

• Inducing and maintaining structure • Enforcing work requiremenst and allowing autonomy

Mainemelis, Kark, and Epitropaki 2015; Mueller, Goncalo, and Kamdar 2011; Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, and Strange 2002; Smith, Lewis and Tuhsman 2016; Lewis, Welsh, Dehler, and Green 2002; Rosing, Frese, and Bausch 2011: Zhang, Waldman, Han, and Li 2015.

Example sources

findings that demonstrate the multiple ways in which creativity can be paradoxical. We review different paradoxes including those of creative outcomes, processes, knowledge generation, and identity, as well as paradoxes of creative leaders and groups. By doing so, we hope to promote new insights and deeper understandings about managing creativity.

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    437

Paradoxes of Creativity Individuals, leaders, and groups experience different forms of creativity paradoxes such as paradoxes of outcomes, processes, identities, and those of knowledge management. We now describe these paradoxes and discuss their distinctions as well as their joint interplay in creative endeavors.

Paradox of Creativity Outcomes: Novelty and Usefulness Developing creative solutions is challenging because the novelty and usefulness of many ideas conflict in both people’s mind and their actions. Research on implicit theories of creativity (Mueller et al. 2011) suggests that although people desire creativity, when they are motivated to reduce uncertainty, they are more likely to reject creative ideas and prefer practical over creative ideas. Other studies suggest that in the idea development process, individuals consider trade-​offs between novelty and usefulness (Hargadon and Douglas 2001). For example, product developers will assess whether to develop a product that is slightly improved over a current version that may be more useful to customers or to develop a sophisticated product that is more original but requires a great investment (on the user’s part) in learning how to use it. Recent studies distinguished between novelty and usefulness in the measurement of creativity and showed that the novelty and usefulness dimensions load on different factors (Sullivan and Ford 2010) and that under some conditions, novelty and usefulness scores can be reversely related to each other (Diehl and Stroebe 1987; Mueller et al. 2011; Rietzschel, Nijstad, and Stroebe 2010; Sullivan and Ford 2010). Novelty and usefulness also derive from distinct, incongruent psychological processes (Ford and Gioia 2000). Grant and Berry (2011) suggested that intrinsic motivation mainly contributes to the generation of novel ideas, whereas prosocial motivation contributes to ideas that are useful to others. Individuals who are both intrinsically and prosocially motivated tend to generate the most creative ideas. Based on their empirical examination, Sullivan and Ford (2010) concluded that “novelty and usefulness are conceptually and empirically distinct facets of creativity” (506), and that there is an apparent discrepancy between the way scholars define creativity and how they measure it, as a unidimensional construct. These recent contributions suggest that the interplay between novelty and usefulness is more intricate than previously considered. As Litchfield (2008: 658–​9) explains, “creativity is generality treated as composite of novelty and utility . . . but research has yet to carefully examine the effect of these dual goals.” We argue that research can benefit from viewing creativity as paradoxical. While scholars have begun to disentangle creativity into its underlying novelty and usefulness dimensions, acknowledging their inconsistencies, we still know little about their interdependence and mutually reinforcing relationship, and on psychological factors and conditions that may enable us to maximize both facets. Understanding the paradoxical

438    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens nature of creativity requires us to differentiate novelty from usefulness and their driving forces (Ford and Gioia 2000), and to identify conditions that exploit their full potential (Gaim and Wahlin 2016; Poole and Van de Ven 1989). Miron-​Spektor and Beenen (2015) adopted this approach in their study of learning and performance achievement goals and creativity. Using a product development task, they found that an assigned learning goal enhanced product novelty, while an assigned performance goal improved product usefulness. Assigning both goals simultaneously improved product novelty and usefulness more than assigning them at different times. The authors suggested that although learning and performance goals compete for scarce resources, when individuals are motivated to both develop and demonstrate their skills, they tend to synthesize the goals by developing idiosyncratic skills that help them outperform others and improve their creativity. Another study by Berg (2014) examined the constraining effect of the initial content considered in the idea generation process (i.e., the primal mark), on the novelty and usefulness of generated ideas. His findings indicated that exposing participants to an example of a familiar product, prior to the ideation task, yields useful but less novel ideas, whereas exposure to examples of a new product yields novel but less useful ideas. Integrative primal marks that include examples of both familiar and new products lead to the most novel and useful solutions.

Paradoxes of Creativity Processes Creative process models have tended to assume that creativity evolves in a stage-​like sequence, reflecting a shift from divergent to convergent thinking (Guilford 1957; Mumford and Gustafson 1998). Divergent thinking refers to the generation of multiple alternative ideas, whereas convergent thinking denotes selection, refinement, and analytical thinking. Divergent thinking entails defocused attention whereas convergent thinking involves focused attention (Gabora 2010). For example, according to the stage models of creativity creators sequentially progress from divergent thinking stages of problem identification and idea generation to convergent thinking stages of idea evaluation and validation (Amabile 1996). Recent work, however, challenges this assumption, indicating that creators iterate between divergent and evaluative thinking throughout the creativity process (Harvey and Kou 2013). Some researchers have suggested that in the field of design, these contradictory processes occur almost concurrently (Goldschmidt 2013), and that the ability to frequently iterate between divergent and convergent thinking distinguishes highly creative individuals from less creative ones (Goldschmidt 2016). Viewing the creative process through a paradox lens allows us to acknowledge divergent and convergent thinking as incongruent yet interrelated processes that conflict yet inform and reinforce each other in the generation of creative ideas. Creativity can result from inconsistent emotional, cognitive, and motivational processes. The Dual Pathway to Creativity model (De Dreu, Baas, and Nijstad 2008) identified two equivalent idea generation processes that may seem incongruent yet lead to

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    439 similar levels of creativity. The flexibility pathway to creativity reflects fluent and divergent ways of thinking, low effort and low resource demands, and the use of broad and diverse cognitive categories. In contrast, the persistence pathway to creativity reflects systematic thinking, high effort, a slower operational speed, and in-​depth exploration of fewer conceptual categories (Roskes, De Dreu, and Nijstad 2012). Research that supports this model conceptualized cognitive flexibility and persistence as mutually exclusive processes and demonstrated that promotion-​related emotions, motivation, and personalities increase creativity through the cognitive flexibility pathway, whereas prevention-​related emotions, motivation, and personalities enhance creativity through the persistence pathway (Baas et al. 2008, 2013; Roskes et al. 2012). Acknowledging that creativity can stem from inconsistent processes is an important contribution to our understanding of creativity. Yet we still lack knowledge about the interplay between the flexibility and persistence pathways. Can people engage both processes when performing a creativity task? What pathway are people who feel ambivalent emotions or have inconsistent motivations likely to pursue? A related line of research examines paradoxes of constraints and creativity, and the development of creativity approaches for thinking “inside the box” (Boyd and Goldenberg 2014). On the one hand, actual and perceived constraints (e.g., time, budget, problem structure) can restrain creativity. Creativity requires resources and time for exploring new solutions, experimentation, and incubation periods (Grant 2016). On the other hand, scarce resources motivate individuals to abandon their working solutions and overcome functional fixedness (Mehta and Zhu 2015; Roskes 2015). This paradox of constrained creativity inspired scholars to distinguish between different types of constraints (Roskes 2015) and explore paradoxical mindsets of embracing creativity boundaries and limitations (Lewis 2000; Miron-Spektor et al. 2017; Smith, Lewis, and Tushman 2016).

The Paradox of Knowledge Creation The paradox of knowledge creation is reflected in the need to both draw and diverge from existing knowledge and experience when creating new ideas (Smith and Lewis 2011; Smith and Berg 1986). Research demonstrates this interdependent yet conflicting relationship between prior experience and creativity. According to the Component Model of Creativity (Amabile 1996), creativity requires expertise and domain relevant knowledge. A physicist, for example, must be familiar with past work and current developments in her domain in order to be able to identify important unresolved problems and generate valuable new knowledge. The same expertise that enables her to identify burning issues in her field, however, may also lead her to draw on familiar strategies and heuristics when she tries to solve these problems (Dane 2010). Extant knowledge and practices can create mental blocks and negative transfer that constrain the generation of novel solutions (Berg 2014). Audia and Goncalo (2007) demonstrated this tension in their research on patenting. Their findings indicate that past success in writing patents increases productivity in generating new ideas, but also hinders the extent to

440    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens which the generated ideas diverge from past trajectories. Others distinguished between different types of experience and suggested that homogeneous and indirect experience is less beneficial to creativity than diverse and direct experience with the task (Gino, Argote, Miron-​Spektor, and Todorova 2010; Taylor and Greve 2006). Studies on exploration and exploitation further suggest that although exploitation hones and extends current knowledge while exploration entails the development of new knowledge, these conflicting strategies can mutually reinforce each other and coexist in innovative processes (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Gebert, Boerner, and Kearney 2009).

Paradoxes of Creative Identity Creativity also entails paradoxes of conflicting yet interrelated identities. Creative workers in the art, design, and similar industries experience identity tensions between their desire to see themselves as artists and their need for a business-​like identity that meets deadlines and market demands (Eikhof and Haunschild 2007; Gotsi et al. 2010; Hackley and Kover 2007). As artists, they desire to be part of a bohemian milieu, be passionate, and express their unique perceptive. As business people, they need to endorse materialistic values, search for funding, and take the perspectives of others in order to sell their creative products effectively. Research on theater actors in Germany revealed that these artists find their own “idiosyncratic ways of dealing with the tension between artistic and economic logics” (Eikhof and Haunschild 2007: 523). Having multiple contradictory identities can be mutually reinforcing but also depleting and confusing. A qualitative study that examined identity regulation strategies indicates that creators manage this identity tension by switching between identities at different points at time, and by forming a synergetic identity of a “practical artist” (Gotsi et al. 2010).

Paradoxes of Creative Groups Organizations increasingly rely on teams to generate creative solutions to their most challenging problems. In their seminal book on “paradoxes of group life,” Smith and Berg (1986) described tensions and paradoxes with relevance to creativity. According to the paradox of individuality, for example, the “only way for a group to become a group is for its members to express their individuality” (Smith and Berg 1986: 99). This tension between the individual and the group appeared in the early work of Freud and more recent studies on the tension between conformity pressures and group members’ need for uniqueness and individuality (Andriopoulos 2003; Nemeth and Gonacalo 2005). These works suggest that groups are most creative when they include members with diverse perspectives, enable members to express their unique knowledge, and tolerate conflict. Gibson and Vermeulen (2003: 209) nicely described the inherent paradox in diverse teams by saying that “the team is a team because everybody is different.”

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    441 Scholars identified team mechanisms that enable teams to capitalize on this paradox to fuel creativity. An interesting study suggests perspective-​taking as a possible mechanism that helps teams realize the creative benefits of their diverse viewpoints. Perspective-​taking enables team members to elaborate their ideas and integrate their insights into new solutions, and improves the creativity of diverse teams (Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, and Barkema 2012). A related research examined how pro-​ self and pro-​other motivations interact to affect team creativity (Beersma and De Dreu 2005). Group members with prosocial motives care about the needs of other group members, and thus search for integrative solutions that maintain group harmony. In contrast, group members with pro-​self motives care more about their personal outcomes, and approach group situations as a competitive game. In two studies, induced pro-​self motivation improved performance in divergent thinking tasks in which members had to generate many different ideas. In contrast, inducing prosocial motivation increased performance in convergent thinking tasks that require collaboration and inclusiveness (Beersma and De Dreu 2005). To excel at both divergent and convergent tasks, teams need to combine pro-​self and pro-​other motives as well as other inconsistent processes that encourage constructive controversy with prosocial orientation (Bechtoldt, De Dreu, Nijstad, and Choi 2010).

Paradoxes of Creative Leadership Addressing today’s challenging problems requires creative leaders that induce rather than preserve structure (Mainemelis et al. 2015). Paradoxically, people expect their leaders to be consistent and reduce ambiguity and risk, and thus creative individuals are less likely to emerge as leaders (Mueller et al. 2011). Unlike other leaders, creative leaders induce rather than maintain structure, cannot use conformity pressure, commitment, and power, and need to constantly manage the tensions between creating and organizing (Mainemelis et al. 2015; Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, and Strange 2002). Managing these challenges requires leaders to behave paradoxically, controlling and enabling autonomy, forcing uniformity and enabling individuality, and promoting innovation and efficiency (Smith et al. 2016). Leaders with paradoxical behavior contribute to their subordinates’ adaptability and proactivity (Zhang, Waldman, Han, and Li 2015). Combining opposing leadership styles, managers can also switch between exploration, encouraging openness and diverse ideas, and exploitation, closing the variance in their followers’ behaviors (Lewis, Welsh, Dehler, and Green 2002; Rosing, Frese, and Bausch 2011).

Managing Creativity Paradoxes Given inherent creative tensions and paradoxes, an important question is how can leaders, groups, and individuals manage these paradoxical tensions to leverage their

442    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens creativity. To address this question, we draw from different literatures on the ability of individuals and teams to manage competing demands, goals, and complexities. Specifically, we conjecture about cognitive, emotional, motivational, and cultural conditions that help realize the creative potential of the paradox.

A Paradox Mindset Early theorists argued that the individual’s approach to paradoxes impacts their creativity and ability to develop, even prosper, amid tension and contradictions (Bartunek 1984; Cameron and Quinn 1988; Smith and Berg 1986). Paradoxes challenge our preference for consistency and can trigger dissonance, anxiety, and discomfort (Lewis 2000). When feeling dissonance or inner conflicts, individuals often try to alter their beliefs and emotions, simplifying them to maintain consistency (Cialdini, Trost, and Newsom 1995). Paradoxical frames—​mental templates that recognize and embrace contradictory elements—​enable actors to accept and feel comfortable with persisting inconsistencies and complexities rather than trying to eliminate them (Smith and Tushman 2005). Field and laboratory findings reveal that managers and individuals with a paradox mindset, who tend to accept and feel energized by tensions, are more creative and innovative than those lacking this mindset (Ingram, Lewis, Barton, and Gartner 2014; Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011; Miron-​Spektor, Ingram, Keller, Smith, and Lewis 2017). Adopting paradoxical frames increases creativity by shaping our cognitive and emotional processes. These frames broaden one’s attention scope, and increase cognitive flexibility. They contribute to integrative complexity, or the tendency and willingness to embrace different perspectives and integrate these different perspectives by generating new linkages among them (Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011; Tetlock, Peterson, and Berry 1993). Paradoxical frames also increase the tendency to confront rather than avoid contradictions. To realize the creative potential of paradox, actors must become comfortable with, and even enjoy and accept the feelings that paradoxes provoke (Eisenhardt and Westcott 1988; Lewis 2000). Confronting paradox denotes welcoming mess and ambiguity, and the confidence to engage paradox in order to enable change and new insights (Martin 2007). Attempts to eliminate these contradictory forces create “stuckness” and vicious cycles (Vince and Broussine 1996). The ability to “stay with paradox” and embrace the contradictory emotions it triggers can be conducive to creativity (Bledow, Schmitt, Frese, and Kühnel 2011; Fong 2006; Rothman and Melwani 2016).

Polychronicity and Emphasis Change A paradox mindset can improve the recognition and embracement of tensions. Yet even when adopting such a mindset, individuals may differ in their ability to engage contradictory, interrelated elements, goals, and demands. Research on polychronicity—​the preference for engaging in multiple activities simultaneously—​indicates that

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    443 individuals vary in their ability to benefit from engaging in multiple tasks simultaneously. Results from a study of polychronicity indicate that rotating between creative and non-​creative tasks improves the creativity of individuals with a polychronic orientation, whereas working on one task at a time improved the creativity of individuals with a monochronic orientation, the preference to engage in fewer tasks simultaneously (Madjar and Oldham 2006). Creators can also switch between different thinking modes and styles and improve their ability to manage paradoxes with more experience and training. Related research on innovation, which also includes the implementation of creative ideas in organizations, indicates that innovative employees and leaders shift between divergent-​and convergent-​related styles and engage in contradictory processes and behaviors (Lewis et al. 2002; Scott and Bruce 1994). Drawing from research on skill acquisition and attention control (Gopher 1996; Yechiam, Erev, and Gopher 2001), we conjecture that with the right training, individuals will be able to improve their ability to pursue multiple conflicting yet interrelated goals (e.g., novelty and usefulness). For example, individuals can be trained to change the emphasis they give to different task elements at different times, and as a result, improve their attention control and overall performance (Gopher 2007). Emphasis-​change training that improves the performance of pilots, drivers, and basketball and hockey players can, potentially, be adapted to management. Improving the ability to allocate attention to different tasks and task demands at different times and contexts effectively can theoretically improve creativity.

Pursuing Contradictory Goals Researchers have also considered whether setting multiple conflicting goals can foster creativity (Shalley and Koseoglu 2012; Sun and Frese 2013). Goals direct attention to relevant activities, and increase effort and persistence in pursuing a desired outcome (Locke and Latham 2002). Studies that examined the effect of creativity and productivity goals, for example, suggest that assigning both creativity and productivity goals can be beneficial to creativity. When assigning both goals, the highest levels of creativity and productivity were obtained under a do-​your-​best creativity goal and a difficult performance goal, or under specific and difficult productivity and creativity goals (Shalley 1991). In another study that examined the effect of multiple goals on performance of creativity and analytic tasks, individuals were most creative when they were assigned goals for all tasks and had the discretion to switch between tasks (Madjar and Shalley 2008). Together these studies suggest that assigning conflicting goals (e.g., to explore and exploit) can enhance creativity, as long as individuals have the necessary resources and discretion to change the emphasis they give to each goal at different times during the task. In addition to assigning multiple goals, individuals and teams can engage multiple practices that address conflicting demands. For example, Naveh and Erez (2004) conducted a field intervention that implemented ISO 9000 practices emphasizing quality

444    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens and error avoidance, together with team self-​set goals for creativity, learning, and continuous improvement. They found that these contradictory practices contributed to innovation and attention-​to-​detail cultures, which in turn enhanced overall performance. Similarly, organizations can promote creativity-​related goals together with goals that ensure error prevention (Livne-​Tarandach, Erez, and Erev 2009). These findings signify the need to shift to a both/​and thinking of engaging contradictory goals and practices that complement each other in the creative process.

Exposure to Different Cultures and Values Exposure to different cultures can also improve the ability to embrace and manage creativity paradoxes. Culture is a contextual factor that influences the meaning people give to creativity (Loewenstein and Mueller 2016), the emphasis they give to novelty relative to usefulness (Erez and Nouri 2010), and their tolerance for contradictions and paradoxes (Keller, Loewenstein, and Yan 2016; Spencer-​Rodgers, Williams, and Peng 2010). Several studies suggested that a certain level of exposure to different cultures could stimulate individual creativity. Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, and Chiu, (2008) demonstrated that individuals with a bicultural identity, who grew up in more than one culture, were significantly more creative in solving problems than individuals who grew up in one culture. Similarly, working in foreign countries contributed to the creativity of fashion designers (Godart, Maddux, Shipilov, and Galinsky 2014). When individuals work abroad they have access to a larger, diverse, and contradictory array of input, concepts, and ideas, and can thus approach a problem from new perspectives (Maddux and Galinsky 2009). Exposure to different cultures is especially beneficial to creativity, if the new and home cultures differ in the emphasis they give to different dimensions of creativity. Cultural values of low uncertainty avoidance, low power distance, and low collectivism, which are common in Western countries (House et al. 2004), encourage individuals to express their uniqueness, challenge tradition and authority, and respond to uncertainty by exploring new solutions (Erez and Nouri 2010; Morris and Leung 2010). In contrast, cultures of high uncertainty avoidance, high power distance and high collectivism, as most countries in East and South Asia (House et al. 2004) encourage focusing on what is considered to be appropriate and useful, to prevent criticism and social sanctions (Gelfand, Nishii, and Raver 2006). A study on bicultural identity among Asian Americans suggests that cues to the American (vs. Asian) culture increase the novelty of solutions in divergent thinking tasks for Asian Americans, who have assimilated the American identity into their Asian identity (Mok and Morris 2010). Similarly, employees from collectivistic cultures who were exposed to individualistic values, became more creative (Farmer, Tierney, and Kung-​McIntyre 2003). Applying this principle to professionals coming from different disciplines, Erez, Gamliel, and Bitterman (2015) emphasized the importance of usefulness to industrial designers who tend to focus on novelty, and the importance of novelty to engineers who tend to value usefulness. By

Ella Miron-Spektor and Miriam Erez    445 emphasizing the less dominant creativity dimension (either novelty or usefulness), their intervention improved the overall creativity of both groups.

Contributions and Future Directions Past research identified creativity paradoxes (Andriopoulos 2003; DeFillippi et al. 2007; Gotsi et al. 2010) and the creative benefits of having a paradox mindset (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Miron-​Spektor et al. 2017) and adopting paradoxical frames (Miron-​ Spektor et  al. 2011; Smith and Tushman 2005). This chapter enriches this stream of research by recognizing creativity as paradoxical. We reviewed relevant theoretical and empirical research on the paradoxes of creative outcomes, processes, knowledge management, and identities, as well as paradoxes of creative leaders and groups. We also suggested new strategies for managing creative tensions. We hope that our chapter will inspire scholars to adopt a both/​and paradox perspective when exploring creativity. In addition to gaining deeper and new insights about creativity, adopting this perspective can improve the alignment between how we define and measure creativity. Researchers vary in the emphasis they give to novelty or usefulness in the measurement, with some studies focusing mainly on novelty and others collapsing novelty and usefulness into a single score (Sullivan and Ford 2010). Assuming that creativity reflects the joint novelty and usefulness of an idea, ideas that are high on one dimension only (either novelty or usefulness) but low on the other dimension are not considered creative. Creativity measures that reflect a both/​and thinking assess both the novelty and usualness dimensions and combine them to obtain an overall creativity measure (see, e.g., Hoever et al. 2012; Zhou and Oldham 2001). This approach enables both a fine-​grained understanding of novelty and usefulness and the understanding of conditions that enable both. Future research should examine how these different paradoxes of creativity differ from and relate to each other. For example, how does engaging in contradictory yet interrelated processes affect novelty and usefulness outcomes? Does gaining experience in distant cultures or pursuing contradictory goals contribute to the development of a paradox mindset? Do leaders with paradoxical behaviors inspire their employees to generate solutions that excel at both novelty and usefulness? Future research could also examine how creative paradoxes manifest at different levels of analysis. Another interesting research question pertains to the joint impact of personal and contextual factors on the ability of individuals and teams to manage creativity paradoxes. Recent research on implicit theories of creativity suggest that creativity is more narrowly defined by Westerners, whose cognitive information processing is guided by analytic thinking, versus Asians who view creativity in broad categories, including both novelty and usefulness, and whose cognitive information processing is guided by a holistic approach and dialectic thinking (Loewenstein and Mueller 2016; Nouri, Erez and Lee 2012). Future efforts could examine whether working in culturally diverse teams or in different places

446    Looking at Creativity through a Paradox Lens around the globe changes the way we interpret creativity and if we benefit from adopting a paradoxical lens.

Conclusions Creativity management is rife with tensions and paradoxes. We hope that by increasing awareness of the paradoxes of creativity, this chapter will help scholars gain a more fine-​ grained understanding of the processes associated with novelty and usefulness and the conditions most suitable for enhancing both dimensions. Creativity is essential to organizations and their prosperity; thus, greater appreciation of the paradoxical nature of creativity and its management will provide organizations with both novel and practical insights.

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Chapter 23

“I Am  . . . I  S a i d ” Paradoxical Tensions of Individual Identity Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst

In the classic, Grammy-​nominated pop song, “I am, I said,” singer and composer Neil Diamond described himself as being “lost between two shores,” those of New  York City and Los Angeles. The song reveals how these two very different cities and cultures shaped his momentary sense of self, pulling him literally and figuratively in opposite directions—​one because of heritage, the other due to profession. In this chapter, we address this oft-​experienced identity duality by focusing on the paradoxical tensions that organizational members experience, as they wrestle with who they are as they talk those selves into being in an increasingly complex world. The above lyrical illustration represents what scholars call “identity work,” or how individuals and collectives build, change, and adapt their sense of self in and through processes of language and discourse. Identity work research recognizes that individuals are both constrained products and agential producers of their own identities—​shaping those identities reflexively and strategically in an ongoing self-​narrative at the nexus of temporal, personal, relational, cultural, and professional identifications. Thus, while being perceived at times as a set of seemingly stable characteristics, individual identity is nevertheless (paradoxically) a continual work in progress, realized in situ through an interplay of sensemaking, discursive interaction, and negotiation. We further argue that individual identity is fraught with paradoxes, as individuals and those around them negotiate self–​other understandings and juxtapose opposing and interwoven aspects of identity. In such ongoing processes, individuals construct amalgamations of persistent tensions that are often implicit in identity work literature. Our purpose in this chapter is to make the paradox-​identity link explicit, raise richer and potentially more provocative questions, and leverage a paradox lens to extend research. To do so, we review and engage critically with several streams of research from a paradox perspective—​the growing body of identity work research and a more recently developed concept of “identity elasticity” (Kreiner, Hollensbe, Sheep, Smith, and Kataria

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    453 2015). We further group current literature as revealing four fundamental paradoxes of identity: (1) characteristic versus process (paradox of entity); (2) sameness versus difference (paradox of conformity); (3) current versus past/​future (paradox of temporality); and (4) expanding/​pulling apart versus contracting/​holding together (paradox of elasticity) as a set of multiple paradoxical tensions of identity work. Then, moving beyond and transcending a separate elaboration of these four paradoxes, we propose that a poststructuralist approach can open our understanding of how identity paradoxes can be nested, knotted, and dynamically interwoven. Lastly, we conclude to suggest implications for future research.

Scope: Individual Identity Paradoxes It is important to note that both personal and social identities are connected in individual identity work. Indeed, identity work can be viewed as a center of activity between wider social structures and localized forms of individual agency. This approach reflects the viewpoints of Giddens (1984), Reed (2003), and Berger and Luckmann (1966), all of whom stress recursive influences between individual action and social context. In such a structure–​agency relationship, identity work becomes an inward activity that must be directed outwardly to relate to and influence the systems around it—​much as Watson (2008: 129) conceives identity work as “mutually constitutive processes” that “recognize that identity work projects ‘outwardly’ as well as ‘inwardly.’ ” Researchers must incorporate social elements in their definitions of identity work, recognizing that it is not simply an intra-​psychic activity. These elements can include socially embedded processes such as social comparison or drawing on culturally available discourses. This lens illuminates the importance of acknowledging the duality in sensemaking—​ on one side of the equation, social structures impose norms, opportunities, and constraints, and on the other side, individuals can conform to, create, adapt, and/​or transcend those structures through their thoughts, behaviors, and language. The two sides are connected by what Kreiner and Murphy (2016) call “trickle-​down” and “bubble-​up” processes—​influences of the social structure trickling down to individuals and individual thoughts, behaviors, and language also bubbling up to collectively affect that social structure. These perspectives demonstrate the central role of identity work in organizational life as a bridge between the structural context and agentic processes. Indeed, structure and agency form a nexus at which many of the key identity paradoxes are experienced. Thus, from this point, the reader should be aware that whenever we refer to identity, we are referring to paradoxes as experienced at the individual level of identity, but that is shaped by and shapes other levels of identity, as well. As Alvesson, Ashcraft, and Thomas (2008: 6, 10) described it: One’s personal identity implies certain forms of (often positive) subjectivity and thereby entwines feelings, values and behavior and points them in particular

454   “I Am . . . I Said” (sometimes conflicting) directions…. Defining ourselves . . . does not entail simply stepping into pre-​packaged selves, but always involves negotiating intersections with other simultaneously held identities . . . and making individualized meaning in interaction with the people and systems around us. [italics added]

Additionally, a growing body of literature provides evidence of identity work at higher levels of analysis—​ social, organizational, occupational, or institutional—​ as being constructed at the individual level (e.g., Golant, Sillince, Harvey, and Maclean 2015; Kreiner et al. 2015). Moreover, there can be significant individual ambivalence about such constructions and identification with them, thus producing paradoxes of identity (Ashforth, Rogers, Pratt, and Pradies 2014).

Individual Identity as Paradox: Identity Work Recent years have seen a wellspring of research on identity work in organizational life (e.g., Beech 2008; Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006; Pratt, Rockmann, and Kaufmann 2006). Reflecting a general “turn to work” in identity literature (Phillips and Lawrence 2012), identity work has, at this writing, mostly been researched at the individual level of identity (see Brown 2015, for a useful review). In their groundbreaking work on the homeless, Snow and Anderson (1987:  1348)  defined identity work as the “range of activities that individuals engage in to create, present, and sustain personal identities that are congruent with and supportive of the self-​concept.” Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003: 1165) built on this definition, stating that identity work involves “people being engaged in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a sense of coherence and distinctiveness.” Identity work is rarely a straightforward endeavor. Indeed, identity work is born of and productive of paradoxical tensions. For example, as Ybema and colleagues (2009: 299; cf. Beech 2011) suggest, “While social agents in pursuit of ‘identity’ draw on a cacophony of discursive sources, it is the varieties of ‘self–​other’ talk which emerge as the critical ingredient in processes of identity formation.” Such distinctions between self and other are prone to construct difference in ways that produce identity paradoxes—​“who I am” versus “who I am not.” Similarly, Clarke, Brown, and Hailey (2009: 324) study “the dualities inherent in managers’ accounts of their selves” in an engineering firm. Those dualities are constructed as “managers draw on mutually antagonistic discursive resources in authoring conceptions of their selves” that “incorporate contrasting positions or antagonisms.” From such work, we see that much of the identity work literature is theorized in terms of duality, tension, and/​or paradox. However, this has typically been done implicitly

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    455 rather than explicitly—​with rather casual theorizing in terms of the tensional paradoxes of identity work. Herein, we move from the implicit to the explicit in order to focus identity scholars on the multiple benefits of framing identity as paradox.

Four Paradoxes of Identity Work Research in identity work (sometimes linked with a paradoxical view as an agentic resistance to identity regulation—​e.g., Beech 2008; Gotsi, Andriopoulos, Lewis, and Ingram 2010; Kuhn 2006; Langley et al. 2012) has identified a number of paradoxical tensions at the individual level, and the list is growing. We next review this research as contributing to our understanding of four major tensions and the identity paradoxes they form, as summarized in Table 23.1

Identity as Paradox of Entity: Characteristic versus Process To what extent can we consider identity as entitative (or not)—​that is, having an objective reality that is treated more or less unproblematically as “thing-​like”? A  current debate in the identity literature questions the degree to which identity should be considered as characteristic (emphasizing durability or stability of identity categories) or process (emphasizing dynamism and fluidity of identity change) (Alvesson 2010; Alvesson et al. 2008; cf. Kozica, Gebhardt, Müller-​Seitz, and Kaiser 2015). Along with this theme go such similarly conceptualized tensions as order/​resolvability versus disorder/​irresolvability of tensions. Paradox is most widely conceptualized as being persistent, thus non-​resolvable, tensions (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016; Smith and Lewis 2011). If non-​resolvable, then an ongoing process of identity work is necessary to manage the tension. Our approach to identity work as paradoxical and tension-​filled addresses this debate, as we argue that identity work reflects a process as individuals attempt to interpret, mold, and reify the characteristics of identity. Although a majority of identity researchers have historically considered identity as “thing-​like” (Alvesson and Sandberg 2011), more recent work has shown that treating identity as a process can greatly enhance our understanding. This position is one that “prioritizes activity over outcome, change over persistence, novelty over continuity, expression over determination, and becoming over being” (Schultz, Maguire, Langley, and Tsoukas 2012: 1). While a process lens stresses tranformation, creativity, and flow of identity, it does not deny the existence of “things” such as events, states, and entities (Schultz et al. 2012). It focuses instead on how those “things” can be re-​examined to appreciate more fully the dynamic processes involved in creating, sustaining, and/​or undoing them.

456   “I Am . . . I Said” Table 23.1 Four paradoxes of individual identity Main identity paradox

Subsumed or related identity paradoxes

Paradox of entity:

• durability vs. fluidity (Alvesson 2010; Alvesson et al. 2008) • stability vs. change (cf. Golant et al. 2015; Kozica et al. 2015)* • order/​resolvability vs. disorder/​irresolvability (Alvesson 2010; Fiol, Pratt, and O’Connor 2009)

Identity as characteristic vs. process (Alvesson and Sandberg 2011; Breakwell 1986, 2010; Gioia and Patvardhan 2012; Kreiner et al. 2015;

*processes that link identity across multiple levels (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011)

Schultz et al. 2012)

Paradox of conformity:

• assimilation with vs. differentiation from others (“optimal distinctiveness”; Brewer 1991) Sameness vs. difference of • doing (of a job) vs. being (of the person); role vs. identity identities (Kreiner et al. 2006) (Brewer 1991; Kreiner, Hollensbe, and • coherence vs. distinctiveness (Hoyer and Steyaert 2015) Sheep 2006; Langley et al. 2012) • integration vs. differentiation in identity work vs. regulation (Gotsi et al. 2010) • integration (coherence) vs. fragmentation (Alvesson 2010; Alvesson et al. 2008)

Paradox of temporality: Current vs. past/​future identities (Beech 2008; Brown 2006; Ybema 2010)

Paradox of elasticity: Expanding vs. contracting of identities (Kreiner et al. 2015)

• current self vs. future possible selves (Ibarra 1999; Ibarra and Barbulescu 2010); compare “identity play” (Ibarra and Petriglieri 2010) • moving away from “old” vs. toward “new” positive identities (Ashforth and Johnson 2001; Kreiner and Sheep 2009) • remembering vs. forgetting past identities (Anteby and Molnar 2012) • short-​term vs. long-​term identities (Anteby 2008) • internal vs. external “triggers” of temporal identity work (Alvesson and Wilmott 2002; Ashforth 2001; Petriglieri 2011) • paradoxes that “stretch” identity: holding together vs. pulling apart, continuity vs. change, enhancement vs. loss, core vs. peripheral (Kreiner et al. 2015) • expansion vs. contraction (of relative “size” or importance of aspects of overall self-​concept) (Ashforth and Johnson 2001) • ideal selves (focusing identity) vs. alternative selves (expanding identity) (Higgins 1987; Obodaru 2012) • how identity can both endure and change (Kreiner et al. 2015)

How might a focus on process differ from a characteristic-​based approach? Gioia and Patvardhan (2012: 53) liken a process approach to watching a full motion picture, as opposed to a characteristics approach that examines only one frame “as if ” it were fully representational of the film. In casting characterstic versus process as a paradoxical identity tension, we note that individuals think of their identity in both ways—​as a

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    457 fluid “motion picture” but also in the varied “snapshots” of who they think they are in the moment. Hence, humans have a dual tendency—​to want to create a narrative of who they are (emphasizing process, storyline, and characters) while also claiming to “be” a certain way (emphasizing characteristics and personality). Indeed, identity has been cast as a set of dialectical tensions with which members wrestle in creating and adapting their social constructions of identity. Specifically, Kreiner et al. (2015) took this approach and found that individuals dealt with identity in terms of both process and characteristic. They argued that individual constructions of organizational identities reflected a set of tensional processes (identity work). In their study of the Episcopal Church, they demonstrated that although organizational members were articulate in explaining how they saw the characteristics of Episcopal identity, many also emphasized a processual approach. That is, many members did not construct identity as though it comprised simply stable or unproblematic attributes. Rather, tensions emerged as organizational members deliberated and contested identity, often using “thing-​like” labels, but instilling those labels with different attributes and processual, tensional descriptions. However, can this finding readily transfer to the individual level? Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley (2011) have explored the processes by which identity can be linked across multiple levels. Additionally, social psychologists have theorized identity as at least partially processual for quite some time (Breakwell 1986). For example, Breakwell (2010: 6.3) writes that individual identity “can be described in terms of both its structure and in terms of its processes. People are normally self-​aware and actively monitor the status of their identity.” Thus, consistent with a paradox perspective, individual identity can be experienced as both characteristic and process. For paradoxes of identity, what one assumes vis-​à-​vis process versus characteristic is key. The paradox literature has emphasized the need to specify similar assumptions such as whether paradox is inherent versus a social construction or latent versus salient (Lewis and Smith 2014; Smith and Lewis 2011). Likewise, while individuals may speak of identity as if it were a set of stable characteristics or labels, it would nonetheless be difficult to imagine how individual identity could be paradoxical or tensional unless a process view of identity (as identity work) was taken into account. Otherwise, there would be nothing to negotiate or manage agentially as a tension (i.e., crucial to understanding how individual actors construct identities in each of the other paradoxical categories that we discuss below).

Identity as Paradox of Conformity: Sameness versus Difference Our second tension addresses a paradox that arises out of a question of identity conformity. One of the goals of identity work is to navigate the inherent tensions between sameness and difference. This reflects an ongoing struggle between two fundamental human desires—​to fit in with (conform to) a group and yet still be independent. The

458   “I Am . . . I Said” notion of optimal distinctiveness (Brewer 1991) focuses on this dynamic tension between opposing needs for assimilation with and differentiation from others. On the one hand, identity emphasizes how we connect to others via shared roles and group memberships. For example, if an individual frames himself as “teacher,” “Hispanic,” and “Christian,” those labels convey meaning to self and to others about how one is similar in certain ways to others in the role of teacher or the ethnic and religious groups. On the other hand, the very same dimensions of identity might also emphasize the way a person is unique from others—​ways that separate the person from connectedness. For example, this same teacher might construct an identity that is more conservative politically than most teachers, more fair-​skinned than most Hispanics, or of a certain type of Christianity that is unlike most others. Hence, the same dimensions of identity can, paradoxically, simultaneously reflect sameness and difference—​both necessary for people to “locate themselves” identity-​wise in relation to collectives such as groups and organizations (cf. Langley et al. 2012: 135). Negotiating the tension between assimilation and differentiation communicates how the person simultaneously belongs to and yet is separate from any given group (Brewer 1991). This can be a difficult endeavor in one of two ways. First, an individual might see him/​herself as too unique and therefore struggle to “fit in” more with the expectations of that role or social group. For example, Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep (2006) found that Episcopal priests often felt the need to suppress parts of their personality in order to fulfill people’s expectations about being a priest. Second, and conversely, an individual might conform to such a degree of sameness that their individual uniqueness is lost. In the same study, Kreiner et al. (2006) also found that some clergy “overidentified” with the profession to such a strong degree that they ceased to see themselves as separate from it. Thus, to engage in identity work toward an “optimal balance,” individuals must manage a paradoxical tension between a need for inclusion and a need for uniqueness—​ “being neither too distinct/​independent nor too inclusive/​dependent in relation to a given social identity” (Kreiner et al. 2006: 1033). A related tension is that of role versus identity—​is my work just “what I do,” or is it “who I am,” or both? (Kreiner et al. 2006). The role vantage point emphasizes the doing of the job and the bundle of tasks associated with the given role (e.g., processes undertaken fulfilling the job description), whereas the identity vantage point emphasizes the being of the person and the particular sense of self that can be fulfilled through work (e.g., this is who I am as a unique human being). The extent to which one’s identity is defined by one’s work roles is thus a tension between complete overlap on one end (sameness: I am defined by my work) and no overlap on the other (difference: I am who I am regardless of my work). Most, of course, manage that tension along a continuum—​ as a non-​resolvable paradox that must be held in an ongoing tension. Indeed, although a person might ebb and flow on this continuum over the life course (e.g., a recovering workaholic moving away from a role-​centered approach), the tension of searching for the ever-​elusive sense of “balance” continues. Other related paradoxes of identity work that address sameness–​difference are those that maintain both coherence and distinctiveness (Hoyer and Steyaert 2015),

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    459 differentiation and integration found in the identity work and identity regulation of creative individuals (Gotsi et al. 2010), and integration versus fragmentation (Alvesson 2010; Alvesson et al. 2008). Although these are not fully equivalent to the sameness–​ difference paradox, they engage with the issue of internal identity “sameness” (coherence/​integration)—​a traditional assumption of psychology—​versus a poststructuralist alternative and challenge to that notion, a decentered and fragmented human identity. We later address this issue in a separate section on a poststructural approach to identity paradox.

Identity as Paradox of Temporality: Current versus Past/​Future Beech (2008) cast identity work as “meaning-​giving tensions” that can be simultaneously past-​oriented and future-​oriented (thus, held in tension). Similarly, the transition of the current (or former) self into future possible selves has been theorized by Ibarra and colleagues (Ibarra 1999; Ibarra and Barbulescu 2010), yet these transitions are not typically “instant.” Neither are past, current, and future selves (identities) mutually exclusive, but they are held in persistent tension. In relating possible selves to the identity work literature, Ibarra and Petriglieri (2010: 10) coined the term identity play as providing “a useful starting point to explore the multiple, often incoherent and variable nature of the self as well as the process of exploration and discovery necessary for creating new identities.” The term identity work itself suggests a kind of temporal attempt at identity change across time. Changes might include moving away from a particular identity, toward a particular identity, prioritizing one identity over another, and/​or moving toward positive identity growth (Ashforth and Johnson 2001; Kreiner and Sheep 2009). An identity is said to “require repeated work to be sustained” (Anteby 2008: 203) and therefore involves attempts to create and mold a sense of self in both the short and long term. Indeed, identity work can be triggered by myriad stimuli—​exogenous events, surprises, identity threats, and role transitions (Alvesson and Wilmott 2002; Ashforth 2001; Petriglieri 2011). Brown (2006) and Ybema (2010:  483)  noted an important gap in identity work research that has “not systematically explored how ‘temporal resources’, i.e. the past, present and future, are utilized and deployed”—​and particularly so when it comes to viewing past, present, and future identities as held in persistent tensions (paradox). Ybema (2010: 481) began to address that gap in exploring “temporal discontinuity talk” that discursively constructed “a contrast between the ‘old’ and the ‘new.’ ” Similarly, Anteby and Molnar (2012: 515) found that identity is temporally modified by “remembering to forget” certain aspects of past identity—​that is, “who we were not.” It is clear that there remains much left to explore in future research to further our understanding of temporal identity paradoxes.

460   “I Am . . . I Said”

Identity as Paradox of Elasticity: Expanding/​Pulling Apart versus Contracting/​Holding Together The final identity paradox that we identified in the literature involves the elasticity of identity. This concept derives from Kreiner et al.’s (2015) study of the Episcopal Church, in which they found two opposing “pulls” as organizational members framed identity—​ one toward the expansion of identity and one toward the constriction of identity. They observed that both pulls were often simultaneously in play in members’ discourse and therefore defined elasticity as “the extent to which these socially constructed tensions serve to stretch organizational identity while simultaneously holding it together” (Kreiner et al. 2015: 992). They further clarified that “elastic constructions of identity favor expansion, whereas inelastic constructions constrict identity. An expanding view of identity allows for the incorporation of new facets of identity as legitimate and desirable, whereas a constricting view disallows such incorporation.” Kreiner et al.’s (2015) work conceptualized identity elasticity as grounded in a set of at least six ongoing tensions that can be seen as paradoxical (e.g., continuity vs. change, enhancement vs. loss, core vs. peripheral, holding together vs. pulling apart)—​all categorized as “organizational identity work.” Whereas their study focused on how individuals construct tensions about the organization’s identity, we extrapolate from their findings to consider how elasticity plays out for individual identity. Many of the fundamental issues and processes observed for organizational identity elasticity are likely to be observed for individual identity elasticity, as Kreiner et al. (2015: 1007) argued and as future research should further address. Each of the paradoxical tensions we have explored above in this chapter (e.g., paradoxes of entity, conformity, and temporality) suggest that individuals are in an ongoing state of flux in regard to the construction of their identity. As individuals consider these changes, they are likely to question which elements of their identity should be emphasized or de-​emphasized as well as which elements should be expanded or contracted in some way. Individuals face decisions about which role, social identity, personality facet, or personal attribute to promote or demote in relative “size” or importance to their overall self-​concept (Ashforth and Johnson 2001). As noted above, individuals also wrestle with conceptualizations of past, present, and future selves—​each of which might emphasize expansions of certain attributes and contractions of other attributes. Indeed, individuals can envision ideal selves (aspirational, directional, holding together) juxtaposed with alternative selves (experimental, stretching, expanding) (Higgins 1987; Obodaru 2012). As individuals negotiate and wrestle with such tentative, competing visions of the self, they face tensions of identity elasticity—​simultaneously elaborating on and reining in the self-​and social-​construction of who they are. For example, does the nurse newly promoted into a management position expand her self-​definition by maintaining her nursing identity while also embracing the managerial identity? (“I am still a nurse and am also now a manager.”) Or does she constrict her self-​definition by significantly

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    461 reducing the scope of her nursing identity? (“I was a nurse, but my priority now is to be a manager.”) Expanding her self-​concept by keeping alive the old role while adopting the new one would represent an elastic position (making room for a new identity), whereas shedding or reducing her old role in favor of the new one would represent an inelastic position (no room for both). Indeed, applying the notion of identity elasticity to the individual level helps illuminate why identity can both endure and change (a paradox of elasticity). It can be constructed by the self as sufficiently adaptable while simultaneously preserving the past. Elasticity shows how individuals maintain the dynamic, diverse self-​concept through a paradoxical tension of holding together while also separating their multiple identities.

Identity as Dynamic Interplay of Knotted Paradoxical Tensions: A Proposal The foregoing sections on extant identity research are coalescing into a more processual, paradoxical, contingent, and discursive view of identity and identity work. Indeed, one might readily notice in the four types of identity paradox that related tensions may overlap—​for example, continuity/​stability/​endurance versus change and coherence versus differentiation are paradoxes that could impinge on multiple types (see Table 23.1). Thus, how might we understand identity paradoxes as an interwoven set of tensions (transcendently treating them as a system of tensions) rather than dealing with them separately? Visually, how could we understand them much as Figure 23.1 depicts? One option to carry these themes forward as a research agenda is to consider a poststructuralist alternative, which embraces the aforementioned constructionist themes, Characteristic vs. Process

Temporality

Sameness vs. Difference

Conformity

Current vs. Past/Future

Entity

Elasticity Expand vs. Contract

Figure 23.1  Identity as dynamic interplay of knotted paradoxical tensions

462   “I Am . . . I Said” but goes a step further. With a more poststructuralist view of the self, identity emerges as a set of situated language games appearing only as constructed in and through discourse (e.g., Holstein and Gubrium 1999). The individual is not a source of truth and knowledge, but an effect of truth and power (Foucault 1979, 1982; cf. Clarke and Knights 2015). This is more radically social constructionist and a highly decentered view of identity and, arguably, the one most likely to record paradox. By contrast, there is limited willingness in extant literature to challenge the traditional view of identity as a teleological path toward an integrated or coherent “whole self ” (e.g., Erikson 1964; Kreiner and Sheep 2009), identity work notwithstanding. We are only beginning to address this limitation as, for example, Hoyer and Steyaert (2015: 1) took note of the “paradoxical co-​existence of coherence and ambiguity” in identity work (cf. Alvesson 2010; Alvesson et al. 2008). A key premise we wish to assert is that paradoxical tensions inform us about both identity and agency. Specifically, as paradoxical tensions are socially constructed from the ways in which actors experience the world (Lewis 2000), they also serve as discursive resources through which organizational actors construct their individual and collective identities (Dameron and Torset 2014; Knights and Morgan 1991; Laine and Vaara 2007). To understand this fully, we abandon the familiar notion from humanist psychology that the self is an integrated whole (e.g., Erikson 1964; cf. Svennigson and Alvesson 2003; Hoyer and Steyaert 2015). Instead, we locate the self in language, communication, and discourse. For example, the language we use is not just a window into self-​thoughts and feelings, but constructive of individual and collective identities through, for example, categories and labels that we use to draw distinctions from others (Rorty 1967). By considering a more poststructuralist view of the self, the organizing potential of language, communication, and discourse is more fully brought to bear on identity and identity work. More specifically, a poststructuralist alternative reverses the usual figure-​ ground arrangement of foregrounding the cognitive and backgrounding the social in extant identity literature. For example, Brown (2015: 21) defines identity as “the meanings that individuals attach reflexively to their selves.” Gunz and Gunz (2007: 854) define identity as a “relatively stable and enduring constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, motives, and experiences  . . .  Any individual may have multiple identities, organized within self in a salience hierarchy.” Contrast such definitions with more discourse-​based perspectives, such as that of Brown and Coupland (2015: 1316), who analyze “how identity threats are construed subjectively through discourse, allowing us to establish that putative ‘threats’ may constitute a supply which professionals draw on to articulate preferred versions of their selves.” Thus, by foregrounding the social and backgrounding the cognitive: (1) discourse is not merely a window into the inner world of the self, feelings, cognitions, or motivations; (2) identity paradoxes are formed in and through discursive interactions with a material world; and (3) discourse identifies the conditions of possibility for these interactions (Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016). A robust emphasis on language, communication, and discourse coalesces to form a postmodern view of the self, which “decenters” it by locating actors at the nexus of

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    463 multiple and often competing discourses through which they experience the world and, in turn, exert agency (Baxter 2011; Holstein and Gubrium 1999). As organizations are microcosms of society, multiple discourses are always in play as actors engage in a struggle to fix meaning in situ. However, actors’ fixation of meaning is usually temporary because there are always other meaning potentials, hence the struggle against closure over which meaning potentials should prevail (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). Likewise, an actor’s identity becomes a contingent identification with a subject position in a competitive discursive field (Holstein and Gubrium 1999). As used here, “contingent” means that an actor’s identity positioning could always be otherwise. Hall (1992) argued that the decentered or postmodern subject is riddled with a struggle between “contradictory identities, pulling in different directions, so that our identifications are continually being shifted about. If we feel we have a unified identity from birth to death, it is only because we construct a comforting story or ‘narrative of the self ’ about ourselves” (Hall 1992: 277; cited in Baxter 2011: 101). Hermans and Demaggio (2007: 36) argue that globalization, which is rife with different, often contradictory “others,” is partly the cause for so many competing identities from which the postmodern subject is collectively constituted. From such a foundation, identities have been shown to be multilayered, fluid, and contingent, but also often contradictory and insecure (Brown 2015; Clarke and Knights 2015; Collinson 2005, 2006; Kerfoot and Knights 1996; Knights and McCabe 2000). Such a view also fits well with our earlier discussion of what Kreiner et al. (2015) call elasticity—​multiple paradoxes of identity work that today’s organizational actors experience. More importantly, a poststructuralist alternative encourages a stronger focus on the combined experience of our aforementioned identity paradoxes. To wit, the greater the number of paradoxes of identity work, the more likely are actors to experience them as knotted in a dynamic interplay that may, in turn, result in self-​referential action of a contradictory or paradoxical nature. Work in relational dialectics has underscored that paradoxical tensions rarely travel alone; instead, they bundle and knot (Baxter 2011; Baxter and Montgomery 1996), and work in innovation contexts supports this for organizational actors (Sheep, Fairhurst, and Khazanchi, 2017). Understanding identity as a dynamic interplay of knotted tensions is not an attempt to re-​center the self-​identity, but to emphasize the potential complexity and elasticity of identity work in turbulent environments. Regarding complexity, what happens when organizational actors—​as they account for their context-​bound actions—​name one pole of a paradox (e.g., change over stability), interweave it with the pole of another paradox (e.g., different over same) that, in turn, impacts still other paradoxes (e.g., future over past and present) (cf. Sheep et al. 2017)? Further, what circumstances precipitate such an interweaving (e.g., a post-​traumatic growth opportunity), and what do we learn from considering their collective inter-​workings through actors’ sensemaking accounts? Sheep et al. (2017) would urge us to look for the ways in which one paradox of identity work might amplify or dampen the effects of one or more other paradoxes. For example, in 2015, the CEO-​turned-​presidential-​candidate, Donald Trump, became known for what some saw as his self-​promoting identity work—​for example, an enhancement

464   “I Am . . . I Said” over loss paradox (Kreiner et al. 2015). However, it is work that likely exacerbates the process versus characteristic paradox because he was constantly attempting to “expand his horizons” as he shifted back and forth from business to entertainment to political contexts, all the while managing impressions of continuity and uniqueness. In actuality, these identity paradoxes are reflexively intertwined, making it difficult to decipher which came first. Their frequent co-​occurrence becomes a discursive resource for Trump’s ongoing identity work and the in situ identity categories he ascribes to himself as he tackles new roles. Enter identity elasticity, which helps us to understand how organizational actors can stretch their identities while holding them together while engaged in identity work (Kreiner et al. 2015). As actors account for their actions, they engage in category work to configure situated notions of “this is me” (or “this is us”) or “this is not me” (Sheep, Hollensbe, and Kreiner 2015). Sometimes a “this is me” attribution stretches beyond boundaries one thought one would never cross; other times, there is an unbridgeable chasm, making “not me” differences unquestionably clear. Across situations and turbulent environments, however, consistencies need not hold. Actors come to understand these inconsistencies vis-​à-​vis differential elasticities in their identity work that then become discursive resources from which to draw. Politicians, for example, are famous for their identity work elasticity (“I am not a flip-​flopper. I was simply for it before I was against it!”), which they may elide or outright deny in order to appear consistent. For better or for worse, other actors like political commentators and late-​night TV hosts mine the discursive resource this presents. The knotted paradoxical tensions of identity work present even greater opportunities for inconsistent elasticities in identity work, much as the study by Kreiner et al. (2015) demonstrates in the case of the evolving organizational identity of the Episcopal Church over a ten-​year period. Theirs is a study of three sets of identity work dialectics—​a close conceptual cousin to paradoxes1—​that have a number of implications for elasticity (i.e., holding together vs. pulling apart in identity work). However, in their totality—​and with a deep appreciation of the dynamism of postmodern subjects’ identity work and today’s turbulent environments—​identity paradoxes must logically knot or intertwine in an ongoing dynamic interplay. Indeed, how can one speak issues of force (i.e., the unifying or dividing aspects of identity) without reference to priorities (i.e., that which is essential vs. negotiable), fluidity (i.e., that which is a logical extension vs. radical break), and boundary permeability (i.e., how much external vs. internal referents are shaping distinctiveness)? The complexities and dynamism

1 

Attempting to clarify differences between these two terms, Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart (2016) offer these definitions: (1) Dialectics: Interdependent opposites aligned with forces that push-​pull on each other like a rubber band and exist in an ongoing dynamic interplay as the poles implicate each other. Focuses on the unity of opposites and the forces or processes that connect them. (2) Paradox: Contradictions that persist over time, impose and reflect back on each other, and develop into seemingly irrational or absurd situations because their continuity creates situations in which options appear mutually exclusive, making choices among them difficult.

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    465 of identity work in today’s interactional environments are just too great to think otherwise. However, readers get only brief glimpses of such knotting because authors more typically identify and analyze identity paradoxes by singling them out, following a long-​ time precedent in the paradox literature (e.g., Huxham and Beech 2003; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; cf. Sheep et al. 2017). How does an identity researcher wishing to study identity vis-​à-​vis knotted paradoxical tensions (or dialectics) then proceed? Our first suggestion would be to seek out sensemaking accounts of complex conditions, either in actor formulations of wicked problems (Grint 2005; Rittel and Webber 1973), leadership crucibles (Bennis and Thomas 2002), or life-​stories (Shamir and Eilam 2005). All rely on self-​narratives (Gergen and Gergen 1986: 255, emphasis added), which “refer to the individual’s account of the relationships among self-​relevant events across time.” In developing a self-​narrative of wicked problems, crucibles, or life-​stories, the individual attempts to establish coherent connections and the manner in which they may be related—​rather than seeing them simply as “one damned thing after another” (Gergen and Gergen 1986: 255). Our second suggestion is to refrain from breaking up the narratives, which runs counter to our variable analytic, “divide and conquer” history as analysts. By preserving the gestalt of actors’ sensemaking accounts, we are more likely to understand connections or what Sheep et al. (2017) refer to as the “weave” among paradoxes. Instead of isolating the four paradoxes of individual identity that we have reviewed above as single tensions, we thus visualize the simultaneous and potentially knotted interplay of these paradoxes in Figure 23.1. By remaining open to view paradoxes as interrelated rather than separate, we are more likely to discern identity-​based logics emerging from definitions of “the situation here and now” and the justification of action or inaction, identification or dis-​identification, and so on. We are also more likely to understand the clash of discourses that are producing identity paradoxes in the first place. All would serve the study of identity enormously and open up new territories for study. Thus, a contribution of this chapter is a call to begin to understand the knotting of paradoxical identity tensions in identity work as noted above and, in particular, the potential such a view holds for a future research agenda. Other suggestions for future research are next suggested.

Discussion and Future Research We have put forth two overarching themes related to paradoxes of identity: (1) four main paradoxes of identity (making the paradoxical nature of identity tensions explicit); and (2) a poststructuralist understanding of the interplay and knottedness of these four paradoxes (proposing a research agenda that not only advances our understanding of identity paradoxes, but of their dynamic interplay). We now turn to additional suggestions for how researchers might examine identity as paradox. From the above, we conclude that a paradox lens can both inform and enhance the theoretical impetus and robustness

466   “I Am . . . I Said” in future individual identity research. We suggest that a paradox lens for identity can be used both to re-​examine past research in a new light and to inspire future research efforts. To the first point, we believe that much prior research on identity could benefit from a reinterpretation from a paradox lens, particularly studies in which paradox and tension can be implied, but it is not explicated as such. What complexities might we now identify in past studies that become apparent only when examining the research with an eye intentionally focused on identity as an intertwined set of paradoxical tensions? Moreover, each of the four paradoxes of identity that we review above can be advanced through additional research. Browsing each of the studies cited in those themes, a compendium of future research suggested within those studies becomes instructive. For example, regarding a paradox of entity, Gioia and Patvardhan (2012: 58–​9) call for more “identity-​as-​process studies.” Even though such studies can prove to be a “Herculean task,” they are needed to “capture the being and becoming of identity.” In paradoxes of conformity, Kreiner et al. (2006) call for research that investigates whether similar identity work tensions of sameness–​difference apply across multiple targets of identification (e.g., occupational) and whether they vary across individualistic versus collectivist cultural contexts. Regarding paradoxes of temporality, Brown (2015: 31) notes that identity work has an important temporal dimension, but that theorizing time in identity research is rare. Regarding paradoxes of elasticity, Kreiner et  al. (2015) call for future research that “applies the notion of identity elasticity to individual identity . . . A lens of elasticity is likely to shed much-​needed light on how individuals manage to meet the demands of an ever-​changing, ever-​more-​complex identity and internal conflict regarding their identity.” Finally, regarding the poststructural view of identity paradox as knotted tensions, a discourse-​based view needs to incorporate a more comprehensive view of “what the overall concrete circumstances seem both to ‘demand’ and ‘permit’ ” (Shotter and Tsoukas 2014: 228). The goal here is to address how identity paradoxes might be triggers, mitigators, or amplifiers of each other, either individually or collectively. Similarly, Brown and Coupland (2015: 1332) see “a need for further research focused specifically on bodily materiality” and other forms of embodiment as they intersect with the purposeful use of discourse in identity work. Thus, the growing literature in materiality holds promise for shedding additional light on a poststructural view of identity paradox (e.g., Ashcraft, Kuhn, and Cooren 2009; Mumby 2014). Finally, there may be other themes of identity paradox that extant research has not yet addressed. Thus, inductive studies are needed to learn more about identity paradoxes as they might emerge in a wide array of contexts. As organizational environments become more uncertain, expansive, and turbulent, individuals are likely to connect with their work groups, organizations, and other associations in more complex ways that produce contradiction and tension. If we accept that “identity is arguably more fundamental to the conception of humanity than any other notion,” (Gioia 1998: 17), then it would be difficult to imagine that we could usefully understand identity apart from the paradoxical

Mathew L. Sheep, Glen E. Kreiner, and Gail T. Fairhurst    467 and knotted tensions that arise as humans attempt to shape “who I am” in relation to “who we are.” As we seek to understand identity as a variously elastic and dynamic construction, it is clear that a paradox lens can provide unique insights into its processes and consequences that we could not otherwise understand.

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Chapter 24

The Parad ox i c a l Mystery of t h e Mi s si ng Di fferences bet we e n Academ i c s a nd Practit i one rs Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek

Rigor versus relevance, scholarship versus practice, academics versus practitioners, distinctions between academics and managers which have remained salient now for more than half a century—​perhaps since the time of Aristotle (e.g., Daft and Lewin 2008; Shani, Adler, Mohrman, Pasmore, and Stymne 2008; Stokes 1997). On the one hand, academics are assigned the role of acting “rigorously” in conducting research. On the other, practitioners are thought of as longing for relevance from academics, though their hopes are often dashed (Hambrick 1994; Rynes, Bartunek, and Daft 2001; Rynes, Giluk, and Brown 2007). Indeed, academics and practitioners are often seen as two distinct groups: operating out of different logics of action (Kieser and Liener 2009; Kieser, Nicolai, and Seidl 2015), responding to differing time dimensions, interests and incentives, employing disparate communication styles, and, finally, emphasizing rigor or relevance (but typically not both) (Bartunek and Rynes 2014). Figure 24.1, which portrays two cliffs and a space between them, encompasses these descriptions well by showing the proverbial “gap” that scholars have metaphorically used to describe their disjointed relationship. A sprig of rosemary is on the left hand cliff (for practitioners), a sprig of peppermint on the right hand cliff (for academics). These symbolically represent the divide discussed by Bartunek and Rynes (2014) and Rynes, Bartunek, and Daft (2001). The separation between academics and practitioners in Figure 24.1 is typically cast as a dualism—​that is as “a clear-​cut and decisive distinction with a well-​defined boundary

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    473

Figure 24.1  Academics and practitioners on two separate cliffs with a gap between them

separating the elements and no overlap” (Farjoun 2010, 2017:92; Putnam, Fairhurst, and Banghart 2016). As this quote highlights, elements in a dualism are unchanging and in opposition to each other. Treating academic–​practitioner relationships as a dualism creates an artificial divide between the two groups. We believe that: 1) relationships between academics and practitioners are arguably not as “unchanging” or as static as the elements in a dualism; and 2) the boundaries that appear to divide them are not as stark. As such, their relationship may be better described as a duality (Putnam et al. 2016; Schad, Lewis, Raisch, and Smith 2016). In Farjoun’s (2017: 93) words: A duality views the two elements [such as academics and practitioners] as interdependent and no longer separate or opposed, although they remain conceptually distinct (Jackson 1999) … The two largely opposing elements may interpenetrate until one includes elements of the other and they are no longer mutually exclusive.

In other words, from a duality perspective, the two elements compose an interdependent whole. Consider Figure 24.1 again. For the most part, the cliffs, on the surface at least, are mirror images of each other. The plants that grow on them are not exactly the same, but this is a minor difference compared to the larger cliffs. Further, while we see the tops of the cliffs as separate, there is significant common ground between them where they connect at the sea bed. Because we do not notice this common terrain, we artificially construct separation. Treating academics and practitioners as a duality enables us to understand more fully that the gap between them obscures how much they may share. The notion of a duality is consistent with the expectation that the relationship between academics and practitioners reflects underlying paradoxes. Indeed, academics and practitioners as distinct categories need each other for their continued existence to hold any meaning (Bartunek and Rynes 2014). To illustrate, without academics the notion of practitioners would potentially have a very different connotation (if any at all), and vice versa.

474    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences In this chapter we will sketch out some of what it means to recognize academic–​practitioner relationships as an interdependent duality rather than as a separate dualism. Specifically, we will address several of the ways in which academics and practitioners are practically alike (pun intended), and how their roles may be interdependent in ways that potentially foster both (cf. Bartunek 2007). We will also show how, conceptually speaking at least, academics are sometimes practitioners, and practitioners are sometimes academics. Further, we will suggest ways that academics and practitioners are part of a bigger universe, something that is often missed when focusing in solely on the differences that set them apart. Finally, we will indicate ways that some academics and some practitioners may share more in common with each other than they do with other academics or other practitioners. To do so, we will draw on our own experiences, as well as on the work of Saul Alinsky (1909–​72), known for his involvement with social movements and community organizing; and on the work of Donald Schön (1930–​97), a skilled consultant who later in his career became an academic. Alinsky and Schön embody two rather different approaches to possible relationships between academics and practitioners than the ones typically discussed.

How Academics and Practitioners May Be More Alike than Unlike We will begin by discussing similarities between academics and practitioners. We believe that such similarities are likely to become apparent when, for varying reasons, academics find themselves becoming practitioners and vice versa. We will also bring to the fore similarities throughout their careers, and suggest that these help provide common ground that can form the basis for building relationships between academics and practitioners (at lease when the common ground is recognized as such). We will conclude this section by noting some of the experiences of scholar-​practitioners who generally find themselves in the middle between the two groups.

When Academics Become Practitioners Consider the examples of Roger Evered and Meryl Louis (1981) who taught together for a time at the University of Illinois, and then joined the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, CA. Based on their experience moving from one university to a second, and arguably, a different type of institution, they came to distinguish “inquiry from the inside”—​whereby the scholar becomes an active part of the situation being studied and which “is characterized by the experiential involvement of the

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    475 researcher”—​from “inquiry from the outside,” which presupposes the detachment of the researcher from the field/​subject of interest, “who typically gathers data according to a priori analytical categories and aims to uncover knowledge that can be generalized to many situations” (Evered and Louis 1981: 385). They described how they became aware of these fundamental differences in these two modes of scholarship: We became aware of the considerable difference between the two modes of inquiry during our recent experiences in changing jobs. When we joined the new organization, our initial experience was one of wanting to make sense of the associated confusion, uncertainty, and apparent lack of order . . . We noticed things that old-​timers seemed not to notice anymore . . . We had an immediate personal interest in finding out about the organization. We were not acting as laboratory scientists looking through a window at an organization from the outside.” (Evered and Louis 1981: 386)

While the type of inquiry they were carrying out was arguably different from their standard academic scholarship, they were still conducting meaningful research work. Their experiences indeed resulted in several learnings, including the recognition of differences in types of scholarly inquiry. In highlighting these coexisting perspectives and goals, Evered and Louis showed that: 1) academics and practitioners both inquire despite their different purposes and approaches (Bartunek and Louis 1996); and 2)  the same individual may, under particular circumstances, be carrying out both roles and types of inquiry. Their successful careers show that one type of inquiry may not make the other less relevant, or come at the expense of the other.

When Practitioners Become Academics The first author of this chapter left a career in industry to become a doctoral student. Much to her surprise, she found a number of parallels between her former experience as a junior investment banker and her new one as a doctoral student. To start, while the specific tasks junior bankers (“analysts”) and graduate students engage in differ, many characteristics of their experiences appear the same. Being admitted to a PhD program, much like being hired for a position on Wall Street is a highly competitive process, with only a small percentage of individuals who apply being selected. People who “make it in” have generally demonstrated academic excellence and a strong predisposition toward learning. As the newest members of their teams or research groups, analysts, much like doctoral students, are soon confronted with demanding workloads, an overwhelming amount of new information, and with the challenges of meeting tight deadlines. For a junior investment banker this may involve, for instance, crafting a pitch book for an upcoming client meeting (Ho 2009), while for a doctoral student, it may entail turning in written assignments, submitting papers, or preparing to lead classes. Moreover, the expectations around what ought to be delivered are high for both. Senior bankers and

476    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences faculty members similarly encourage and train their juniors to turn in the best product they can. This translates into multiple iterations of the same pitch book and/​or paper before settling on a version that may be shown to others—​clients or reviewers. Competition is also high in both academia and banking. Junior bankers and graduate students face similarly challenging job markets not only to obtain their positions as analysts or as PhD students, but also to transition out of their respective institutions—​for example, to a new bank, or to find jobs as assistant professors. This is not to say that there are no differences, of course. The types of topics addressed by each group, and their specific areas of focus diverge considerably, among others. Yet, as we have begun showing, they also have much in common.

Ongoing Inquiry over the Course of a Career As we reflected together, we became aware that there is overlap between academic and practitioner practice throughout the course of their careers—​even when taking into account the academic–​practitioner differences discussed by Bartunek and Rynes (2014). First, both academics and practitioners continually carry out scholarly inquiry. To this end, Bartunek and Louis (1996: 5) argued that theorizing is most definitely not the “sole province of academics.” Rather, practitioners regularly construct their own implicit theories (Heider 1958), “sets of heuristically developed rules of practice people use to make sense of the situations they commonly encounter, to weigh action alternatives, and to account for environmental contingencies they observe and experience.” On occasion, these theories have influenced academics and their thinking more than academics’ theorizing has shaped practitioners’ work (Barley, Meyer, and Gash 1988).

Ongoing Activities and Practices Further, our work practices as academics may not be dramatically different from those of practitioners. In the writing of this very chapter, for example, we would share our thoughts during our face-​to-​face meetings; report on the work we each had conducted in preparation for the meeting/​s; and set objectives and deadlines to ensure the timely completion of our work—​just as practitioners may do when collaborating on a project. Moved by this elementary insight, we began reflecting that what we are used to discussing in academia is the potential impact of academic research on practitioners’ practice, and that we are often oblivious to our own day-​to-​day practice (Bartunek 2008). Adopting a more reflexive stand (by considering what we do, why, and how) may open the doors to new conversations between academics and practitioners.1 1  While we recognize that the term practitioner encompasses people engaged in various occupations and roles, for the remainder of this chapter we will use the term “practitioner” to refer, primarily, to individuals in managerial positions and to professionals—​such as, for example, investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, and nurses.

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    477 The paragraphs that follow summarize what came from our own exercise in reflexivity. Broadly, we found that paying attention to our actions, as opposed to simply the outcomes of our work, enabled us to see multiple connections between the worlds of practice and academia. To start, academics and practitioners share some of the whys that motivate their work. For example, scholars seek to publish their research, at least partly, to be promoted (whether to assistant, associate, or to full professors). Likewise, practitioners’ actions are often geared toward the pursuit of specific goals, including, for instance, the prospects of advancement. Moreover, both academics and practitioners seek to establish partnerships with other associations, organizations, and similar others. Academics may do so to create their professional community, or to gather data for their research, while practitioners may do so to secure suppliers, business partners, and ultimately to reach the greatest number of customers possible. The similarities in “why” academics and practitioners engage in their work move beyond practical and/​or instrumental reasons. For example, just like some academics, some professionals join a profession, including law, nursing, and medicine to mention a few, because of their desire to further “a greater” purpose (see Abbott 1988). Not surprisingly, their work has often been described as an institutionalized calling (Sullivan 2004)—​a definition that is likely to resonate with academics who describe their work as a source of greater meaning. Besides sharing somewhat comparable motivations, academics and practitioners may be similar when it comes to how they carry out their work. To illustrate, compare the process of taking a project from conceptual stage to publication with that of converting an idea into a business opportunity. To put what they are doing in terms more often used by practitioners, both need to have a clear understanding of their competitive landscapes and potential market needs—​that is, of who is doing what; of how their efforts may contribute to extend what is already available in the market; and of how what they are contemplating embarking on may fill an existing gap or need. They then develop a plan, and, with a more clearly elaborated idea in mind, test their plan in the marketplace (by talking to other academics or by engaging with prospective clients for example). Should their ideas pass these early-​stage “feasibility tests” they then look for the resources necessary to turn their ideas into working projects—​both in terms of potential collaborators and funding. Much work follows to craft their products/​services, and to convince others (reviewers and clients) of the potential of their work. While these are similar types of activities, Bartunek and Rynes (2014) highlighted how scholars’ attention has traditionally remained much more on differences. The expectation has often been that a particular group of people, scholar-​practitioners, have primary responsibility of bridging the academic–​practitioner gap.

The Experiences of Scholar-​Practitioners A small number of studies have touched on the experiences of scholar-​practitioners, “actors who have one foot each in the worlds of academia and practice and are pointedly

478    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences interested in advancing the causes of both theory and practice” (Tenkasi and Hay 2008: 49). Many scholar-​practitioners are graduates of professional doctoral programs, while others have been heavily involved in practice, become academics, but still identify with both groups. Scholar-​practitioners’ self-​portrayals are captured, symbolically, by the bridge depicted in Figure 24.2. One illustrative study of how scholar-​practitioners describe themselves is offered by Kram, Wasserman, and Yip (2012). The authors asked scholar-​practitioners to suggest metaphors to describe (full-​time) academics, (full-​time) practitioners and their own experiences in both worlds. Their metaphors for the different groups differed substantially. For example, they used “deep thinker” and “producer” (of scholarly work) to describe scholars. The metaphors they leveraged to describe practitioners were of “movers” (getting things done) and “users” (using academic work for practical purposes). Finally, the metaphors they deployed to define themselves included “connectors” (between academic and practitioner worlds), “translators” (who can address both academic and practitioner audiences), and “cyclers” “moving back and forth between scholarship, practice, and teaching/​mentoring, with each role informing and building on the other” (Kram et al. 2012: 22). In other words, they were the ones doing the work of linking “deep thinking” with “moving.” Not surprisingly, given these metaphors, they experienced many tensions and anxieties in balancing their work and their identities between what they saw as two quite different domains—​scholarship and practice. One particularly valuable description of such tensions is offered by Empson (2013), who chronicled her struggles as someone transitioning from the world of practice to that of academia. She noted how academics and practitioners not only hold different views about the nature and purpose of management knowledge (Beyer and Trice

Figure 24.2  A bridge between academics’ and practitioners’ separate cliffs

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    479 1982; Rynes et al. 2001), but also have different abilities, goals, and self-​definitions. For Empson, these tensions manifested themselves in several uncomfortable situations, including when she was advised to forget what she had learned as a practitioner because it had now become irrelevant (Empson 2013). This way, to “become an academic,” she had to manage a range of feelings and emotions that were brought to the surface when her professional past was suddenly, and surprisingly, discredited.

An Expanded Perspective on Academic–​ Practitioner Relationships Figures 24.1 and 24.2 (implicitly) picture the complete worlds of academics and practitioners. The Figures are consistent with a viewpoint in which academics see only practitioners and themselves, and, similarly, practitioners see only academics and themselves. Neither Figure, however, includes academics and practitioners as part of a larger world. Over the paragraphs that follow, we seek to construct such a larger world, and reflect on the implications of this approach for academic–​practitioner relationships. To accomplish this we enlist the (posthumous) help of two individuals, Saul Alinsky and Donald Schön.

Saul Alinsky Saul Alinsky is generally considered among the founders of modern community organizing. As Heathcott (2005: 279) stated, “Alinsky did not invent community organizing, but his efforts over the course of a quarter century disciplined a number of approaches and strategies into a highly effective and influential method.” Alinsky’s efforts were aimed largely at improving the living conditions of poor communities within Chicago and then across the United States, sometimes through the disruption of standard practices (Engel 2002). One of the primary contributions of Alinsky’s work was his ability to get people from differing, and often competing, groups to collaborate and carry out collective action to accomplish social change on behalf of what he called “people’s organizations.” To do so, he recognized the importance of paying attention to, and of respecting, the needs and norms of different collectives. He laid out his ideas along with several examples in two books: Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1971). To illustrate, in Reveille for Radicals (1946: 103), Alinsky noted that: Ethnic groupings must also be carefully studied and understood. These groups are bound together by ties of tradition, common experience, and ethnic

480    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences identification . . . In some cases the traditions, attitudes, and customs are carry-​overs from the Old World. It is important to know the traditions of these groups not only on an intramural basis but also in terms of their relationships with other ethnic groups . . . Slavs will feel closer to each other than to the Irish. The preponderant ethnic groups will be in sharper competition with each other than with the smaller neighborhood groups. As a result hostilities and jealousies may be more bitter between the major groups.

While this quote (and Alinsky’s philosophy regarding social change more broadly) may seem unrelated to our discussion of academics’ and practitioners’ relationships, we believe that there are important lessons to be drawn from Alinsky’s suggested perspective and approach. Alinsky, specifically, teaches us that to foster collaboration among the members of different groups, community organizers must be attuned to the particular norms, values, and morals that characterize each collective. In our case, while the practices and activities of academics and practitioners may overlap much more than it is commonly appreciated, academics and practitioners may indeed uphold different “traditions, attitudes, and customs” equivalent to different ethnic backgrounds. These differences, especially when not properly recognized, may get in the way of forging meaningful connections and collaborations. In other words, one of Alinsky’s contributions to discussions of academic–​practitioner distinctions is the recognition that some of what differentiates us—​logics, time dimensions, communication styles, rigor versus relevance, and interests and incentives—​ might be thought of as inherited, customary ways of thinking about ourselves, and not as rigid, objective differences (see also Voronov and Yorks’ 2015 description of self-​ authoring). If this is correct, the ways Alinsky developed to mobilize different groups to collaborate may also apply to academics and practitioners. As alluded to above, Alinsky worked to bring together otherwise isolated groups in the pursuit of a collective cause, and in so doing, help them focus “outward” toward something “greater”—​well beyond their idiosyncrasies. Following his approach, academics and practitioners may no longer be seen as the only inhabitants of their respective worlds. Indeed, there may be something bigger drawing them, or grouping them together. Figure 24.3 illustrates a “larger” reality in which academics and practitioners are embedded, as well as the presence of something (such as a shared sense of purpose) that may draw (at least some of) them together. Lubitow (2013) provides a compelling example of how some academics and practitioners have moved beyond their individual differences, and come together as a larger collective in the pursuit of a greater cause. Specifically, he described how some physical scientists and social activists joined forces to accomplish state regulation of a chemical called Bisphenol-​A (BPA), which was determined by both groups to be harmful to the health of many people, and particularly to that of children. In Lubitow’s (2013) case, scientists and activists collaborated on developing accurate information about BPA for a public audience. This entailed clarifying findings of emergent research, reviewing activist language for accuracy, debunking industry research

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    481

Figure 24.3  (Some) Academics and practitioners joined in a common purpose

claims, and conducting independent studies. Their joint work ultimately enabled the two groups to better understand and share with others the problems associated with BPA, including launching a call to action via media outlets and “to frame the science around BPA as a clear indicator of a threat to children’s health and a cause for state regulation” (Lubitow 2013: 441). Thanks to the collaboration between scientists and activists, anti-​BPA legislation passed in several states. As this example shows, there are instances when academics and practitioners (some of them, anyway): 1) can recognize, respect, and harness their respective differences; 2) can take the same side of a particular issue, and in so doing, over time, 3) address the issue they share interest in. In this case, important differences between scientists and activists added to their ability to take successful joint action. The work of Bansal, Bertels, Ewart, MacConnachie, and O’Brien (2012), as well as that of Hamann and Faccer (forthcoming) also describes successful academic–​practitioner collaborations in the service of the greater good. Waddock (2015) has recently suggested some of the skills necessary to accomplish this.

Donald Schön After several years of working with the consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Donald Schön became a professor of Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Schön 1987). Much of his scholarly contribution, and especially his work with Chris Argyris (e.g., Argyris and Schön 1974, 1978), had to do with reflection and learning on

482    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences the part of individuals and organizations. Here we will focus on his influential (1983) book The Reflective Practitioner because in this text Schön brought to light some of the problems attributed to the rigor–​relevance divide. In particular, he (1983: 69) made what seem to many a somewhat heretical claim about rigor not adhering solely to academics and relevance not only to practitioners: The dilemma of rigor and relevance may be dissolved if we can develop an epistemology of practice which places technical problem solving within a broader context of reflexive inquiry, shows how reflection in action may be rigorous in its own right, and links the art of practice in uncertainty and uniqueness to the scientist’s art of research. We may thereby increase the legitimacy of reflection in action and encourage its broader, deeper, and more rigorous use.

Schön argued that if academic scholarship is rigorous within a reflective context, then reflective academics and reflective practitioners think and act in similar ways. In other words, it is not the distinction between academia and practice that is important. What is important is the approach taken by academics and practitioners, whether it is solely some version of scientific technique or, in addition, it includes skilled, reflective inquiry. Schön’s approach is used in the development of a number of practitioner activities, including peer assist, after-​action review, and project review. More generally, managers engage in reflective inquiry any time they are able to step back from the local context and draw on their broader knowledge repertoires to understand, frame, and deal with whatever situation they may be facing—​when they are doing the kind of conceptualizing that Bartunek and Louis (1996) suggested is characteristic of many practitioners. Similarly, scholars can be reflective practitioners by questioning their assumptions (Alvesson and Sandberg 2011) and methods and, more broadly, by remaining open to learning from the context and the experiences of those they study, including carrying out the kinds of “inquiry from the inside” that Evered and Louis (1981) described. If this is the case, then, the major difference is not between academics and practitioners. Instead, the major difference that draws some academics and practitioners together, and separates others, is the extent to which they engage in reflective practice rather than acting primarily as technical experts in their craft.

The Importance of Skilled Reflective Practice Given the importance of reflective practice, we will summarize what Schön meant by it in some depth. Schön argued that, while engaging in his/​her work, the reflective practitioner takes a broad perspective, and in so doing, may understand the world as part of something bigger, falling within or outside certain patterns of relationships. This line of thinking enables him/​her to frame and act upon a given situation in a way that is concurrently local, anchored in the specifics of the moment, and global, leveraging his/​her previous experiences and knowledge (Schön 1983). One of Schön’s additional

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    483 contributions consists in his conceptual development of skillful reflection-​in-​action. This includes (­chapter 5) approaching practice problems as unique cases and determining ways of framing these problems that foster successful efforts. Schön’s work has influenced a number of scholars and practitioners (e.g., Schmidt 2000; Cassell, Bishop, Symon, Johnson, and Buehring 2009; Yanow and Tsoukas 2009). In the paragraphs that follow, we describe one specific instance Schön discussed. “Quist,” an architect and instructor, is in the process of reviewing the work of one of his students, Petra, who is involved in designing a school as part of her training. She is experiencing some difficulties because the design models she is familiar with, and, more broadly, her traditional ways of thinking, seem insufficient to address the issues before her. Quist’s review involves several steps, including using specific language about design, reframing the issue, and demonstrating the working out of a solution. It also includes thought experiments, and, finally, the elaboration of a new idea that works with the space constraints at hand. Consider this illustration (Schön 1983: 93–​5): Quist’s designing takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation . . . Quist plays out the consequences of the new discipline by carving the geo­ metry into the slope . . . Each move is a local experiment which contributes to the global experiment of reframing the problem. Some moves are resisted (the shapes cannot be made to fit the contours), while others generate new phenomena . . . Out of his reframing of Petra’s problem, Quist derives a problem he can solve and a coherent organization of materials from which he can make something that he likes.

The example presented above is of a newcomer being mentored by an expert. Earlier we described how the experiences of newly minted PhD students and professionals may be seen as similar. Now, we may raise the question of how much their learning in their new roles is guided by people such as Quist, who clearly engage in reflective practice, as opposed to mentors who focus almost entirely on the technical elements of their craft. Beyond the newcomer stages of academia, we find in Schön’s descriptions a number of possible parallels with reflective academic practice. For example, as scholars face obstacles, such as when their manuscripts are rejected, they may frame such rejections as opportunities to learn how to craft stronger contributions (as opposed to solely becoming upset and, without much thinking, sending their papers to different journals where the same pattern may repeat itself.) This stance takes willingness to learn and the capacity to understand different perspectives (Voronov and Yorks 2015), as well as the ability to deal with the emotional tensions involved. Reflective practice, then, entails moving beyond the simple completion of the task/​s at hand; it requires the periodic assessment and often reframing of action, as well as openness to experimentation. For example, in the process of conducting a quantitative research project one might ask oneself: does a particular set of events designed to be an independent variable work as it ought to? If not, what might be going on? Is the problem with the measurement, with the choice of independent variable, with the entire causal

484    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences model, or, perhaps, with the fundamental assumptions underlying the research question (Alvesson and Sandberg 2011)? Along similar veins, reflective practitioners may consider whether their chosen course of action constitutes the best one possible in light of their previous experiences, their knowledge, as well as others’ feedback. Questions they may ponder include: what, if any, additional information might be needed to make a well-​informed decision? To what extent, if at all, does the unfolding situation mirror their (or others’) experiences? What may be the most efficient way to gather others’ opinions around the issue at stake? Both sets of considerations involve the capacity to hold in tension what might appear on the surface to be contradictory information (McKenzie, Woolf, van Winkelen, and Morgan 2009) as well as affective capacity (Vonorov and Yorks 2015). Taken together, Schön’s insights and our examples indicate that it may be that academics and practitioners skilled at reflective practice (such as Quist demonstrated) have more in common with each other than do academics and practitioners without skills in reflection-in-action. Schön’s contribution is reflected in Figure 24.4. In this Figure we portray how the common distinction between academics and practitioners may be the wrong one to make. Here academics and practitioners characterized by technical rationality are on the same cliff—​as illustrated by the sprigs of rosemary and peppermint next to each other. Academics and practitioners characterized by reflectionin-action are on their own cliff—​as illustrated by the sprigs of rosemary and peppermint

Figure 24.4  Distinctions between academics and practitioners whose emphasis is primarily on the technical aspects of their craft and who carry out reflection-in-action

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    485 next to each other there as well. The difference is in the symbols of repetitive (mechanical) tasks or reflection that mirrors back what has been happening.

So What? Integrating Insights from Alinsky and Schön into our Understanding of Academic–​ Practitioner Relationships When considering the contributions of Saul Alinsky and Donald Schön, the limits of our earlier Figure 24.1 and even Figure 24.2 become apparent. The worlds these images portray are inhabited only by groups of academics and practitioners who largely see only each other, and are either separate from each other, or building tension bridges between their cliffs. As we have shown, the work academics and practitioners carry out to maintain their separation is ultimately based on incomplete understandings of “the other side,” and ignores their common ground. This is evident across several illustrations, from the experiences of Evered and Louis (1981), to Bartunek and Louis’ insights (1996), as well as our own vignettes. Indeed, academics and practitioners (at least some practitioners and some academics) make use of the same skills and have some of the same questions and aims. Some of our actual differences may be no more consequential than sprigs of rosemary and peppermint. Somewhat paradoxically, however, most of the attention tends to be on differences between the rosemary and the peppermint. Figure 24.3 introduces a new perspective by showing that academic–​practitioner relationships are not the sum of the universe. Indeed, from an outsider’s perspective, they may be viewed as only a very small part of the larger cosmos. To this end, Alinsky’s work indicates that what academics and practitioners sometimes miss when they are considering only each other are that many of their differences are actually cultural, including habits, preferences, and values. Alinsky’s work also shows how crucial it is to attend to and to respect such differences. Lubitow’s (2013) account of scientists’ and activists’ collaboration demonstrates how this may happen, showing how seemingly incommensurable differences can indeed be complementary, and together contribute to a larger common good. Perhaps such shared greater purposes may help reduce the tensions between academics and practitioners often experienced by scholar-​practitioners. Figure 24.4 adds another perspective. Here academics and practitioners are not seen as unitary groups. Instead, they are differentiated according to how reflective their practice is. The primary gap shifts from being between academia and practice, to between those who are reflective from those who are not.

486    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences

Implications for Reflection and Theorizing We talked earlier about the importance of substituting the notion of duality for dualism as a way into introducing the multiple contradictions and paradoxical features associated with distinctions between management academia and practice. We have argued that because academia and practice share so much common ground, neither ultimately makes much sense without the other—​whether academics and practitioners are aware of it or not. We have also shown how this awareness does not prevent us from putting ourselves at the center of our own universe, but does certainly increase the tension on those who find themselves playing bridging roles between academia and practice. In other words, the notion that academics and practitioners are separate is full of contradictions. If we really believe in clear academic–​practitioner distinctions the paradoxical joke is on us. The discussions of the work of Alinsky and Schön add to the appreciation of the paradoxical features of academic–​practitioner relationships. Alinsky plays a role once played by Galileo, suggesting that, contrary to what has been implicitly assumed, the world does not revolve around academic–​practitioner relationships, but that joint initiatives of academics and practitioners may contribute to the broader world. Schön plays a role once played by Ptolemy, who distinguished the northern and southern hemispheres. Schön showed that academics and practitioners can be distinguished as much by how they approach reflection as by their formal roles. The idea that we academics, who are generally supposed to be wise (at least in popular stereotypes), have been somewhat oblivious to such understandings is somewhat contradictory and paradoxical in itself.

Implications for Practice In scholarly articles, academics often include a section on “implications for practice.” In this section, they generally attempt to derive possible ideas relevant to managers and other organizational members based on their studies. Bartunek and Rynes (2010) described several common characteristics of these sections. They included desirable outcomes, particular types of actions that should be taken based on the article, and contingencies affecting when the actions would be useful for accomplishing the desired goals. Whether practitioners can actually act upon the recommendations provided in a meaningful fashion may be questionable (Kieser and Leiner 2009). In other words, the implications-​for-​practice section of a scholarly article, while very helpful to academics’ thinking about implications for managers, maintains distinctions between researchers and practitioners. As such, it is probably best depicted as illustrative of Figure 24.1. Academics and practitioners remain on their own cliffs, perhaps throwing sprigs of rosemary or peppermint to each other. Imagining how Saul Alinsky and Donald Schön may redirect our focus, in part by shifting our mindset from gap-​bridging to the appreciation of deeper shared purposes

Eliana Crosina and Jean M. Bartunek    487 and the importance of reflection in action, may be a helpful exercise. This way, the academic–​practitioner split is much less important in the overall scheme of management and organizations. Thus, we end in the middle of a contradiction. The central dichotomy in which we, academics, think we and practitioners are embedded, to which great quantities of scholarly attention have been devoted, is not much of a dichotomy at all in the larger scheme of things. It may not even be the major issue that divides us. Paying so much attention to it might decrease our ability to see the bigger world, and the steps we might be able to take to benefit its common welfare. It is time that we recognize how we have managed to create so much separation out of so little comparative difference, and how the world might benefit from acknowledging the paradoxes in which we have entwined ourselves.

Acknowledgments We are very grateful to Jane McKenzie and Wendy Smith for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

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488    The Paradoxical Mystery of the Missing Differences Bartunek, J. M., and Rynes, S. L. 2010. The construction and contributions of “implications for practice”: What’s in them and what might they offer? Academy of Management Learning and Education, 9(1): 100–​17. Bartunek, J. M., and Rynes, S. L. 2014. Academics and practitioners are alike and unlike: The paradoxes of academic–​practitioner relationships. Journal of Management, 40: 1181–​1201. Cassell, C., Bishop, V., Symon, G., Johnson, P., and Buehring, A. 2009. Learning to be a qualitative management researcher. Management Learning, 40(5): 513–​33. Daft, R. L., and Lewin, A. Y. 2008. Rigor and relevance in organization studies: Idea migration and academic journal evolution. Organization Science, 19(1): 177–​83. Empson, L. 2013. My affair with the “other”: Identity journeys across the research–​practice divide. Journal of Management Inquiry, 22: 229–​48. Engel, L. J. 2002. Saul Alinsky and the Chicago School. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 16(1): 50–​66. Evered, R., and Louis, M. R. 1981. Alternative perspectives in the organizational sciences: “Inquiry from the inside” and “inquiry from the outside.” Academy of Management Review, 6(3): 385–​95. Farjoun, M. 2017. Contradictions, dialectics and paradoxes. In Sage Handbook of Process Organization Studies, edited by A. Langley and H. Tsoukas, 87–​109. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Farjoun, M. 2010. Beyond dualism: stability and change as a duality. Academy of Management Review, 35(2): 202–​25. Hambrick, D. C. 1994. What if the academy actually mattered? Academy of Management Review, 19(1): 11–​16. Hamann, R., and Faccer, K. Forthcoming. Minding the knowledge transformation gap: How identities and context influence research-​practice interactions. In Academic Practitioner Research Partnerships:  Developments Complexities and Opportunities, edited by J. M. Bartunek and J. McKenzie. London: Routledge. Heathcott, J. 2005. Urban activism in a downsizing world: Neighborhood organizing in post­ industrial Chicago. City and Community, 4(3): 277–​94. Heider, F. 1958. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York, NY: John Wiley. Ho, K. 2009. Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jackson, W. A. (1999). Dualism, duality, and the complexity of economic institutions. International Journal of Social Economics, 26(4): 545–​58. Kieser, A., and Leiner, L. 2009. Why the rigour–​relevance gap in management research is unbridgeable. Journal of Management Studies, 46(3): 516–​33. Kieser, A., Nicolai, A., and Seidl, D. 2015. The practical relevance of management research:  Turning the debate on relevance into a rigorous scientific research program. Academy of Management Annals, 9(1): 143–​233. Kram, K. E., Wasserman, I. C., and Yip, J. 2012. Metaphors of identity and professional practice:  Learning from the scholar–​ practitioner. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 48: 304–​41. Lubitow, A. 2013. Collaborative frame construction in social movement campaigns: Bisphenol-​ A (BPA) and scientist–​activist mobilization. Social Movement Studies, 12(4): 429–​47. McKenzie, J., Woolf, N., Van Winkelen, C., and Morgan C. 2009. Cognition in strategic decision-​making: A model of nonconventional thinking capacities for complex situations. Management Decision, 47(2): 209–​32. Putnam, L. L., Fairhurst, G. T., and Banghart, S. 2016. Contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizations: A constitutive approach, Academy of Management Annals, 10(1): 65–​171.

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Chapter 25

Parad ox in Ev e ryday Practi c e Applying Practice-​Theoretical Principles to Paradox Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek

A principle of practice theory is the rejection of dualisms and recognition of the inherent relationship between elements that have often been treated dichotomously . . . practice theory [thus] enables scholars to theorize the dynamic constitution of dualities. (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1242)

As the introductory quote suggests, there is a shared ontological basis between paradox and practices perspectives. Indeed, the combination of these two theoretical approaches has already proven fruitful (cf. Bednarek, Paroutis, and Sillince 2017; Clegg et al. 2002; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017; Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013). In this chapter1 we further develop this “practice turn” (Schatzki, Knorr Cetina and Savigny 2001) in paradox studies. We advance this turn in two parts. First, we outline the practice-​theoretical approach to studying paradox, articulating four main principles that define its research agenda. We describe each theoretical principle, explain its implications for the way we understand and study paradox, and illustrate it with an example of existing work. Second, we use these principles to reflect on the potential of a practice-​based view of paradox, highlighting avenues for future research. Herein we review, integrate, and develop a foundation for practice-​based studies of paradox. 1  Both authors contributed equally to this work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and feedback provided by Professor Paula Jarzabkowski in her role as editor of this Handbook.

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    491

Outlining Core Principles of a Practice-​Theoretical Approach to Studying Paradox Paradoxes are the interdependent yet contradictory elements that define much of organizational life (Smith and Lewis 2011). Scholars have increasingly turned to practice theory as one way of understanding paradox (cf. Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017; also Abdallah, Denis, and Langley 2011; Bednarek et al. 2017; Jay 2013). Practice theory (e.g., Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Jarzabkowski et al. 2007; Nicolini 2013) offers a complementary perspective to paradox theory and there is thus much potential for cross-​fertilization. Indeed, practice-​based studies of paradox have been instrumental in improving understanding of the micro-​dynamics of paradox and illuminating the socially constructed and negotiated nature of paradox. Based on our practice-​theoretical perspective we see paradoxes as both permeating and being enacted through the everyday, even mundane, work of individuals (Chia and MacKay 2007; Clegg et al. 2002; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). Practice theory explains phenomenon in the social realm based on practices or routinized behavior (Reckwitz 2002), including what people typically say and do (Schatzki 2002). While practice theory is made up of a milieu of different theoretical approaches, these have a number of general commonalities or shared principles (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Reckwitz 2002; Schatzki 2001; Seidl and Whittington 2014). Focusing on these central principles, we suggest that a practice-​theoretical approach to studying paradox entails four things (see Table 25.1). First, a practice view understands paradoxes and responses to paradoxes to be socially constructed, manifesting within organized activities (Schatzki 2001; Vaara and Whittington 2012). Second, it submits that paradoxes and responses to paradoxes are constructed within everyday activities and practices (Schatzki 2012). Third, it suggests that these localized activities and practices are consequential for and constitutive of broader dynamics, including the structural conditions of paradoxes (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Giddens 1984; Vaara and Whittington 2012). Fourth, it supports a relational view in which multiple paradoxes and their poles are seen as interdependent and mutually constitutive (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Nicolini 2013; Schatzki 2002). We now explain each of these principles, outline the implications for the study of paradox, and describe an exemplar study incorporating the principle into its design.2 2  A small but significant body of work adopting a practice-​based approach to paradox now exists. In selecting examples, we draw on the work that embodies a certain theoretical principle of the practice approach. In so doing we draw on our own work, as these empirical studies have been instrumental to the development of the ideas here and we benefit from having in-​depth knowledge of these studies. However, we also include and point to the work of other practice and paradox scholars that incorporate these principles into their work to show the value of the practice turn in understanding paradox.

492    Paradox in Everyday Practice Table 25.1 Summary of practice-​theoretical view of paradox Core principle of practice theory

Implications for paradox theory

Social construction

Social reality is constituted within and by practice.

Paradoxes are constituted within and by practices, i.e., paradoxes are simultaneously constructed and responded to (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017).

Everyday activities

The starting point for study is the everyday micro activities of actors as they unfold in the moment.

The starting point for investigation of paradox are the everyday doings and sayings unfolding in the moment (Bednarek et al. 2017; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). This provides an opportunity to study bundles of practices and response pathways rather than singular responses.

Consequentiality

Everyday activities are consequential because they comprise what an organization is and does. Organizational patterns and institutionalized practices are instantiated in the everyday actions and interactions of people within and beyond organizations.

Paradoxes at multiple levels are situated; paradoxes of performing are entwined with paradoxes of belonging, and consequential for paradoxes of organizing (Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven 2013). Examining paradoxes of performing enables us to explore the systems involved in paradox (Dameron and Torset 2014).

Relationality

The world is made up of dualities—​rather than dichotomies—​that are mutually constitutive (Clegg et al. 2002).

Paradoxical elements have a mutually constitutive relationship; they are interdependent (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). Multiple paradoxes and their poles need to be understood in relation to one another. Embracing the complexity of the everyday organizational experience enables moving beyond dualities to tri-​paradoxes (Ford and Ford 1994) and multiple entangled paradoxes (Bednarek et al. 2017).

Principle 1: Social Construction Social construction lies at the heart of practice theory to the extent that it is often referred to as social practice theory (Reckwitz 2002). The concept of social construction posits that individuals do not derive meaning in isolation, but rather derive meaning as actors situated within specific social contexts and in interaction with other human beings. While a socially constructed view of the world (Berger and Luckmann 1967) is foundational to much organizational research, practice theory is unique in situating

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    493 the social in the realm of practice. By studying a specific social practice or routinized behavior (Reckwitz 2002), practice theorists acknowledge that the way bodily and mental activities, objects, knowledge, know-​how, emotions, and motivations come together in collective activities is always instantiated within these practices of multiple actors (Schatzki 2012). These practices are routinized to the extent that there are patterns in the “way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood” (Reckwitz 2002: 250). It is this routinized social enactment which makes the practice understandable to the person(s) enacting them and the person(s) observing them, allowing people to understand, for example, the purpose of a chair (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan 2015), the structure of a hiring routine (Feldman and Pentland 2003), and the meaning of a joke (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017).

Implications Paradox scholars direct their study at two levels. First, paradox scholars seek to understand the local manifestation of paradoxes, for instance within the cognitive frames (Lewis 2000) or talk (e.g., Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017) of actors. Indeed, early scholars drew attention to the importance of this social construction of paradox and dualities (Benson 1977; Ford and Backoff 1988). Second, paradox scholars aim to illuminate the structural conditions of paradox that arise both within organizations and from larger systems external to and inflicted on organizations and to which they must respond (Cameron and Quinn 1988; Smith and Berg 1987). Most scholars acknowledge the coexistence of paradox at these multiple levels, viewing paradox as simultaneously inherent in larger systems and locally constructed (e.g., Lewis and Smith 2014; Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Smith and Lewis 2011). The practice-​turn pushes us one step further, theorizing paradoxes and the response to them as simultaneously socially constructed through practice (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). That is, practice theory examines the mutual constitution of larger “systems” to which organizations respond, and also how these are locally and socially enacted (an issue we will explore further in Principles 2 and 3 below). This implies that constructions of paradox and responses to paradox are entwined (Beech et al. 2004; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017), because the paradoxes themselves and organizational responses to them are socially constructed within everyday practice (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Nicolini 2013). Such a practice perspective on paradox redefines the taken-​for-​granted distinction in paradox research between levels of paradox—​such as learning, organizing, performing, and belonging—​and the responses to such paradoxes—​such as regression, splitting, transcendence, and confrontation (cf. Lewis 2000; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Lewis 2011). A practice perspective suggests that the actions that construct paradoxes and those inherent within responses are entangled in everyday work, often occurring simultaneously as part of the same utterance or action. For example, a discourse of “transcendence” (Abdallah et al. 2011) is as much a response to a paradox, as it is part of the local construction of the paradox itself. In this way, paradoxes and responses are understood as unfolding in a mutually constitutive fashion and in relation to each other through the actions of actors. This view pushes paradox scholars to consider the role

494    Paradox in Everyday Practice of social construction not just in terms of how a paradox is constructed (Benson 1977; Ford and Backoff 1988; Ford and Ford 1994; Hatch and Ehrlich 1993; Lewis 2000; Poole and Van de Ven 1989; Smith and Berg 1987) and responded to, but also how these processes are interrelated (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017) or even indistinguishable in some instances. Yet, while scholars often adopt a socially constructed view of the phenomenon (Benson 1977; Ford and Ford 1994; Hatch 1997; Jay 2013; Lewis 2000; Lüscher et al. 2006; Smith and Berg 1987), they rarely give explicit focus to how paradoxes are socially constructed. Practice theory focuses us on and provides us with a platform for addressing this omission.

Illustration: Jarzabkowski and Lê (2017) This chapter demonstrates the useful emphasis that a practice approach places on social construction and the value of maintaining it as central in the study of paradoxes. Observing the restructuring of a telecoms firm facing contradictory regulatory and commercial goals, the authors noticed a lot of humor and laughing. Looking closely at this practice, they found that humor was instrumental in surfacing, communicating, and responding to paradoxes by bringing out specific contradictions in people’s everyday work. For instance, humor was used to construct and respond to the tension between correcting an existing market inequality as quickly as possible (regulatory goal) and progressing slowly to protect the quality of service within that market (commercial goal). The paradoxical tension was heightened by the audit team, which was perceived to be overzealous in its activities and often overstepped the boundaries of its authority, detracting resources from the delivery and threatening Telco’s ability to achieve both goals. As a result, Telco employees sent exceedingly large audit documents (“2.3 forests apparently,” p. 19) to keep the auditor busy, so that they could focus on completing the delivery. This response was legitimated and entrenched within the humorous exchange, which reinforced the process of projecting the tension on to the audit team. Thus, humor served the critical function of constructing paradoxical tensions and responses to these tensions. The interactional dynamic that resulted formed a critical part of the social context in which constructions of the regulatory paradox took place and their resultant response paths: either entrenching an existing response or shifting to a new response. The authors thus show how micro-​practices, like humor, influence the construction of and response to paradoxes in organizations. In particular, they demonstrate, for the first time, the entwined relationship of construction of paradoxes and construction of responses. Other examples of work adopting a practice-​based approach to paradox, which emphasize the role of social construction, include Dameron and Torset’s (2014) study of four key tensions in strategy work; Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven’s (2013) work on how paradoxes evolve and interlink; and Jay’s (2013) research on sensemaking of paradoxical outcomes. Additional paradox studies dealing with social construction are Hatch’s study on contradiction and humor (1997); Lüscher, Lewis, and Ingram’s work on organizational change paradoxes (2006); and Martin’s (2004) piece on middle

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    495 managerial navigation of paradoxes. Finally, Beech et al. (2004) show how the actions involved in “serious playfulness” transform the focal paradox associated with change.

Principle 2: Micro-​activities The primary focus of practice theory is everyday actions as they unfold in the moment to constitute organizations (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011; Nicolini 2013; Reckwitz 2002; Schatzki 2002, 2005), including the paradoxes that beset them (Clegg et  al. 2002). If practices are “organized sets of doings and sayings” (Schatzki 2002) then the study of practices involves a focus on these localized actions. In this sense, social life is understood as a dynamic unfolding production that emerges through repeated everyday actions (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). Organizational scholars drawing from a practice perspective have therefore variably shown the importance—​and constitutive potential—​of discursive (e.g., Balogun et  al. 2014; Samra-​Fredericks 2003), material (e.g., Kaplan 2011; Orlikowski and Scott 2008), and embodied (e.g., Balogun, Best, and Lê 2015; Jarzabkowski, Burke, and Spee 2015) activities. The practice turn is therefore micro-​oriented, contending that social order is instantiated within or constituted by local phenomena (Schatzki 2005). Our understanding of the social realm and its construction is thus centered on micro-​activities within localized settings.

Implications The practice turn therefore involves paying attention to the micro-​foundations of paradox. Such a focus suggests that paradoxes and their responses are understandable through micro everyday actions, such as not answering a particular telephone call or making a joke (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). Consequently, one implication of a practice perspective is to move beyond identifying singular grand responses through a focus on large decisive actions. Instead, a practice perspective opens up the idea of “response paths” (Abdallah et  al. 2011; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017)  and/​or bundles of practices (Bednarek et al. 2017). In particular, studies of “in the moment” activity (Bourdieu 1990; Chia and Holt 2006), often in real time, allow us to illuminate the constant flux associated with constructing and responding to paradox (Abdallah et al. 2011), as well as its frequent mundanity, something which is not well captured in the notion of singular clearly defined strategic responses. A detailed understanding of how paradox is experienced therefore arises from insight into these unfolding local improvisations (Beech et  al. 2004) rather than static snapshots or clear categories that explain “the” organizational response. Second, this emphasis on paradox as enacted through micro-​activities means that rather than seeing different paradoxes as segmented or located at different “levels” (from the micro to the macro) (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013), we conceive of wider seemingly systemic paradoxes as constituted in localized doings and sayings (see Principle 3 below). Third, it blurs the central distinction in the paradox literature between latent and salient paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011). Much of the extant paradox literature

496    Paradox in Everyday Practice has dealt with explicit and salient paradoxes that actors are acutely aware of and actively seeking to manage (Lüscher and Lewis 2008; Smith and Tushman 2005). A focus on everyday activities as they unfold in real time directs us to the actual lived experience of paradox (Chia and MacKay 2007; Samra-​Fredericks 2003), allowing paradox to be investigated simply as part of the unremarkable everyday of actors getting on with their work. This positions paradox as a more integral and prolific part of organizing, and allows us to explore the “enacted but not designed” improvisation associated with paradox (Clegg et al. 2002: 497). Finally, a practice perspective challenges the active–​defensive dichotomy of responses to paradox common in the literature. A micro-​focus provides a nuanced picture of paradox and likely uncovers multiple and contradictory experiences of paradox, with a response viewed as positive or negative depending on the moment and the individual actor (Jarzabkowski and Lê forthcoming). The implicit defensive and active classification regarding responses to paradox therefore collapses as we study paradox at a fine-​grained level and observe various localized experience of paradox and how so-​called active and defensive practices are entangled as part of response pathways over time (Abdallah et al. 2011).

Illustration: Jarzabkowski and Sillince (2007) This paper studies the contradiction-​laden context of a university where managers are establishing commitment to competing research, teaching, and commercial goals. They explore the micro-​level practices by which top managers influence the commitment of their employees to those contradictory poles. In particular, they highlight the dynamics and impact of “synergy rhetoric” as it unfolds within meetings. Therein they show how rhetoric enabled commitment to multiple goals amongst an academic audience when implemented in a consistent manner with specific constructions of authority and audience. As they state, “The academic audience is constructed as aware of top managers’ legitimacy by authority rhetoric, as negotiation partners by reciprocity rhetoric, and supportive of the mutual interests arising from multiple goals through synergy rhetoric” (1647). Conversely, Jarzabkowski and Sillince (2007) showed how ambivalent synergy rhetoric, whereby managers sometimes displayed ambivalence regarding synergies between these goals, coupled with inconsistency between how the authority and commitment of those involved was constructed rhetorically during meetings, resulted in a lack of commitment. In short, the micro practices of managers in a meeting was instrumental in the ability of universities to demonstrate commitment to multiple goals and harness the synergies between contradictory perspectives. There are a number of other studies that have begun to illustrate additional important elements of this micro-​foundational approach to paradox. Abdallah et al. (2011) showed the importance of understanding how response discourses evolve and change over time as a response pathway, with the dynamism and flux of these micro practices also illustrated by Jarzabkowski et al. (2013) and Jarzabkowski and Lê (2017). Bednarek et al. (2017) show how transcendence is constituted through micro-​rhetorical practices, as well as teasing out the inherent underlying features of those practices that explain the construction of that response amongst organizational actors. Other studies have

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    497 focused on instances of humor (Hatch and Erhlich 1993; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017), playful interaction (Beech et al. 2004), and the use of numbers (Michaud 2014), to provide nuanced views of the activities that enable managers to differentiate and integrate paradoxical poles (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Smith 2014).

Principle 3: Consequentiality Micro-​practices constitute the basis of organizing and are therefore consequential at a wider organizational and institutional level (Johnson et al. 2007; Seidl and Whittington 2014; Suddaby, Seidl, and Lê 2013). The ripples cast into an organization by a single mundane practice or a bundle of practices may have far-​reaching effects across an organization and beyond organizational sites. This point is central in explaining the study of social practices and differentiating it from the study of individual activities. For example, hiring routines have been shown to be sources of stability and change in organizations (Feldman and Pentland 2003) and strategic plans to be powerful actors in the strategy formulation process (Spee and Jarzabkowski 2011; Vaara, Sorsa, and Pälli 2010). Practice theory thus goes beyond an investigation of localized doings and sayings to understanding how they are “consequential in producing the structural contours of social life” (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1242). The shared understanding or know-​how associated with the activities of doing particular work that is a central focus for a practice-​ theoretical study can connect specific individual enactments to many others (Schatzki 2002). While practice theory begins with a focus on the local “in the moment” activities, it also spans outwards into the “spatially–​temporally dispersed nexus of doing and sayings” (Schatzki 2012: 14; also see Giddens 1984). A practice perspective thus offers a framework to connect the “here-​and-​now of the situated practising and the elsewhere-​ and-​then” of those practices (Nicolini 2009: 1392; also Miettinen et al. 2009), with the “moment” that is always a nexus of pasts and futures (Schatzki 2006). This “zooming in” and “zooming out” offers the potential for significant methodological and theoretical contribution (Nicolini 2013).

Implications The implication of consequentiality for paradox theory is that, from a practice perspective, locally enacted paradoxes and responses to paradox are consequential within and beyond organizations. Despite being experienced and enacted at the micro-​level, they have real impact (see also Smith 2014). Indeed, a practice perspective gives emphasis to paradoxes of performing, but recognizes that these are linked to paradoxes of belonging and reciprocally shape paradoxes of organizing (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Jay 2013; Lüscher and Lewis 2008). In short, micro-​level actions and interactions produce wider organizational and societal configurations and outputs. This enables practice theory to address the ontological debate of whether paradoxes are an “inherent feature of a system” or “a social construction that emerges from actors’ cognitions and rhetoric” (Smith and Lewis 2011). Through a practice lens, paradoxes are understood as a social nexus

498    Paradox in Everyday Practice of doings and sayings; that is, they are made up of and constituted by human activity (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). This activity, which is enacted and re-​enacted locally (Nicolini 2013; Schatzki 2002) constitutes the inherent paradoxical systems identified by the paradox literature (Smith and Berg 1987; Smith and Lewis 2011). Thus, a practice approach allows us to both study localized constructions of paradox within the everyday doings and sayings of actors, such as instances of humor (Hatch and Ehrlich 1993) or rhetoric in a meeting (Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007), and understand and study persistent paradoxes as part of larger “systems,” such as that between relevance and rigor within business schools (Bartunek and Rynes 2014) or paradoxes faced by strategy professionals (Dameron and Torset 2014). In this way, the notion of levels differentiating “micro” (everyday constructions) and “macro” (inherent structures) is folded together in a practice perspective (Chia and MacKay 2007; Miettinen et al. 2009; Schatzki 2005). A practice perspective, thus, also helps us understand larger patterns, such as how paradoxes unfold through interaction across time and space, explaining how paradox moves from a localized individual experience to constituting the “inherent features” of a system (Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). There are different ways practice-​ theoretical approaches might connect these micro–​macro levels of paradox (Seidl and Whittington 2014; Vaara and Whittington 2012). For instance, we can consider discursive practices involved in constructing paradoxes and responses to paradox, and examine how they are situated in larger discourses (Fairclough 2003; Foucault 1977). Dameron and Torset (2014) show how local speech acts about strategy are part of and enact larger paradox-​laden discourses about what strategy is. For example, showing how local instances of speaking about temporal tensions involved in strategies are connected to larger discourses of strategy as the art of balancing tensions. Similarly, practice scholars can “follow” paradoxes, for instance observing the evolution of paradoxes and related practices over time (Abdallah et al. 2011; Jarzabkowski et al. 2013) or comparing multiple sites where the same practices are carried out, following a nexus of interconnections (Jarzabkowski, Bedarek, and Cabantous 2015; Nicolini 2013). In summary, practice theory is a powerful lens through which to drill down into the minutiae of paradox while also zooming out on paradox as it is constitutive of broader social practice (Nicolini 2009).

Illustration: Abdallah, Denis, and Langley (2011) This paper shows the impact of micro-​level practices on issues of organizational consequence, thereby demonstrating the value of applying practice theory to the study of paradox to illuminate the micro–​macro link. Through secondary analysis of three settings—​health care, cultural organization, public utility—​the authors study the use of “discourses of transcendence” in overcoming paradoxical conditions and thereby promoting organizational change. Studying contradictory demands such as closing hospitals while improving healthcare; reconciling artistic, social, and commercial values; and ensuring job security while reducing labor costs; they show that the micro-​practice of discourse supplies “a rationale that creatively bridges opposite poles of a dilemma” (338), therefore playing a critical role in effecting change. Yet, the practice-​level processual

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    499 data of the authors also allows them to show that transcendence is not a smooth process, but rather requires ongoing effort from the actors. This is critical, as the discourse stimulates particular actions and, as it evolves, associated actions may also evolve. In their case study of a cultural organization undergoing a 30 percent funding cut, Abdallah et al. (2011) show how the organization was able to maintain its raison d’être by emphasizing innovation in line with social and artistic values, while also promoting international visibility and commercialization in its strategic plan. This discourse of transcendence connected the two contradictory goals, and resulted in a new international co-​production unit and the segmentation of the distribution function into a separate commercially oriented unit which “will not have the onus of cultural and visibility objectives that have historically obscured the goal of revenue generation” (341). This study shows that linguistic micro-​practices can have significant effect on organizational orientation, structure, and performance. In short, they are consequential for the organization and its operation. Generally, investigating the consequentiality of localized activities as wider social practices remains rare in paradox research. However, other practice-​based studies of paradox that emphasize the consequentiality of micro-​practices at the macro-​level include: Jarzabkowski, Lê, and Van de Ven’s (2013) work pointing to the interconnection between paradoxes of performing and belonging, and the impact on paradoxes of organizing; and Jay’s (2013) study demonstrating the link to paradoxical outcomes and how they are understood.

Principle 4: Relationality Practice theory is fundamentally a relational perspective which sees phenomena—​ including ostensibly contradictory ones—​ as mutually constitutive of each other (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011). Cooper (2005: 1692) describes relationality as a perspective that views phenomena, such as particular practices or paradoxes, as relative to each other (also see Schatzki 2002; Chia and Holt 2006; Clegg et al. 2002). Drawing on this approach, we describe relationality as entailing two things. First, any practice is part of a wider nexus of doings and sayings (Schatzki 2002), and exploring the relationality formed in this nexus is central to understanding the consequentiality of local practices (see Principle 3). For instance, Jarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Spee (2015) show that reinsurance trading is an entanglement of practices across multiple sites; understanding a particular phenomenon—​in their case a market—​requires following a nexus of practices and the relationships between them (Nicolini 2009). Second, understanding these relationalities is important as phenomena co-​constitute each other within this “between-​ness.” A famous example in practice theory is the relationship between structure and agency (Giddens 1984). Structure and agency can only be understood in conjunction, as one shapes the other. Relationality suggests that such relationships dominate our work. Consequently, “no phenomena can be taken to be independent of other phenomena . . . phenomena always exist in relation to each other, produced through a process of mutual constitution” (Feldman and Orlikowski 2011: 1242). This leads us

500    Paradox in Everyday Practice to more complex frameworks and studies that focus on interconnections and mutual constitution.

Implications Relationality offers a theoretical platform for understanding the dualism at the heart of paradox theory, whereby paradoxical poles are understood as inherently symbiotic. For example, Clegg et al. (2002: 494) outline a relational approach to paradox as being one where opposites are held in relation to one another based on an understanding of “how opposites feed on” and even depend on each other. More broadly, however, this relational ontology suggests a focus on the mutual constitution of opposites in considering the elements not just in isolation but in relation to each other (Smith and Lewis 2011). First, a relational ontology allows us to understand why the responses to paradoxes are so often themselves found to be made up of multiple co-​constitutive, seemingly contradictory elements. This is observable in existing scholarship, the most common of which are differentiating and integrating practices as a means to respond to paradoxes of exploitation and exploration (Andriopolous and Lewis 2009; Smith 2014). In this way responses to paradox are not seen as singular, but rather as interconnected, spurring one another as they unfold (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017). For example, recent work adopting such a perspective has shown that moments of struggle are entwined with moments of transcendence within complex response pathways (Abdallah et al. 2011; also see Principle 2). In this vein, a relational ontology allows us to look for practices that simultaneously embrace as well as defend against paradox as mutually constitutive (Lewis 2000). Second, a relational perspective moves us beyond a focus on seemingly single and isolated paradoxes to show how multiple paradoxes are entwined. It therefore encourages studies that explore entangled (Bednarek et al. 2017) or cascading (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013; Andriopolous and Lewis 2009) paradoxes, rather than the more common focus on a sole clearly defined tension. Similarly, such an approach might lead to more complex views of contradiction, such as “tri-​paradoxes,” that examine relationships between three competing objectives (Ford and Ford; Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007). The number is not constrained to two or three but rather invites theorization of more complex interactions between multiple paradoxical objectives. Indeed, there are calls in the paradox literature to address these more complex relationalities (Smith and Lewis 2011), and a practice perspective focused on the everyday experience of tension (whereby one paradox is not clearly differentiated and isolated from another but instead simply experienced as an entangled bundle of complexity) is a central theoretical lens for fulfilling this call. In not viewing a single paradox or response in isolation, a relational perspective better captures the complexity of everyday organizational life, which so often is multi-​ faceted and multidimensional.

Illustration: Bednarek et al. (2017) An example of a practice-​theoretical perspective adopting a relational approach is Bednarek et al.’s (2017) study of the New Zealand science sector. Their research on two

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    501 sets of contradictions—​science impact/​excellence and social/​commercial objectives—​ shows the entanglement of two paradoxes in practices. While these paradoxes were discernible dualities they were also experienced as entwined by those involved and participants described them as such. For example, the notion of science impact was itself explained as containing contradictory social and commercial goals, with one paradox flowing into another in explaining the complexity of organizing as science organizations. In this sense, the paradoxes were entangled and the organizational experience of contradiction could only be understood when taking both of these paradoxes into consideration. This study also shows the rhetorical practices that constituted transcendence, highlighting a bundle of practices—​ordering, aspiring, signifying, and embodying—​which together and in relation to one another explained the response. In particular, these bundles of practices enabled seemingly contradictory dynamics of maintaining and reducing the distance between the paradoxical poles, and emphasized both change and continuity with regards to the contradiction. It was therefore the relationship within and amongst the rhetorical practices that enabled the construction of transcendence. While calls have been issued to take these topics to another level, for instance, by studying tri-​paradoxes (Ford and Ford 1994; Smith and Lewis 2011), empirical studies have rarely taken up the challenge (see Jarzabkowski and Sillince’s 2007 study of building commitment to research, teaching, and commercial goals as a rare example of a study addressing more than two poles).

Summary Note: The Relationship between Principles While we review each of these principles in turn in order to illuminate the value each brings to bear on the study of paradox, we conceive of them as entwined. Indeed, as our review above illustrates, these principles do not operate in isolation but, rather, work together to produce a particular practice perspective on paradox. Consequently, the principles intersect in many of the empirical exemplars we review. We think of these principles as part of a kaleidoscope, bringing various aspects into the foreground at different times. Generally, practice-​based studies of paradoxes have primarily emphasized one or few of these elements. For instance, Jarzabkowski and Lê (2017), while being the paper perhaps most explicitly founded in practice theory, primarily focuses on addressing the entangled construction of a paradox and the organizational response to it via micro-​ instances of humor, with the other two principles being more implicit. By contrast, Bednarek et al. (2017) do not directly address the construction of the paradox itself and take the consequentiality of the rhetorical practices as given rather than the focus. It is likely that other studies will maintain a focus in building their contribution, yet we argue that maintaining all four principles within a study remains important and that much could be gained from making them explicit foundations that guide studies of paradox. What is clear is that to take the practice perspective seriously in the study of paradox involves more than studying practices in isolation (Jarzabkowski, Kaplan, Seidl,

502    Paradox in Everyday Practice

Social construction

Consequentiality

Everyday activity

Relationality

Figure 25.1  Relationship between practice-​theoretical principles

and Whittington 2016) or simply focusing on micro-​activities (Reckwitz 2002; Seidl and Whittington 2014). In this regard we believe Figure 25.1 can guide future scholars interested in such an endeavor and push their frameworks further by situating their studies explicitly in this theoretical domain.

Future Directions: A Practice-​based Research Agenda The above review highlights the principles that are central to a practice-​theoretical approach to paradox. In so doing, it points to important but less-​well-​researched areas in the study of paradox. We make these areas explicit below.

Complexity As our understanding of paradox grows and we increasingly become aware of the complex and nested nature of paradoxes (Bednarek et  al. 2017; Jarzabkowski et  al. 2013) research must embrace the existence of three or more competing demands simultaneously. In other words, rather than focusing on two competing demands, as has traditionally been done in paradox research (Smith and Lewis 2014), research must begin to consider the possibility of more competing demands operating simultaneously by studying tri-​paradoxes and beyond. Similarly, researchers must consider the nested nature of paradoxes, where two or more paradoxes are interdependent and reciprocally shape one another (Jarzabkowski et al. 2013). Accounting for this complexity in research will allow us to produce more accurate understanding of paradoxes and provide more

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    503 helpful guidance to organizations. A practice-​based view of paradox suggests that multiple paradoxes always express themselves in practice; it is thus a regular rather than special occurrence. As Bednarek et al. (2017) and Jarzabkowski and Sillince (2007) show, those experiencing paradox-​laden contexts do not necessarily focus on a single defining contradiction, but rather entangled layers of tension that constitute the complexity of operating within science or higher-​education domains.

Large-​scale Practices As outlined in our Principles (1–​3) above, there is much to be understood about the construction of larger-​scale, so-​called systemic paradoxes (Smith and Lewis 2011), through a focus on how they are enacted in micro and localized activities (Jarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Spee 2015; Nicolini 2013; Schatzki 2002). For instance, Jarzabkowski et al. (2015) outline how the global practice of reinsurance trading could be examined through detailed studies of local activities at multiple sites, following the connections between them (Marcus 1995; Nicolini 2013). To date, there have been few studies that have fully fleshed out the consequentiality of localized practices in constructing and (re-​) enacting larger paradoxes that span multiple sites and which multiple organizations both respond to and collectively enact. We, therefore, see scope for the implications of our Principle 3 to be more fully explored, although we recognize the methodological demands that such simultaneous zooming in and zooming out entails (Jarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Cabantous 2015; Nicolini 2013). Yet, such an approach has the opportunity to inform studies of institutional complexity (e.g., Smets et al. 2015; Suddaby, Seidl, and Lê 2013) by showing how wider institutional contradictions within society (e.g., Greenwood et al. 2011) are instantiated in the everyday practices of constructing and responding to paradox within organizations. Namely, institutional complexity that can characterize whole industries or sectors, unfolds as part of actors’ everyday improvisational working through tension in the moment (Chia and Holt 2006; Clegg et al. 2002).

Individuality Practice theory, while providing an avenue to study collective experience, also suggests that individual experience and variation is important (Schatzki 2001). However, paradox scholars have not been very effective in studying how paradoxes are experienced differentially by different members of an organization or how these experiences combine to produce a collective experience of and response to paradox. Consequently, we still know very little about how individual actors experience paradoxical tensions in their everyday life. Indeed, most of the literature continues to focus on paradoxes of organizing, that is, paradox at the organizational level (e.g., Andriopolous and Lewis 2009). By focusing on the everyday activities of locally situated actors, a practice approach can help us understand and explain how actors experience paradox individually and collectively. This

504    Paradox in Everyday Practice focus would enhance existing studies of cognition (Lewis 2000; Miron-​Spektor, Gino, and Argote 2011) and behavior (Lüscher and Lewis 2008) by taking them to a more granular level. In particular, as Holmqvist and Spicer (2013) state, the implications at the individual level of paradox (for instance, the demand to be ambidextrous employees) remains largely unexplored. We thus call for more work to be directed at the individual level to understand the micro-​dynamics that underpin paradoxes. We do so by taking the practitioners involved in everyday paradoxical work more seriously and making them the focus of study.

Emotions The paradox literature has focused on both behavior (e.g., Lüscher and Lewis 2008) and cognition (e.g., Lewis 2000). Yet, emotion, while also highlighted as important (Vince and Broussine 1996), has received comparatively little attention. Consequently, we do not know what role emotion plays in the experience of and response to paradox. By drawing our attention to practices, including emotional practices, a practice approach can inform the study of paradox at the individual and group level. For instance, Liu and Maitlis (2014) illustrate the importance of emotional displays—​including facial, physical, and verbal cues—​in interaction, demonstrating a contagion effect. Given the important role of emotion in driving interactional dynamics and the role of interactional dynamics in driving constructions of and responses to paradox (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017), emotions are likely to be important in the experience of paradox. Indeed, Jarzabkowski and Lê (2017) show how emotionally laden humor impacts not only how paradoxes are constructed, but also how response paths unfold. Emotions are embodied, tied to non-​verbal expressions, like gestures, and verbal expressions, like laughter, leading to another area for future research.

Materiality One important area continues to be the micro-​practices involved in constructing and responding to paradox. While there have been some inroads into exploring the discursive micro-​foundations of paradox and responses to paradox (e.g., Abdallah et al. 2011; Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007; Jarzabkowski and Lê 2017), few scholars have moved their focus beyond discourse. Yet, Schatzki (2001: 3) outlines the importance of “embodied, materially interwoven practices” in creating shared understanding about our social world. Thus, a practice-​theoretical perspective alerts us to the fact that paradoxes and responses to paradoxes are embedded in the material context and the everyday material tools and artifacts actors use, including how they move their bodies, for instance, through the way they position themselves in a room, or the clothes they wear. Thus, when a scientist wears a suit, s/​he may invoke the commercial–​science paradox (e.g., Bednarek et al. 2017), while a reinsurance broker wearing a tie may signal efforts to

Jane Lê and Rebecca Bednarek    505 compartmentalize tensions (e.g., Smets et  al. 2015). Additionally, tools used, such as the rating sheet employed by all reinsurance underwriters—​through which the paradox of ambiguity and certainty is navigated—​is an artifact that is associated with certain routinized activities, even as it is flexibly and individually used by specific actors (Jarzabkowski, Bednarek, and Spee 2016). Such technologies or material artifacts constrain and enable practices and, hence, become part of the construction of and response to tensions (Kaplan 2011; Orlikowski 2007; Orlikowski and Yates 1994; Vaara and Whittington 2012). Practice theory directs our attention to such issues of materiality and embodiment (e.g., Dameron et al. 2014).

Power and Politics Finally, a practice-​theoretical approach to paradox offers potential to better understand the power dynamics and micro-​politics inherent in organizations, and how they affect paradoxes and responses to paradoxes. Practices reproduce the positions and inequities exhibited in organizations, so that studying practice enables us to better understand these dynamics (Ortner 1984; Nicolini 2013). Thus, while elements of paradox may be mutually constituted, they are not necessarily in an equal relationship. Rather, they may be influenced by internal power and politics, producing practices that are laden with asymmetrical capacities for action and differential access to resources. In this sense, equally important does not mean equally represented. Such power could arise from the objectification and institutionalization of subjective relations (Bourdieu 1977, 1990) or from having the means to produce effects (Giddens 1984). Paradoxes of organizing, with their structural features, will thus show inherent traces of power and politics, which both constrain and enable everyday action. While performing paradoxes, which stem from the interests and demands of different stakeholders (Jay 2013), will be influenced by the power positions and resources of those stakeholders, belonging paradoxes are likely to be defined by identity politics. Such features are important to understanding how paradoxes unfold within everyday organizational dynamics.

Conclusion In this chapter we have further developed the “practice turn” (Schatzki et al. 2001) in paradox studies. We have highlighted the fruitful practice research already conducted in this area, as well as developed a research agenda for future research. Specifically, we highlight four main principles that define the practice turn in paradox theory, using these principles to suggest a practice-​based view of paradox as one potential framework for paradox scholars to advance our understanding of paradoxes and responses to paradoxes. We then make explicit avenues for future research, highlighting important

506    Paradox in Everyday Practice but less examined areas of study. Therein we hope to emphasize the power of the practice turn in paradox theory and the many exciting areas by which the perspective has advanced and can continue to advance paradox scholarship.

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Pa rt  I I I

E N G AG I N G PA R A D OX E S

Chapter 26

M ethods of Pa ra d ox Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi

Interest in the study of paradox within organizational research is steadily growing (e.g., Lewis 2000; Smith and Lewis 2011). This interest is spurred by an increase in the volume of theoretical and empirical work exploring tensions made salient through amplified plurality, change, and scarcity in organizational life. Contradictions abound in organizational goals, structures, processes, cultures, and identities, triggering paradoxical tensions among performance, organization, belonging, and learning (Lewis and Smith 2014). Not surprisingly, the work on paradoxes spans a range of phenomena—​from identity (e.g., Huy 2002; O’Mahony and Bechky 2006; Gotsi et al. 2010) and organizational identity (e.g., Albert and Whetten 1985; Jay 2013) to strategy (e.g., Smith 2014; Smets et al. 2015) and innovation (e.g., Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009). Paradox studies also use an assortment of qualitative and quantitative methodologies—​from action research (e.g., Lüscher and Lewis 2008) and case studies (e.g., Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007) to surveys (e.g., Keller and Loewenstein 2011) and experiments (e.g., Miron-​Spektor et al. 2011b). Interestingly, despite growing scholarly interest in paradoxes, few studies are expressly engaging with the methodological mechanics of “doing” paradox research. This is an important gap, as empirically assessing paradox is challenging. To begin with, the field lacks clearly established guidelines regarding what counts as paradox. Moreover, there is uncertainty around who sees/​thinks/​experiences the paradox and what is relevant when it comes to the emergence, choice, interpretation, and appropriation of paradoxes in empirical settings. Furthermore, there is still confusion around where one can find evidence of paradoxes. Despite widespread agreement that these challenges make the study, review and publication of paradox work a perplexing process, we still lack good guides on how to address them. This chapter aims to shed some light on this gap. We start by discussing how the aforementioned challenges problematize methods of studying paradox. We then offer a number of suggestions to aid paradox researchers in dealing with these methodological challenges. These propositions include: 1) showing evidence of contradictory, interrelated, simultaneous, and persistent paradoxical tensions in the empirical setting, 2) developing reliable and flexible protocols for paradox identification, 3) pushing for multilevel paradox studies, 4) practicing reflexivity, 5) staying close to the context, and 6) leveraging multi-​modality.

514   Methods of Paradox

Challenges of Studying Paradoxes What Is Paradox? The empirical literature abounds with varying definitions of paradox. Moreover, scholars often confuse definitions of paradox with similar tension-​oriented idioms such as dilemmas, dualities, and dialectics (Putnam et al. 2016). Smith and Lewis (2011) defined paradox as “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time.” This definition highlights two key constitutive elements -​contradiction and interdependence. Contradiction highlights the inconsistencies and conflicts between dual elements, as in the opposing black and white slivers in the yin–​yang. Paradox theory asserts that these distinct elements persist over time. Interdependence describes synergies, mutual-​constitution, and the interwoven nature of these distinct elements. The yin–​yang depicts interdependence as an overarching circle that encompasses distinct slivers, as well as the small dots enmeshed within their opposing hue. Such interdependence provokes the oppositional elements into an ongoing dynamic relationship (Schad et al. 2016). These constitutive elements distinguish paradoxes from dilemmas, in which choices between elements resolve the underlying dualities, and from dialectics, in which interactions over time fundamentally morph and change the underlying dualities (Smith and Lewis 2011). Despite these constitutive elements, variance remains in how scholars operationalize paradox in empirical studies. Some scholars emphasize contradiction between dual elements, but obscure any interdependence. Others highlight static relationships between opposing elements, but obscure the dynamic interplay between alternatives (Putnam et al. 2016; Schad et al. 2016). The proliferation of definitional focus and variability in the operationalization of paradox diminishes internal validity, complicates the basis for making more broad-​based theoretical inferences about the frequency of paradoxes and makes it challenging to compare across studies. Moreover, the lack of agreed-​upon criteria for paradox identification confuses reviewers and readers as they seek to evaluate theoretical claims. Such variation raises key questions for scholars studying paradox: What counts as evidence of paradox? What are the criteria for identifying paradoxes in empirical settings?

What Is the Locus of Paradox? While paradoxes may be inherent in our social world, individual sensemaking often reveals their contradictory and interdependent nature and differentiates them from resolvable tensions, dilemmas, and trade-​offs (Smith and Lewis 2011). In an empirical setting, this raises the question of who addresses these tensions -​the scholars conducting the study or the subjects of the investigation. That is, does the scholar “project” his or

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    515 her sensemaking inductively or deductively in an empirical setting, or does the scholar “elicit” paradoxes from the subjects of the study? A “projected” approach involves observing the contradictory and interdependent nature of competing demands that may even be unrecognized by the participants in the situation. In this approach, scholars remain detached, neutral, and objective as they measure aspects of paradoxes, examine relevant evidence, and explore antecedents and consequences of these paradoxes. For example, Lewis et al. (2002) investigated innovation–​efficiency paradoxes, exploring how contrasting management approaches impacted outcomes. Miron-​Spektor and colleagues (2011b) sought to understand how individual frames and cognitions employed to address paradoxes between novelty and usefulness impacted creativity and innovation. Keller and Loewenstein (2011) explored collaboration and cooperation, seeking to understand whether distinctions in the national cultures of the United States and China influenced how the individual approaches these paradoxes. In contrast to “projecting” paradoxes, the “eliciting” paradox approach entails a focus on processes by which people in their working life come to understand paradoxes, as well as their vicious or virtuous responses and relevant management practices. Scholars observed their subjects engaging with paradoxes through language, discourse, organizational text, and in situ artifacts (Putnam et al. 2016). The underpinning premise here is that “interpretations of the social world can, and for certain purposes, must refer to the subjective meaning of the actions of human beings from which social reality originates” (Schutz 1973: 62). Michaud (2014), for instance, showcased how numbers contribute to and mediate between different forms of board governance over time. Longitudinal, ethnographic data, including observation of board meetings and general assemblies, government-​related documents and semi-​structured interviews provided the in-​depth data from which to observe paradoxes of organizational governance. In another inductive study, Smith (2014) also followed an “elicitation” approach through case-​study research. She observed how six top management teams addressed tensions of exploration/​exploitation and revealed how some saw them as paradox and others did not. To empirically explore paradox, scholars must acknowledge whether their study projects or elicits paradox. Each approach then exposes a number of key questions. Inductive scholars projecting a paradox must then determine how they can validate the paradoxical nature of tensions they see in their data. Deductive scholars must establish how they can operationalize and/​or manipulate the paradox in their settings. Scholars eliciting a paradox must determine how they can validly demonstrate the paradoxical awareness or approaches of their research subjects. Beyond this, paradox researchers have to figure out how to conceptualize research questions that are relevant to participants’ experiences and also how to understand often unfamiliar situations. To date, paradox studies have largely remained cryptic about these issues while “projecting” or “eliciting” paradoxes. It is thus important to shed some light on the following questions: Who sees/​thinks/​experiences the paradox? What is the role of the researcher in the study of paradoxes?

516   Methods of Paradox

How Does Context Inform Paradoxical Insights? Researchers have made a broad methodological distinction between “contextual” and “decontextual” approaches in empirically researching paradox, stemming from their deeper ontological and epistemological assumptions. A contextual approach links paradoxes to the specific nature and setting of the study. Such studies surface and theorize about particular tensions. This contextual sensitivity adds richness and nuance to these studies, though at the expense of generalizability. For instance, Kreiner et al.’s (2015) ten-​year-​long multiple method study described paradoxical processes of identity work in response to changes in identity within the Episcopal Church. Organizational members simultaneously stretched their identities while holding together social constructions of identity. Decontextual studies explore paradoxes independent of their settings, or perhaps irrespective of the specific tensions. Frequently rooted in positivist paradigms, these studies often identify paradox meanings across actors and contexts. Such empirical studies more easily enable abstractions from local occurrences of paradoxes to general “categories” of paradoxes. For instance, Khazanchi et al. (2007) examined the paradoxical interplay between flexibility and control values across North American manufacturing plants. Looking at Taiwanese strategic business units, Lin and McDonough (2014) found that ambidextrous cognitive frames, featuring an independent and a reflective cognitive style, foster ambidexterity. In their study of an R&D company, Miron-​Spektor et al. (2011a) measured cognitive styles in forty-​one teams. They found that including creative and conformist members enhanced team radical innovation, while attentive-​to-​detail members had the opposite effect. Amidst this distinction, scholarly discourse on how context informs the emergence, choice, interpretation, and appropriation of paradoxes remains limited. Little discussion exists on how wider socio-​cultural influences shape paradoxes, how multiple intra-​organizational interpretations can be considered and how other contextual factors such as time may mold paradoxes. For instance, scholars often aggregate individual perspectives on tensions to a collective level, with little insight about multilevel, individual–​collective processes that shape organizational paradoxes. Reviewers, thus, commonly argue that scholars often extrapolate too readily from identified tensions in a text to generalized paradoxes across an organization. And paradox researchers are largely puzzled about how to open up space to unpack the socially constructed nature of paradoxes in their empirical settings. Grasping what words or phrases actually mean cannot be achieved solely by an analysis of these words or phrases (Giora 1997). They embody different interests, are open to contradictions and subject to multiple interpretations (Nicolini 2009); context, thus, matters in understanding paradoxes. A pressing danger is the development of laundry lists of paradoxes that are detached from their context and their dynamic relationships with other elements of organizational life. It is thus important to consider the following questions:

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    517 What role does context play in the empirical study? How do we capture paradoxes and the terrain that shapes them?

Where Can One Find Paradoxes? Historically, work on paradox in organizational studies has primarily focused on paradoxes in discourse and text (through interviews, studying discourse, or observation) (e.g., Argyris 1988; Putnam 1986) or numbers (through surveys and secondary data) (e.g., Michaud 2014). This, however, is problematic. First, it may miss paradoxes elsewhere in organizational life. Individuals, for instance, express paradox broadly beyond their language, including through musical, spatial, or kinesthetic expression. Textual data, verbal descriptions, and quantitative measures thus may offer only a limited perspective on the phenomenon. Gestures, sounds, laughter, humor, and other modes of expression rarely feature as sources of paradox (see Jarzabkowski and Lê, forthcoming). Moreover, even as paradoxes surface in and through feelings, relatively few studies explore emotions (Schad et al. 2016; Vince and Broussine 1996). Second, overreliance on traditional data sources neglects the opportunity for triangulation. Looking for paradoxes in a wider repertoire of options may not only help with problems of measurement bias and construct validity in positivistic paradox studies, but may also improve understanding of the phenomenon for more interpretivist paradox work (Brewer and Hunter 1989). Expanding the search for paradoxes in non-​traditional sources can help increase the depth and scope of inquiry in empirical studies. Despite increased calls for a richer account of paradox-​related processes in and around the organization, studies still largely focus on textual data, verbal descriptions, and quantitative measures. The following question, thus, appears critical to the development of the paradox field: How can paradox scholars move beyond verbal, text-​based descriptions and quantitative measures of paradoxes?

Moving Forward The growing paradox field must pay greater attention to methodological issues around what counts as paradox, who sees/​thinks/​experiences the paradox, what role context plays and where one can find paradoxes. In concluding this chapter, we would like to put forward some suggestions for advancing paradox research taking these issues into consideration (for a summary see Table 26.1).

518   Methods of Paradox Table 26.1 Empirically studying paradoxes: issues, decisions, and suggestions Key methodological issues

Decisions to be made

Suggestions

What?

What counts as evidence of paradox? What are the criteria for identifying paradoxes in empirical settings?

Showing evidence of contradictory, interrelated, simultaneous, and persistent paradoxical tensions in the empirical setting. Developing reliable and flexible protocols for paradox identification.

Who?

Who sees/​thinks/​experiences the paradox? What is the role of the researcher in the study of paradoxes?

Pushing for multilevel paradox studies.

How?

What role does context play in the empirical study? How do we capture paradoxes and the terrain that shapes them?

Staying close to the context.

Where?

How can paradox scholars move beyond verbal, text-​based descriptions and quantitative measures of paradoxes?

Leveraging multi-​modality.

Practicing reflexivity.

Showing Evidence of Contradictory, Interrelated, Simultaneous, and Persistent Tensions Scholars need to provide an in-​depth account of what they specify as paradoxical in their studies. The theoretical work of Lewis (2000) and Smith and Lewis (2011) can serve as valuable guides in this process. As we noted earlier, Smith and Lewis’s (2011: 382) definition of paradox as “contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously and persist over time”, highlights key features of paradox: 1) contradictory, 2) interdependent, 3) simultaneous, and 4) persistent. Operationalizing paradox must hence begin with an identification of contradictions. This means that researchers need to search for opposing elements in their data. For instance, ambidexterity scholars focus on the opposing sides of exploitation and exploration. In their in-​depth case study of a large Scandinavia-​based telecommunications company, Papachroni et al. (2016) identified different interpretations of tensions around the firm’s strategic orientation across organizational levels. These included simultaneous and interdependent tensions around defending and growing existing business, while exploring new opportunities for growth. In a similar vein, Jansen et al. (2008) asked executive directors to provide information about exploratory and exploitative activities

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    519 at their individual branches. Doing so allowed them to capture variance in engaging competing demands across branches. At the same time, paradox researchers need to capture the interdependent and simultaneous nature of paradoxical tensions in their empirical studies. Unlike continua or either/​or choices, paradoxes denote opposing sides of the same coin. For example, Pascale (1992) captured interdependence by questioning managers about their existing, polarized frames to enable them to recognize relatedness and develop new and more insightful understanding of paradoxical tensions. For example, they began to understand that attempts to enhance group cohesion fueled desires for individual expression. In their survey of eighty product development projects, Lewis et al. (2002) found that contrasting project management styles offer disparate but interwoven approaches to monitoring, evaluation, and control activities and enhance performance. Similarly, He and Wong (2004) investigated how exploration and exploitation jointly influence firm performance. Using a sample of 206 manufacturing firms, they found that the interaction between explorative and exploitative innovation strategies is positively related to sales growth rate, while the relative imbalance between explorative and exploitative innovation strategies is negatively related to sales growth rate. Further, the interdependent nature of paradoxes should spur researchers to explore paradoxical tensions across levels in their data. Multilevel paradox studies can elucidate how tensions at one level of analysis may spark tensions in other levels. Such multilevel studies can enhance our insight into paradoxes. Bottom-​up emergent processes and top-​ down processes have been employed as complementary approaches to multilevel investigation (Kozlowski and Klein 2000). For instance, Papachroni et al. (2016) identified a variety of interpretations of the innovation–​efficiency tension across levels, ultimately influencing how ambidexterity is pursued in practice. Informants at the more operational and middle-​management levels highlighted innovation as a means to higher efficiency, while informants at higher organizational levels saw innovation and efficiency as interrelated yet conflicting. In their comparative case studies of NPD consultancies, Andriopoulos and Lewis (2009) interviewed actors across levels and also demonstrated nested innovation tensions of strategic intent (profit-​breakthroughs) at the top management level, which cascaded to the project level (tight–​loose coupling), and to designers’ own personal drivers (discipline–​passion). Empirical paradox studies, thus, need to take an integrative perspective and aim to analyze interrelations and interactions as a dynamic process (Teunissen 1996). Lastly, paradoxical tensions persist over time. Some studies may take a longitudinal approach, depicting the persistence of underlying tensions (Jay 2013). Other studies can collect cross-​sectional data across different points in time in their study. Gotsi et al. (2010), for instance, argued that creative workers persistently grapple with their creative and business identities, but can become better at managing this tension through paradoxical identity regulation practices. Similarly, Miron-​Spektor et al. (2011b) examined how the adoption of paradoxical frames enhances creativity. They discussed the persistent conflict between thinking outside the box and offering practical solutions that can be implemented within organizational constraints. They proposed the positive influence of

520   Methods of Paradox paradoxical frames as an answer to this conundrum. Paradoxical tensions are dynamic–​ cyclical and constantly shifting in their relationship to one another. Revealing evidence of the dynamic nature of these tensions and their management, therefore, requires researchers to pay attention to temporality and process in their empirical settings.

Developing Reliable and Flexible Protocols for Paradox Identification Published studies are increasingly providing details on how they identify the aforementioned characteristics of paradoxes in their empirical settings. For instance, in their interviews with NPD professionals, Andriopoulos and Lewis (2009) identified patterns and variance in descriptions of innovation tensions using language indicators such as tension, friction, yet, but, on one hand . . . on the other hand, juggle, balance, it can swing both ways, there is a fine line, how can you . . . and still. They also looked for contradictory statements within the same transcript. Moreover, in their experimental study, Miron-​Spektor et al. (2011b) discussed how they manipulated cognitive frames by using a priming task in which participants read a description of a product and then reported on the features that they thought made the product successful. Miron-​Spektor et al. (2011b) varied the product’s description, triggering a creativity frame (stressing novelty), an efficiency frame (emphasizing low cost and efficient production), a creativity–​efficiency frame (creativity or efficiency features were noted) and a paradoxical frame (creativity and emphasis focus). Yet, the field is far from having established methodological guidelines on how to identify paradoxes in data. What would greatly help, thus, is the development of reliable and flexible protocols for paradox identification. Such protocols would start with a definition of paradox and then highlight processes which researchers can use to go through transcribed text, archival material, observation notes, artifacts, images, videos, etc. to identify words, expressions, emotions, gestures, images, physical characteristics, etc. that signify paradoxical meanings. The development of units (a “dictionary” of words/​expressions/​emotions/​images/​ object characteristics) to be used to identify reliably paradoxical meanings in different modalities would be a great help. Researchers could then go through, for instance, a transcribed text and look for, in each sentence, words and expressions that signify paradoxical meanings. Incorporating reliability assessments into this process would also help. While identifying paradoxes, researchers can, for instance, measure the number of cases (words, word combinations, expressions, emotions, images, object characteristics) that different coders regard as paradoxical and then compare the cases. When differences are too great, the reliability is problematic. The widely used Cohen’s Kappa (k) (Cohen 1960) could measure reliability in categorizing paradoxes. The benefits of paradox identification protocols would be threefold. First, they would help minimize researchers’ biases regarding evidence of paradoxes in their research

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    521 context. This is an important benefit, taking into account growing pressures for objectivity, and researchers’ perceptual and cognitive limitations. Second, definitional rigor would improve precision in identifying paradoxes in speech, text, artifacts, and other modalities. Third, a commonly understood paradox “vocabulary” would enable more direct comparisons of different empirical analyses across different contexts. Obviously, scholars employing paradox identification protocols would also encounter challenges. Developing and applying such protocols would not be an easy or quick task. For instance, the more empirical data move away from the purely written modality, the less straightforward the process of paradox identification is likely to be. Moreover, although external sources such as dictionaries are very helpful in establishing the basic meanings of words, dictionaries can also vary in their descriptions of meanings. Cross-​ checking multiple dictionaries is, thus, recommended to avoid such problems. In addition, multi-​word units, expressions, metaphors, and idioms may pose greater challenges for paradox identification than single word analyses. Further, researchers need to make decisions as to whether they are observing/​interpreting latent versus salient paradoxes. For instance, they will need to be clear about whether individuality–​collaboration tensions lie dormant in a creative setting, or whether they have become salient due to changes in reward structures, cost-​cutting, or increased competition.

Pushing for Multilevel Paradox Studies Paradoxes occur concurrently on several intra-​and extra-​ organizational levels (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009). Multiple “voices” are thus important when it comes to studying paradoxes empirically. For example, paradoxes prevalent at the top management level can cascade downwards and influence, constrain, or shape paradoxes that are experienced by middle management, groups, and individuals. Empirical studies, thus, not only need to understand how paradoxes emerge at the top, but also how they are understood by and how they influence those on lower organizational levels and how they affect day-​to-​day practices (Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008). Practice research, for instance, can help to further understand not only how senior management experiences and manages paradoxes, but also how these practices are perceived by and how they influence those in lower organizational levels and are translated into their daily practices. Jarzabkowski and Lê (forthcoming) conducted such a practice study, collecting real-​time longitudinal qualitative data from senior and middle managers (through non-​participant observation, interviews, archival material, and impromptu interactions) over twenty-​four months at a telecommunications company. Paradox research questions can also focus on bottom-​up emergence, where dynamic interactions among individuals, teams, and organizational units may, over time, bring to the surface paradoxes that manifest at higher levels. Interventions to manage these paradoxes could elicit different interpretations and reactions across levels. Yet, we must acknowledge that such complexity makes researching paradox challenging. Multiple levels and multiple related processes may all impact the paradoxes under investigation.

522   Methods of Paradox This quest for “nested” foci requires paradox researchers to constantly explore: What are the causes, the reasons or explanations for the occurrence of paradoxes? What impact/​effects do they have? Are there any intervening conditions that seem to be playing a role? We, therefore, encourage paradox scholars to use methods that enable them to go beyond the formal, macro level and consider further the interaction between top-​level interventions and organizational responses from different levels. This also calls for a greater repertoire of methods in studying paradox. Case studies and ethnography can only go part way to generating depth and breadth in empirical paradox studies. Methods such as dialogue-​based group-​level data-​gathering techniques may elicit valuable participant-​generated insights, not accessible through individual interviews. For example, limited-​structure focus groups, where participants interact, trigger each other, and challenge one another’s contributions can be a useful method for paradox studies. They can help unearth organizational actors’ views, issues, and experiences. Moreover, self-​report methods (such as diaries) and video data can also provide researchers with a more intimate view of paradoxes in use, as experienced by different organizational actors. Diaries and videos will allow paradox scholars to access events in real time, during times when paradoxes become salient.

Practicing Reflexivity The importance of reflexivity as a process for making the research process visible is also paramount while studying paradoxes. Researchers need to situate themselves socially and emotionally in relation to the experience of their respondents and reflect upon their biases, assumptions, even their personality, to ascertain whether what they heard, read, or saw conveys what respondents said, did, or felt, rather than what the researcher thought and felt. Making themselves deliberately aware of their biases is important so that their ability to truly capture the voice of their respondents is not hampered (Mauther and Doucet 2003). They also have to think about how their familiarity with participants’ experience may impact all stages of the research process: from sampling to data collection, data analysis, and drawing conclusions. A necessary balance between researchers’ own experience and that of the study’s participants, thus, needs to be achieved. An example is the work of Jay (2013) in hybrid organizations. To study how the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA) changed over time, Jay (2013) conducted a two-​ year ethnographic study, gathering participant observation, interviews, and archival data. His guiding research questions explored the challenges that CEA faced as a hybrid organization, and how people thought about their hybridity and under what conditions and through what practices they overcame the challenges. Throughout his empirical study, Jay (2013) sought to be reflexive and transparent about his impact, to triangulate insights with multiple data sources and reflect on his role when theorizing about the organizational processes observed. Interestingly, his observations also revealed that

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    523 organizational members became more reflexive and aware of the paradox during the organizational change. We advise paradox researchers to stay close to the words used by organizational actors and seek feedback on their interpretations. Using a log to record what participants have said or done, the interpretation, and what the researcher thought or felt about it can also help (Berger 2015). Other practical measures include reviewing material more than once during the phase of data analysis. Involving more people in different stages of the project (from collecting data to comparing analysis of more than one coder) can also aid the accuracy of the study.

Staying Close to the Context Paradox scholars also have to stay close to the life-​world of their subjects (or objects) when they interpret paradoxes in use and the practices employed to manage these paradoxes. This does not mean that paradox researchers should not group or categorize paradoxes and make theoretical abstractions. Yet laundry lists of paradoxes that are detached from their context may enable scholars to gain in generality, but lose in accuracy and depth. Researchers, thus, need to consider what is relevant within their paradox setting. This involves uncovering reasons—​factors and conditions that explain the emergence, choice, interpretation, and appropriation of particular paradoxes in their empirical setting. They must put the emphasis on revealing the drivers and inhibitors of paradoxes and their management within their settings and at particular points in time, and unveiling the temporal and spatial contextual factors that are shaping the meanings, uses, and management of these paradoxes. Smith (2014), for instance, carried out her research in the strategic business units (SBUs) of a Fortune 500 corporation, drawing on their strategic commitments to exploit and explore in their annual budget plans. To unveil contradictions, informants were asked to describe challenges in managing multiple strategic domains and how they responded to these challenges. Smith (2014) discussed how competitive contexts increasingly pose paradoxical demands on firms and their senior leaders. Within the context of her study, she found that paradoxes and dilemmas were interwoven, exposing issues related to resources, organizational design, and product design. She, thus, proposed the value of dynamic decision-​making and leadership practices in sustaining strategic paradoxes and facilitating an adaptive context. Staying close to the context obviously requires suitable research methods. Research questions focusing on how paradoxes emerge, how they develop, how they grow, or how they terminate over time, may be better suited, for example, to process studies. Here, the emphasis is on how events unfold temporally and sequentially to cause different input variables to exert their influence on one or more outcome variables. For example, in his in-​depth field study of the public–​private Cambridge Energy Alliance, Jay (2013) unveiled a process model of navigating performance paradoxes, through a synthesis of organizational logics.

524   Methods of Paradox Longitudinal research designs are suited to research questions seeking to explain virtuous and vicious cycles in managing paradoxes. Taking into account that extant paradox research is predominantly static, researchers need to employ more methods that access the dynamics of paradox across time and achieve more nuanced temporal theorizing about cycles, pacing, and event sequences. An example of a study that adopted a longitudinal method showcasing rhythms of change and firm performance is the work of Klarner and Raisch (2013). In their explorative analysis of sixty-​seven European insurance companies’ annual reports between 1995 and 2004, they identified that corporate strategic changes take place in distinct rhythms (regular or irregular): focused, punctuated, and temporarily switching. They showed that firms that change regularly outperform peers that change irregularly. Researchers should also conduct paradox studies across contexts. Paradox studies have rarely focused on national differences, for instance (see Keller and Loewenstein 2011; Li 2014; Nisbett 2010), perhaps because of the difficulty in conducting empirical work across national contexts and the increasing emphasis on the universal over the particular. In a rare cross-​national empirical paradox study, Keller and Loewenstein (2011) argued that understanding the cultural construction of organizations is important. They, thus, employed a cultural consensus model analysis to assess what types of situations respondents categorized as cooperative and whether these categorizations were consistent within and across China and the United States.

Leveraging Multi-​modality Despite the fact that paradoxes may occur in different modalities (including artifacts, text from archival material, signs, images, gestures, emotions, sounds, or even music), researchers have rarely studied them. We, thus, call for more multi-​modal research in paradox studies. In particular, we argue that non-​traditional data sources can offer rich insights. Extant studies tend to over-​rely on “traditional” data sources, such as interviews, observations, and archival data. We encourage paradox scholars to move beyond these modalities and start drawing insights from more diverse sources, including narratives, photographs, organizational artifacts, and non-​verbal interactions. The study of Vince and Broussine (1996), which focuses on organizational members’ emotions underlying organizational change, fostering forces of uncertainty and defensiveness, is an example of one study that moved beyond traditional sources. In their participative research process, the researchers used drawings with managers in six public service organizations to tease out such paradoxical emotions, and work with these as part of the management change process. In particular, the researchers asked participants in workshops to draw pictures that expressed their feelings about changes at work. They were then invited to reflect and set down notes on the reverse of their drawings. This was followed by group reflections on each drawing and individual interpretations. Language certainly played a key role in the articulation of paradoxes in the drawings.

Constantine Andriopoulos and Manto Gotsi    525 This multi-​modal perspective on paradox enabled Vince and Broussine (1996) to capture a deeper basis for their interpretive analysis. We also encourage researchers to study paradoxes in modes of expression, which may extend language, as different modes of expression may instantiate or extend linguistic paradoxes. Hatch and Ehrlich (1993), for instance, observed the laughing that took place during a series of routine staff meetings held by senior managers of a unit within a large, multinational computer company. They argued that laughter in these meetings pointed to paradox and ambiguity, even when some group members failed to respond to remarks that they did not find funny. Combining humor and laughing analysis with the study of paradox enabled Hatch and Ehrlich (1993) to access everyday experiences in their case organization. In a later study, Hatch (1997) also studied laughter and irony in the social construction of contradiction. She argued that laughter not only indicated an affection, but also group involvement in the construction of ironic humor in her empirical setting. The cognitive and emotional aspects of irony produced the experience of contradiction that materialized in shared laughter. Interpretations of ironically humorous remarks reflected managers’ contradictory constructions of their everyday interactions as a management team. Similarly, Jarzabkowski and Lê (forthcoming) also looked at laughter as a means of socially constructing paradox, shaping the way managers formulated and legitimated their responses to paradox. By adopting a practice approach, their study revealed that as managers joined the laughter about the paradoxical nature of their tasks, they also joined constructions of ways to perform those tasks.

Conclusion The proliferation and complexity of paradox studies remains both exciting and daunting. While these studies reinforce a core body of knowledge, they often obscure because of the use of inadequate methodological approaches. Our goal in this chapter was to advance paradox research by revealing and addressing key methodological challenges. We invite paradox scholars to sharpen their methodological rigor and expand their methods and data sources to further advance our understanding of organizational paradoxes.

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Chapter 27

Expanding t h e Par ad ox–​P edag o g y L i nks Paradox as a Threshold Concept in Management Education Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis

The main aim of our chapter is to explore how business school instructors can teach paradox by creating appropriate conditions through which students “see” and “appreciate” the paradoxical nature of tensions in real contexts. Accordingly, in what follows we examine how educators can instil an appreciation of paradox in students’ learning. In a pedagogical environment, the literature has expanded beyond acknowledging the role of static tools in enabling student learning to how learning is achieved through practice (Paroutis, Heracleous, and Angwin 2016). Here a practice-​led approach to teaching and learning sensitizes our analysis to the process through which the use of tools (Jarzabkowski and Kaplan 2014) allows individuals to acquire new knowledge. However, there are still a number of unanswered questions relevant to those who wish to teach paradox, such as how a management educator creates environments for students that are conducive to learning about paradox In this chapter we examine the intersections of paradox and pedagogy, focusing on the ways paradoxical tensions can become salient to students involved in a capstone strategy consultation course (Greiner, Bhambri, and Cummings 2003; Knight and Paroutis 2017). We propose paradoxes as a “threshold concept,” which irrevocably transform the way individuals think about, and respond to, competing tensions (Meyer and Land 2003). We approach this discussion from the perspective of offering pedagogical guidance to engaged teachers, interested in instilling an appreciation of paradoxical tensions in students. However, in our future research directions we signal the opportunity to apply this perspective outside the classroom and within organizations, as these participants rise to become the senior leaders of tomorrow inside the organizations we research.

530   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links We structure the present chapter as follows. First, we examine two dimensions of the paradox–​pedagogy relationship: a) paradox as embedded in pedagogy and b) paradox as the subject of pedagogy, and demonstrate how each dimension operates. We then highlight the connections and linkages across these two dimensions using the notion of “threshold concepts” in the context of paradox by first describing the principles behind thresholds concepts, and contemplating their implications for paradox theory and approaches to teaching. We then use a case study of an MBA capstone strategy course developed by the first author to showcase ways that paradox as a threshold concept can be applied to curriculum development and teaching practice. We finally review the future directions for the paradox–​pedagogy relationship, and possibilities for research both inside and outside the classroom.

Paradox–​P edagogy Links: Threshold Concepts Scholars now appreciate that paradoxes are both inherent in organizational life and socially constructed (Smith and Lewis 2011). Paradoxes are inherent because contradictory yet interdependent tensions are embedded both within organizational sub-​systems, but are also ubiquitous in complex, dynamic environments within which organizations operate (Knight and Paroutis 2017). These tensions remain latent so long as individuals remain oblivious to the contradictory yet interdependent relationship between poles. However, as environmental factors (Smith and Lewis 2011), actors’ cognition (Smith and Tushman 2005) and leadership practices (Lewis, Andriopoulos, and Smith 2014) render the nature of these tensions apparent to individuals, paradoxes can become salient to organizational actors. In this respect, paradoxes are understood not only as inherent but are also socially constructed, since their appreciation depends on individuals’ interactions with others (Lüscher and Lewis 2008) and can lead to particular responses (Bednarek, Paroutis, and Sillince 2016; Papachroni, Heracleous, and Paroutis 2016). Overall, paradoxes are both complex and socially constructed in a way that the pedagogy associated with their awareness demands particular attention. Empirical studies on paradox provide insights about mechanisms enabling participants’ appreciation of paradoxical tensions (Knight and Harvey 2015). These mechanisms can further inform educational interventions. Smith (2014), for example, noted that once certain individuals such as top managers accommodate paradoxical tensions, they exercise skills and decision-​making attributes that enable consistently inconsistent attention to both poles over the long term. This suggests that having learnt paradoxical cognition, individuals may struggle to unlearn their appreciation of paradox. A practice-​based perspective on paradox has also been deployed recently to uncover the micro-​foundations of responses to paradox, embedded in in-​the-​moment dynamics between cognition and action (Jarzabkowski and Lê 2016). This has been used by Knight and Paroutis (2017) to

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    531 show how top management team leaders actively construct “interpretive contexts” that enable middle managers to appreciate paradoxical tensions within a given business unit context. This suggests that sensemaking about paradoxical tensions is not only rooted in individual cognition, but also the environmental contexts that are socially constructed by organizational actors in order to trigger sensemaking about paradoxical tensions. In the context of management education the question is how to translate the concept, processes, and practices of paradox in both the MBA and executive classrooms. At this point it is important to highlight two dimensions of the paradox–​pedagogy relationship: a) paradox as embedded in pedagogy, in other words, how paradox pervades the pedagogy of management educators, and b) paradox as the subject of pedagogy, or how to actually teach students the art of paradoxical thinking. In this chapter we specifically focus on the second dimension and show educators can teach paradox effectively in the management education setting. We propose that threshold concepts can provide a basis on which educators can develop appropriate interventions to assist with individuals’ learning of paradox. The notion of threshold concepts has emerged in recent times to characterize cognitive templates that are so transformative that, having learnt them, they are impossible to forget (Meyer and Land 2003). For example, the principle of supply and demand in economics is characterized as a threshold concept because it is ubiquitous in everyday practices. Once an individual understands the principles of supply and demand, it is impossible to forget it since it is continually reinforced in dynamics inherently embedded in organizing systems. Threshold concepts are useful from a pedagogical perspective because they bring into relief the notion of “learning” and “unlearning.” Specifically, threshold concepts offer a way of explaining why certain cognitive templates persist over time but which change over time (Schatzki 2001). Focusing on these central conditions for threshold concepts, we suggest that the paradoxes in a pedagogical context can develop across four complementary dimensions. First, threshold concepts are transformative, meaning they can help achieve a powerful shift in understanding. Second, threshold concepts are irreversible, meaning that once these concepts are applied they cannot be un-​applied. Third, threshold concepts are integrative, meaning that they become salient through interdependence. Fourth, threshold concepts are bounded, meaning there is a limit to the conceptual domain of the concept. We now explain each of these dimensions, outline the implications for paradox theory, and in the final section of this chapter offer specific suggestions and best practices about how to implement these ideas during the first author’s curriculum development for an MBA capstone course.

Dimension 1: Transformative Principle Threshold concepts are regarded as concepts that are able to occasion a significant shift in the perception of a subject (Meyer and Land 2005). This shift occurs as

532   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links taken-​for-​granted assumptions are overturned with a contrasting set of ideas with enhanced explanatory power. The transformative nature of this shift is experienced through an affective response, such as a change in values, attitudes, or feelings. Meyer and Land (2003) cite the example of aquatic confidence, where children overcome initial fear of water (taken-​for-​granted assumptions) to embrace the pleasure of being in the water (change in feelings). As individuals gain an enhanced appreciation of a new experience, they become comfortable with the values or affective responses associated with the “shift” and are happy to work through and even live with the tensions it creates.

Demonstration within Paradox Theory Paradoxes become salient as actors apply paradoxical cognition. This involves the application of mental templates, or paradoxical frames (Smith and Tushman 2005) that allow individuals to embrace the seeming irreconcilable contradictions within situations and tasks. Paradoxical cognition can be transformative, changing the affective and discursive responses that individuals have to the world around them The transformative effects can also be appreciated through “discourses of transcendence” (Abdallah, Denis, and Langley 2011) or developing a “workable certainty” (Lüscher and Lewis 2008), which equips individuals with new, previously uncontemplated, handholds for interpreting contradictory tensions. Thus, applying a paradox lens can transform our understanding of a situation through the application of an alternative mental template, and the affective and discursive effects this entails.

Implications for Pedagogy An implication for teaching paradoxes is that individuals may require a safe, trusted learning environment in order to appreciate transformative concepts such as paradox. By this, we mean that transformative ideas present ambiguity and uncertainty for individuals. In order to facilitate active responses to this ambiguity, secure relationships may be needed in order to create an environment in which individuals are able to learn. One way to facilitate this is through purposefully designed educational interventions, where students work with known colleagues to wrestle with tensions. This means that as they face diversity, they are also able to engage in regular, face-​to-​face communication in order to moderate variety to a “requisite” level in order to facilitate learning (Weick 1979). What students perceive as safe may vary based on individual needs and experience. For example, students who wrestle with individual learning may build confidence through team-​based interactions. Conversely, students who feel challenged in team-​based learning may need individualized attention through personalized feedback sessions. More broadly, educators may consider tools such as informal contact with an external facilitator and a supportive network provided by an educational institution as ways to foster safety in the face of a transformative learning context. This supports students as they encounter environments which render strong, affective responses to paradoxical tension.

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    533

Dimension 2: Irreversible Principle Threshold concepts are regarded as irreversible in the sense that once individuals apply paradoxical frames, they are not able to “unlearn” their new mental modes without considerable effort. This stems from the notion that threshold concepts are embedded in how we think and what we do. By transforming our thinking, these flow through into actions. As these actions are performed, they reinforce our thinking. In this respect, threshold concepts are mutually self-​reinforcing as individuals are forced to confront their ongoing and dynamically reinforcing nature.

Demonstration within Paradox Theory Paradox scholars tend to contrast a paradox perspective with a contingency-​based view of organizing, which seeks to optimize structures and processes against certain organizational contexts (Knight and Paroutis 2017). This motivates either/​or decision-​making, in contrast to both/​and thinking. Appreciating paradox as a threshold concept pushes us one step further, not only suggesting that contingency and paradox perspectives are different, but that individuals are unable to return exclusively to a contingency perspective without considering it alongside a paradox perspective. The irreversible nature of threshold concepts is also theoretically consistent with a practice-​based view of paradox, which are attentive to the actual lived experience of paradoxes (Chia and Holt 2009). Paradox scholars acknowledge that paradoxes can be constituted in in-​the-​moment activities such as humor statements (Hatch and Erhlich 1993), or discourses of transcendence (Abdallah et al. 2011; Bednarek et al. 2017). However, the irreversible nature of threshold concepts highlights the way in which these practices are not “lost” in these momentary instantiations of paradox, but persist through their structural embeddedness, for example, in experiences, memories, and mindsets. This differs from organizing and performing paradoxes, as they relate to residual structures that are retained by the individuals themselves rather than within the organization. Furthermore, whilst belonging paradoxes are attentive to these subjective dimensions, they specifically relate to identity rather than, for example, values, attitudes, or feelings. This extends our understanding of paradox by highlighting how the persistence of paradoxes is both socially constructed but also intrinsic to individuals who have had certain experiences. Thus, learning is not only constituted through attributes in personal construct theory (Wright, Paroutis, and Blettner 2013), but also in how these constructs are enacted in real-​life situations

Implications for Pedagogy The irreversible nature of a paradox perspective complicates individuals’ future responses to tensions. Having learned about a contingency approach, and then a paradox approach, individuals may realize the value of each, and apply one in relation to the other. In order to recreate this complexity in the classroom, an important aspect

534   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links of teaching paradox may be the need to purposefully design simulations or learning contexts in vivo in which students are exposed to tensions and develop responses to these. This allows students to apply pedagogical principles outside formal tuition settings, through practice, and learn the benefit of contingency and paradox perspectives alongside each other. For example, work-​integrated settings allow students to apply managerial toolkits within “real life settings,” and balance competing tensions between prioritizing one demand (e.g., exploration or exploitation) or balancing both (exploration and exploitation). Here, the complexity of organizational problems can be brought to life through pedagogical tools that draw attention to particular phenomena or settings. In these ways, the workplace serves as a useful site to enhance managerial tools. However, the reverse is also true:  tools may also enhance the workplace as students bring experiences from prior lessons to bear on their everyday managerial practices. For example, as individuals shift from being students to becoming managers within organizations, they may experience déjà vu. Tensions experienced in the workplace may be experienced as paradoxes when they are reminded of similarities to work-​integrated educational environments. Thus, external validation and reminders may be important to effect the sustained appreciation and its impact of paradox by participants.

Dimension 3: Integrative Principle Threshold concepts are integrative, meaning that they bring together aspects of a subject that did not previously seem related. In this respect, threshold concepts serve as a theoretical lens that enables seemingly disparate issues to be inter-​related (Meyer and Land 2013). Furthermore, whilst scholars acknowledge that there is a limit to how many concepts can be brought together, the integrative nature of threshold concepts means that they are translatable across disciplines.

Demonstration within Paradox Theory Framing paradoxes as a threshold concept with integrative qualities is consistent with regarding it as a meta-​theoretical lens. By this we recognize that paradoxes are inherent in the world, and are “unconstrained by particular contexts, variables, and methods” (Lewis and Smith 2014: 7). Paradox integrates across varying phenomena, varying types of tensions, and even across various levels of analysis. A further integrative element of paradox theory is that it is not the mere awareness of alternate, contradictory poles that renders paradoxical tensions salient (Knight and Paroutis 2017). Rather, elements must be appreciated as both contradictory and interdependent over time. Although many scholars have highlighted the contradictory nature of poles, for example, between exploration and exploitation or social welfare and for profit, the mutual dependence between these concepts is just as important. Thus, paradox scholarship endeavors to show, for example, that exploitation cannot be pursued

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    535 without simultaneous exploration and vice versa. This mutual interdependence is a key attribute of paradox in contrast to, for example, contingency theory in which the contradiction between poles is perceived as a problem needing to be solved (Papachroni et al. 2016).

Implications for Pedagogy An implication for this in teaching paradox is that a paradox lens needs to be applicable across multiple organizational phenomena. Problem-​based learning shifts the pedagogical focus away from specific principles and tools to the use of those tools to address specific tensions or challenges. Paradox is amenable to these educational environments, since paradoxes can be identified in multiple industries, types of organizations, and levels of analysis. In this respect, the integrative nature of paradox is appreciated through the diversity of the educational setting rather than specialization in a single setting.

Dimension 4: Bounded Principle Threshold concepts delineate a particular conceptual space. Thus they serve particular but limited purposes in order to enhance conceptual understandings. Although threshold concepts must be transferable across disciplines, they cannot be so ubiquitous that they are indistinct. The definition of the boundaries of a threshold concept is therefore crucial to its integrity (Meyer and Land 2003).

Demonstration within Paradox Theory Not all tensions are paradoxical. Rather, paradoxical tensions refer only to those tensions that are both contradictory and interdependent and persist simultaneously over time. Although paradoxical tensions may be latent or salient, the bounded nature of paradox brings to the fore the nature of salience (Knight and Paroutis 2017). Salience may be defined as the conditions in which the social construction of tensions renders the perceived relationship between poles as contradictory and interdependent. When one or other of these conditions is not perceived, paradoxes remain latent. Thus, even though they have the potential to be perceived, they have different effects on the organization through their social construction.

Implications for Pedagogy An implication for teaching paradox is that paradoxical appreciation may need deliberate instruction by an external facilitator. Although paradoxes are latent, it is not until the dimensions of paradox are rendered salient to students that they are able to experience them as paradoxical as opposed to more generalized tensions. This may be facilitated through mechanisms such as conceptual frameworks, strategy tools, and formal lecturing that share cognitive templates with organizational actors. Although

536   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links these concepts may be self-​learnt, students may be aided through exposure to stimulus outside their immediate environment. In these cases, instructors may serve an important role: it cannot be assumed that an appreciation of paradox is emergent from context alone. This appreciation can also be provoked through both deliberate structure and facilitation.

Teaching Paradox: A Business School Case We now turn our attention to showcasing how paradox as a threshold concept can be applied through the case study of a work-​integrated strategy module developed by the first author within the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) program at the University of Sydney Business School. The module is the final or capstone module that students complete after a series of core and elective units. It is a team-​based, work-​integrated strategy unit in which students solve a strategic problem for a corporate partner, by developing not only a strategy but also a prototype product or service that embodies the strategy and can be appraised by customers. The process of customer-​ testing and evaluation is typically known as “design thinking.” In this course, the linkage to corporate strategy means that the teaching method is colloquially known as “design strategy.” Given the focus on innovation, the course is best understood as focusing students’ attention on the paradox between exploration and exploitation. It requires students to brainstorm creative new solutions for the corporate partner organization (exploration), but do so in a way that is actionable within the partner’s systems and processes (exploitation). The module was first developed in 2013 in close consultation with colleagues in academia, government, and private industry and has trained over one hundred participants within the first three deliveries. The module has received strong student feedback and has subsequently won student-​nominated awards, press coverage, and been presented to the Australian Government as part of its national education curriculum review. Products developed during the capstone unit have also attracted commercial investment from corporate partners. In the next section we present four pedagogical tools deployed in this work-​integrated strategy module that have helped students appreciate paradoxical tensions, and may have broader application in future curriculum design. We generalize these tools as follows: (1) setting up the right context for learning, (2) shaping the content that students are exposed to, (3) setting up an experiential process, and (4) creating space for critical reflection. We provide examples of these pedagogical tools in the classroom, and describe how these have enabled paradox appreciation in our own teaching experience. The relationship between these pedagogical tools and the threshold concepts outlined above is illustrated in Figure 27.1.

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    537 Context

Reflection

Paradox as a threshold concept

Content

Process

Figure 27.1  A model for using paradox as a threshold concept in management education

Setting up the Right Context for Learning The students face a paradoxical challenge at the start of the course: they must develop a product or service, which sits on the six-​month strategic roadmap of an industry or community partner, but must be something that is “outside the box.” In this respect, it must be both incremental to existing business processes (exploitation) and also sufficiently radical to be new and interesting (exploration). Students wrestle with defining “the problem.” Initially they attribute the challenges of exploration to “the problem” not being sufficiently well defined by the instructors or partner organizations. As the course develops, they realize that “the problem” requires qualitative interviews with customers to find inspiration for exploratory new ideas, whilst simultaneously looping back with middle managers within the partner organization to ensure they are implementable. Notwithstanding the inherent paradoxical tensions embodied in the innovation process, we find that certain aspects of the context help students explore both poles. First, on the exploitation end, students may already be familiar with the internal processes that involve refinement of well-​known business models through their work experience prior to joining the course. The module is designed for MBA students who already have over five years of work experience, including management experience. This means that they have some awareness of the established routines within organizations, and may be able to join these routines with relative ease. We found that when similar methods were applied to students with less work experience (e.g., undergraduate students), they struggled to identify or recognize paradoxical tensions because they lacked exposure to exploitation: that is, how ideas get implemented within an organizational context. Second, on the exploration end, students are grouped into teams in order to amplify the diversity and novelty to which students are exposed during the “brainstorming” or exploration phase of the course. Students come from various professional backgrounds, including consulting, industry, government, and community organizations. This creates maximum diversity within the constraints of qualification entry requirements. When

538   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links they join the module, students are allocated into teams of five. They present their initial preferences based on prior working relationships, but the module instructor is responsible for final team allocations in order to create a requisite level of diversity. In setting these teams, the instructor has regard to three considerations: (1) the students’ prior performance, (2) their industry expertise relative to others in the group, and (3) their social dynamics with class mates, based on observations from other instructors. These considerations balance the interests of diversity with social cohesion. Students report that these social and cohort-​based dimensions are important in terms of managing the transformative nature of the problems and ideas that are surfaced during the module. However, they are also important in enabling students to recognize the pattern of paradoxical tensions across organizational and sectoral contexts. Students are more easily able to recognize organizational paradox as a threshold concept transcending any particular organizational contexts when they make sense of tensions in the company of students from diverse backgrounds. This may be because interacting with people with different contextual assumptions enables students to recognize patterns rooted across organizational settings, rather than being perceived as being salient within a specific but limited organizational setting (i.e., the work-​integrated organizational partner). However, additional research is needed to validate this observation more systematically.

Shaping the Content that Students Are Exposed to Paradoxical tensions such as exploration and exploitation are inherent in organizational contexts. Thus, the purpose of the learning content is to render the poles of the innovation tension salient. Since the MBA module is organized as a work-​integrated strategy problem, these poles are rendered salient through a combination of both direct instruction based on strategic tools, as well as facilitated guidance in a complex, dynamic environment in which instructors draw particular teams to alternate perspective throughout the course. The content for direct instruction is created as follows. The top management team (CEO and COO) are asked to identify a problem that sits on their six-​to twelve-​ month strategic roadmap, in conjunction with the academic instructor. This means that the problem has an exploration component, since it is not part of the organization’s existing systems and processes. However, there is also an exploitation component since the problem is selected by the top management team and therefore needs to be encompassed within their decision-​making processes. Identification of an appropriate problem is crucial to paradoxical tensions becoming salient during the students’ learning journey. Students are expected to encounter contradictory tensions between the incremental initiatives that could be completed, and radical initiatives that could challenge business-​as-​usual assumptions. Both elements of the paradox need to be present in the problem context in order for their salience to arising during the course.

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    539 The strategic problem is then shared with students, so that they have three weeks to provide a solution, in which they create both a prototype product and a strategy presentation. The content for facilitation is created as follows. After receiving formal guidance on the problem set, students then experience ambiguity as they venture into a new setting to explore innovative ideas. Students conduct interviews with customers to understand their needs. This raises uncertainties about the problem, which are developed and discussed with the instructor. This cultivates attention on exploratory, new ideas. Next, students conduct meetings with stakeholders within the partner organization, including senior executives, middle managers, and technical staff. During these meetings, students discuss what is feasible or realistic to implement within the organization. This is important as it elucidates awareness to exploitation constraints framing the problem set. We found that the movement between customers and the partner organization created the conditions for inherent tensions to become salient, and that three weeks was sufficient duration for both poles to become apparent. This format of work-​integrated pedagogy involves interactions across multiple organizations, is intended to facilitate an irreversible appreciation of paradoxical tensions. As participants move between a pedagogical setting and a managerial setting, they are spurred to recognize similarities in the explore–​exploit tensions manifest across multiple settings. In addition, the unit is delivered with two organizational partners—​one in healthcare, and the other in financial services. Since students can choose which setting they wish to learn in, the course is designed to highlight the integrative nature of explore–​exploit tensions. In other words, innovation tensions are salient across multiple industry settings and are therefore not specific to the particular organizations selected.

Setting up an Experiential Process Responding to paradoxical tensions requires students to exhibit skills of acceptance, differentiation, and integration. In our MBA module, students are exposed to contradictory ideas, and are taught to accept and accommodate differences, rather than reject contradiction. In the MBA module, students are initially encouraged to pursue exploration through interactions with customers. This involves considering opportunities that sit outside the existing mindsets and terms of reference of the partner organization: a key reason for partner organizations choosing to work with our program. Students brainstorm new ideas using various visualization tools, such as Post-​it notes, product sketches, play-​acting with imaginary customers, and strategy tools which promote questioning. Our experience has been that drawing, acting, and visualization encourages more creativity and diversity in thinking than simply talking about ideas unassisted by pictures and actions. However, as the module progresses, students are directed by the instructor and partner organization toward exploitation, whereby they are expected to make the solution feasible for the corporate organization. At this point, students are guided to apply both/​ and thinking whereby they synthesize both new ideas and what is practicable within

540   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links resources constraints. This is initiated by coaching sessions in which instructors talk about the tensions arising from the search for novelty and their need to stick with the organization’s existing business plan. This conversation triggers the irreversible nature of the paradoxical tensions, as students recognize that the limitations of the problem are not set by the university or module structure, but by the commercial realities of the organization. The relationship between the classroom and their everyday work environments becomes salient, thereby enabling them to draw connections in their future management roles. In this course, students are expected to develop a prototype product or service through their course, which gets presented back to senior executives for investment. In this respect, the student teams resemble operational teams within a research and development business unit within an organization, which must eventually manage tensions between its own objectives and those of the parent company. The pedagogical structure, in which students are directed to switch between exploration and exploitation, is central to their confrontation with paradoxical choices. When students were given less structure through the course, they had less appreciation of the tension between both/​and thinking between exploration and exploitation demands. Instead, they were more likely to “jump” to a particular solution that was either highly incremental or highly explorative, in order to bring closure to the ambiguity they experienced. For example, during one delivery of the course, one student group struggled to understand “what the problem was,” failing to realize the need to interrogate customers for their pain points. As a result, they focused on their own personal problems, solving for a more limited problem set than students who were able to “live with” the uncertainty and explore more creative solutions. In this respect, the instructor is responsible for establishing an interpretive context in which students actively make sense of both poles of the paradox.

Creating Space for Critical Reflection Critical reflection is the fourth, crucial component of the pedagogical process in the MBA module. The module is run intensively over three weekends. At the end of each Saturday and Sunday, facilitated reflection sessions are held between team members and the instructor to examine specific issues arising in relation to paradoxical tensions. In addition, the final assignment for each module is an individual critical reflective essay in which participants are required to reflect on their experiences in the module and identify implications for their own management behavior in the future. Facilitated team debrief sessions encourage participants to speak openly about the challenges, paradoxes, and ambiguities they encounter. These sessions inevitably bring to the surface different tensions and paradoxes. Reflections related to the exploitation pole that we observe from students include: the need for managers to direct at some times, and support at others; the need to set relatively clear, tight goals; and the recognition that profitability drives the strategic prioritization within the business. On the

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    541 other hand, reflections related to the exploration pole that we observe from students include: ways to allow team members to feel free to develop their own creative ideas in the strategy process; the multiple “other” agendas facing the business that do not relate to the bottom line; and the acceptance that while leaders may initially set aspects of strategy, execution requires multiple actors and is invariably shaped by exogenous variables. In addition, in the critical reflection essay, participants are asked to reflect on analogies between the practice perspective experienced and their own management practice. In response to the typical question form—​“how might what you have just experienced in the session be translated into your own job and organization?”—​participants will often reflect on the strength or weakness of the analogy, the extent to which the two cases (the practice perspective and their work practice) are similar or different, and the extent to which the “lessons learnt” or conclusions drawn might be directly or indirectly applicable. These support the bounded nature of paradox, as participants consider what is a paradox and what is not, and the specific benefits of active responses to paradoxical tensions.

Future Directions: Expanding the Paradox–​P edagogy Links In this chapter, we show the pedagogical processes for teaching the threshold concepts of paradox. To explain how this application can take shape in management education, we showcase the case of an MBA module that deploys a number of pedagogical tools that help students understand paradox as a threshold concept. These tools are centered on four dimensions: context, content, process, and critical reflection. A paradox approach to teaching deploys these dimensions differently compared to a more traditional pedagogical approach to course design, as summarized in Table 27.1. This table is designed to offer practical tools and suggestions for educators looking for new ideas to introduce paradox into the classroom. Drawing on paradox theory, we argue that experiential educational environments that teach paradox are aided by settings characterized by plurality, scarcity, and change. This enables students to experience paradoxical tensions, and forces them to respond to challenges in practice rather than through information alone. However, these contexts also need to be characterized by familiarity and trust so that students are able to manage the affective responses they experienced in relation to paradoxical tensions. In addition, we argue that individuals learn through paradox-​oriented content (for example, problem-​based learning) and a teaching process (e.g., reflection activities) that engage both paradoxical cognition and behavior. Specifically, paradox-​oriented content raises participants’ ability to recognize and subsequently to embrace contradictions. It also educates them as to how managing competing tensions can actually lead to

542   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links Table 27.1 Application of threshold principles of paradox in the MBA curriculum Traditional curriculum design

Paradox-​based curriculum design

Context

• Selection done independently of module • Individual-​focused learning

• Carefully selected cohort based on diverse backgrounds (exploration) • Team-​based focus on learning to maximize diversity (exploration) • Cohort selection based on prior work experience (exploitation)

Content

• Dissemination of key textbook-​ based theories, ideas, concepts, and frameworks • Traditional classroom-​based environment

• Problem-​based learning on the future horizon of organization (exploration) • Interactions with customers in order to cultivate an open mindset (exploration) • Exposure to political realities within organization (exploitation) • Semi-​structured setting (e.g., classroom, organizations, community) with frequent, short interactions with instructors to prompt reflection (exploration and exploitation)

Process

• Linear and historical-​based • Drawing, acting, visualization progression of education—​ techniques (exploration) starting with primary notions • Strategy discussions and meetings and developing into more recent/​ with middle managers (exploitation) advanced notions

Reflection

• Optional, dependent on • Embedded in the design of the participants’ willingness module, during the module and • Potential realization of poles and in its assessment (exploration and their relationship is less structured exploitation and deliberate • Directs participants to consider the alternative poles and their interrelationships (exploration and exploitation)

complementary outcomes. This is accomplished by deploying problem-​based pedagogical strategies that force students to confront tensions and seek accommodation within the time constraints of a course. This is in contrast to traditional methods that disseminate principles or concepts, and use case studies as exemplars of these principles. Finally, the teaching process outlined creates a structured process whereby students are expected to deploy inconsistent practices of both differentiating and integrating, at different timings of the pedagogical process (as illustrated in Table 27.2). Finally, these are completed with reflective activities that attend to the contradictory yet interdependent relationship between poles. Taken together, these tools comprise a model of using paradox to design management education curriculums and process, which we summarize in Table 27.1 and Table 27.2.

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    543 Table 27.2 Ways to enhance paradox skill sets during the management education process Pre-​session activities Meaning of paradox

Activities during session

Post-​session activities

• Get participants to • Utilize paradox-​ • Ask participants to prepare brief instances based work-​related prepare brief instances of of paradoxical situations simulations. paradoxical situations. they have faced/​ • Discuss in the classroom are facing in their the particular character organizations. of paradoxical tensions. • Provide pre-​readings focusing on paradoxical cases.

Processes • Get participants to • Utilize time and • Ask participants to keep and practices explain how they dealt resource pressure to brief diaries of instances around with or did not deal with force participants to of paradoxical situations paradox paradoxical situations. confront and respond to they are facing. • Get participants to paradoxical tensions. • Create online chatrooms explain what they have • Shift attention to to allow exchange found interesting about both poles of the of insights amongst the pre-​readings. organizational paradox participants. • Identify a work-​ over the course of the • Ask participants about integrated problem session. how their skill set has set that embodies • Get participants to evolved in dealing with paradoxical tensions reflect and discuss in paradoxical tensions. for the work-​integrated the classroom what partner. they have found interesting about the paradoxical situations they are dealing with.

At the start of this chapter, we suggested that there is potential in investigating the paradox–​pedagogy relationship. However, by re-​examining paradox as a threshold concept, we hope to offer opportunities for future research at the intersection of paradox theory and pedagogy.

Future Research on Paradox-​based Pedagogy By examining paradox as a threshold concept, future research may be able to more clearly define the conditions under which individuals learn about paradox as a distinct, memorable phenomenon. Research in this space might give more attention to the contexts in which individuals need to encounter paradoxical tensions in order for them to be learned. Indeed, existing studies examine rhetorical settings (Jarzabkowski and Sillince 2007), or environments where there are external actors like leaders or external

544   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links facilitators (Knight and Paroutis 2017; Lüscher and Lewis 2008), but provide less insight on the affective conditions that shape responses. Classrooms are a useful setting for these questions since they are removed by organizational culture, and focus on the day-​ to-​day settings in which individuals are able to learn. Thus, they may allow researchers to consider the specific conditions for enhancing paradox-​related skill sets independent of identity or organizational dynamics. Furthermore, Jarzabkowski and Whittington (2008) propose a strategy-​as-​practice-​ based approach to bring strategy research and education closer to practice and note that: “A strategy-​as-​practice approach would entail cases based on the real-​time unfolding of strategy to illustrate how and why the actions and interactions of multiple actors shape strategy . . . strategy-​as-​practice offers a different solution to the tangled problem of the relationship between strategy research and practice. In place of the gap between strategy research and practice, it proposes research on practice. The work, workers, and tools of strategy are center stage” (2008: 285). We argue that such efforts within the strategy-​as-​practice perspective (Jarzabkowski and Whittington 2008; Paroutis et  al. 2016; Wright et al. 2013) can also benefit from the application of a paradox approach. In their review of US strategy teaching, Greiner et al. (2003) synthesize some of these elements in a “strategic mindset” which they characterize as comprehensive/​integrative, needing a range of skills, and working dynamically in uncertain conditions. To these they add spontaneity, dynamic change, and individuality. Significantly for MBA teaching, their skill set emphasizes behavioral alongside analytical angles (Greiner et al. 2003). The kinds of capabilities developed to “prepare” the classroom participants for strategy practice using the case method could potentially represent only a limited subset of the actual capabilities required in strategy practice. Case analysis of strategy praxis requires a focus on the actual activities of particular strategists that have led to particular strategic decisions adopted by the organization. This can be achieved by isolating the precise actions of the key actors in a case study and a classroom approach led by the module instructor that encourages participants to think critically about the alternative and contradictory ways managers practice strategy (Paroutis et al. 2016). A paradox-​ informed approach would then allow the instructor and participants to classify these strategic actions across multiple dimensions, allowing them to appreciate the nature and effect of the tensions strategy actors are experiencing. An experiential-​based process could then be applied, taking the participants through a simulated environment or case, where they experience similar tensions and are asked to take decisions under time and resource pressures. This dynamic, reflective, and engaged approach to strategic actions and their paradoxical nature has the potential to allow participants higher sensitivity to the tensions they are experiencing and will experience in their own roles and settings, and could be an area for future research. To conclude, the purpose of this chapter is to showcase the potential of examining the paradox–​pedagogy relationships in the context of management education. We argue that paradoxes are a “threshold concept” that have the potential to challenge participants’ underlying assumptions. Challenging and changing these assumptions can

Eric Knight and Sotirios Paroutis    545 be a difficult and long-​term process, and therefore participants are able to identify and engage paradoxes more in experiential contexts. We have shown how the capstone strategy consultation course provides the potential to develop experiential contexts where participants gain a deeper appreciation of paradox.

References Abdallah, C., Denis, J. L., and Langley, A. 2011. Having your cake and eating it too: Discourses of transcendence and their role in organizational change dynamics. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24(3): 333–​48. Bednarek, R., Paroutis, S., and Sillince, J. 2017. Transcendence through rhetorical practices: Responding to paradox in the science sector. Organization Studies, 38(1): 77–101. Chia, R., and Holt, R. 2009. Strategy as practical coping:  A  Heideggerian perspective. Organization Studies, 27(5): 635–​55. Greiner, L. E., Bhambri, A., and Cummings, T. G. 2003. Searching for a strategy to teach strategy. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2(4): 402–​20. Hatch, M. J., and Erhlich, S. B. 1993. Spontaneous humour as an indicator of paradox and ambiguity in organizations. Organization Studies, 14(4): 505–​26. Jarzabkowski, P., and Kaplan, S. 2014. Using strategy tools in practice: An exploration of technologies of rationality in use. Strategic Management Journal, 36(4): 537–​58. Jarzabkowski, P. A., and Lê, J. K. 2017. We have to do this and that? You must be joking. Constructing and responding to paradox through humour. Organization Studies, 38(3–4): 433–62. Jarzabkowski, P., Lê, J. K., and Van de Ven, A. H. 2013. Responding to competing strategic demands:  How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization, 11(3): 245–​80. Jarzabkowski, P., and Sillince, J. 2007. A rhetoric-​in-​context approach to building commitment to multiple strategic goals. Organization Studies, 28(11): 1639–​65. Jarzabkowski, P., and Whittington, R. 2008. A strategy-​as-​practice approach to strategy research and education. Journal of Management Inquiry, 17(4): 282–​6. Knight, E. R. W. , and Harvey, W. 2015 Managing exploration and exploitation paradoxes in creative organizations. Management Decision, 53(4): 809–27. Knight, E., and Paroutis, S. 2017. Becoming salient: The TMT leader’s role in shaping the interpretive context of paradoxical tensions. Organization Studies, 38(3–4): 403–32. Lewis, M. W., Andriopoulos, C., and Smith, W. 2014. Paradoxical leadership to enable strategic agility. California Management Review, 56(3): 58–​77. Lewis, M. W., and Smith, W. K. 2014. Paradox as a metatheoretical perspective: Sharpening the focus and widening the scope. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(1): 127–​49. Lüscher, L. S., and Lewis, M. W. 2008. Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 221–​40. Meyer, J., and Land, R. 2003. Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Meyer, J. H., and Land, R. 2005. Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49(3): 373–​88.

546   Expanding the Paradox–Pedagogy Links Meyer, J. H., and Land, R. 2013. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding:  Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. London: Routledge. Papachroni, A., Heracleous, L., and Paroutis, S. 2016. In pursuit of ambidexterity: Managerial reactions to innovation-​efficiency tensions. Human Relations, 69(9): 1791–​822. Paroutis, S., Heracleous, L., and Angwin, D. 2016. Practicing Strategy: Text and Cases, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Schatzki, T. R. 2001. Introduction:  Practice theory. In,The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, edited by T. R. Schatzki, K. Knorr-​Cetina, and E. von Savigny, 1–​13. Abingdon: Routledge. Smith, W. 2014. Dynamic decision making: A model of senior leaders managing strategy paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal, 57(6): 1592–​623. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. 2011. Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36: 381–​403. Smith, W. K., and Tushman, M. L. 2005. Managing strategic contradictions: A top management model for managing innovation streams. Organization Science, 16: 522–​36. Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading: MA: Addison Wesley. Wright, R. P., Paroutis, S. E., and Blettner, D. P. 2013. How useful are the strategic tools we teach in business schools? Journal of Management Studies, 50(1): 92–​125.

Chapter 28

Par ad ox and P ol a ri t i e s : Finding C ommon Ground and Mov i ng F orward To g et h e r A Case Study of Polarity Thinking and Action in Charleston, South Carolina Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson

Polarity Thinking has changed the way senior leaders, police officers, and citizens approach important issues and concerns. It has provided a framework to honor differences while creating synergy toward a common purpose. The results—​a deeper and richer understanding of complex issues that inform decisions at the individual, organizational, and community levels, creating new potential, leading to breakthrough outcomes. Greg Mullen, Chief of Police, Charleston, South Carolina

This chapter chronicles the experience of citizens and public officials in Charleston, SC as they applied the polarity approach to address complex and polarizing social challenges. Core tenets of polarity theory and practice tools (the Polarity Map®, the five-​ step “Small” process, and the Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation assessment) are discussed in the context of diverse challenges including a devastating community tragedy and its aftermath. The conclusion calls for broader leadership and

548   Paradox and Polarities organizational system competency that supplements “or” thinking with “and” thinking to increase resilience, reduce polarization, and enhance well-being.

Polarity Thinking and the Polarity Map® Paradoxes are well recognized in organizational development and management literature.1 Barry Johnson introduced polarities in his 1992 book Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems (Johnson 1992). The term polarity refers to a specific category of paradox that involves a predictable dynamic at play in an interdependent pair. Two questions help us identify a polarity (1) “Are there two poles which are interdependent?” and, (2) “Is the difficulty ongoing?” (Johnson 1992: 81). Another factor distinguishing a polarity as a unique category of paradox is its interdependent relationship with “or” thinking for solvable problems. When key stakeholders utilize both thinking competencies—“or” for solvable problems and “and” for unsolvable (but leverage-able) polarities—they improve their ability to address complicated and complex system challenges in sustainable ways. This highlights three important realities in polarity theory: (1) rejecting “or” thinking is an example of “or” thinking, (2) competency for “or” thinking in combination with “and” thinking is a itself a polarity to leverage, and (3) “and” thinking includes and transcends “or” thinking. “Or” thinking is necessary, useful, and a requirement to solve technical problems and make “this or that” choices between independent alternatives. We use “or” thinking every day as we learn math, language, and apply technical solutions to solvable problems involving independent alternatives. “And” thinking is necessary, useful and a requirement to effectively address challenges that are inherently unsolvable because the inherent interdependency requires addressing two dimensions “this and that” in the dynamic cycle, over time. Polarities live in us as we breathe in and out with inhale AND exhale, and in the left hemisphere AND right hemisphere functions of the human brain. We also live inside polarities as we navigate the tensions between activity AND rest, and when we address challenges between individual needs AND collective needs. Effectively using both types of thinking competencies in social challenges creates the conditions necessary for generative and sustainable high-​performance in life, leadership, on teams, and in organizational systems. The root cause of racism, sexism, systemic poverty, and distribution issues for basic needs (e.g., water/​food, healthcare, education, and the ecological sustainability of

1  Many authors over many years, including Wendy Smith, Marianne Lewis, Kim Cameron, James Collins and Jerry Porras, Bob de Wit and Ron Meyer, Jerry Fletcher and Kelle Olwyler, Charles Hampden Turner, Charles Handy, Geert Hofstede, Charles Johnson, Richard Pascale, and Robert Quinn address the role of paradox thinking (and polarity awareness) in effective leadership and organizational development. These books are listed in the references.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    549 the planet) can be traced to using “or” thinking to the neglect of “and” thinking. Our ability to survive and thrive as a species will depend upon the degree to which we are able to avoid misdiagnosing unsolvable (but leverage-​able) “and” thinking polarities as solvable problems using “or” thinking. Polarity theory and practice tools support leaders, teams, and organization systems in that process leverage the power of both “or” and “and” thinking competencies. The Polarity Map®, process, and terminology are continually evolving. Recent updates to the terminology include replacing “Polarity Management” with “Polarity Thinking” or the “Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation” (PACT™). PACT™ expands on the force field concept pioneered by Kurt Lewin in his action research methodology (Lewin 1997). Lewin describes forces in dynamic and predictable ongoing tension. Driving or helping forces support movement in service of a goal, and hindering forces block movement toward the goal. Recent articles on paradox theory explore how the dynamic nature of paradox allows people to realize the potential of a practical application.2 Mapping the predictable dynamic and ongoing tension using the Polarity Map® makes implicit wisdom we all have about polarities explicit by showing how the dynamics at play in polarity tensions work predictably over time. Engaging people impacted by polarity tensions in the process of mapping the tension organizes their individual and collective wisdom. This supports learning and identifying the best and most creative actions to achieve leverage for the ongoing tensions (Emerson 2013).

Polarity Theory Basic Principles We all live inside of the activity and rest polarity. There is nowhere we can go to avoid or escape the tension between the two poles. We cannot “solve” the interdependency between activity and rest by applying “or” thinking (i.e., by choosing activity or rest as a solution). This makes activity and rest an “and” thinking polarity, as it is fairly obvious that we are required to pay attention to both poles in our daily lives. Not all polarities are this obvious, which is why mapping the energy dynamic helps us see the interdependency and ongoing energy exchange between the two poles. Seeing the predictability of polarities is another significant benefit of mapping. This dynamic is illustrated with an infinity loop, capturing the cycle in the energetic dynamic going from: (+A) to (–​B); from (–​B) to (+C); from (+C) to (–​D); and, from (–​D) back to (+A). Figure 28.1 provides an example of some content that key stakeholders might capture to describe the upside and downside limitations in the two poles of activity and rest. Activity (+A) provides benefits of a sharp mind, body toned, and keeps us stimulated/​ challenged. However, too much activity without adequate rest results in the mind being on overload, an exhausted body, and burnout (–​B). The natural self-​correction to avoid 2 

“Paradox in Everyday Practice: Applying Practice Theoretical Principles to Paradox” talks of four organizing principles (social construction, everyday activity, consequentiality, and relationality) which are explored in our case study of the work done in Charleston.

550   Paradox and Polarities A+

C+

Integrate thoughts Rejuvenate body Relaxed

Sharp mind Body toned Stimulated/Challenged

Activity

Mind on overload Body exhausted Burned out –B

AND

Rest

Dulled mind Out of shape Boring/Lack of stimulation –D

Figure 28.1  Sample content of the activity and rest polarity dynamic Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

burnout is to get some of the upside benefits of rest (+C), to integrate thoughts, rejuvenate the body, and relax. However, this is not sustainable as a solution. Over time, too much focus on rest to the neglect of activity results in (–​D), a dulled mind, and an out of shape body, and is boring/​lacks stimulation. The natural self-​correction for the downside limitations of (–​D) are the upside benefits of activity (+A), which is where the process began. When a polarity is misdiagnosed as a solvable problem and using “or” thinking (i.e., choosing activity or rest as a solution), the normal flow of energy in the predictable dynamic becomes interrupted. Figure 28.2 shows how “or” thinking alone might describe the tension in the conflict. The two diagonal points of view are treated as independent choices between two alternative points of view. Activity (+A) is a solution to the problem of the limitations of rest (–​D). Or, rest, (C+) is a solution to the limitations of activity (–​B). Each of the two points of view is accurate, but each is incomplete. Each of the diagonal points of view falls short not in what is seen, but in what it fails to see. Individual and collective awareness increases when key stakeholders who are impacted by the opportunities and tensions in polarities see and map the energy system at play between the interdependent poles using the Polarity Map® (Emerson 2013). Because “or” thinking is so powerful and works efficiently and effectively for solvable problems, it tends to be overvalued, and misapplied to polarities. Power struggles between two diagonal point-​of-​view truths can go beyond the waste of time and resources. When individuals lack a way to make sense of the dynamic polarization can lead to vicious cycles and dysfunction that becomes destructive. The result is a loss of the upside benefits of both poles and experience of the downside limitations of both poles simultaneously. Supplementing “or” thinking with “and” thinking helps people avoid becoming stuck in arguments and debates between the two diagonal points-​of-​view. As the need for high performance increases, so does the requirement for intensifying the focus on key polarities.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    551 C+

A+

Integrate thoughts Rejuvenate body Relaxed

Sharp mind Body toned Stimulated/Challenged

Activity

Rest

Dulled mind Out of shape Boring/Lack of stimulation –D

Activity

Rest

Mind on overload Body exhausted Burned out –B

Figure 28.2  Two diagonal points of view of activity and rest Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

For example, a decision to run a marathon would intensify the need to focus on activity and rest. More is required than a daily routine of waking up, going to work, going back home, and going to sleep. More activity to run greater distances each workout day would increase aerobic capability. Quality rest would ensure the upside benefits of rest for adequate muscle recovery and strengthening. Focusing too much on activity to the neglect of rest or the reverse might undermine performance and decrease the possibility of reaching the new high-​performance goal. Excessive focus on activity (+A) could result in a sports injury like shin fractures (–​B). Paradoxically, this would also lead to the downside limitations of the rest pole as the injury and inability to train would stall conditioning and lead to muscle atrophy (–​D). This is an example of a vicious cycle, which leads to the experience of both downside limitations (–​B and –​D). Leveraging a polarity dynamic effectively utilizes this energy exchange to create a virtuous cycle that maximizes both upside pole benefits (+A and +C) and minimizes both downside pole limitations (–​B and –​D). Seeing a more complete picture for the way the dynamic works over time by mapping the tension increases the likelihood that the value of both poles in the tension are respected. This improves the probability of gaining and sustaining high performance. The Polarity Map® provides a tool and process to organize the polarity wisdom that individuals, teams, organizations, and communities possess. When groups experience a paradoxical situation but lack a cogent way to make sense of it, not only do results suffer, but the group’s morale, communication, and relationships are also negatively impacted (Emerson 2013). Polarity Maps enable groups to navigate paradox instead of suffering through it. According to Emerson (2013), Polarity Maps embody the key elements of an effective sense-making tool and can serve as a bridge between theory and practice. As such, Polarity Maps® enable groups to harness the tension inherent in paradox and “navigate” it in a way that positively impacts their results while simultaneously increasing morale, enhancing communication, and strengthening their relationships. It seems, then, that Polarity Maps are a practical way for groups to make object (Kegan 1994) the

552   Paradox and Polarities

Figure 28.3  The Polarity Map® Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    553 paradoxes they experience and thereby alleviate the detrimental impacts often associated with the phenomenon (Pepper & Larson 2006). At the very top of the Polarity Map® in Figure 28.3 is a space to capture the “Greater Purpose Statement” (GPS). This statement answers the question, “Why leverage this polarity?” Because polarities are ongoing and unsolvable, the GPS also serves as a goal to unify key stakeholders. At the bottom of the Polarity Map® is a space to capture the “Deeper Fear,” which is the result of a loss of the GPS. Acknowledging the potential for the Deeper Fear and the GPS are powerful reminders that motivate key stakeholders about the importance of working together. Leveraging polarities involves key stakeholders identifying action steps that reinforce the upsides of each pole and early warnings for minimizing the downsides of each pole. The process supports increasing agency for dealing with the complexity and realities inherent to the tension. A more detailed list of terms and elements of the Polarity Map® described in this chapter may be found on the Polarity Partnerships resource website: www.PolarityResources.com.

The Small Process The five-​step Small process of PACT™ provides structure to see and effectively leverage the power available to us in polarities. The critical element to begin the process is engaging key stakeholders who have an interest in the effective leveraging of the polarity or polarities. The five steps are:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Seeing the polarities Mapping the polarities Assessing the polarities Learning from the data Leveraging the polarities.

The PACT™ five-​step Small process and its relationship to Kurt Lewin (Lewin 1997) and John Dewey’s learning theory (Dewey 1998) are shown in Table 28.1. The Small process also has roots in Robert Jacobs’ large-​scale change principles (Jacobs 1994). Jacobs identified polarities (and corresponding GPSs) that are critical to the success of large-​scale change efforts. They are organized by his principles of real-​ time strategic change (RTSC), and are fundamental to any change process.3

3  Real Time: In order to accelerate the pace of change (the guiding purpose statement), you need to both see “The future is tomorrow, plan for it today” and see “The future is today, be there now.”

Preferred future: For energizing and guiding plans and actions (GPS) you need to both “recognize the best from the past and present” and “recognize or create compelling possibilities for the future.”

554   Paradox and Polarities Table 28.1 The PACT™ five-​step “Small” process Significant considerations and relationship to Lewin’s Action Research

Step

Description

1. Seeing—​ See the polarity

Understand the interdependent pairs, and distinguish them from solvable problems.

Analogous to Lewin’s “Plan” step in Action Research.

Completing the Polarity Map™ for the most important and strategic polarities. This individual or collective experience helps those involved to see a more complete picture containing two points of view. Both points of view get affirmed helping address the natural tension between them.

Analogous to Lewin’s “Involve Others” step in Action Research.

3. Assessing—​ Assess how well we’re doing

Intentional measurement for how frequently the experiences in each quadrant are taking place. The PACT™ (Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation) assessment can make assessing multiple polarities for large systems more efficient. Assessing can also be accomplished using an assessing guide or dialogue while “walking the loop” in dialogue for the four quadrants.

Analogous to Lewin’s “Observe” step in Action Research.

4. Learning—​ Learn from the assessment

Participants bring their own meaning to the assessment results and work toward shared understanding.

Analogous to Lewin’s “Reflect” step in Action Research.

2. Mapping—​Map the polarity

5. Leveraging—​ Action Steps maximize the upside Leverage the system benefits for each pole. Early Warnings energy minimize downside limitations of each pole by identifying measurable indicators to ensure course correction takes place before limitations escalate.

Help people understand the benefits of “or” thinking and “and” thinking. Apply “and” thinking to polarities.

This step makes collective understanding possible to better see emotional tensions associated with polarities, increase empathy, and build support. The greater purpose statement (GPS) can provide common ground for individual and collective action.

Promotes understanding for how well or poorly polarity tensions are being leveraged by maximizing the upside benefits and minimizing the downside limitations.

This step is essential to deepening understanding among key stakeholders and getting traction to take the best and most effective actions in Step 5, Leveraging. Analogous to Lewin’s “Plan New Action” step in Action Research. Action Steps and Early Warnings combine in a strategy plan for leverage, creating virtuous cycles leading to the GPS.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    555

The Charleston Story Background and Context Margaret Seidler is a fifth generation Charlestonian who was introduced to Barry Johnson in 2001. Seidler developed a deep appreciation for the power of the PACT™ and PACT™ assessment and created opportunities to support Charlestonians to supplement the “I’m right; you’re wrong” philosophy rooted in an overemphasis on “or” thinking without “and” thinking. An active neighborhood and community advocate, Seidler led a large committee for several of Charleston’s single-​family residential neighborhoods. In the spring of 2010, high-​profile crimes in nearby apartment communities led Seidler to call the police requesting they fix this problem. She noticed her own default to “or” thinking—​blaming “others” who were the “problem,” needing “fixing,” and demanding “others” (the police) do the fixing. While there was a truth in that point of view, she also knew that to “walk her talk” she needed to model “and” thinking. She applied the PACT™ to herself in the context of this challenge. Reflecting on that period, she said, “The polarity approach to continuity and transformation had to start with me recognizing that I was both part of the problem and part of the solution.”4 Her involvement and influence as part of the neighborhood committee provided the opportunity to walk her talk. Her first task was to expand the committee to include the owners and managers of the apartments. Next, she held a dinner where leadership within the single-​family and apartments communities got to know each other better. As part of the meeting agenda, they explored looking at community tensions through the lens of polarities, focusing first on learning about the predictable way polarities work. By the conclusion of the meeting, they had created a first cut of a Polarity Map® exploring the polarity tension between single-​family residents and multi-​family residents. The group identified the GPS as “safe community.” This GPS was a starting point for establishing the solid ground to begin building relationships and creating partnerships for a larger collaborative effort. Charleston’s new police chief Greg Mullen attended the session. Afterwards he handed Seidler his business card and requested they meet at 9 a.m. the following day at his office. Seidler sees Creating community: For learning, growth, and spirit (GPS), support both “Strong individuals” and a “Strong collective.” Common understanding: For informed decisions (GPS), seek both “Diverse perspectives” and “Shared Meaning.” Reality is a key driver: For rigorous information base (GPS), there are three important polarities to leverage: both “internal realities” and “external realities”; both “known current” and “unknown future”; and, both “seeking out” and “focusing in.” Empowerment and inclusion: For “optimal performance” (GPS), engage people in ways that both “they value” and “the larger system values.” 4 

In systems thinking, thought leader Peter Senge discusses how well-​intentioned people “shift the burden” of their problem to easy fix solutions which seem extremely efficient (Senge 1990).

556   Paradox and Polarities that dinner meeting and Chief Mullen’s invitation as pivotal in the work of applying polarity thinking in Charleston, saying, “Excitement does not begin to describe the feeling of having a police chief engaged as a key stakeholder to create a safer community.” The first thing Chief Mullen said at the 9 a.m. meeting was, “I believe we have these things you call ‘polarities’ in law enforcement.” Intuitively, Chief Mullen knew this was going to be a collective learning endeavor and not exclusively “top-​down.” He recognized Step 1 of the Small process, which is seeing the distinction between “or” thinking and “and” thinking by acknowledging—​these “polarities” exist.

The Charleston Police Department Work The Charleston Police Department was involved in revising a strategic plan, which was a logical entry point for the discussion. As a new chief, the strategic plan represented a big challenge for Mullen. While he was pressing hard to formalize it, the process was not welcomed by everyone. As with any new process, he encountered resistance. The plan focused on five key strategic directions:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Enhancing community safety Creating an exceptional workforce Creating community partnerships Managing resource effectively Advancing technological efficiencies.

Seidler and Chief Mullen approached Step 1 of Seeing what polarities might be at play through dialogue, looking initially for what was most important to pay attention to.5 Seidler asked: What would you like to be moving from, and what would you like to be moving toward that would help you enhance the greater purpose of enhancing community safety?

Chief Mullen identified that the department wanted to move from an us-​versus-​them relationship between the community and police, and move toward more of a partnership with “open communication and trust.” They chose “community support” as a “place holder” for 5  Step 1 of Seeing the polarities can happen through question and dialogue or by sharing polarity tensions that show up in the business literature. For example, Bob de Wit and Ron Meyer (1999), highlight key polarity tensions in strategy planning, noting, “If your strategy does not account for polarity, then it’s not strategic.” Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn list a set of “competing values,” and Collins and Porras identify organization “tensions” such as preserve core and stimulate change. By reviewing lists of interdependent pairs in the literature, those knowledgeable about the system challenges can identify those which most resonate. Another method is to review the public library of Polarity Maps® in the PACT™ resource website (www.PolarityResources.com). These approaches provide a starting point to use the client’s knowledge to identify the competing values/​tensions/​polarities that are most relevant.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    557 the pole that would contribute to open communication and trust. Then the question was, “What was the neutral or positively named pole that would be interdependent to ‘community support’ and that would also contribute to the greater purpose statement of enhancing community safety?” They chose “enforcement” as a place holder for the pole that is interdependent with “community support.” One of the upside benefits of enforcement was that a decrease in crime and enforcing laws is a key role of police officers. If enforcement was done to the neglect of community support, it could lead to an us-​versus-​them result. Enforcement and community support fit the criteria for a polarity; that is, both poles were neutral or positive and have an interdependent relationship to each other. They moved to Step 2, Mapping, with Chief Mullen’s knowledge and expertise of policing, and Seidler’s knowledge of the community interests at stake. Supplementing additional upsides and downsides went quickly. When enforcement is overemphasized to the neglect of community support, us-​versus-​them is a result. When community support is overemphasized to the neglect of enforcement, increased crime is a result. The next challenge was to expand the discussion by engaging key stakeholders. Robert Jacobs (Axelrod et al. 2004: 19–​20) compares the challenges and complexities of involvement to planning a wedding. It is impossible to do alone and the decisions whom to include is “a big, big deal.” Who to invite depends on the kind of wedding. With a Las Vegas option, fewer people are involved than in a royal-​scale wedding, which involves many people and many decisions. In their planning about who should be engaged in the PACT™ process, Seidler and Chief Mullen included those who might naturally hold on to the way things had been done in the past (to preserve the core: continuity) as well as those who might naturally prefer doing things in a new way (to stimulate change: transformation). Seidler and Chief Mullen invited a highly diverse group of thirty-​five police department employees—​including sworn and civilian, young and old—​to learn about polarities and to strengthen the strategic plan. Seidler first gave them an overview about what polarities are, how they work, and why they are important for them as leaders, in their teams/​ departments and in the community. Through this introduction to polarities, the police department team members gained an appreciation for how strengths can become weaknesses when the benefits from both poles are not present and honored over time. Beginning with leadership principles, the stakeholders looked at polarities such as confidence AND humility, freedom AND responsibility, and logic AND emotion (Seidler 2008). Each person declared a preference for a particular value on the left or its related item on the right (the word “and” was omitted). The exercise was conducted this way to reveal how “or” thinking when applied to a polarity creates false choices that can lead to unintended consequences, often referred to as “fixes that fail” (Senge 1990: 388–​9). This is a common insight people have when first learning to supplement “or” thinking with “and” thinking. This is one of the many ways the “genius of “and” thinking helps alleviate the “tyranny of “or” thinking. Collins (1997) coined the term tyranny of the OR to express the assumption of “or” thinking when it is misapplied and the genius of the AND appreciates the powerful creative contrast available when adopting a bridging mindset.

558   Paradox and Polarities Next, the tensions were revealed as interdependencies. Often this insight is something people are aware of at a gut level, but are unable to see. Seeing a more complete picture of a polarity makes more rapid progress possible, which is exactly what happened with these key stakeholders. They eagerly jumped into the process of mapping enforcement and community support, as well as other system-​level polarities. Bringing hearts and heads to the table, the group implemented Step 2 of the Small process by creating high-​quality, initial drafts of five Polarity Maps® in just a few hours! Seidler edited the maps using more advanced systems-​thinking guidelines for Step 2, Mapping a polarity, and presented the edits a few weeks later to the entire group for their consent. “When people who are actually living in the system start to see themselves as the source of their problems, they invariably discover a new capacity to create results they truly desire” (Senge et al. 2005: 45). By the second meeting, seasoned officers were speaking up about how they liked the PACT™ because it valued their more traditional views as well as the Chief ’s new directions. The Polarity Map® and process provides a “container” and contextual space that is safe enough to share differing views and hard questions that can only be dealt with effectively and sustainably by going beyond a strictly “or” thinking mindset. While this process may sound or appear simple, it should not be understood as being easy. Most groups don’t shrink from advocating for points of views and debating the tensions inherent to the polarities, and the police department was no exception. When the discourse got difficult, Seidler and Chief Mullen slowed down, listened, learned, and honored the wisdom in the different perspectives. Often in traditional change processes, this type of dialogue is considered “resistance” that must be overcome. For those who practice PACT™, this resistance, instead, is a useful resource for both continuity and transformation. Arnold Beisser (Fagan and Shepherd [1970] 2003) states, “Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is—​to be fully invested in his current positions.” It is in the sharing of the values and fears in the legitimate and accurate points of view that values and language are clarified. Key stakeholders see themselves, others, and their mutual challenges more completely. In that space, greater wisdom emerges, and there is a place to record and organize this iterative wisdom on the Polarity Map®. Figure 28.4 represents the Polarity Map®, which was finalized by the diverse stakeholder group. The GPS strategic goal of enhancing community safety GPS on this map required embracing both enforcement AND community support. This was an important shift that would be necessary to shape the work culture in a way that recognized how both were necessary and reinforced one another. Additionally, there was increased appreciation for the two “rights” in the two sets of diagonal quadrants in the map, as described previously in Figure 28.2. Many who had seen community support as something soft, frivolous, and impeding reducing crime, began to appreciate its role as a crucial element for effective law enforcement over time. Many who had seen enforcement as overly harsh, punitive, and impeding open communication and trust came to see its role as a crucial element for effective law enforcement. The key takeaway in the polarity is that both are essential over time.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    559

Figure 28.4  Completed Polarity Map® for enforcement and community support Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

560   Paradox and Polarities Then the group moved to Step 3 of the five-​step Small process. Assessing performance is not new to teams and organizations. However, when key stakeholders do a self-​ assessment of their own performance, ownership for both the process and the outcomes increases. Conducting a polarity assessment can be done in a variety of ways: formal use of PACT™ assessment technology, conducting a manual assessment, or simply through dialogue using experiential exercises. In this meeting, the group used a manual assessment to rate the frequency they believed they were currently experiencing the results in each quadrant. Using the Assessing guide, pictured in Figure 28.5, they rated themselves on each quadrant. Notice how the scale differs between the top and bottom quadrants. The goal is to maximize the upside benefits and minimize the downside limitations. The default infinity loop pictured within the Assessing guide shows what is possible in a fully leveraged polarity—​“almost always” in both upside quadrants and “almost never” in the downside quadrants. For each of the Polarity Maps®, the subgroup conducted a qualitative/​subjective assessment using the guide in Figure 28.5 to rate frequency in each of the four quadrants. This was to gain a general sense of how frequently they thought/​felt these results were being experienced. They started with the upper-​left quadrant rating all the items as a composite. First, each person made a silent decision on a rating for that quadrant. Next, each person revealed his/​her rating. The subgroups then explored any broad differences. Finally, the subgroup was asked to reach consensus on that quadrant’s rating. Assessing

Almost always Often Sometimes Seldom

Almost always Often Sometimes Seldom

Almost never

Almost never

Almost never

Almost never

Seldom Sometimes Often Almost always

Seldom Sometimes Often Almost always

Figure 28.5 Assessing guide Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    561 This process was then repeated for the remaining three quadrants, which provided for powerful learning—​Step 4. The Learning Step 4 brings meaning to the assessment results and informs the planning for Step 5 of Leveraging. To achieve the GPS of enhancing community safety, it became clear that there was a need to place a greater strategic focus on community support. And, at the same time, enforcement was and would always be needed. It required “and” thinking. This notion of holding on to something that people are comfortable with while being able to embrace the new and unsettling is one important way the PACT™ helps create opportunities for collaboration. With their experience of seeing, mapping, and assessing the complex issue in a way that included accuracy and completeness, key stakeholders became more willing to accept the need for both viewpoints within the map. With this groundwork in place, they were able to support the development and implementation of meaningful actions in support of the department’s strategic plan. Step 4, Learning, also ushered in ideas about how they would know if their future plans were effective or not. All of this was fertile ground to move forward with increased clarity and conviction, together. Leveraging, Step 5 of the Small process, created two separate assignments for the subgroups: 1) creating action steps to maximize the upside benefits of each pole, and 2) identifying early warnings that would let key stakeholders know, as early as possible, when they were over-​focusing on one pole, so that self-​correction can minimize the time in either downside. Examples of leveraging, which became elements of the Police Department’s strategic actions for their 2011–​15 plan to gain greater community support, include: Enhance cooperation between citizens and department in solving crimes. Measurements: Number of crimes solved based on citizen tips; increase in Crime Stopper tips. Create mailers for stakeholders advising them of events, police programs, safety tips, and community information. Measurements: Use of mailers; feedback. Continue and expand police/​youth programs (Scout camps). Measurement: Number of kids enrolled in programs. Gain information from the community to measure satisfaction and support using comment cards. Measurement: Survey results; letters to the editor; number of citizen complaints. Following the initial assessment, the Department’s command staff institutionalized a practice of conducting quarterly reviews of the strategic plan and assessing the measures and results for each Polarity Map®. From these reviews, they have learned and made adjustments to their strategies and action steps for the Department’s policing services.

562   Paradox and Polarities The five Polarity Maps® developed in this process may be viewed in the Charleston Police Department 2011–​15 Strategic Plan at:  http://​www.charlestonsc.gov/​Document Center/​View/​579. An updated Strategic Plan for 2015–​19 is also available (with two detailed Polarity Maps®) at http://​www.charleston-​sc.gov/​DocumentCenter/​View/​9636.

Building on Success: Cultivating Polarity Thinking in Support of Effective City Operations As Chief Mullen’s experience with the PACT™ in the Charleston Police Department grew, he engaged other leaders, such as the city’s chief financial officer Steve Bedard. Accomplished in the public sector, Bedard appreciated how this framework could support operations across the city’s more than thirty departments. The process of “engaging key stakeholders” began by assembling the city’s Executive Steering Group, which represented all city departments. From that, a city leadership plan was developed and implemented based on six strategic goals with its associated key polarity for the entire city staff. Robust Service Delivery (GPS): Quality of service and cost of service Sustainable Community (GPS): Thriving economy and beautiful environment Effective Public Engagement (GPS): Needs of the community and needs of the city Effective Inter-​governmental Relations (GPS): Local focus and regional focus Exceptional Workforce (GPS): Operational requirements and organizational development needs Effective Resource Management (GPS): Take care of what we have and get what we need

Building on Success: Going into the Community to Address the Polarity of Business Development and Quality of Life Issues: Bar Moratorium and Escalating Contention With a burgeoning nightlife economy in Upper King Street in Charleston’s Central Business District, crowding, public safety, and quality of life issues for adjacent neighbors became contentious and polarizing. As those interests took sides in a public debate

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    563 about who was right and who was wrong, Charleston mayor Joe Riley decided it was a worthwhile endeavor to use the polarity approach to address this complex problem. A twenty-​ one-​ member steering group called the Late Night Activity Review Committee was formed with an overriding goal to ensure that those working on this nightlife activity initiative were not overly confrontational. Throughout the process, the committee and the public were engaged in a process that allowed points of view to be expressed and validated. With each step in the process, they built greater understanding and common ground for agreement. This highly diverse group of neighborhood leaders, nightlife business owners, daytime business owners, real estate developers, and zoning board members came together because there was a greater purpose each agreed they wanted, which was for “Charleston to remain a vibrant, relevant forward-​looking city,” their defined GPS on the Polarity Map®. In this instance, Mayor Riley wanted to use the PACT™, but not go into the details of the polarity theory explicitly. The two poles selected were nightlife business and diverse business/​neighborhoods. The steering group, key stakeholders, answered four questions (one for each quadrant) of the Polarity Map®: 1. For the upside of nightlife business: “What are the positive results from doing a good job in supporting nightlife business?” 2. For the upside of diverse business and neighborhoods:  “What are the positive results from doing a good job in supporting diverse business and neighborhoods?” 3. For the downside of nightlife business:  “What are the negative results from too much focus on nightlife business to the neglect of diverse business and neighborhoods?” 4. For the downside of diverse business and neighborhoods: “What are the negative results from too much focus on diverse business and neighborhoods to the neglect of nightlife business?” Once the committee had created the map, the next question was, “How are we doing, performance-​wise, with this polarity?” Step 3, Assessing, used Polarity Partnerships’ online PACT™ assessment between the first committee meeting and the second. A survey containing twelve questions (three for each of the four quadrants of the Polarity Map®) related to three key themes: safety/​economics, demographics, and role of government. It was at this point in the process that the group received an overview of how polarities work (Steps 1 and 2, Seeing and Mapping), which made the theory base more explicit, and helped them understand how to decipher the data in the assessment report. From there, they dove into Step 4, Learning, to make sense of the results. Figure 28.6 shows a one piece of the PACT™ assessment results. A key factor for the committee’s success was that all involved believed their voices, points of view, and concerns were heard. Including this diverse group of key stakeholders honored the two distinct types of businesses (day-​time and nightlife) and the neighborhood residents. All of them play critical roles in Charleston’s continued success.

Values = positive results from focusing on the left pole A. There is freedom to redevelop and in fill the historic area.

Almost Always

100 75

75

73

Often

66

Some times

50 48 25

Almost 0 Never Question Question Question A B C

Almost Never

75

Seldom

50 25

52 36

61

Some times

B. Real estate values increase in neighborhoods.

58 Nightlife Businesses

49

67

A. Property rights are impinged, eroded.

B. Real estate values decrease in neighborhoods, market declines.

B. City services are reduced from massive hospitality tax loss.

C. Nighttime public transportation services are strained.

C. Public transportation services are limited to daytime only.

75 50

Fears = negative results from overfocusing on the right pole to the neglect of the left pole

77

Often Some times Seldom

Almost 0 Never Question Question Question A B C

48

100

Almost Never

75

Seldom

50 25

Fears = negative results from overfocusing on the left pole to the neglect of the right pole

57

67

25

Diverse Businesses & Neighborhoods

A. Single use zones drive out other uses.

Almost Always

100

C. Diverse businesses and neighborhoods create demand for day time public transportation services.

Often

Almost 0 Always Question Question Question A B C Mean

B. Hospitality tax revenues enable robust city services. C. Nightlife businesses create demand for nighttime public transportation services.

Seldom

100

Values = positive results from focusing on the right pole A. Zoning guidelines support preservation and development of under utilized properties.

54

Some times

53 39

Often

Almost 0 Always Question Question Question A B C Mean

Figure 28.6 PACT™ assessment results Source: Polarity Partnerships LLC

564   Paradox and Polarities

Mean

Mean

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    565 With a more complete picture of the tension providing legitimacy for the two points of view in each polarity, the committee conducted public listening sessions. More than 120 citizens repeated the process of answering four key questions in support of this common greater purpose and then suggested action steps for how to attain the upside benefits of both poles. The results were stunning. The citizens’ ideas were focused on the positives of both poles in pursuit of the GPS. With their own ideas and recommendations supplemented by the public for maximizing the upside benefits while minimizing the downside limitations, the committee crafted a set of integrated recommendations, which ended with a broad base of support from all stakeholders. Every recommendation from these historically polarized groups of stakeholders received unanimous City Council support. Mayor Riley provided the following comments to the City Council on the night of the final report were: Before we begin, let’s just thank them. This has been a community civic engagement/​elected legislative body partnership in action. What seemed a year ago to be an intractable challenge, a group of citizens, well-​led and well-​facilitated, came together in a series of meetings over a period of time for this amazing American city that presents marvelous opportunities as well as challenges for this very special place we have. They have worked hard, listened, and came together with amazing unanimity and recommendations. There really is no college course in civic engagement that could top this as an example of a best practice. It converted “either/​or thinking” to “and”; the result is just extraordinary.

A Defining Moment for the Community and the Police: June 17, 2015, Shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church On June 17, 2015, a tragedy took place in Charleston. A group of worshipers at Mother Emanuel AME Church welcomed a stranger, a young white man, to join their bible study. After an hour of praying with the members, the man, intent on starting a race war, opened fire, killing nine of the parishioners including their pastor. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley described Charleston’s response to the horrific event in a national address as the Republican Rebuttal to the 2016 State of the Union Address. She said: Our state was struck with shock, pain, and fear. But our people would not allow hate to win … There’s an important lesson in this. In many parts of society today, whether in popular culture, academia, the media, or politics, there’s a tendency to falsely equate noise with results. Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume. When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. And that can make a world of difference.

566   Paradox and Polarities Late in the summer of 2015, Chief Mullen looked for an opportunity to promote dialogue and to support growth and healing in the wake of the tragedy. The region’s tensions, related to preserving public safety and safeguarding individual rights, mirrored those in discussions nationwide. He wondered how police and the community might address those tensions at a deeper level using PACT™. The GPS for this polarity seemed to be: “To further strengthen relationships between the police and the citizens they serve grounded in trust and legitimacy.” In August 2015, the Charleston Illumination Project was born. It was one important and lasting way to appreciate the gifts of grace and forgiveness shown by the community after the shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME Church and to honor the victims, survivors, and their families. It provided an avenue for Charlestonians to do something positive, and to move forward together. With the entire Charleston community named as the key stakeholder, dozens of public listening sessions engaged more than 850 citizens in dialogue with explicit use of the PACT™. The process promoted offering ideas for improvements that police and citizens can make together. The public was given a general introduction to basic polarity concepts, while a diverse core group of ninety-​seven community influencers received more in-​depth training in polarity theory and principles. The largest public conversation ever assembled in Charleston was due to the efforts of this visible and respected core group, who helped recruit citizens. External resources from the polarity practitioner community, Robert Jacobs and Chandra Irvin, brought unique expertise in large-​scale engagement and change and work in faith communities. Engaging the community in places of worship broadened participation and provided an additional way for Charlestonians to: make new friends; explore the polarity of commonalties and differences; learn; share; and pray for success of the Illumination Project. The South’s oldest daily newspaper, The Post and Courier, honored the one-​year anniversary of the Mother Emanuel AME shootings by producing its first ever feature video documentary entitled, From Tragedy to Trust, with a sole focus on the Illumination Project as the greatest accomplishment of the community. This short documentary can be found here: http://​data.postandcourier. com/​saga/​oneyearlater/​page/​6. Significant support for learning was provided by a community of practice now called the “Polarity Learning Community,” a group that has met regularly since the mid 1990s. Practitioners who use PACT™ and real-​time strategic change principles come together to learn and lend support to one another, sharing application experiences from many sectors and professional focus areas, such as, coaching (Anderson 2010), public sector emergency response (Seidler 2008), family business (Schuman et al. 2010), health care (Wesorick 2015), education (Kise 2013), and large-​scale systems change (Jacobs 1994). Research by Dr. William J. Benet focuses on the key polarities in the democratic system of government. The Institute for Polarities of Democracy (HYPERLINK “http:// www.PolaritiesofDemocracy.org” www.PolaritiesofDemocracy.org), is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization listing in its bylaws its purpose to: “build healthy, sustainable, and just organizations and communities” … “use tools and processes developed by Polarity Partnerships” .. “to articulate, communicate, and disseminate the fundamental values underlying our democratic republic, which are fundamental to our survival.” Many

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    567 in the Polarity Learning Community are graduates of the two-​year Mastery Program, and are involved in advancing the theory and practice. Several Mastery graduates are co-​authors with Johnson for his forthcoming. Since 2011, the Polarity Learning Community has provided ideas, resources, and support in large and small ways to the Charleston story and Chief Mullen has presented to the group on a number of occasions. The Center for Creative Leadership hosted the annual conference of the Polarity

Table 28.2 Summary of lessons learned Lessons Learned

Commentary

Diversity of leaders/​leadership.

Informal leaders in the neighborhoods, on street corners, and in community centers were important to success.

Persevere.

The number of stakeholders and complexity of the work continued to grow throughout the project.

Vision and leadership.

Chief Mullen saw the power and possibilities in asking police and citizens to improve their own relationships. The polarity of Direction AND Participation was well leveraged throughout the process. Clear boundaries, processes, and roles were defined early in the project.

Prepare to be changed emotionally by There are the conversations related to fears and stories the process. repeated and heard many times over, which can be motivating and debilitating at the same time. This is the most important work, aside from the challenges of logistics of meeting designs and rooms, flyers and tasks. Make some new friends.

You’ll realize there are more connections to people than you could have ever realized. New friends await you in the process.

Build a great team.

The foundation of trust-​building was to a large degree in trained facilitator teams conducting the Listening Sessions. They had each other’s backing and worked to support each other in the overall goals of the work.

Mix some fun with the seriousness of A healthy helping of positive energy went a long way toward the work. making the difficult work better. Seizing upon unique opportunities to offset the intensity of the work made a big difference. Learn, apply, repeat—​and leave a trail for others to follow.

Doing community work through police relationships is an effective entry point for addressing other issues as police have a reach into a community under the mission of safety. To realize its full potential there must be a regular ongoing process for citizens and police to build trust and legitimacy. The process should be never ending. Information = commitment. The more people know about the process in which they are engaged, the more informed their decisions are within that process.

568   Paradox and Polarities Learning Community in August of 2016. At that gathering, Chief Mullen was presented with the first award created to honor a “Master of Polarities-​in-​Practice”—​in homage to his many accomplishments and capability providing leadership in the application of PACT™. Chief Mullen and the community of Charleston have generated great interest in ways to apply this approach in cities nationwide. The Polarity Learning Community is actively pursuing avenues to replicate and scale this success. The public report on the Illumination Project, including the history, community engagement, strategic planning and implementation report, is available online at: http://​www.charleston-​sc.gov/​ DocumentCenter/​View/​12061. This report details how the process unfolded and contains supporting materials, photographs, and documentation of what was learned. A degree of pride and appreciation for the work and for what is possible comes through in the public report. At the same time, it provides a sobering recognition of the magnitude of the task and humility the participants needed to accomplish the task. The overriding message is that the work is never done. Table 28.2 provides a summary of a few of the report’s key lessons.

Conclusion Breakthroughs come when people learn how to take the time to stop and examine their assumptions. Peter Senge

The city of Charleston demonstrated how stellar Police Department leadership together with skilled community facilitation supported leveraging “and” thinking challenges to strengthen relationships between police and citizens. Community competency in applying polarity practices extended to other community challenges between daytime/ nightlife businesses and residents, and in response to a tragic mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Charleston’s example of community engagement and resilience stands as a beacon of hope and inspiration for cities that face similar challenges, nationally and globally. Essential to understanding the practice of polarity/​paradox is appreciating the immense power of “or” thinking. However, misapplying “or” thinking severely undermines the ability to see chronic, ongoing, and unsolvable challenges that require “and” thinking to leverage polarity dynamics. Acute and complex realities of our interdependent and interconnected twenty-​first-​century world require us to leverage both thinking competencies to thrive sustainably. It is therefore crucial that we rapidly accelerate competency that supplements “or” thinking with “and” thinking for leaders and organizational systems if we are to increase resilience, reduce polarization, and enhance our quality of life. Innovations in technology tools and approaches (such as the PACT™ assessment) that provide explicit performance measurement for the broad array of polarities/​paradoxes will support efforts to scale competency systemically.

Cliff Kayser, Margaret Seidler, and Barry Johnson    569 Charleston’s practice story is one of many within our broad, diverse, and talented worldwide community of polarity practitioners. We are honored to contribute to this critical topic area for this esteemed publication, which supports our mission/​GPS to “supplement thinking and enhance the quality of life for each of us and for all of us, on the planet.”

References Anderson, K. 2010. Coaching Polarities: Coaching People and Managing Polarities. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. Axelrod, R. H., Axelrod, E. M., Beedon, J., and Jacobs, R.W. 2004. You don’t have to do it alone:  How to involve others to get things done. San Francisco, CA:  Berrett-​Koehler Publishers. Beisser, A. 1970. The Paradoxical Theory of Change. Gouldsboro, ME: Gestalt Journal Press. Benet, W. 2013. Managing the Polarities of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework for Positive Social Change. Walden University Journal of Social Change. Minneapolis, MN: Volume 5, Issue 1. Dewey, J. 1998. Experience and education. Kappa Delta Pi: 60th Anniversary Edition. de Wit, B., and Meyer, R. 1999. Strategy Synthesis:  Resolving Strategy Paradoxes to Create Competitive Advantage. London: Thomson. Emerson, M. B. (2013), Navigating Organizational Paradox with Polarity Mapping: A Classic Grounded Theory Study. Doctoral dissertation, Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara. Fagan, J., and Shepherd, I. L. (1970) 2003. Gestalt Therapy Now. Goldsboro, ME: The Gestalt Journal Press. Jacobs, R. 1994. Real Time Strategic Change. San Francisco, CA: Barrett-​Koehler. Johnson, B. 1992. Polarity Management:  Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. Johnson et  al. forthcoming. AND, How to Leverage Polarity/​Paradox/​Dilemma. Polarity Partnership. Available at: http://​www.polaritypartnerships.com/​news/​. Kegan, Robert. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Kise, J. 2013. Unleashing the Positive Power of Differences:  Polarity Thinking in our Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Lewin, K. 1997. Resolving Social Conflict and Field Theory in Social Science. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (APA) Press. Lewis, M. W. (2000). “Exploring Paradox: Toward a More Comprehensive Guide.” Academy of Management Review, 25(4): 760–776. Lewis, M.W., and Smith, W.K. (2014). “Paradox as a Metatheoretical Perspective: Sharpening the Focus and Widening the Scope.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50(2): 127–149. Pepper, G. L., and Larson, G. S. (2006). Cultural identity tensions in a post-acquisition organization. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 34(1), 49–71. Schuman, A., Stutz, S., and.Ward, J.L. 2010. Family Business as Paradox. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Seidler, M. 2008. Power Surge: A Conduit for Enlightened Leadership. Amherst, MA: HRD Press.

570   Paradox and Polarities Senge, P. M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York, NY: Doubleday. Senge, P. M., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J., and Flowers, B. S. 2005. Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society. New York, NY: Doubleday. Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. W. (2011). “Toward a Theory of Paradox: A dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing.” Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381–403. Quinn, R. E. 1988. Beyond Rational Management:  Mastering the Paradoxes and Competing Demands of High Performance. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-​Bass. Wesorick, B. 2015. Polarity Thinking: The Missing Logic to Achieve Healthcare Transformation. Amherst, MA: HRD Press.

Index

Tables and figures are indicated by an italic t and f following the page number. Abdallah, C.  498–9 absurd  32, 128, 129–31 academic–practitioner relationships  15t, 19, 472–89 expanded perspective  479–85 similarities between academics and practitioners 474–9 Academy of Management (AOM)  3, 144–5 acceptance coopetition 307 Economies of Worth  252, 255 human resource management  423, 424 pluralism 200, 209 teaching paradoxes  539 temporality 382, 387 action research  549 activity–rest polarity  549–51, 550f, 551f actor–network theory  246 ad fontes  28, 42 Adorno, T. W.  117 Adriá, F. 115 affect  67, 73–4, 75, 80 metacognitive knowledge  76, 77–8 affirmative action  336 agency–structure relationship  499 Albert, S.  178, 181, 188–9 Alinsky, S.  474, 479–81, 485–6 Alvesson, M.  453–4 ambicultural management  383 ambidexterity  5, 13t, 18, 315–32 contextual  316, 317–18, 320t, 322–4, 326, 327 dialectics  108, 109, 113, 114, 118 empirical research  516, 518–19 human resource management  423 organizational change  270 practice theory  504

process perspective  318–27 sequential  316, 317, 318, 320t, 324–5, 326, 327 structural  316, 317, 319–22, 320t, 325–6, 327 temporal 374, 382–3 theory background  317–18 ambiguities creativity 441 empirical research  525 gender  337, 341, 342, 344, 345 human resource management  417 individual identity  462 modernity  278, 281, 283, 285–8, 290–1 organizational change, rhetorical theories  262, 263, 264, 270 organizational identity  187 pluralism  198, 199, 200, 211 practice theory  505 sustainability 366 teaching paradoxes  532, 539–40 ambitemporality 374, 384 ambivalence 216–17 cognitive  301, 302, 303, 308 coopetition 301–5, 307–8 creativity 439 Economies of Worth  252 emotional  302, 303, 307 gender  341, 343, 345 human resource management  428 individual identity  454 modernity 284 practice theory  496 rhetorical theories  264, 271 sustainability 367, 369 vicious and virtuous cycles  404, 407 analogical reasoning  77, 78

572   Index analytic attitude  48, 49t, 52–3 belonging paradox  58 performance and organizing paradox  61 Andriopoulos, C.  250t Ansari, S. 374 antinomies 29–30, 131 dialectics 31 language 91–2, 94 anti-performativity 145–7 antithesis  31, 106, 113 coopetition 297 definitional precision  117 managerial use  108, 109, 109–12 negative dialectics  117 positive dialectics  115, 116 antonymy  68, 70–2, 70f, 80 affect 73 analogical reasoning  77 cultural metacognition  79 domain knowledge  75 metacognitive knowledge  77 perception 72 social conventions  78–9 anxiety cognitive approaches  73–4 creativity 442 dialectics 114, 119 human resource management  423, 424, 427 psychoanalytics  48, 49t, 51, 53, 62 authority paradox  54, 55, 57 belonging paradox  57, 58, 59 performance and organizing paradox 59–60, 61, 62 scholar-practitioners 478 Apple  109n, 113, 116, 304–5, 397 Aristotle 29, 132 academic–practitioner relationships  472 Being ontology  126, 133 and Confucianism  31 dialectics 31 goods of first intent  218–19 IS/IS NOT structure of comprehension  128, 130, 138 law of non-contradiction  29, 38 Otherness 136 paradox meta-theory  40 arrow paradox  131

Ashcraft, K.  453–4 assertiveness 339 Atlanta Symphony Orchestra  183, 189 attachment theory  51n authority paradox  48, 49t, 54–7 autonomy (Economies of Worth)  240, 246 avoidance 425 Bakhtin, M.  105, 107 BancoSol 183, 361 Bang and Olufsen  185 Bansal, P. 383 barber paradox  32 Bateson, G.  87–8 grace  94–5, 98, 100–1 language  89, 92, 102 integration, syntax for  95–6, 98 routine integration  100–1 universal significance vs. singular ineffability 92 Baumeister, R. F.  219–20, 225 Becoming ontology  126–7, 133–4, 136–8 Bedard, S. 562 Bednarek, R.  500–1 Being ontology  126–7, 132–3 belonging paradox Economies of Worth  247, 248 human resource management  420, 421, 422 organizational identity  187, 191 Otherness 129 pluralism 198t, 199 practice theory  493, 497, 499, 505 psychoanalytics  48, 49t, 57–9 rhetorical theories  268 teaching paradoxes  533 Ben & Jerry’s  358 Benedictine communities  341 Bentham, J.  33, 88 Bergson, H. 126 bias (empirical research)  522 binaries, gender  333, 334–5, 338–40, 345 Bion, W.  52, 58 bio-surveillance 155 Bisphenol-A (BPA)  480–1 BMW 324, 325 Boltanski, L.  240–3, 246–9, 251, 252, 254, 256 boundary spanning  270

Index   573 bounded rationality  280, 281 Bourdieu, P. 151 British East India Company  154 broaden-and-build theory  228 Brundtland Report  353–4 Buddhism 30, 31, 39 bureaucracy Critical Management Studies  152 feminist 344, 346 gender 343–4, 346 vicious circles  403 Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy 362 business schools Critical Management Studies  149–50 modernity 285–6, 290–1 paradox–pedagogy links  529–46 practice theory  498 Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA)  360, 522–3 Cambridge University  166–9, 170, 172–5 Camus, A.  32, 37 capitalism Critical Management Studies  144, 145, 148, 150–1 gender 344 human resource management  414, 416–17, 420, 422, 428 institutional theory  166 sustainability 353, 361 case studies polarity approach (Charleston, South Carolina) 555–68 teaching paradoxes  536–41, 544 categories/categorization processes Being ontology  133 cognitive approaches  68–72, 78, 80 domain knowledge  75–6 metacognitive knowledge  76–7 reasoning 74 social conventions  79 Otherness 134, 138 paradox as absurd  130, 131 routine integration  101 universal significance vs. singular ineffability 92–3

causal loops  393–4 see also vicious cycles; virtuous cycles CEOs dialectics 119 temporal depth  378 temporal focus  377 vicious circles  402 Ceres 362 change Becoming ontology  133 dialectics  106–10, 112–13, 116–17, 119, 120 human resource management  421, 423, 424 institutional theory  174 modernity 284–5 organizational identity  183–6, 189, 190 polarity thinking  557–8 rhetorical theories  260–76 social 203t, 203–4, 209 sustainability 359 teaching paradoxes  541 temporality 388 vicious and virtuous cycles  406 chaosmos 118–19 Charleston case study, polarity approach 555–68 Charleston Illumination Project  565–8 Charmaz, K.  172–3 chief executive officers see CEOs China Chinese language  136 collaboration and cooperation  515, 524 Chouinard, Y. 367 chronic illness  172–3 Cirque du Soleil  109n, 113 citizenship corporate 354 good 256 civic world  241, 242t, 248 class, social Critical Management Studies  150, 151 institutional theory  163, 164, 171 Cambridge University vignette  166–9, 170, 172–5 classes (linguistics) language and logical types  91–2, 93, 102 routine integration  101 Cleopatra 340

574   Index climate change  361, 362, 383 Clinton, B. 171 Clinton, H. 117 clock time  375t, 376–7, 379, 388–9 future research  386, 387, 388 hybrid organizing  384 improvisation 384 negative consequences  379–80, 381 Coca Cola  90, 359–60, 379 cognitive ambivalence  301, 302, 303, 308 cognitive appraisal theories  302 cognitive approaches  9t, 10, 66–86 coopetition 301–4 creativity 442 empirical research  516 how individuals experience paradoxes 72–4 how individuals learn to manage paradoxes 74–8 others, role of  78–9 sustainability 359, 360 why individuals experience paradoxes 68–72 cognitive development  223 cognitive load  73 collectivism 444 colonialism 154, 156 CommCorp 385 common good (Economies of Worth)  241, 246, 251, 252 common ground (rhetorical theories)  270 Common Threads Initiative  368 common worlds  241, 242t community organizing  479–80 co-modification paradox  342 compartmentalization see spatial differentiation competing values taxonomy  128 competition 297–8 academic–practitioner relationships  476 inter-firm see coopetition competitive advantage Economies of Worth  255 human resource management  415 temporal speed  379 competitive tension  302n Complex Adaptive Systems  204

Complex Evolving Systems  205 complexity theory foundations 204–6 pluralism  204–9, 210, 211 rhetorical theories  264 sustainability 355 systemic principles  206–8, 207t Component Model of Creativity  439 composite objects  249 compromises (Economies of Worth)  243, 248–9, 251–6 concertive control  118 conflicts ambidexterity 318, 325–6 cognitive approaches  79 coopetition 302–3, 305 creativity 437–40, 442–3 Critical Management Studies  144, 147, 152 dialectics  106–7, 109, 110, 118 positive 115, 116 East–West approaches  125, 128, 129 Economies of Worth  239 empirical research  514, 519 gender  335, 339, 341–5, 347–8 human resource management  414–15, 417, 422, 425, 428 individual identity  454, 466 institutional theory  164 modernity paradoxes  281–2, 284, 286, 292 organizational identity  183, 186, 188–9 philosophy 33, 37, 42 pluralism  199–200, 202–4, 211 polarity approach  550 positive organizational scholarship 216–17, 224 process syntax for organizational research 98 psychoanalytics analytic attitude  52 authority paradox  54, 56 belonging paradox  57, 58 defense mechanisms  51 unconscious 50 rhetorical theories  262–3 sustainability  355–7, 358t, 359–62, 366, 369 temporality  373–4, 376, 382, 384–5 vicious and virtuous cycles  395

Index   575 conformity paradox  453, 456t, 457–9, 466 confrontation Economies of Worth  252 practice theory  493 Confucianism 30–1, 40 connection (dialectics)  109, 110 connectivity principle (complexity theory)  206, 207t, 208 consequentiality 33 paradox meta-theory  37 practice theory  491, 492t, 497–9, 501–2, 502f systemic paradoxes  503 contextual ambidexterity  316, 317–18, 320t, 322–4, 326, 327 contextual studies  516–17, 523–4 contingency theory  1, 125 contradictions 535 dialectics 118, 119 human resource management  415, 416 contradictions 1–4, 7, 8 academic–practitioner relationships 484, 486–7 ambidexterity  315, 317–18, 323, 329 cognitive approaches  68–9, 71, 78, 80 coopetition  296–7, 299–303, 305–10 creativity  434–5, 436t, 438, 440, 442–5 Critical Management Studies  143–4, 146–7, 149–50, 154, 156 dialectics  105, 112–13, 120 assumptions and ideas  106, 107 distinctions between  111t elements of  110–11, 111t engagement of organizations with  119 as genealogy  118 managerialist responses  107–9 positive 113–14, 115 thesis/antithesis/synthesis put to managerial use  109, 110–11, 112 East–West approaches  125–8, 130, 132, 133–4, 136–8 Economies of Worth  240, 245–7, 251–2, 255–6 empirical research  513–16, 518–20, 523, 525 gender 333–4, 336–46 human resource management 415–25, 427–8

individual identity  463, 464n, 466 institutional theory  164, 170, 174 law of non-contradiction  29, 38, 132, 138 modernity paradoxes  278, 283, 286–9, 291, 292 normative vs. descriptive lens  7 organizational identity  178, 180t, 183, 188–9 paradox distinctions between  111t as inherent vs. socially constructed  5 ontology 6 philosophy  27, 34, 41–2 dialectics 31 of language  32 logic 29, 30 paradox meta-theory  35t, 36–41 political 33 pluralism  198, 199, 202–4, 208, 211 positive organizational scholarship  216–17 practice theory  491, 494, 496, 498–501, 503 psychoanalytics 48, 62 analytic attitude  52, 53 authority paradox  54, 55, 56 belonging paradox  57, 58 performance and organizing paradox 60 unconscious 50 rhetorical theories  260–71 social order  2 sustainability  353, 355–7, 360–2, 365–8 teaching paradoxes  530, 532, 534–5, 541–2, 544 case study  538–9 temporality  374, 382–4, 386–7, 389 vicious and virtuous cycles  398–9, 402, 403 control concertive 118 gender 340–1 convention theory  426 conventions, social  78–9, 80 convergent problems  230 convergent thinking  438, 441, 443 Cooper, R.  134–5 cooperation 297–8 inter-firm see coopetition

576   Index coopetition 13t, 17, 296–314 cultural metacognition  79 dialectics 116, 118 as an inter-firm paradox  297–300 dynamic model  308–9, 308f managing paradox and tension  306–8 paradoxical tension  300–6 corporate citizenship  354 corporate social responsibility (CSR) Critical Management Studies  144 dialectics 118 Economies of Worth  248, 255, 256 sustainability 354 temporality 379, 380 counter-identification 342–3 countertransference 52t, 52–3, 58, 59, 61 Covaleski, M. A.  267–8 creative destruction  106 creativity 14t, 18–19, 434–51 coopetition 304 empirical research  515, 519–20 groups 436t, 440–1 human resource management  423, 426, 427 identity 436t, 440 leadership 436t, 441, 445 and learning  436t, 439–40 models Component Model  439 Dual Pathway to creativity  438–9 outcomes 436t, 437–8 paradoxes 436t, 437–41 managing 441–5 processes 436t, 438–9 teaching paradoxes  539 see also innovation critical human resource management (cHRM)  414, 416–17, 426 Critical Management Studies (CMS)  11t, 16, 143–61 analytical and normative paradox  147–8 bureaucracy 152 class 151 colonialism 154 feminism 152–3 ideology 155 Marxism 150–1 opposition and embrace paradox  149–50

performative and anti-performative paradox 146–7 pluralism  201–4, 208–9, 210, 211 power/knowledge 154–5 queer theory  153–4 reform and revolution paradox  148–9 theory and phenomena paradox  149 critical rationality  278–9, 281, 282 culture academic–practitioner relationships  485 ambidexterity 321 colonialism 154 creativity 444–6 Critical Management Studies  154 dialectics 114 empirical research  515, 524 institutional theory  164, 172 Cambridge University vignette  168, 170 metacognition 79, 80 cybernetics 393, 396 Dacin, M. T.  167, 168 Daigle, P.  253t Danish University of Education (DUP) 99, 100 death 32 fear of 223 psychoanalytics 50 decision-making garbage can model of  278–81, 285 modernity  278–81, 285, 288 temporal speed  379 decontextual studies  516 defense mechanisms coopetition 305 Economies of Worth  252 gender 337 human resource management  425 philosophy 35t, 39, 40 positive organizational scholarship  223, 229 practice theory  496 psychoanalytics  48, 49t, 51, 52t, 62, 63 authority paradox  56 belonging paradox  58, 59 performance and organizing paradox 60, 61, 62 sustainability 360–5

Index   577 Dehler, G. E.  427 de-naturalization 145 denial Economies of Worth  252 psychoanalytics 52t, 57, 59 Denis, J.-L.  498–9 deontology 33, 37 deregulation 144 descriptive perspective on paradox  6–8 design thinking/strategy  536 Dewey, J. 553 dialectical sensemaking  337 dialectics  4, 7, 9t, 10, 31, 105–24 assumptions and ideas  105–7 contradiction and paradox  112–13 distinction between  111t creativity 445 definitions  105–6, 261, 464n Economies of Worth  251 elements of  110–12 empirical research  514 engagement of organizations with  119–20 gaps and future research  117–19 gender  333, 337, 340–4 as genealogy  118–19 at group level  114–15 individual identity  457, 463–5 at individual level  113–14 institutional theory  174 at inter-organizational level  116 managerialist responses to contradictions 107–9 negative 116–17 normative vs. descriptive lens  7 at organizational level  115–16 paradoxical ontology  6 philosophy 35t, 36t, 39, 41 positive 113–16 positive organizational scholarship  216 relational 107 thesis/antithesis/synthesis put to managerial use  109–12 vicious and virtuous cycles  398 dialogical principle, complexity theory  205 diaries 522 dichotomies academic–practitioner relationships  487

dialectics 119 East–West approaches  129 gender 345 practice theory  490, 496 temporality 376 differentiation ambidexterity 317 organizational identity  182, 187 rhetorical theories  260, 262–3, 268, 269, 271 social 203, 204 spatial see spatial differentiation teaching paradoxes  539, 542 temporal see temporal differentiation Digital Divide Data (DDD)  185, 187, 188 dilemmas 216 definition 261 empirical research  514 discourse individual identity  462–3, 466 practice theory  498–9 discovery, and sustainability  366 discrimination 335–6, 337 dis-identification 342–3 dissonance creativity 442 dialectics 113–14, 119–20 gender 344, 346 distinctiveness, optimal  458 divergent problems  230 divergent thinking  438, 441, 443, 444 diversity paradoxes of  336, 341–2, 343 teaching paradoxes  537–9 domain knowledge  75–6, 78, 80 domestic world  241, 242t, 243 Dontenwill, E.  253t double binds gender  334–6, 337–9, 341 human resource management  422, 423 Douglas, M. 171 dramatic irony  264, 270 drawings (multi-modal research)  524 Dual Pathway to Creativity model  438–9 dualism/dualities 1, 3, 7 academic–practitioner relationships 472–4, 486 ambidexterity 317

578   Index dualism/dualities (cont.) coopetition 296 Critical Management Studies  153 dialectics 120 contradiction and paradox  113 definitional precision  118 elements of  110, 111–12, 111t engagement of organizations with  119 as genealogy  118 managerialist responses  108–9 positive 114 East–West approaches  125 Economies of Worth  239, 248–9, 255 empirical research  514 gender  333–6, 338–40, 343, 345–6 human resource management  413, 416, 426 individual identity  452–4 institutional theory  173–5 paradox as inherent vs. socially constructed 5 paradoxical ontology  5, 6 philosophy 38 pluralism 205, 210 practice theory  490, 493, 500–1 psychoanalytics 48, 50, 58 rhetorical theories  260 temporality  382, 384, 387 vicious and virtuous cycles  398, 402 dynamic capabilities  379 dynamic communities  118 dynamic equilibrium ambidexterity 327 defensive resolution  398–9, 399f Economies of Worth  252, 254 receptive resolution  398–9, 399f sustainability 358 temporality 382 vicious and virtuous cycles  398–9, 399f Eastern approaches to paradox  9t, 10, 125–40 absurdity 129–31 cause 132–3 in management and organization studies 127–9 Otherness 133–8 philosophy 28, 30–1

paradox meta-theory  35t, 36t, 37, 38–9, 40, 42 Economies of Worth (EW)  12t, 17, 239–59 assumptions 243–7, 244–5t contribution to paradox perspective 247–50 paradox perspective’s contribution to  251–4 research agenda  254–6 education see teaching efficiency (empirical research)  515, 519–20 ego 51, 57 Einstein, A. 217 El Bulli  113, 115 elasticity paradox (individual identity)  452–3, 456t, 460–1, 463–4, 466–7 eliciting paradoxes (empirical research)  515 emergence principle (complexity theory) 207t, 208 emotion academic–practitioner relationships  483 cognitive approaches  67, 73–4, 77–8 coopetition 301–4, 307 creativity 439, 442 gender 334 human resource management  422, 428 institutional theory  173 philosophy 40 practice theory  504 psychoanalytics  50–1, 53–4, 62, 63 authority paradox  55 belonging paradox  57, 58 performance and organizing paradox  60 emotional ambivalence  302, 303, 307 emotional capability  307 emotional intelligence  307 emotional regulation  307 emphasis-change training  443 empirical research  19–20, 20t, 513–28 challenges 514–17 context  516–17, 518t, 523–4 evidence 518t, 518–20 issues, decisions, and suggestions  518t multilevel studies  518t, 519, 521–2 multi-modality 518t, 524–5 protocols 520–1 reflexivity 518t, 522–3 enactment 396–7

Index   579 Engels, F.  31, 41 Engeström, Y. 266 Enron 155 entity paradox (individual identity)  453, 455–7, 456t, 466 entrepreneurship gender 343 modernity 280 Environmental Defense Fund  359 Epimenides  30, 89–91, 97 Episcopal Church context 516 identity  457, 458, 460, 464 organizational identity  185, 186 equality  333, 341, 345 equivocality 278 Escher, M. C.  90–1, 92 ethics Economies of Worth  248 paradox meta-theory  37 political philosophy  33 psychoanalytics 60 see also morality ethnicity academic–practitioner relationships 479–80 see also race Eubulides 130 eudemonism 218–19, 223–4 European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) 3 event time  375t, 376–7 future research  387, 388 hybrid organizing  384 improvisation 384 Evered, R.  474–5 evolutionary theory  219, 225 exclusive response to contradictions  107–8 existentialism 32 vs. logic  34 paradox meta-theory  35t, 36t, 37, 40, 42 experimentation, and sustainability  368 exploration–exploitation paradox ambidexterity 315–32 temporal 382–3 contextualization stage  316, 319, 320t, 328 contextual pathway  323

sequential pathway  324–5 structural pathway  321 coopetition 296 creativity 440, 441 dialectics 118 empirical research  515, 518–19 implementation stage  316, 319, 320t, 328 contextual pathway  323–4 sequential pathway  325 structural pathway  321–2 initiation stage  316, 319, 320t, 328 contextual pathway  322–3 sequential pathway  324 structural pathway  319–21 modernity 279 organizational identity  190 paradox as absurd  131 paradoxical ontology  5 practice theory  500 process perspective  318–29, 320t teaching paradoxes  534–40 expression, modes of  525 expressivism 289 extended macroscopic events  92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 100, 101–2 Fairtrade International  384 falsidical paradoxes  126, 131 fame world  241, 242t far-from equilibrium principle, complexity theory 207t, 208 Farjoun, M. 473 feedback complexity theory  207t, 207–8, 210 empirical research  523 loops 393–4, 395f see also vicious cycles; virtuous cycles positive organizational scholarship  224, 225 teaching paradoxes  532 Feldman, M. S.  490 feminisms 333 Critical Management Studies  152–3 modernist  334–8, 345, 347–8 new materialist  348 post-humanist 348 postmodernist 338–43, 345–8 feminist bureaucracy  344, 346

580   Index feminist dilemmatic theorizing  347–8 finite vs. infinite  32 focus groups  522 force field  549 Ford 305 Forester, J.  267, 271 Foucault, M. 154 fragmentation, and individual identity  459 freedom, dizziness of  32, 39 French pragmatic sociology see Economies of Worth Freud, S.  50–1, 53–5, 62, 440 Friedman, M. 362 Friedman, T. 369 Fronda, Y.  253t future, focus on the  375t, 377–8, 385, 388 identity work  459, 460 Gantt, H. 373 Gellner, E. 278 gender 13t, 18, 333–52 Critical Management Studies  152–3 doing  338–9, 343, 345 feminism 152–3 hybrid organizing  384–5 institutional theory  163, 164, 171 modernist feminism  334–8 neutrality 335–6, 337 organizational forms  343–5 performativity 338–40, 344–5 postmodernist feminisms  338–43 queer theory  153 Georgetown University  164–6, 170, 171, 174–5 GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)  322, 323, 326 globalization Critical Management Studies  144 dialectics 116 human resource management  417 individual identity  463 GM 116 goals coopetition 298, 309 creativity 438, 443–4 Economies of Worth  247–8 human resource management  422, 424 modernity 281, 287 pluralism 198t, 199

temporality 388 Gödel, K.  30, 39 good citizenship  256 Google 304–5 governance empirical research  515 gender 343, 345 vicious cycles  407 government, and sustainability  369 grace  95, 98, 100, 101, 102 Grameen Bank  341 grammar of justification  247 Greece, tax evasion in  403 Green, S. 114 green world  241, 248–9 greenwashing 255 Grimand, A.  250t groupthink 304, 402–3 Gucci family  56 H&M 359 Haley, N. 565 harmonization 200 harmony 79 Harris, K. L.  346–8 Hastings, R. 108 heap paradox  130, 131 Hegel, G. W. F.  31, 39, 41 dialectics 105–6, 116–17 heliotropism  219, 222, 224, 227, 229, 231 Heracleous, L.  250t Heraclitus 127, 132 Otherness 135–7, 139 Hewlett Packard  325 holism cognitive approaches  77 Eastern philosophy  38–9, 42 vicious and virtuous cycles  400, 405 hologrammatic principle, complexity theory 205 Honda 401 horns paradox  130, 131 HSBC 114 human resource management (HRM)  14t, 18, 413–33 coping with tensions  414–17 dynamics 418–19

Index   581 paradox framework on tensions 419–24, 419f telework example  424–5 sources of tensions  414 Hume, D. 278 humor empirical research  517, 525 gender 337, 341 language 99n organizational change  264, 267 practice theory  494, 497, 504 teaching paradoxes  533 hybrid identity  185, 187–9, 199 hybrid organizations dialectics 115–16 Economies of Worth  248, 256 empirical research  522 sustainability 368 temporality  384–5, 386, 387, 389 hypercompetition 379 hypocrisy 283 hypotheses (psychoanalytics)  58 id 51 idealist organizational identity  188 idealization 59, 61 identity elasticity  452–3, 456, 460–1, 463–4, 466–7 individual see individual identity organizational see organizational identity play 459 regulation 339 work  339, 452–62, 464–5 ideology 155, 157 illness, chronic  172–3 improvisation dialectics 115 practice theory  496, 503 temporality 384, 389 vicious and virtuous cycles  406 incompleteness theorem  30 inconsistencies 216 individual identity  15t, 19, 452–71 creative 436t, 440, 444 Critical Management Studies  151, 157 dialectics 119

as dynamic interplay of knotted paradoxical tensions 461–5 empirical research  513, 516, 519 gender 335–43, 345–6 human resource management  428 identity work  454–61 institutional theory  168 Cambridge University vignette  172, 174–5 modernity 288 ontology 132 organizational change  266 Otherness 136, 138 teaching paradoxes  533 individualism creativity 444 Critical Management Studies  145 individuality paradox  440 industrial world  241, 242t, 243, 248, 251 infinite vs. finite  32 information schools  182 inherent approach to paradox  4–5 philosophy 35t, 36–7 practice theory  497–8 teaching paradoxes  530 innovation empirical research  513, 515–16, 519–20 “foolishness in”  278, 279 human resource management  423 individual identity  463 modernity  278, 279, 280 practice theory  499 sustainability 365–9 teaching paradoxes  536–9 vicious circles  402 see also creativity inspired world  241–3, 242t, 248, 251 institutional pluralism  198 institutional theory  11t, 16, 162–77 Cambridge University vignette  166–9, 170, 172–5 Georgetown University vignette  164–6, 170, 171, 174–5 human resource management  415 legitimacy 169–70 multiple interconnected fault lines  173–5 organizational identity  190 temporality 171–3

582   Index instrumentalism 289 integration ambidexterity 317–18 coopetition 306 dialectics  108–9, 110, 118 human resource management  418 importance and difficulty of  94–5 individual identity  459 organizational identity  182, 187 rhetorical theories  262, 263, 271 routine 100–1 syntax 95–8, 102 teaching paradoxes  539, 542 temporality 382, 387 threshold concepts  534–5 intensity, and positive organizational scholarship 226 interdependencies 1–2, 7–8 ambitemporality 384 empirical research  519 feedback 393–4 see also vicious cycles; virtuous cycles paradox defined  514 philosophy  30, 35t, 38–9 pluralism 200 complexity theory  206–7, 207t, 208 polarity thinking  558 process syntax  101 sustainability 365 teaching paradoxes  534–5 inter-firm paradoxes coopetition 296–314 drivers 298–9 dynamic model  308–9, 308f dynamic nature  299–300, 300f interpretation (psychoanalytics)  53, 58–9, 61, 62, 63 intertemporal choice  378 intra-psychic dynamic of managing oneself 54, 55 introjection 52t, 55, 56, 58 irony 216 dramatic 264, 270 empirical research  525 gender 344, 345 modernity 278 organizational change  260–1, 264, 271

cycling between irony and metaphor  269–71 learning from  268 mobilization 267 receptivity 265 situational 264, 270 Irvin, C. 566 Jacobs, R.  553, 557, 566 James, W.  126, 134, 135 Jarzabkowski, P. A.  250t, 494, 496, 501 Jay, J.  250t, 268–9 Johnson, B.  548, 555, 567 jokes see humor Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 3, 227 Jung, C. 55 justification, grammar of  247 Kant, I.  29–31, 33 Kaplan, S. 385 Kierkegaard, S.  32, 39, 55, 127 paradox as byproduct of passion of thought 125, 138 knowledge creation, paradox of  439–40 Critical Management Studies  154–5 knowledge-based processes  198t, 199–200 Korzybski, A.  87, 93, 94, 101 Labor Process Theory (LPT)  150–1 Langley, A.  498–9 language 9t, 10 classes and logical types  91–2 individual identity  462 integration importance and difficulty of  94–5 routine 100–1 modernity 287–8 organizational routines, syntax for  98–100 and paradox  89–91 philosophy of  32–3 paradox meta-theory  35t, 36t, 37, 39–40 positive organizational scholarship  220 sustainability 366–7 universal significance vs. singular ineffability 92–4 Lao Tzu  30, 127 Otherness  135, 137, 139

Index   583 laughter see humor law of non-contradiction  29, 38, 132, 138 Lê, J. K.  494, 501 leadership creativity 436t, 441, 445 Critical Management Studies  155 dialectics 114, 119 gender  334–5, 339–41, 343 modernity  280, 284–5, 286–9 organizational identity  189, 190 philosophy 39 pluralism 199 post-heroic  280, 286–7, 340 psychoanalytics 48, 54–7 transformational 155 see also CEOs; managers learning academic–practitioner relationships  481–3 context 537–8 creativity 436t, 438–40 goals 438 modernity 278, 279 positive organizational scholarship  223 problem-based 535, 541–2 synthetic 114, 119 see also teaching learning organizations  397 learning paradox human resource management  420 Otherness 129 practice theory  493 rhetorical theories  265, 266 temporality 388 legitimacy institutional theory  169–70, 175 modernity 283 Lewin, K.  549, 553, 554t Lewis, M. W. definition of paradox  68, 128, 143–4, 178, 261, 296, 398, 514 dynamic equilibrium model  254, 327, 358, 382, 398–9 Economies of Worth  250t human resource management  427 paradox meta-theory  347–8 typology of paradox  260 vicious and virtuous cycles  398–9, 418

liar paradox  30, 131 language  32, 89, 90, 91, 97 liberalization 144 limits to growth archetype  397–8 Limits to Growth study  354–5, 361 linguistics see language literacy 90 LLD (Danish University research lab)  99–101 logic 29–30 antonymy 71 of appropriateness  288 of consequences  288 vs. existentialism  34 hybrid organizations  384 language 91–2, 94, 95 of Otherness 133–9 paradox meta-theory  35t, 36t, 38, 39, 40 philosophy of language  32 of representation see representation, logic of longitudinal studies  524 Economies of Worth  252 long-term orientation  375t, 378, 386–7 Louis, M.  474–5 Lüscher, L.  250t maladaptation, and positive organizational scholarship 226 management control systems (MCS)  249 managers ambidexterity 320–7 cognitive approaches  68–9 coopetition 296–7, 301–9 dialectics 114 education see business schools; teaching gender 334–5 human resource management  413–33 identity work  454 performance paradox  282–4, 289 pluralism 209–10 positive organizational scholarship 220, 229 practice theory  495–7 temporal depth  378 vicious and virtuous cycles  405, 407, 408 see also CEOs; Critical Management Studies March, J. G.  277–92 market world  241, 242t, 248, 249

584   Index Marx, K./Marxism  31, 41 Critical Management Studies  150–1, 157 pluralism  201–2, 203t, 210 dialectics  105, 106–7, 109 human resource management  417 institutional theory  166, 174 Masters of Business Administration (MBA) see business schools materiality dialectics 106–7 Economies of Worth  239, 246, 248–9, 256 individual identity  466 practice theory  504–5 sustainability 354 Matlin, M.  220, 223 MBA see business schools meaning paradox  278, 286–90, 291 memory (positive organizational scholarship)  221, 223, 224 meritocracy paradox  336, 337 metacognitive knowledge  75–80 metaphors cognitive approaches  77 modernity 278 organizational change  260–1, 263–4, 271 cycling between irony and metaphor 269–71 learning from  268–9 mobilization 267–8 receptivity 265–6 organizational routines  98 scholar-practitioners 478 methodology see empirical research Michaud, V.  250t micro-activities (practice theory)  491, 492t, 495–7, 501–2, 502f systemic paradoxes  503 micro-economies 280 Mill, J. S.  33–4 mindfulness 77, 401 Mintzberg, H. 401 misplaced concreteness, fallacy of  132–3 modernist feminism  334–8, 345, 347–8 modernity 12t, 17 institutional theory  174 interpreters of 277 paradoxes of  277–95 meaning 286–90

performance 282–6 rationality 278–82 technicians of 277 money laundering  256 morality Economies of Worth  239–40, 246–8, 256 see also ethics Moriceau, J.-L.  253t motivated reasoning  169–70 motivation academic–practitioner relationships  477 creativity  437, 439, 441 Mullen, G.  547, 555–8, 562, 566–7 Munir, K. 167 negotiation, spaces of  186 neo-institutionalism 288 neoliberalism Critical Management Studies  145, 148, 153 sustainability 354–5, 369 new materialist feminism  348 Newton, I. 132 Nicholson, B.  95–6 Nike  358, 361, 364, 367, 368 non-contradiction principle  29, 38, 132, 138 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) sustainability  359, 361, 363, 367 temporality 384–5 normative organizational identity  188 normative perspective on paradox  6–8 Critical Management Studies  147–8 Economies of Worth  239–59 nostalgia 264 novelty creativity  434–5, 437–8, 444–6 empirical research  515 positive organizational scholarship  226 teaching paradoxes  540 NUMMI 116 Obama, B. 117 object relations theory  51n objective time  375t, 375–6, 385, 387, 388 Oldenhof, L.  253t Ong, W. J.  90 opposition human resource management  425 sustainability  361–2, 364, 366

Index   585 optimal distinctiveness  458 oral communities  90 organization–environment theory  118 Organization Studies 3 organizational change see change organizational identity (OI)  11t, 16, 178–96 ambidexterity 325 as contradictory vs. synergistic  180t, 188–90 dialectics 119 Economies of Worth  248 elasticity 460 empirical research  513 gender 338–40, 342 identity elasticity  185 identity labels  185, 187 identity meanings  185, 187 multiple vs. singular  180t, 186–8, 190–1 as social reality vs. social construction  178, 179t, 181–3, 186, 190–1 as stable vs. dynamic  179–80t, 183–6, 190–1 vicious and virtuous cycles  406 organizational ontology  346, 347 organizational pluralism  198 organizational routines  98–101 Organizational Studies 201 organizing paradox human resource management  420, 424 Otherness 129 pluralism 198t, 199–200 practice theory  493, 497, 499, 505 psychoanalytics  48, 49t, 59–62 teaching paradoxes  533 Orlikowski, W. J.  385, 490 Orwell, G.  394–5 Osgood, C. E.  222 Otherness 127, 133–9 Critical Management Studies  156 in management and organization studies  128–9 Owen, R.  88, 92, 93, 94, 97–8, 102 PACT™ (Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation)  549, 568 case study (Charleston, South Carolina)  555–6, 558–62, 563, 564f, 565–6 Small process  553, 554t, 556–62, 563 paradox as absurd  129–31

as adjective  6 concept  34, 35t, 38–9 context 516–17 as debilitating  334–8 definitions 198, 216–17 Cameron 128 Leclerq-Vandelannoitte 300 Putnam et al.  464n Quine 130 Sainsbury 130 Schad et al.  38 Smith and Lewis  68, 128, 143–4, 178, 261, 296, 398, 514 Vince and Broussine  300 development  34, 36t, 40–1 engaging 52–3 as entity vs. process  5–6 evidence 518–20 finding 517 identification protocols  520–1 as inherent vs. socially constructed  4–5, 530 practice theory  497–8 locus 514–15 meta-theoretical perspective  28, 34–41, 35–6t, 42 gender 347–8 teaching paradoxes  534 mindset 75 creativity 442, 445 multilevel studies  519, 521–2 as normative vs. descriptive lens  6–8 as noun 5 ontology 5–6 origins  4–5, 34, 35t, 36–7 linguistic 129 of paradoxes  4–8 persistence of 48 philosophy 35t, 39 principle 55 as productive  338–43 purposes 6–8 research 8 development 3 foundations 2–3, 27–42 methods see empirical research responses  34, 36t, 39–40 as theoretical framework  41–2 as theorizing tool  41, 42 as threshold concept  529–46

586   Index paradoxical tensions see tensions parody 344, 345 parsing of phenomena  128–9, 132 Otherness  133, 134, 138 parts–whole paradoxes  356–8, 357f, 358t, 363, 364t, 369 past, focus on the  375t, 377–8, 385 identity work  459, 460 Patagonia  358, 367, 368 paternalism 341 path-breaking approaches to paradox management 316–17, 326–9 path-dependent approaches to paradox management 316–17, 325–9 patriarchy 333, 334 pedagogy see teaching Peetz, J. 172 PepsiCo 379 perception  67, 69, 72, 75, 76, 80 performance evaluation systems  249 gender 336 human resource management  426 goals 438 paradox  278, 282–6, 288, 289, 290–1 performativity Critical Management Studies  145–7, 157–8 gender 338–40, 345 pluralism 209–10 performing paradox Economies of Worth  247–8 human resource management  420, 421, 422–3, 424 Otherness 129 pluralism 198t, 199 practice theory  493, 497, 499, 505 psychoanalytics  48, 49t, 59–62 teaching paradoxes  533 temporality 388 philosophy  8, 9t, 27–42 foundations 29–34 of language  32–3 paradox meta-theory  35t, 36t, 37, 39–40 in management research  34–41 political 33–4 paradox meta-theory  35t, 37 Pixar 109n, 114–15

Plato 29, 132 play identity 459 modernity  278, 279, 281 pluralism/pluralities  1–4, 11t, 16, 197–215 complexity theory  204–8 in conceptualization of paradox  8 connecting with paradox  198–201 Critical Management Studies  201–4 defining 198 East–West approaches  125, 128 Economies of Worth  240, 244t, 245, 247, 256 empirical research  513 human resource management  420–1, 423 modernity paradoxes  282, 291 organizational identity  178, 189–90 paradoxical ontology  5 philosophy 37, 41, 42 social order  2 sustainability 359 teaching paradoxes  541 pluralistic strategic human resource management (pSHRM)  414–16 point events  93, 94, 95, 97, 101–2 polarity approach  547–69 case study (Charleston, South Carolina) 555–68 PACT™ (Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation)  549, 568 case study  555–6, 558–62, 563, 564f,  565–6 Small process  553, 554t, 556–62, 563 Polarity Learning Community  566 Polarity Map® 549–53, 552f case study  555–8, 559f, 560–2, 563 principles 549–53 politics gender 345 philosophy 33–4 paradox meta-theory  35t, 37 practice theory  505 polychronicity 442–3 Popper, K. 278 population ecology perspective on identity 190 Port Authority  187

Index   587 positive organizational scholarship (POS)  12t, 16–17, 216–38 explanations for negative tendencies  225–7 explanations for positive tendencies  222–4 natural tendencies toward the positive 220–2 paradox of the negative  224–5 prioritizing the positive  227–9 reconciling the positive–negative paradox 229–31 post-colonial studies  154, 156 post-humanist feminism  348 postmodernism feminisms 338–43, 345–8 individual identity  462–4 post-structuralism Critical Management Studies  157 individual identity  459, 461–2, 466 power creativity 441, 444 Critical Management Studies  143, 144, 154–7 pluralism  202, 203t, 211 diffuse 198t, 199, 211 gender  333, 340–6, 348 human resource management  420, 422, 428 institutional theory  171, 174 modernity 285 philosophy 41 practice theory  505 psychoanalytics  52, 59, 60, 61, 62 rhetorical theories  267 practice (polarity approach)  20t, 20, 547–69 case study (Charleston, South Carolina) 555–68 principles 549–53 see also PACT™ practice perspective (temporality)  385 practice theory  15t, 19, 490–509 core principles  491–502, 492t empirical research  521 research agenda  502–5 teaching paradoxes  530–1, 533 practitioner–academic relationships see academic–practitioner relationships pragmatist organizational identity  188

praxis human resource management  418 pluralism 203t, 204, 210 present, focus on the  375t, 377–8, 381, 385, 388 identity work  459, 460 negative consequences  380, 381 problem-based learning  535, 541–2 procedural rationality  278 process dynamics  35t, 41 process perspective in institutional theory  171 process studies  405, 523 process syntax for organizational research  9t, 10, 87–104 integration 95–8 example 98–100 importance and difficulty of  94–5 routine 100–1 language and paradox  89–91 language, classes, and logical types  91–2 universal significance vs. singular ineffability 92–4 process time see event time projecting paradoxes  514–15 projection Economies of Worth  252 psychoanalytics 51, 52t authority paradox  54–5, 56 belonging paradox  57, 58 performance and organizing paradox  61 projects world  241 proverbs 77 psychoanalytics 9t, 9–10, 48–65 ambidexterity 326 key ideas  50–3 paradox and organizational life  53–62 queer theory  153–4 Quine, W. V.  91–2, 126, 130–1 race co-modification paradox  342 institutional theory  163, 164, 171 Georgetown University vignette  164–6, 170, 171, 174 visibility paradox  336 see also ethnicity racetrack paradox  29

588   Index rationality critical  278–9, 281, 282 Critical Management Studies  152 gender 334 institutional theory  169–70 modernity 277–82, 287–91 paradox  277–82, 288, 290–1 philosophy 40 procedural 278 substantive 278 Rawls, J. 34 reaction formation (Economies of Worth) 252 real-time strategic change (RTSC)  553 reasoning analogical 77, 78 cognitive approaches  67, 74–5, 78, 80 rebound effect  365 reconciliation 200 recruitment 156 recurrence assumption, organization theory 400–1, 406 recursivity principle, complexity theory  205 redundancy 95–6, 97 reflection academic–practitioner relationships 476–7, 481–7 Critical Management Studies  146, 201 empirical research  522–3 organizational identity  183, 186 psychoanalytics 53, 63 teaching paradoxes  540–1, 542t, 542 temporal 384 reframing gender 337, 343 sustainability 366–7 regression Economies of Worth  252 practice theory  493 REI 368 re-identification 343 Reinecke, J. 374 reinforcing loops  394–5, 395f, 397–8, 401 see also vicious cycles; virtuous cycles relationality (practice theory)  491, 492t, 499–502, 502f relevance–rigor divide  482, 498

religion (Georgetown University vignette)  164–6, 170, 171 representation, logic of  125–40 absurdity 129–31 inadequacy 132–3 in management and organization studies 127–9 Otherness 133–8 repression Economies of Worth  252 psychoanalytics 52t Rescher, N.  106, 130, 131 resistance gender 340–1 polarity thinking  558 resolution strategies (temporality)  382, 387 resource-based view (RBV)  415 rest–activity polarity  549–51, 550f, 551f rhetoric 12t, 17, 32 of administration  284–5 organizational change  260–76 organizational identity  184 practice theory  496, 498, 501 of realpolitik  285 Richards, M. M.  222 rigor–relevance divide  482, 498 Riley, J. P.  563, 565 role vs. identity  458 role modeling  224 role separation response to contradictions  108 Rothenberg, A. 217 Rouleau, L.  253t Rousseau, J.-J.  33 Rousselière, D.  253t routines, organizational  98–101 Russell, B.  30, 91–2, 278 sabotage 345 Sainsbury, R. M.  130, 131 Samsung 116, 309 Sannino, A. 266 scaling across levels, and sustainability  368 scapegoating 59, 62 scarcity creativity 439 human resource management  421, 423 organizational identity  189, 190

Index   589 sustainability 359–60 teaching paradoxes  541 schismogenesis 230 Schneider, K. J.  55 scholar-practitioners 477–9, 485 Schön, D. A.  474, 481–6 School of Convention see Economies of Worth Schumacher, E. E.  230 Schumpeter, J. A.  106 scripts 345–6 Seidler, M.  555–8 self and other relationships  54–5, 62 self-fulfilling prophecies  400 self-organization principle, complexity theory 207t, 208 self-report research methods  522 Senge, P.  397–8, 401, 568 sensegiving  178, 181–2, 184, 191 sensemaking cognitive approaches  69 dialectical 337 empirical research  514–15 individual identity  453, 465 organizational identity  178, 181–2, 184, 191 paradox as inherent vs. socially constructed 5 rhetorical theories  263 teaching paradoxes  531 separation coopetition 306 dialectics 108, 118 sequential ambidexterity  316, 317, 318, 320t, 324–5, 326, 327 sexuality institutional theory  163, 164, 171 queer theory  153 Shannon, C. 102 shared value  115, 118 shifting-the-burden archetype  398 short-term orientation  375t, 378 future research  386, 387 negative consequences  380–1 vicious and virtuous cycles  405 Sillince, J. 496 Simon, H.  278, 280, 281 Singapore Airlines  250t

singularity, and positive organizational scholarship 226–7 situational irony  264, 270 slavery Critical Management Studies  154 Georgetown University vignette  164–6, 170, 171, 174–5 Slawinski, N. 383 Smith, W. K. definition of paradox  68, 128, 143–4, 178, 261, 296, 398, 514 dynamic equilibrium model  252, 254, 327, 358, 382, 398–9 paradox meta-theory  347–8 typology of paradox  260 vicious and virtuous cycles  398–9, 418 social changes  203t, 203–4, 209 social class see class, social social construction approach to organizational identity  178, 179t, 181–5, 187, 190, 191 to paradox  4–5 philosophy 35t, 37 practice theory  491, 492t, 492–5, 497–8, 501–2, 502f teaching paradoxes  530–1 social contract theory  33 social conventions  78–9, 80 social differentiation  203, 204 social enterprises  256 social heterogeneity  202, 211 social mobility (Cambridge University vignette) 167–8, 170 social network theory  298 social norm formation  224 social practice theory see practice theory social process theory  223–4 social reality approach to organizational identity  178, 179t, 181–4, 186, 190–1 social world  249 Socrates 31 Sony 309 spatial differentiation Economies of Worth  251 human resource management  425 pluralism 200, 209 sustainability  362–4, 364t, 366, 368–9

590   Index spatiality philosophy 29, 38 racetrack paradox  29 separation response to contradictions  108 splitting Economies of Worth  252 gender 337 human resource management  418, 425 pluralism 199 practice theory  493 psychoanalytics 52t, 58, 60, 61, 62 temporality 382, 387 see also spatial differentiation; temporal differentiation stabilizing loops  395f, 395–6, 398–9, 401, 408 embracing 406 virtuous circles as self-correcting spirals 404 see also vicious cycles; virtuous cycles stakeholders dialectics 115 polarity approach  555, 557–8, 561–3, 565–6 sustainability 359, 360 teaching paradoxes  539 temporality 388 Stang, D. J.  220, 223 Star Trek: Voyager 340 stimuli-response model  72–4 strategic alliances  116 strategic responses  35t, 39–40 strategy (empirical research)  513 strategy-as-practice approach to teaching paradoxes 544 stress 73 strong process theory  271 structural ambidexterity  316, 317, 319–22, 320t, 325–6, 327 structural determinism  240 structure–agency relationship  499 subjective time  375t, 375–6, 385, 387, 388 substantive rationality  278 sunk costs  407 super-ego 51 surprise assumption, organization theory  400, 401, 406–7 surveillance relationships  154–5 sustainability 13t, 18, 353–72

Critical Management Studies  148, 154 defensive strategies  361–5 Economies of Worth  249, 255 human resource management  418, 421, 423, 426–7 innovation and flourishing, using paradox for 365–8 modern history  353–5 parts–whole paradoxes  356–7 pluralism 199 salient paradoxes  358–60 temporal paradox  357–8 temporality 381, 386 virtuous cycles  404 Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) 354 Sustainable Apparel Coalition  368 Suzuki 305 syllogism 29 symbolic actions  284 synergies ambidexterity 321 creativity 440 empirical research  514 organizational identity  180t, 187–90, 191 practice theory  496 temporality 382 syntax see process syntax for organizational research synthesis  31, 106, 113, 120 definitional precision  117–18 Economies of Worth  251, 252, 255 engagement of organizations with dialectical reasoning  119 human resource management  418 managerial use  109–12 negative dialectics  116, 117 pluralism  199, 200, 203, 209 positive dialectics  114–15, 116 synthetic learning  114, 119 systems theory 55n2 feedback  393, 396, 397 Taoism 30, 127 Otherness 137 paradox meta-theory  40 tax evasion  256, 403

Index   591 Taylor, F. W.  373, 376 teaching 20t, 20, 529–46 case study  536–41 paradox–pedagogy links  530–6 expansion  541–5, 542t, 543t teams, creative  440–1 telework 424–5 temporal ambidexterity  374, 382–3 temporal differentiation Economies of Worth  251 human resource management  425 pluralism 200, 209 sustainability  363–6, 364t, 368–9 temporality 14t, 18, 373–92 consequences of trade-offs  379–81 depth (short term vs. long term)  375t, 378, 380, 381 empirical research  519–20 focus (past vs. present vs. future)  375t, 377–8, 380 individual identity  453, 456t, 459, 466 institutional theory  171–3, 175 ontology (objective vs. subjective) 375t, 375–6 perspectives (clock time vs. event time) 375t, 376–7, 380, 381 philosophy 29, 38 racetrack paradox  29 research 375t, 382–8 separation response to contradictions  108 speed (fast vs. slow)  375t, 379, 380, 381 sustainability 357–8 tendencies  136–7, 138, 139 tensions 1–4, 7, 8 academic–practitioner relationships 477–9, 483–6 ambidexterity  315–19, 322, 323, 326–9 cognition  73, 75, 78, 301–2 competitive 302n contingency theory  1 coopetition 296–7, 300–10 creativity  435, 439–42, 445–6 Critical Management Studies  143–4, 147–9, 151, 153–8 definition 300 dialectics 105, 120 assumptions and ideas  107

contradiction and paradox  113 definitional precision  117 engagement of organizations with 119–20 managerialist responses  108–9 negative 116 philosophy 31 positive 113–15 thesis/antithesis/synthesis put to managerial use  109–10, 112 East–West approaches  125, 127–30, 133–4, 136–9 Economies of Worth  239–59 emotion 301–2 empirical research  513–16, 518–21 gender  333, 337, 338, 340–5, 347 human resource management  413–33 individual identity  452–71 as inherent vs. socially constructed  4 institutional theory  162–3, 166, 172–5 modernity paradoxes  277–9, 282–3, 285–6, 288, 290–1 normative 239–59 vs. descriptive lens  7 organizational identity  178–92, 179–80t paradoxical ontology  6 philosophy  27, 28, 41–2 dialectics 31 existentialism 32 paradox meta-theory  34, 35t, 36–41 political 33 pluralism 198–205, 208–11 polarity approach  548–51, 555, 556n, 558, 563, 565 case study (Charleston, South Carolina)  555, 556n, 558, 563, 565 Small process  553 positive organizational scholarship  230, 231 practice theory  494, 498, 500, 503, 505 psychoanalytics 48, 53, 62 authority paradox  54, 55, 56 belonging paradox  57, 58 defense mechanisms  51 performance and organizing paradox 59, 60 rhetorical theories  261–70 states of  302–5, 303f

592   Index tensions (cont.) sustainability  354n, 355–60, 362–3, 366–7, 369 teaching paradoxes  529–45 temporality 373–89 vicious and virtuous cycles  398–400, 402–3 thesis  31, 106, 113 definitional precision  117 dialectics 115, 116 managerial use  109–12 Thévenot, L.  240–3, 246–9, 251, 252 third-party involvement, coopetition  306 Thomas, R.  453–4 threshold concepts  529–46 case study  536–41 dimensions 531–6 totality 7 Toyota  109, 110, 116 Tracey, P. 167 trade unions  426, 428 tragedy of the commons  356 training creativity 443 human resource management  421, 425 long-term strategies  380 transcendence dialectics  105, 106, 113, 120 definitional precision  117–18 engagement of organizations with  119 managerialist responses to contradictions 108–9 negative 117 positive 114–15 thesis/antithesis/synthesis put to managerial use  109–10, 111t, 112 Economies of Worth  252, 255 gender 337–8, 342 human resource management  418, 423–4 organizational identity  185–6 Otherness 137 pluralism 208 Critical Management Studies  203, 204 positive organizational scholarship  230 practice theory  493, 496, 498–501 teaching paradoxes  532–3 transference 52t, 52–3, 61 tri-paradoxes 500–2

Triple Bottom Line  249 Trump, D. J.  117, 167, 463–4 uncertainties 263 contingency theory  1 creativity  435, 437, 444 dialectics 119 Economies of Worth  243 empirical research  513 human resource management  414 modernity  283, 287, 288, 290 psychoanalytics 59, 60 short-term orientation  380 surprise 401, 406–7 teaching paradoxes  532, 539–40 unconscious  48, 49t, 50–1, 62 authority paradox  54–5, 56, 57 belonging paradox  57, 58, 59 performance and organizing paradox 60, 61 United Kingdom Brexit 167 Cambridge University vignette  166–9, 170, 172–5 political polarization  173 United Nations “Agenda 21”  355 World Commission on Environment and Development 353–4 United States of America Chamber of Commerce  362 Charleston case study (polarity approach) 555–68 collaboration and cooperation  515, 524 Environmental Protection Agency  359 Georgetown University vignette  164–6, 170, 171, 174–5 political culture  361 political polarization  173 presidential campaign (2016)  117, 167 sustainability 355, 361 usefulness creativity  434–5, 437–8, 444–6 empirical research  515 utilitarianism modernity 291 organizational identity  188

Index   593 veridical paradoxes  126, 130–1 Vézina, M.  253t vicious cycles  2, 14t, 18, 393–412 complexity theory  206 coopetition 309 creativity 442 definitions 394–6 dialectics 113 Economies of Worth  254 future research  404–7 gender 337, 338 human resource management  417–18, 423, 425–7 Lewis and Smith  398–9 longitudinal studies  524 organizational identity  185 philosophy  32–3, 35t, 40–1 pluralism 206, 209 polarity thinking  550–1 rhetorical paradoxes  32–3 as self-amplifying spirals  402–4 Senge 397–8 Weick 396–7 video data  522 virtuous cycles  14t, 18, 393–412 complexity theory  206 coopetition 309 definitions 394–6 dynamic equilibrium model  382 Economies of Worth  254 future research  404–7 human resource management  418, 423, 425 Lewis and Smith  398–9 longitudinal studies  524 organizational identity  185 philosophy 40–1 pluralism 206 polarity thinking  551 as self-correcting spirals  404 Senge 397–8 sustainability 369

Weick 396–7 virtuousness (positive organizational scholarship) 218–19, 228 visibility paradox  336, 337, 342 Volkswagen 305 Walmart  358, 359, 364 Weber, M.  152, 166, 174 Weick, K.  396–7, 400, 401, 404, 408 Western approaches to paradox  9t, 10, 125–40 absurdity 129–31 cause 132–3 in management and organization studies 127–9 Otherness 133–8 philosophy 28, 40 Whetten, D. A.  178, 181, 188–9 Whitehead, A. N.  30, 126, 132–3 wicked problems dialectics 113 individual identity  465 institutional theory  175 vicious circles  403 Wilson, A. E.  172 Wirtz, J.  250t Wittgenstein, L.  33, 37 working through paradox ambidexterity 315 philosophy 39 psychoanalytics 53 rhetorical theories  260–76 World Business Council for Sustainable Development 354 World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)  381 Yates, J. 385 yin and yang symbol  30, 38, 137, 514 Zeno  29, 38, 131