Paradox Lens Research Articles

Managing the identity paradox in inter‐organisational collaborations

AbstractA persistent contradiction in inter‐organisational collaborations (IOCs) is between individual actors' IOC identity and their other multiple identities, and the subsequent need to maintain a delicate balance between these opposing but mutually dependent identities. Using a paradox lens and individual actors as the unit of analysis, this ethnographic study defines the “identity paradox” often present in IOCs as the interaction between actors' professional, personal, team and organisational identities with an overall IOC identity. The case demonstrates that the identity paradox allows actors to maintain a balance between adhering to IOC, which offers stability, and adjusting to emergent needs, which enables innovative behaviour. The theorisation of the identity paradox reveals that the conditions that trigger each identity tension relate to the IOC tensions of cooperation and competition, rigidity and flexibility, trust and mistrust, and confrontation and dialogue. The findings offer contribution to IOC research and to management practice.

Conceptual framework for lean construction ambidexterity in project-based organizations

Lean construction (LC) is widely used to eliminate waste in the construction industry. However, few studies have focussed on LC capabilities. In the absence of a theoretical foundation, the equal treatment of inherent rigidity and flexibility has received little attention. This critical literature review answered the following research questions: What is the current understanding of the two characteristics of LC? Is there a theoretical explanation for their relationship? How can LC capabilities be realized in a project-based organization? The results revealed the lack of a clear definition of LC capabilities. The study posits that LC capabilities involve ambidexterity. Ambidexterity embodies the LC philosophy, principles, and methods, with a focus on resolving the paradoxical tensions in LC projects. Ambidexterity was found to be a two-dimensional paradox comprising exploitative and exploratory capabilities. It emphasizes the achievement of a balance between the two capabilities. The proposed model indicates that LC project-based organizations provide the ideal context for the development of ambidexterity. This study uses a paradoxical lens to introduce the notion of LC capabilities as ambidexterity. This research contributes to the current knowledge and future applications of organizational ambidexterity theory to LC capability development. In addition, it will enable practitioners to understand and manage the paradoxical tensions in LC projects. The proposed framework can guide the creation of an ideal LC project-organization environment.

Inherent paradoxes in the shift to autonomous solutions provision: a multilevel investigation of the shipping industry

Transforming a traditional industry by adopting autonomous solutions is complex, generating paradoxical tensions on multiple aggregate levels. We undertake an in-depth case study of a leading maritime autonomous solutions provider and its ecosystem partners. We apply the paradox lens using thematic analysis. Our research contributes to the digital servitization literature by identifying six paradoxes inherent in the shift to autonomous solutions, nested in the micro, meso, and macro levels. We develop a multilevel framework of organizational paradoxes, delineating cascading effects of paradoxes across levels. We offer valuable insights for providers to integrate multilevel perspectives into the shift to autonomous solutions.

A framework for paradoxical tensions of project management

Research into organizations has concluded that organizational effectiveness is paradoxical, i.e., effective organizations have attributes that are simultaneously contradictory, even mutually exclusive. Although projects are temporary organizations, the paradox lens has largely been omitted in their context. This paper is an attempt to rectify the situation. It introduces a framework of eleven paradoxical tensions, concerning priority, structure, and execution of projects, wishing that it would encourage future research on paradoxical tensions of project management.

(mis)Management of multiple tensions and coexisting conflicting dualities during restructuring: a paradox theory perspective from an emerging economy

PurposeOrganizational scholars are intrigued about stakeholders who propose multiple and conflicting ideas about what is good for their organization. Such contradictions are called paradoxical tensions. Although researchers have singled these out for analysis, focusing only on individual tensions prevents scrutiny of multiple paradoxical tensions that simultaneously emerge and how effectively organizations can manage them. In complex environments – especially during an organizational restructuring – multiple and interrelated tensions occur. Therefore, the objective in this paper is to investigate how organizations create multiple paradoxical tensions and how the combined effect of such tensions can constrain organizations during restructuring. The authors thus aim to help managers think reflectively and to plan interventions to deal with issues arising from restructuring through the lens of paradox theory.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted purposive sampling for an archival research-based case study of a major restructuring of a leading IT firm in India in the decade 2009–2019. This study focused on the types of paradoxes created and the response of the organization to these during the restructure. The authors identified key events using public documents and news reports from that decade. They drew on two sources of data: mainstream media coverage and third-party documents about the company. The latter included monographs and academic publications written by critics, business historians and design and management scholars.FindingsThe findings address the gaps in the literature about how reorganizing during a restructure shapes the contradictions that lead to tensions and coexisting conflicting dualities, creating paradoxes. This study provides the reader with deeper insights into belonging, organizing, learning and performing tensions – core to paradox theory – along with their short- and long-term implications for organizational restructuring. The study demonstrates organizational responses to paradox and its practical implications for managers. The paradoxical nature of cultural–structural tensions in Indian organizations continues to be researched but, by focusing on paradox theory, the authors have opened doors for future research.Originality/valueAlthough there is no dispute that effective management of tensions can facilitate organizational performance, contradictory demands that lead to tensions have only intensified as organizational environments become more global, dynamic and competitive. Paradox theory is thus valuable for understanding tensions between equally valid principles, inferences and insights. Although this paper is based on a case study, the framework proposed here can form the basis for theoretical generalizability within certain limitations. Because organizations face similar paradoxical situations under competing demands during restructuring and because paradoxes are becoming increasingly prevalent in organizations, the authors expect their propositions to apply in other cases of restructuring. However, the authors would like to caution that the model developed here should be tested and refined in other contexts to more fully establish its validity and generalizability.

Continuously responding to paradox with third spaces: a process study on change in a nursing unit

This paper explores how organizations can continuously cope with paradox. A longitudinal case study on organizational change of a nursing department shows that establishing repeated social interactions supports organizational members in addressing emerging contradictory issues. These social interactions are third spaces, sites in which actors can enunciate, reflect and envision responses to contradictory issues. The explanation of how an organization can continuously cope with paradox rests on two pillars: first, the third spaces form an ecology of spaces so that organizational actors become involved in addressing their contradictory issues. Second, third spaces emerge and become maintained over time as they form a duality with contradictory issues. Furtermore, the paper contributes to explaining the shift from defensive to active responses, which are associated with vicious and virtuous cycles. Lastly, third spaces serve to relate cognitive approaches with social interaction, thus bringing together these two perspectives within the paradox lens.

Enabling Rapid Financial Response to Disasters: Knotting and Reknotting Multiple Paradoxes in Interorganizational Systems

While market-based solutions are increasingly being proposed to address major societal and development issues, they are also often considered antithetical to issues such as climate change, poverty alleviation and disaster response. In particular, the interorganizational systems involved in such market solutions gives rise to multiple contradictory tensions, known as paradoxes. We therefore adopt a paradox lens to explain the dynamics through which different actors within these systems navigate the contradictions that are generated. Drawing on a global qualitative study of multi-country risk pools that provide rapid capital in the immediate aftermath of disaster, we advance paradox theory by showing how organizational actors’ interactions i) maintain equilibrium by generating mutually reinforcing balance among paradoxes, whilst ii) the clustering of poles from different paradoxes generates disequilibrium, and iii) the reknotting of poles from different paradoxes restores equilibrium. As our process framework shows, these dynamics form an iterative cycle between equilibrium and disequilibrium that is essential in enhancing the promise of market-based solutions to address development issues; in our study increasing the rapid availability of capital to respond to disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and droughts.

Interdependent HRM practices as active responses to paradox in Finnish growth enterprises

PurposeBy adopting a paradox lens, the purpose of this study is to explore paradoxes in relation to work organization, recruitment and competence development in growth-oriented companies.Design/methodology/approachThe study is a qualitative content analysis based on research interviews of managers responsible for human resource management (HRM) in Finnish small and medium-sized growth enterprises (SMEs).FindingsThe results show four themes, namely, (1) individualized work, (2) cultural cohesiveness, (3) experimental organization and (4) personal closeness. These identified themes are interpreted as mutually enabling, active responses to the underlying paradoxes of individualism – community and stability – change.Originality/valueThe results contribute to research on tension and paradox in HRM by taking the still unexplored opportunity to apply paradox theory to HRM in SMEs.

Leading through paradox in a COVID‐19 world: Human resources comes of age

AbstractThe impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic is unprecedented. At an organisational level, the crisis has been hugely disruptive, complex and fraught with ambiguity for leaders. The crisis is fundamentally a human one, making human resource (HR) leaders central in enabling organisations to manage through and ultimately exit the crisis successfully. We apply a paradox lens to understand the HR leadership challenges posed by the COVID‐19 crisis. We argue that how the HR function responds to the challenges of the crisis and its role in mapping the exit route from the crisis are likely to shape the trajectory of the function for decades to come. The pandemic creates an unprecedented opportunity to elevate the status of the HR function in organisations where it has struggled to gain status and to reinforce the influence of the function in those where it already enjoys legitimacy. The value of this is likely to be reflected in more sustainable performance through the alignment of people and purpose and balancing the short and long term objectives of the organisation.

A Paradox Lens to Systems Development Projects: The Case of the Agile Software Development

Research into organizations has concluded that organizational effectiveness is paradoxical (i.e., effective organizations must have simultaneously contradictory, even mutually exclusive, attributes). Although systems development projects constitute temporary organizations, researchers have largely omitted the paradox lens in their context. In this paper, I move toward rectifying the situation by focusing specifically on the agile software development (ASD) as a timely systems development approach in practice. I identify 11 interrelated and actable paradoxical tensions concerning the priority, structure, and execution of systems development projects. Each tension imposes competing demands on projects. To address them requires human ingenuity and judgement, though systems development methods and approaches can provide aid. I show that ASD comprises mechanisms for that purpose largely due to the reflective nature of the ASD process in which each retrospective assesses what went well in the previous sprint (iteration) and what could be improved in the next sprint. At the same time, ASD has built-in flexibility that makes it possible to adapt the method-in-use when deemed necessary or reasonable.

Navigating Governance Tensions to Enhance the Impact of Partnerships with the Private Sector for the SDGs

Partnering with the private sector is a key modality in development cooperation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite their increasing importance, such Public-Private Partnerships for Development (PPPD) experience major challenges in defining, assessing and reporting on their actual impact. This paper explores why, and how this can be improved. We engage in a qualitative synthesis review of academic, gray literature and evaluation reports of public-private programs of development agencies. We identify challenges, tensions and contradictions that affect a proper understanding and assessment of the impacts of such partnerships. The analysis shows that the main challenge in understanding and assessing impacts is the double governance logic that emerges in PPPD monitoring and evaluation (M&E). While M&E functions as an accountability and risk mitigation approach, it should also support collaborative characteristics of PPPDs such as trust and power-sharing, in order to enhance impactful PPPDs. Enhancing the impact of PPPDs for the SDGs requires bridging the divide between (a) result-based, upward accountability monitoring and evaluation approaches and (b) emerging learning, participatory and complexity-based approaches. The paper provides suggestions on how to navigate these governance tensions by using a paradoxical lens.

The Gordian Knot of Practicing Digital Transformation: Coping with Emergent Paradoxes in Ambidextrous Organizing Structures*

Despite increasing scholarly attention on digital transformation, there are only limited micro‐level insights into how incumbent firms organize and manage their digital transformation efforts on a daily basis. Through a longitudinal, exploratory qualitative case study of a large firm, this article investigates how organizational members respond to an ambidextrous organizing model designed to accelerate digital innovations. The firm relied on a hybrid model of separation and integration to organize and manage its digital transformation efforts. This study unfolds the implications and consequences of such a model at the micro‐level. By applying a paradox lens, it shows how the coping actions of organizational members affected the digital transformation. The article illustrates how the hybrid organizing model led to the emergence of three paradoxes at the organizational level (paradoxes of organizing, attention, and knowledge sharing) that organizational members had to cope with. It shows how organizational members, through their coping with these paradoxes, indirectly affected the organizing model by altering its original design; and how the management, influenced by these learnings, subsequently adapted the model to enable a better sustainability over time. Overall, the findings show and explain why organizing for digital transformation is a particularly complex and paradoxical endeavor. They also provide important insights to managers and organizational developers, helping them to become aware of possible tensions in their organizing efforts as well as of coping strategies and practices to tackle these tensions. Finally, the article suggests different paths for further research in digital transformation and digital innovation from a micro‐level perspective.

The Process of Repairing Organizational Legitimacy

This paper aims to explain the persistent legitimacy loss of a highly institutionalized organization by analyzing the process of failing legitimacy repair. Therefore, I reconstruct the prominent case of the State Office of Health and Social Affairs (LAGeSo) in Berlin, which became a symbol of authority failure during the ‘German refugee crisis’ in 2015. My findings show that whereas media triggers the organization to take action by attributing a need for change of the legitimacy object, they at the same time perceive the actual effects of these changes as an impediment of legitimacy repair. Using a paradox lens, I argue that these tensions of restructuring, cooperation and communication originate from the duality of legitimacy object and subject and are rendered salient through media’s paradoxical cognition. This contributes to our understanding of legitimacy repair in at least two ways: first, the revelation of a potential paradoxical downward spiral of legitimacy repair challenges the assumption that strategies of legitimacy repair mechanically produce desired outcomes; second, the paper contributes to the process perspective on legitimacy by revealing the fluid nature of the object of legitimacy, demanding for a more complex and dynamic lens when analyzing legitimacy processes.

Paradoxical Framing and Coping Process on Sustainability Innovation

Despite all the attention around paradox lens on sustainability in recent years, research regarding the ways how paradoxical framing may influence a firm’s innovation activities remains limited. To address this gap, this study juxtaposed paradox theory and cognitive framing perspective to examine how the two sides of paradoxes - namely, the positive framing and negative framing-may either stifle or enhance a firm’s innovative efforts toward a sustainability new product development. The findings add to the extant research by providing a more fine-grained understanding on how paradoxes are manifested in the organizational setting, and its underlying reframing process to cope with tensions on sustainability innovation.

Regulation as a Source of Collective Inertia in Technology Emergence: Evidence from Fintech

We apply a paradox lens to technology emergence to explore incumbents’ ability to simultaneously attend to competing demands. Departing from the notion that incongruous tensions are not only socially-constructed but importantly also structural and innate to industry contexts, we study industry regulation as a source of collective inertia for incumbents’ ability to engage with emerging technologies. We propose that rigid regulation locks incumbents in on a compliance trajectory at the expense of future-oriented engagement with new technologies. We hypothesize that deviations from such compliance-focused strategies (temporarily) relax social constrains and enable incumbent experimentation. With our sample of 105 commercial banks in the context of fintech (financial technology) in the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2018, we find strong support for our hypotheses.

Impacting Grand Challenges: A 'Both/And' Approach

In this panel symposium, we seek to build on growing efforts by management scholars to engage with grand challenges and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Reflective of the All- Academy Theme description, we note that research and scholarship around addressing these important issues traditionally adopts an either/or approach, reflecting a false self-imposed dichotomy that prevents more expansive and synergistic thinking. To advance scholarship and insights about the management of grand challenges, we turn to paradox theory, an organizational lens gaining attention among organizational scholars that explores the nature of competing demands and unpacks approaches to move beyond either/or thinking into more both/and approaches. We structured this session to be an interactive panel discussion with scholars who have deep and rich knowledge of specific SDGs. They will both share their knowledge and engage in a robust and provocative discussion to address important questions about the role of both/and thinking to address grand challenges, and how management scholars can advance that work. We hope that bringing a paradox lens to these issues will deepen our scholarship, as well as help push forward on practices in academia that allow us to be more relevant and impactful in building a thriving and sustainable world.

Investigating perspective taking when infrastructure megaproject teams engage local communities: Navigating tensions and balancing perspectives

Research on infrastructure megaprojects and community engagement is increasingly concerned with the cognitive factors that underpin engagement processes and actions. The ability of project teams to take the perspective of local communities is an important influence on how community engagement occurs. However this involves project teams confronting contradictions and tensions between local community perspectives and their own. Understanding how project teams respond to tensions between and seek to balance both perspectives is thus important, but this is relatively unexplored in literature to date. In response, this study utilizes the concept of ‘perspective-taking’, adopting a paradox lens to examine how tensions between the perspectives of local communities and project teams manifest and how project teams navigate these during community engagement. Through an exploratory case, the study reveals the specific cognitive attributes that enable infrastructure megaproject teams to be more effective in perspective-taking through balancing both local community and their own perspectives.

Exploring servitization through the paradox lens: Coping practices in servitization

The study analyzes the coping practices that emerge when a manufacturer of standardized products and add-on services expands to provide customized solutions. Based on a comparative case study methodology conducted across four case companies, and an analysis of extensive documentary data, the study challenges the dichotomous ‘either-or thinking’ in servitization research and highlights ‘both-and thinking’ by identifying both paradoxes and coping practices. The study extends the literature by identifying four paradoxes in servitization: 1) effectiveness in the customization of solutions vs. efficiency in product manufacturing, 2) building a customer orientation vs. maintaining an engineering mindset, 3) organizing product and service integration vs. separated services and product organizations, and 4) exploratory innovation in solutions vs. exploitative innovation in product manufacturing. Moreover, the study identifies nine practices that manufacturing companies apply when coping with the paradoxical challenges that emerge during servitization. The findings may help manufacturing companies understand, accept, and address paradoxical challenges and balance tensions, as not all tensions can be resolved. The identification of these paradoxes allows us to understand the difficulties that manufacturing companies face during the servitization process and may help explain the servitization-deservitization trend among some manufacturing companies that some recent studies have identified.

Multiple-party funding: tensions and related consequences for academic research in Europe

European universities are experiencing increasing financial pressures. Given that governmental budgets are cut, they have to additionally rely on further sources of funding. Multi-party funding, however, is not easily managed and poses serious challenges on academic research. This study explores the question “What tensions result from multiple-party funding, what are possible consequences of the different funding strategies and—transferring the findings to the university context—how can universities establish and manage multiple-party funded research?” We conducted a qualitative single case study in a non-university research center (NRC). NRC has gone through the process of increasing financial pressure and now relies on multiple sources of financing that have to be managed concurrently. Our results discuss opportunities and threats and reveal core tensions related to multiple-party funding activities. Adopting a paradox lens allows us to transfer the insights from this case to the university context. We systematically discuss consequences for universities and academic research and suggest approaches of actively managing tensions via strategies of accepting, differentiating and integrating. We thereby contribute to the discussion how to establish and manage third-party funded research for European universities.

A paradoxical approach symbiotic to postmerger integration: a French longitudinal case study

PurposeThis paper aims to examine post-merger integration (PMI) through the lens of paradox to determine how paradoxes contribute to successful integration. Although PMI has been identified as crucial to understand merger success or failure, the literature on PMI drivers remains inconclusive.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the theory of paradox and two key elements of PMI, strategic interdependency (SI) and organizational autonomy (OA), the authors describe the merger of two listed French companies using longitudinal data.FindingsThe authors identify how the paradox between OA and SI was triggered and fostered PMI success by leading to symbiotic integration. They also show that two capabilities were central in helping the paradox to evolve: preserving the specificities of the organizations and pooling their respective capabilities. These capabilities result from basic decisions and actions during the integration implementation, such as highlighting the expertise of the target firm, refocusing the core activity while valorizing each company’s expertise, clarifying the identity of the new organization on the market and enhancing joint piloting and transferring both general management capacity and functional abilities during the reorganization period.Practical implicationsThe authors offer several useful insights for managers trying to manage paradoxical tension throughout the merger process. This study encourages managers to embrace inconsistencies as they make decisions and to shift to dynamic decision-making as a way to adapt to complex contexts.Originality/valueThis study adopts a global and inclusive approach to focus on OA and SI and flesh out a picture of the integration process. It proposes a dynamic process model to conceptualize the stage-wise nature of the PMI process by highlighting the interrelations between OA and SI dynamics.