Contradictions, Tensions, Paradoxes, and Dialectics

Abstract

Contradictions in organizational life have been conceptualized as tensions to be solved, resisted, or accepted. Although a number of potential theoretical frameworks exist, organizational communication scholars have primarily drawn upon dialectics and paradox to examine how contradiction is constituted and how it constrains and enables organizational processes. This entry traces the shifting conceptualizations of contradictions and tensions within organizational communication as an anomaly to be resolved through a discursive perspective emphasizing communication as the core of contradiction and tension and viewing paradox and dialectics as opportunities for organizational growth and understanding.

Crazy, stupid, disobedience: The dark side of paradoxical leadership

“…Various scholars have argued that double-bind situations can be frequently found in organizations (Argyris, 1988;Berti and Simpson, 2021;Dopson and Neumann, 1998;Hennestad, 1990;Hornung et al, 2016;Putnam, 1986;Soldow, 1981). In organizations, pragmatic paradoxes are seen as the most important form of paradoxes for the study of human behavior (Ballard-Reisch and Turner, 2017). In leader-follower relationships, double-bind situations arise when a leader practices "paradoxical communication" and gives their followers orders "that must be obeyed but must be disobeyed to be obeyed" (Watzlawick et al, 1967: 195).…”