Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach<sup>†</sup>

Putnam, Linda L.; Fairhurst, Gail T.; Banghart, Scott

doi:10.1080/19416520.2016.1162421

Cited by 290 publications

(469 citation statements)

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“…Our findings not only contribute theoretically to tensional approaches to organizational communication but also pragmatically to how sustainability efforts requiring collaborations for work accomplishment and member identifications are perceived to operate. Because we presented our findings and their implications to the NGO leadership who wanted to find out how they might engage with each other and their work more productively, we consider our work to be engaged scholarship that contributes to the ways members make sense of and navigate NGO's ethical and political work (Dempsey, 2012;Dempsey & Barge, 2014) in sustainability realms, as well as the ways contradiction and paradox are part of communicative labor (Dempsey, 2009;Putnam et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Brazil, efforts have triggered governmental programs, bringing together public and private organizational partnerships and situating responsibilities through policies and constitutional mandates, particularly individual responsibilities for environmental impacts and governmental responsibilities for education, with NGOs pivotal in these processes (Tristão & Tristão, 2016). Within this contentious context with adversarial public-private sector and regional stakeholder interests, NGO members need to construct communication processes that not only enable them to accomplish their goals efficiently and effectively but also work with the contradictions they face in process, output, and advocacy (for such paradoxes, see Putnam et al, 2016).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our goal is to depict and analyze the communicative labor of Brazilian environmental sustainability work as a tensional approach (Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017;Putnam, Fairhurst, & Banghart, 2016;Trethewey & Ashcraft, 2004). We present the case of a Brazilian nonprofit NGO called "Meio Ambiente Equilibrado" (MAE), meaning "Balanced Environment" (see http://www.ongmae.org.br/), for which the first author secured permission to identify.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

Marchiori

Buzzanell

2017

SAGE Open

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Brazilian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with missions centered on the sustainable preservation of land, water, forests, and other environmental factors have garnered much attention because of rapid deforestation in the Amazon, global concerns about the ozone layer, water and energy issues, and effects on indigenous ways of life and knowledge as well as the Brazilian economy (Correia, 2016). With publicity and events surrounding the 2016 Olympics, reports celebrated the human and bio-diversity in Brazil but also displayed the poverty, political instabilities, and crime in Brazil, as well as consequences of the Brazilian Zika virus (Cugola et al., 2016). With such broad and deep opportunities and needs in Brazil, NGOs feel pressures from diverse sectors and challenges inherent in the meanings and conduct of sustainability work itself.Specifically, Brazilian NGO and global professionals engaging in sustainability efforts, find that they must manage tensions in their political positions, social practices, and daily activities (Fátima do Carmo Guerra, dos Santos de Sousa Teodosio, & Mswaka, 2016;Mackin, 2016; see Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017). These tensions are symbolic as they enact work that they perceive to be meaningful but frustrating, and material as they seek impact through short-term deliverables but struggle with long-term solutions within complex interdependent human and material systems (Fátima do Carmo Guerra et al., 2016;Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017). Tensions also emerge in their internal and external ethical responsibilities, including their communicative labor.According to Mumby (2016; see also Carlone, 2008), communicative labor refers to processes of mutuality, authenticity, and affect through which people share experiences. Applied to branding, communicative labor is key to the creation of value in work, production and consumption, and erosion of personal life through emphasis on labor (Mumby, 2016; see also communicative labor affirming hard work as virtuous, in Dempsey & Sanders, 2010). Applied to NGOs, Dempsey (2009) explores how grassroots organizations, particularly environmental justice and sustainability NGOs, engage in communication labor, defined here as the creation of distinctive organizational identities 709325S GOXXX10.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

Marchiori

Buzzanell

2017

SAGE Open

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“…However, Sutherland and Smith (2011) have proposed that this definition be broadened to include elements that are not necessarily oppositional, but rather are conceptually distinct and interdependent. As Janssens and Steyaert (1999) and Putnam et al (2016) have noted, it is dualism not contradiction that lies at the heart of paradox relationships. And these dualisms can be treated as interdependent and compatible rather than just conflicting and separate.…”

Section: Paradox Theory Systemic Discourses and Structural Couplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Project success and client satisfaction have different systemic-discourses and use different language games to convey information (Wittgenstein:2010, Seidl:2006. These distinctions can create latent and sometimes salient tensions within the project management construct (Putnam et al:2016) that project managers must understand, embrace, and work with.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Project Management Yinyang: Coupling project success and client satisfaction

Usher¹,

Whitty²

2017

PMRP

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Our research applies paradox theory to a project management construct to help project management researchers and practitioners understand the tensions that can exist between project success and client satisfaction. Our research highlights that although project success and client satisfaction are both present within a project management construct, they also belong to different functional systems. Project success and client satisfaction have different systemic-discourses and use different language games to convey information. These distinctions can create latent and sometimes salient tensions within the project management construct that project managers must understand, embrace, and work with.We have used a Grounded Theory (GT) methodology to explore the lived experience of project managers, and from this have identified a phenomenon which we have termed project management yinyang.Project management yinyang is the state that exists when both project success and Client satisfaction are tightly coupled within the project management construct. Project management yinyang highlights that these two phenomena cannot be viewed as separate elements because the ‘seed’ of each exists within the other. And to truly achieve one, you must also achieve the other.Our findings indicate that in order to create project management yinyang the project manager must embrace a paradoxical yet holistic philosophy. They must understand the complementarity, interdependency, and structural coupling that exists between the positivist and interpretivist paradigms within the project management construct. They must understand how satisfaction (Yin) and success (Yang) are created through focus. Furthermore, they must understand how project management yinyang is separate from, but borne from, the convergence of the other two elements.

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Voice/multivocality

Buzzanell¹

2017

The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods

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Voice is a dialectic process that promotes expression, participation, representation, inclusion, and assertions of interests. Voice, as a situated process, is contested, constrained, and agentic. Multivocality destabilizes unitary understandings of voice. Multivocality surfaces and/or positions plurality, contradiction, ambiguity, and ambivalence. Different research methods enable illumination of diverse voices and the modalities in which such voices seek expression and inclusion.

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Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach^†

Cited by 290 publications

References 461 publications

NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

Project Management Yinyang: Coupling project success and client satisfaction

Voice/multivocality

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Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach†

Cited by 290 publications

References 461 publications

NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

NGO Organizing for Environmental Sustainability in Brazil: Meaningful Work, Commonality, and Contradiction

Project Management Yinyang: Coupling project success and client satisfaction

Voice/multivocality

Contact Info

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Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach^†