Organizational Paradoxes Research Articles

An Ontological Perspective on Nested Paradox in Organizations

An Ontological Perspective on Nested Paradox in Organizations

Waxing and Waning: A Comparative Case Study of Transitional Events in Organizational Paradoxes

Waxing and Waning: A Comparative Case Study of Transitional Events in Organizational Paradoxes

To Scale or Not: Resolving the Growth-Authenticity Paradox in Craft-Based Organizations

To Scale or Not: Resolving the Growth-Authenticity Paradox in Craft-Based Organizations

Multilevel Organizational Paradoxes for Superior Unit Performance: A Configurational Approach

Multilevel Organizational Paradoxes for Superior Unit Performance: A Configurational Approach

Enacting Organizational Paradoxes: Performances, Sociomaterialities, Dialectics, and Power

Enacting Organizational Paradoxes: Performances, Sociomaterialities, Dialectics, and Power

Book Review: Organizational Paradox

Book Review: Organizational Paradox

Propositional logic, paradox, and Indian dialectics – towards a deeper ontological approach in paradox theory

AbstractThe article responds to the call of organizational paradox theorists to explore the added value of eastern principles of thought as a basis for a better understanding of the treatment of contradictory opposites in organisations. Drawing on prior work in systems theory, it presents a logical analysis of paradox based on the Catuṣkoṭi or Tetralemma discussed in Madhyamika Buddhism. Unlike its predecessors, the article reads the Tetralemma as an expression of a gradual process of detachment from the subject matter in question, resulting from a change of perspective. On this basis, the article is able to distinguish two different accounts of paradox in organisations, one resulting from excess determinacy and the other resulting from a lack of determinacy. For organisational practice, this means that the perception of and attitude towards values, routines, strategy or identity needs more attention in the study of paradox, which Indian dialectics might facilitate.

Book Review: Performing Organizational Paradoxes

Book Review: Performing Organizational Paradoxes

Broadening the Scope of Operations and Supply Chain Management Scholarship on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Justice, Paradox, and Dialectical Lenses

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has been gaining attention in operations and supply chain management (OSCM) research but is often narrowly framed and dominated by instrumental logic. We offer three lenses that potentially broaden the scope of this scholarship: justice, paradox, and dialectical. The justice logic frames DEI as primarily a moral concern of inequality in firms and supply chains. It goes against an instrumental, performance-driven approach to establishing DEI in OSCM. To understand the persistence of tensions in DEI implementation, we present a paradox lens and link it to OSCM through four major types of organizational paradoxes: performing, organizing, learning, and belonging. We employ a dialectical perspective to resolve these tensions and combine instrumental and justice logics to explore how the latter can help firms realize DEI's (often unfulfilled) performance potential. OSCM scholars are well placed to use justice, paradox, and dialectical lenses to assess pathways for realizing DEI's transformative potential through modeling, decision support, and empirical research. Such research can help managers pursue objectives that conflict with or go beyond instrumental DEI, thus contributing to substantive DEI implementation.

Integrating advanced digital technologies in existing lean-based production systems: analysis of paradoxes, imbalances and management strategies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of paradoxes, underlying tensions and potential management strategies when integrating digital technologies into existing lean-based production systems (LPSs), with the aim of achieving synergies and fostering the development of production systems.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a collaborative management research (CMR) approach to identify patterns of organisational tensions and paradoxes and explore management strategies to overcome them. The data were collected through interviews and focus group interviews with experts on lean and/or digital technologies from the companies, from documents and from workshops with the in-case researchers.FindingsThe findings of this paper provide insights into the salient organisational paradoxes embraced in the integration of digital technologies in LPS by identifying different aspects of the performing, organising, learning and belonging paradoxes. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the intricacies and relatedness between different paradoxes and their resolutions, and more specifically, how a resolution strategy adopted to manage one paradox might unintentionally generate new tensions. This, in turn, calls for either re-contextualising actions to counteract the drift or the adoption of new resolution strategies.Originality/valueThis paper adds perspective to operations management (OM) research through the use of paradox theory, and we (1) provide a fine-grained perspective on why integration sometimes “fails” and label the forces of internal drift as mechanisms of imbalances and (2) provide detailed insights into how different management and resolution strategies are adopted, especially by identifying re-contextualising actions as a key to rebalancing organisational paradoxes in favour of the integration of digital technologies in LPSs.

Towards innovation capability in retail services: managing the tensions of exploration and exploitation

ABSTRACT Retailing is said to be at a critical period where much higher demands are being placed on retail actors to develop their capability for explorative innovation for lasting competitive advantage. Developing innovation capabilities is a challenging pursuit, however, and is a topic that is under-researched in the retail context. This paper thus investigates tensions that emerge when retail firms pursue explorative innovation in an organisational context characterised by exploitation-oriented activity, and how these are managed through various organisational mechanisms. The findings from our multiple case study reveal how developing innovation capability in incumbent retail firms gives rise to complex tensions related to strategic intent, organisational culture and structure. These are perceived as organisational paradoxes and managed as such due to the need to balance these opposing poles, emphasising the need for balance instead of making an explicit choice. Retail incumbents establish differentiating mechanisms for innovation, complemented by various integrative mechanisms. The study shows that in order to enable explorative, radical innovation in retail firms, innovation work needs to be differentiated from that of ongoing operations, provided that integration is facilitated at operational and strategic levels. By focusing on incumbent retail firms using exploration-exploitation paradox as a theoretical lens, the study contributes with new perspectives on building innovation capability in this context. The paper gives evidence to how developing innovation capabilities lies in the management of these complex tensions as paradoxes using the combination of differentiation and integration mechanisms.

Co-RISK: a tool to co-create impactful university–industry projects for natural hazard risk mitigation

Abstract. Translation of geoscience research into tangible changes, such as modified decisions, processes, or policy, in the wider world is an important yet notably difficult process. Illustratively, university-based scientists and professionals work on different timescales, seek different insights, and may have a substantial cognitive distance between them. The work on Co-RISK reported in this paper is motivated by an ongoing need for mechanisms to aid this translation process. Co-RISK is an accessible (i.e. open access, paper based, zero cost) toolkit for use by stakeholder groups within workshops. Co-RISK has been developed to aid the co-creation of collaborative inter-organisational projects to translate risk-related science into modified actions. It is shaped to avoid adding to a proliferation in increasingly complex frameworks for assessing natural hazard risk and is given a robust basis by incorporating paradox theory from organisation studies, which deal with navigating the genuine tensions between industry and research organisations that stem from their differing roles. Specifically designed to ameliorate the organisational paradox, a Co-RISK workshop draws up “maps” including key stakeholders (e.g. regulator, insurer, university) and their positionality (e.g. barriers, concerns, motivations) and identifies exactly the points where science might modify actions. Ultimately a Co-RISK workshop drafts simple and tailored project-specific frameworks that span from climate to hazard, to risk, to implications of that risk (e.g. solvency). The action research approach used to design Co-RISK, its implementation in a trial session for the insurance sector, and its intellectual contribution are described and evaluated. The initial Co-RISK workshop was well received so it is envisaged to be applicable to other sectors (i.e. transport infrastructure, utilities, government). Joint endeavours enabled by Co-RISK could fulfil the genuine need to quickly convert the latest insights from environmental research into real-world climate change adaptation strategies.

PATOLOGIJA ORGANIZACIJE I UPRAVLJANJE KRIZAMA

Organizational crises are an inevitable consequence of the nature of the organization and are manifested and resolved in different ways. The crises affect enterprises, industrial branches, the society, etc. This paper addresses a new approach to the development of crises within organizations (like inevitable consequences of the process of organizing) and the occurrence of the most common pathologies of organizations as the consequences thereof, with special emphasis on further intensification of the crisis processes and the multiplication of consequences under the conditions of transition in Serbia. The paper explains some of the most common manifest forms of organizational paradoxes and pathological conditions of the organizational structure and functioning of organizations, which are unavoidable, and which occur in all enterprises (under stationary conditions, in the enterprises operating successfully, in the regulated economies, etc.) but which easily explode in the transition or transform into even more dangerous mutations. Certainly, the pathology of environment is an additional generator of the occurrence of pathological conditions in enterprises.

Paradoxical organizational culture, authoritarian leadership, and international firm performance: evidence from international firms in China

Organizational paradox has received substantial scholarly attention; however, the literature has not yet explored the idea that it can be ingrained and manifested as an international organizational culture. In this study, we conceptually explore and empirically examine paradoxical organizational culture and its impact on international firm performance. In this vein, this study advances our knowledge of international organizational culture by extending paradox theory. We propose a “paradoxical organizational culture” as a type of international organizational culture characterized by the sustained and visible coexistence of contradictory cultural features within an international organization. We also argue that the effectiveness of paradoxical organizational culture is amplified, not dampened, by authoritarian leadership. Quantitative analyses based on cluster groups were used to examine the relationships among paradoxical culture, leadership, and firm performance. The empirical results, based on original survey data collected from China (2256 individual respondents from 394 Chinese international firms), support our claims. Our study is expected to provide implications for those interested in the concepts of paradoxical organizational culture and authoritarian leadership in the international business context.

The Influence of Entrepreneurs’ Culture and Ethnicity on Firms’ Degree of Hybridity

Hybrid businesses that combine profit and social objectives at their core play an important role in their communities. In this article, we use insights from paradox theory to examine the influence of entrepreneurs’ cultural value orientations and ethnicity on distinct forms of hybrid businesses. We use a unique random sample of international small- and medium-sized privately owned businesses in Canada. After controlling for alternative explanations and using propensity scores to match the samples of Indigenous and non-Indigenous entrepreneurs, we consistently find that entrepreneurs’ self-expression values and Indigenous ethnicity are positively associated with a higher degree of hybridity in the businesses they start. Our findings contribute to the conversations on the micro-foundations of organizational paradox and to the literature on the factors that influence different hybrid organizational forms. Besides, our findings also add to the literature that examines hybridity in the context of internationalized businesses. The rationality and culture of the entrepreneur affect organizational paradox. Entrepreneurs with self-expressive values and identified with an Indigenous ethnicity have higher proclivities to form ideal hybrids and embrace paradoxical organizational forms.

Opening new brokerage opportunities while closing existing ones: The Tertius Iungens orientation as a source of network advantage

SummaryOrganizational members face a motivational dilemma in influencing the social relationships of others: The organization benefits from high connectedness among employees, but personal advantages accrue to those who occupy brokerage positions between disconnected others. In this study, we draw on the organizational paradox perspective to argue that the reconciliation of these contrasting objectives lies in recognizing one's agency to facilitate connectedness (closing) within a social structure and the search for new connections (opening) as mutually supportive. Across two field studies, we examine how individuals' advantageous position in an organizational network emerges from the interplay between a tertius iungens orientation to join others in collaboration and network building to open new brokering opportunities. In Study 1, analyses of a sample of two‐wave, cross‐lagged panel data show that a tertius iungens orientation contributes to the number of outgoing ties to other actors via network building. Study 2 uses a network survey to add that a tertius iungens orientation is positively associated with incoming ties from others and network brokerage, and again, these relationships are mediated by network building. Overall, our results indicate that by increasing connectedness in their organizational social network, individuals simultaneously activate opening behaviors that facilitate the expansion of their network, thereby revitalizing their structurally advantageous position.

Folding organizational paradoxes: Narrative practices for legitimation amid competing stakeholder demands

In paradoxical situations, organizational actors face various demands that are contradictory and interdependent at the same time. While the current literature focuses on how organizational actors respond to these paradoxical demands, it does so in a depersonalized manner with little attention to the stakeholders behind these demands. Therefore, it fails to explain how organizational actors legitimize their responses to paradox to those stakeholders who bring up the paradoxical demands. Using a narrative sensemaking approach, we study how social entrepreneurs legitimize their efforts to respond to paradoxical stakeholder demands for both delivering and measuring social impact. We find that social entrepreneurs legitimize their responses to this paradoxical situation through a narrative mechanism of folding. Through folding, narrators construct legitimizing accounts by narratively producing temporary alignments with some stakeholder interests, while opposing others. Through the recurring and consistently inconsistent use of the narrative practices of embodying and positioning, narrators produce a legitimizing account that overall portrays their responses to paradox as balanced and non-biased. As our main contribution, we offer a model of folding as a narrative, interest-based mechanism that explains how organizational actors legitimize their efforts to navigate paradoxical situations by portraying themselves as attending to paradoxical demands through a temporary and fluid shift between momentary alignments and oppositions of stakeholder interests.

Bridging the parochial divide: Outsider brokerage in mafia families

How do groups maintain internal solidarity and closure without compromising their access to diverse networks? A long line of previous research suggests focusing on the boundary-spanning activities of “brokers” who bridge gaps in social structure. In many contexts, however, brokers are viewed with suspicion and distrust rather than rewarded for their diversity of interests. This article examines groups in which the theoretical deck is seemingly stacked against brokerage and toward parochialism: American-Italian mafia families. Through an institutional analysis of the mafia organization, I trace how ethnic and organizational closure led marginalized actors to seek alternative paths to enrichment beyond the family-controlled networks and industries. Using a historical network data set, I document a division of network labor in which ethnic outsiders— more than other actors—benefited as bridges between parochial organizations. This illuminates a broader paradox of social organization: while social closure is typically thought important because it increases the group's power over individual members and reinforces boundaries, it can also undermine those same boundaries by pushing marginal actors to seek opportunities and connections outside the group.

Processing Organizational Paradox: The Role of Mindfulness

Processing Organizational Paradox: The Role of Mindfulness

Innovation and Change from A Multi-level Paradoxical Perspective in a Highly Formalized Organization

ABSTRACT In organizations, paradoxical tensions exist and can have an impact at each managerial level. Building upon a multi-level lens, this research aims to investigate the underlying paradoxical perceptions of innovation and change at different managerial levels in a Jordanian bank case study. Using a qualitative approach, ‘nuanced interpretations’ were explored, yielding fresh insights. The findings suggest the contradictions and complexities of external environmental changes, demonstrating that senior managers are constantly battling to manage change. Middle managers are split into two groups: those who value change and those who prefer traditional methods. While operational managers recognize the importance of change, it is not as critical as following rules and procedures. This study contributes to the concept of paradox theory by revealing contradictions throughout an organization’s hierarchy and adding to the body of knowledge on formalized organizations by identifying how contradictions emerge in practice. Further, it contributes to managerial practice by revealing how organizational contradictions and tensions stymie change and paves the way for future research. MAD statement This study aims to Make a Difference (MAD) by exploring the underlying paradoxical perceptions of change at various managerial levels, with an emphasis on perceived contradictions as part of organizational change. Building on evidence from a case study of a highly formalized organization. This study focuses on research investigating paradoxes and contradictions in change processes, which laid the groundwork for analyzing previously obscured organizational paradoxes and contradictions. To that purpose, this study shifts the basis of paradox and contradiction to the perspectives of participants, adding to managerial practice by illuminating how organizational contradictions can inhibit change.