Paradoxical Tensions Research Articles

A Lifeline or a Line in the Sand? Nursing Students' Perceptions of the Commonwealth Prac Payment

Background The Australian Government's introduction of the Commonwealth Prac Payment in July 2025, providing means-tested financial support to eligible domestic nursing, midwifery, teaching, and social work students during mandatory professional experience placements, marks a significant policy shift. Objective This study aimed to examine undergraduate nursing students' expected views on the Commonwealth Prac Payment's influence on their academic and professional lives before its implementation. Methods This research study used a qualitative descriptive design. From June to September 2024, focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with fourteen second-year nursing students at a tertiary institution in Melbourne, Australia. Data were analyzed thematically. Results Five themes emerged as follows: 1) Academic liberation, encapsulating anticipated improvements in academic focus; 2) promoted mental well-being, highlighting the expected reduction in financial stress; 3) empowered learning, reflecting the potential for deeper engagement in clinical training; 4) retention revolution, underscoring the payment's perceived role in reducing attrition; and 5) equity in education, revealing a paradoxical tension between supporting domestic students while excluding international students. Conclusion This study provided a critical pre-implementation perspective on a landmark policy initiative. The findings revealed that the anticipated benefits of the Commonwealth Prac Payment extend beyond financial relief, potentially enhancing academic engagement, mental well-being, and professional preparedness. However, the study also illuminated the policy's limitations in fostering equitable access to nursing education, particularly for international students. This research study may serve as a crucial baseline for future longitudinal studies evaluating the actual impacts of the Commonwealth Prac Payment, informing ongoing policy refinement and the development of more holistic support mechanisms for all nursing students.

The bright and dark sides of AI innovation for sustainable development: Understanding the paradoxical tension between value creation and value destruction

The bright and dark sides of AI innovation for sustainable development: Understanding the paradoxical tension between value creation and value destruction

Navigating Acceptance of Paradoxical Tensions: A Self‐Efficacy Perspective on Paradox and Goal Setting Theories

Navigating Acceptance of Paradoxical Tensions: A Self‐Efficacy Perspective on Paradox and Goal Setting Theories

Exploring paradoxical tensions in scaling circular business models within the textile and clothing industry

Exploring paradoxical tensions in scaling circular business models within the textile and clothing industry

Exploring the drivers of unsustainable pressures in health and social care: A qualitative system dynamics approach.

Exploring the drivers of unsustainable pressures in health and social care: A qualitative system dynamics approach.

Human and technological actors shaping digital transformation capability: an integrative review

PurposeThis study aims to clarify and synthesise the fragmented, multidisciplinary digital transformation (DT) literature, addressing three gaps, namely the role of cognitive technologies, the employee mindsets required and the paradoxical tensions firms experience as they transform their firms. Cognitive technologies like AI, IoT and other autonomous systems simulate human cognitive processes, challenging prior firm and employee practices.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review guided by the PRISMA protocol was conducted to thematically analyse 83 peer-reviewed articles, drawing on the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities.FindingsOur findings reveal cognitive technologies remain overlooked in the bulk of DT literature despite their relevance to knowledge search, knowledge management and transactive memory systems as micro-foundations of DT capabilities. Based on dynamic capabilities’ aggregate dimensions, our thematic analysis suggests managers should navigate a sensing paradox of renewal drivers, a seizing paradox of innovation posture and a reconfiguring paradox of structural malleability.Originality/valueA future research agenda is presented to steer scholarly interest in DT, guide management decision-making related to DT and advance the field beyond its nascent stages considering the emergent role of cognitive technologies.

Nine Principles for Enhancing Leadership Development Practices in Organizations

ABSTRACTThe significance of leadership for organizational success is widely recognized; however, there are numerous perspectives on the best way to develop leadership. The aim of this study was to explore the factors that professionals collectively identify as crucial for enhancing leadership development in organizations. The research questions addressed are: What key principles guide well‐informed decisions in organizing leadership development practices? What generic aspects are related to these principles?Employing a participatory research approach, we collected and analyzed data in collaboration with professionals working with leadership development in 17 municipalities and 10 regions in Sweden. The data were gathered by recording collaborative work during workshops, analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and interpreted using paradox theory. Our main theoretical contribution consists of nine key principles that guide well‐informed decisions in organizing leadership development practices. These principles are structured within key questions that go beyond perspectives on the best way to develop leadership, addressing inevitable paradoxical tensions. Additionally, we identify three generic aspects for managing these tensions and enhancing leadership development practices in organizations: systematic deliberation, integration and continuous improvement. Based on these findings, we present two practical tools to help professionals strengthen leadership development as a cohesive support system. Rather than seeking a single best curriculum or framework, professionals can be supported by aligning the responses to Why? What? How and when? Who? and What works?, always related to Where? and by continuously applying systematic deliberation, integrating leadership development with business strategies and HR activities and pursuing continuous improvement.

Investigating neoliberalization in gender-sensitive academic workplaces: paradoxing managerial employees needs

Purpose This study aims to explore the neoliberalization of higher education and its impact on gender-sensitive workplaces for international academic staff. Using a qualitative multiple-case study approach, the research examines how neoliberal policies intersect with gender-sensitive practices within academic institutions, characterized by marketization, privatization and commodification. The theoretical framework integrates Foucault’s concept of governmentality, Bourdieu’s notion of capital, intersectionality from gender theory and paradox theory to analyze the conflicting demands faced by international employees. Design/methodology/approach This study’s data comes from semistructured interviews with international academic staff and document analysis of institutional policies. The findings reveal that neoliberal policies often undermine gender-sensitive initiatives by prioritizing market-driven objectives over inclusivity, creating paradoxical tensions for international employees, especially women and minorities, who navigate both gender and nationality-based challenges. Findings The study concludes that while neoliberalization in higher education fosters a competitive environment, it simultaneously complicates the implementation of effective gender-sensitive practices. Institutions must address these tensions by reevaluating their policies to better support diverse international staff. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature by highlighting the complex dynamics at the intersection of neoliberalism, gender sensitivity and international employee experiences. It offers insights for policymakers and academic leaders committed to fostering inclusive and equitable workplaces.

Exploring implementation challenges of decentralized clinical trials: A qualitative study of policy stakeholder perspectives in Denmark.

The implementation of decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) has received strong political interest in Denmark. Many policy stakeholders may directly or indirectly influence the implementation at a national strategic level. Diverging interests may drive the implementation process in different directions, which may result in an inefficient and unsustainable process. The purpose of this study is to explore implementation challenges of DCTs by examining stakeholder interests that emerge in their accounts of the advantages and disadvantages of DCTs. This qualitative study is based on interviews with 15 participants from 12 institutions comprising patient institutions, healthcare institutions, industry institutions, and political institutions. All interviews were conducted between July and December 2023. Additionally, we included 13 policy documents. Interviews and documents were analysed twice. First, we conducted a data-driven thematic analysis. Second, we performed a second-order analysis informed by paradox theory. We used the concept of paradoxical tensions to understand the contradictions that occurred in the stakeholder accounts. To make the implementation of DCTs efficient and sustainable, the interests of stakeholders need to be aligned. However, our study demonstrated that the many different stakeholder interests created a knot of paradoxical tensions, which must first be resolved. Policy stakeholders must collaborate to resolve the paradoxical tensions and align their different interests towards a common objective. The responsibility of the practical implementation process needs to be allocated to one stakeholder or a few stakeholders, who can guide the process.

Healthcare workers' adoption of and satisfaction with artificial intelligence: The counterintuitive role of paradoxical tensions and paradoxical mindset

Healthcare workers' adoption of and satisfaction with artificial intelligence: The counterintuitive role of paradoxical tensions and paradoxical mindset

Collective Leadership as ‘Plumbing and Poetry’: Navigating Paradoxical Tensions Through Community Identity Work

Collective Leadership as ‘Plumbing and Poetry’: Navigating Paradoxical Tensions Through Community Identity Work

Management of paradoxical tensions in industrial symbiosis: An exploration at the inter‐organizational level

AbstractIndustrial symbiosis (IS) is becoming a prominent inter‐organizational approach for improved resources utilization and reduced emissions. IS literature and development efforts focus on interventions needed to overcome or eliminate various barriers, but pay inadequate attention to paradoxes that cannot be suppressed over time and require management. This study combines literature on paradox theory and IS, exploring the identification and management of paradoxical tensions in eight case studies. The results show that IS relationships trigger paradoxical tensions at the strategic and operational levels, surfaced within and between the organizations. These tensions seem to emerge from, and connected to, the persistence of a cooperation–competition paradox within organizations, when engaging with IS partners contradicts with an organization's competitiveness on the market. The study also provides insights into paradoxical tension management within and between organizations in IS relationships by, for example, shifting partner expectations in favor of IS development, separating responsibilities for IS and core activities between departments, or addressing diverging objectives between partners over time. Both at organizational and inter‐organizational levels open dialogue, transparency, and collaboration appear to play key roles in tension management. The study emphasizes the pivotal role of active paradoxical tension management—both internally at strategic and operational levels and externally with partners and facilitators.

Exploring the roles of paradoxical tensions, paradoxical thinking, and team psychological capital on the creativity of engineering university students

BackgroundThe multifaceted challenges encountered by engineering university students generate paradoxical tensions, which serve as catalysts for fostering creativity. Engaging in paradoxical thinking during academic pursuits enhances students’ ability to solve complex engineering problems. Despite this, the intricate interconnections among paradoxical tensions, paradoxical thinking, and the creativity of engineering university students remain ambiguous.MethodsThis study aimed to explore the gap by surveying 1,410 engineering students in China, examining how paradoxical thinking mediates the relationship between paradoxical tensions and creativity. Additionally, it investigated the moderating impact of team psychological capital on the associations between paradoxical tensions and both paradoxical thinking and creativity. SPSS 24.0 was initially used to convert the cleaned data into a “.csv” format, and Smart PLS (v.4.0.9.5) was then employed to assess the model.ResultsThe findings reveal a positive influence of paradoxical tensions on creativity and thinking. Notably, paradoxical thinking emerges as a significant contributor to enhancing the creativity of engineering university students. Furthermore, the findings show that paradoxical tensions enhance creativity by influencing paradoxical thinking. While team psychological capital emerged as a significant factor in moderating the link between paradoxical tension and creativity, its role in moderating the association between paradoxical tension and paradoxical thinking was not statistically significant.ConclusionsThis study revealed how paradoxical tensions among engineering university students influence creativity through paradoxical thinking moderated by team psychological capital. The findings provide new insights for researchers to understand paradoxical tensions, paradoxical thinking, team psychological capital, and the underlying psychological mechanism for engineering university students’ creativity better, and they have practical implications for education administrators.

Networks with a social purpose: how social enterprises manage paradoxical tensions

Networks with a social purpose: how social enterprises manage paradoxical tensions

Navigating paradoxical tensions in pursuit of sustainable supply chain management: review and guidance for future inquiry

PurposeOrganizational pursuit of sustainability in multi-tier supply chain systems operating in unpredictable environments is often associated with the emergence of paradoxical tensions. This study aims to summarize and synthesize existing literature on managing various paradoxical tensions in supply chains (i.e. sourcing, making, delivering and reverse logistics) as organizations pursue sustainability transformation. It also strives to motivate new academic research inquiry into developing responses to sustainability paradoxes.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on a systematic literature review of 73 papers from the Web of Science database selected at the intersection of paradox, sustainability and logistics/ supply chain management (SCM). Applying paradox theory as a guiding lens, we investigate organizational strategies, practices and capabilities described in the literature to navigate sustainability paradoxes in supply chains.FindingsThe results assert that the success of sustainability transformation will depend on an organizational ability to recognize, accept and navigate paradoxical tensions in one's supply chain. This requires developing the dynamic capabilities of paradoxical leadership, strategic agility, innovativeness, collaboration with contextualization and governance. Successful sustainability transformation is not reliant on finding an optimal, final design but rather the continuous balancing of tensions inherent within or across the organizations that make up one's supply chain.Practical implicationsThe research offers an integrative conceptual framework to guide organizations in navigating sustainability paradoxes in supply chains, embracing strategic, practice and capability levels. It also outlines opportunities for future research inquiries connected to this framework that are needed to build additional insight for addressing paradoxical tensions related to the pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.Originality/valueThis study takes a dynamic capabilities approach to navigating paradoxical tensions in pursuit of sustainable supply chain management.

Trajectories of the notion of liminality: Identity, border, threshold, affectivity and spatio-temporal processes of transformation

Liminality is a theoretical and methodological concept which originated within anthropology at beginning of the 20th century through the work of Arnold van Gennep and later Victor Turner. This notion emphasizes the need for a transformative space-time in the human experience and for a temporary suspension of the normative borders that orient it. Through ritualized symbolic forms, the individual can experience an “ in-between” condition and question one’s own identity and role in the community of belonging, introducing new balances between innovation and preservation. The notion of liminality - from a processual point of view - allows us to explore a twofold paradoxical tension that can never be fully resolved in the human psyche: the relationship between identity and sociality (the paradox of psychic and collective life) and the relationship between stability and change (the paradox of transformation). Through the examination of historical contributions on liminality up to the most recent studies on contemporary psychosocial forms, the value of liminality is explored focusing on some of its central aspects: identity, community, rituality, passages and thresholds, borders and limits, creativity and transformation, uncertainty and affectivity, stability and loss of orientation.

The Challenging Process of Developing an Antenatal Social Intervention for Parents From Culturally Diverse Backgrounds to Reduce Postnatal Distress: A Participatory Action Research Study.

A lack of social support contributes to women from culturally diverse backgrounds experiencing higher rates of perinatal distress and lower rates of service engagement. This participatory action research study aimed to understand what a culturally appropriate social intervention may look like for pregnant women from culturally diverse backgrounds. Field notes and qualitative transcripts were descriptively synthesised. Challenges of engaging with culturally diverse communities in the context of perinatal health services were identified. Cultural factors and practices were seen to impact upon service engagement, with parents more likely to seek support outside of health settings. Community members expressed frustrations with the lack of deep cultural sensitivity in the structure and delivery of health services. Clear definitions in scope and aim of any intervention were indicated, before further community engagement. Challenges in engaging individuals and services from diverse communities highlighted the risks of ideas embedded in oversimplified understandings based on cultural stereotypes and assumptions of homogeneity of experiences at the intersection of cultural diversity, perinatal distress and health services. Deep cultural sensitivity requires an understanding of how members of population groups perceive and understand health and wellbeing to directly inform the development of any intervention. Attempting to design a culturally sensitive intervention for socially isolated and culturally diverse parents within mainstream health services, led to a paradoxical tension between attempting to address needs in culturally insensitive ways or not attempting to address the needs at all. Members of the public and people who identified as having lived experience of social isolation, cultural diversity or mental distress were engaged in the community consultation phase of the study.

Institutional Complexities in Organisations: A Theoretical Integration of Multiple Logics and the Locus of Paradoxical Tension

Organisations encounter a multiplicity of influences developing complexities that stem from competing or contradicting logics of the institutional field. When such influences enter organisations and interface with organisational actors’ sense-making, they create paradoxical tensions with implications for decision-making. This paper theorises how in the organisational field, multiple logics develop complexities and get intertwined with organisational actors’ sense-making, resulting in paradoxical tensions. It presents propositions leaning on a theoretical framework that integrates multiple logics and the locus of paradoxical tension. We propose that in an unstructured institutional field, organisational actors face increased tension, leading to a decision-making situation of either ‘acquire and adjust’ or ‘reject and maintain existing practices’. The selection of ‘acquire and adjust’ then results in a choice between ‘acquire’ (conformity) and ‘partial conformity or non-conformity’ to the prevailing logics in the field. Our integrative framework provides insights to future researchers for making sense of messy organisational realities amid broader influences.

“It takes a lot of sisu to get through it”- managerial experiences of facing adversities during pandemic

ABSTRACTPurposeSisu refers to extraordinary internal strength in the face of adversities. Although originally a Finnish concept, it can be a universally useful concept for studying managerial well-being and performance during difficult or even emergency periods. Previous research on sisu categorizes it into beneficial and harmful sisu and suggests that these two dimensions of sisu are useful when studying determination and resoluteness in crisis situations. This study applies the concept of sisu to examine managers’ well-being in times of crisis.MethodologyInterviews were conducted with 15 managers in the hotel, manufacturing and retail industries in Finland.ResultsThe beneficial effects of sisu seem to dissolve when it is used too often. The study also highlighted the paradoxical tension involved in the decision to stop or continue actions in a difficult situation and contributes to sisu research by discussing collective sisu.ConclusionThe results of this study suggest that beneficial sisu helps to overcome adversity, while harmful sisu causes distortions in thinking that are detrimental to managers. Understanding one’s own tendency towards beneficial or harmful sisu in difficult situations can help in managerial work. Collective sisu is an excellent resource for overcoming difficult situations in workplaces.

Unveiling the paradoxes of implementing post graduate competency based medical education programs

Purpose Competency-based medical education (CBME) has gained prominence as an innovative model for post-graduate medical education, yet its implementation poses significant challenges, especially with regard to its sustainability. Drawing on paradox theory, we suggest that revealing the paradoxes underlying these challenges may contribute to our understanding of post graduate competency-based medical education (PGCBME) implementation processes and serve as a first-step in enhancing better implementation. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to identify the paradoxes associated with PGCBME implementation. Method A qualitative study was conducted, as part of a larger action research, using in-depth semi-structured interviews with fellows and educators in eight Neonatal wards. Results Analysis revealed that the PGCBME program examined in this study involves three different levels of standardization, each serving as one side of paradoxical tensions; (1) a paradox between the need for standardized assessment tools and for free-flow flexible assessment tools, (2) a paradox between the need for a standardized implementation process across all wards and the need for unique implementation protocols in each ward; and 3) a paradox between the need for a standardized meaning of competency proficiency and the need for flexible and personal competency achievement indicators. Conclusions Implementing PGCBME programs involves many challenges, some of which are paradoxical, i.e. two contradictory challenges in which solving one challenge exacerbates another. Revealing these paradoxes is important in navigating them successfully.