Organizational Paradox

Abstract

Paradoxes, contrary propositions that are not contestable separately but that are inconsistent when conjoined, constitute a pervasive feature of contemporary organizational life. When contradictory elements are constituted as equally important in day-to-day work, organizational actors frequently experience acute tensions in engaging with these contradictions. This Element discusses the presence of paradoxes in the life of organizations, introduces the reader to the notion of paradox in theory and practice, and distinguishes paradox and adjacent conceptualizations such as trade-off, dilemma, dialectics, ambiguity, etc. This Element also covers what triggers paradoxes and how they come into being whereby the Element distinguishes latent and salient paradoxes and how salient paradoxes are managed. This Element discusses key methodological challenges and possibilities of studying, teaching, and applying paradoxes and concludes by considering some future research questions left unexplored in the field.

How entrepreneurial practices balance art and business: Insights into creative entrepreneurship in the European film industry

“…For instance, planning before project initiation and managing multiple projects in pipeline constitute two important project management practices useful for creative entrepreneurs whose work is organized in projects. Berti, 2022). The research on paradox and contradictions recognizes that competing logics can cause tensions at different levels.…”

“…The contribution of our study is threefold. First, we contribute to the literature on paradoxes and contradictions by exploring the management of situated tensions at the microlevel (Hargrave & Van de Ven, 2017; Miron‐Spektor et al, 2018; Pina e Cunha et al, 2019) and exploring paradoxes with high intensity (Gaim, Clegg, Pina e Cunha, & Berti, 2022). The research on paradox and contradictions recognizes that competing logics can cause tensions at different levels.…”

“…The issue of intensity is implied but not empirically grounded, although it may be significant to understand the various responses to the paradoxes. Thus, in addition to the consideration of latency and saliency, which were already highly scrutinized by the literature, exploring contexts with intense tensions can enrich the conceptualization of paradox (Gaim, Clegg, Pina e Cunha, & Berti, 2022). Our empirical setting, European movie industry, due to the constant pressure to conserve both its ‘auteur’ identity and the perpetual shortage of financing, is a great fertile ground to consider situations where the art and business paradox is omnipresent and strongly felt by the creative entrepreneurs.…”

“…These inherent characteristics of the European movie industry give rise to the both poles of the paradox felt intensely by the creative entrepreneurs. The intensity of paradoxes can be conceptualized as ‘the degree to which an actor experiences a set of interdependent and contradictory requirements as more or less salient, impactful and difficult to tackle’ (Gaim, Clegg, Pina e Cunha, & Berti, 2022, p. 31). As previous research focused solely on the latency or saliency of paradoxes (Jarzabkowski et al, 2018), that is, the presence or absence of the oppositional poles, we do not know much about what kind of paradox responses are observed when actors experience the paradox with different levels of intensity.…”

The paradoxes of developing European transnational campuses in China and Egypt

“…We focus on the transnational university campus as a tool in the broader process of the internationalization of higher education (Amaro de Matos et al, 2021) and emphasize the paradoxical challenges involved, i.e. the interdependent but opposing goals involved (Gaim et al, 2022), combining educational, diplomatic and business logics. Such goals are:…”