Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach^†

†. In Academy of Management Annals, 10 (1), 2016, edited by Sim B. Sitkin and Laurie R. Weingart.

Abstract

This article presents a constitutive approach to the study of organizational contradictions, dialectics, paradoxes, and tensions. In particular, it highlights five constitutive dimensions (i.e., discourse, developmental actions, socio-historical conditions, presence in multiples, and praxis) that appear across the literature in five metatheoretical traditions—process-based systems, structuration, critical, postmodern, and relational dialectics. In exploring these dimensions, it defines and distinguishes among key constructs, links research to process outcomes, and sets forth a typology of alternative ways of responding to organizational tensions. It concludes by challenging researchers to sharpen their focus on time in process studies, privilege emotion in relation to rationality, and explore the dialectic between order and disorder.

Notes

†. In Academy of Management Annals, 10 (1), 2016, edited by Sim B. Sitkin and Laurie R. Weingart.

1. Farjourn (2010) presents a critique of the work on exploration and exploitation as rooted in strict dualisms rather than conceived as a duality. By casting the two concepts as clear-cut dichotomies rather than contradictions, this work presumes discrete practices between binaries.

2. A discourse approach differs from a transmission model of communication that highlights message exchange and information sharing. Also, in this work, the process of developing meanings in routine interactions differs from the typical use of the term sensemaking, which is often linked to individual cognitions in the paradox literature.

3. Research reveals that organizational actors have at least partial knowledge of paradoxical events through their awareness of latent tensions (Chreim, 2005; Hatch, 1997; Stoltzfus, Stohl, & Seibold, 2011).

4. An alternative way to conduct this review would be to cluster studies that focused on one of the particular constructs, for example, contradictions, paradoxes, and dialectics. However, multiple reviews already exist on organizational paradoxes (Lewis, 2000; Lewis & Kelemen, 2002; Lewis & Smith, 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2011) and organizational dialectics (Langley & Sloan, 2011) and no reviews to date cross different constructs or multiple paradigms. Moreover, all four constructs surface in the literature that adopts processed-based studies of actions, interactions, and practices over time.

5. The 30 topic areas include careers; conflict and unions; decision making; emotions and compassionate work; ethics and corporate social responsibility; gender and diversity; globalization/intercultural; identity; innovation and creativity; institutional theory, change and entrepreneurship; interorganizational collaborations; knowledge management; leadership and management; organizational change; organizational culture; organizational effectiveness; organizational learning; organizational networks; organizational theory; participation and organizational democracy; power, resistance, and control; risk and risk management; socialization; social movements and collective action; strategy and strategic management; teams and groups; technology and information systems; work-life; and workplace relationships. Based on key words and the focus of studies, coders often placed articles in more than one category. Publications included theory and concept development, literature review and critique, empirical studies, and interventionist essays.

6. Developing any category scheme requires care in classifying publications, capturing important distinctions, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge. With a sample of 350 journal articles, books, and book chapters (see Table 5), this classification was not an easy task. Our decision to organize this review around the particular five metatheoretical traditions (i.e., process-based systems, structuration, critical theory, postmodern, and relational dialectics) was the outcome of considerable discussion among the authors regarding the range of metatheories in this literature. As broad criteria, we considered: (1) the prominence of the perspective in the publication, (2) differences in paradigmatic assumptions, (3) variance in the treatment of constructs (e.g., their definitions, sources, loci, levels of analysis, etc.), and (4) the potential of the metatheory to capture distinctions in the paradox literature. Our five categories represent only one among several possible alternatives. However, we believe they capture and pay tribute to the diversity of paradigmatic traditions that characterize management and organizational studies writ large.

7. For discussions of Eastern and cross-cultural perspectives that ground contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizational processes, see Bjerknes (1992), Fang (2005, 2012), and McDonald (2011).

8. The schools of thought that fall into the tradition of process-based systems theory include Hegelian dialectical theory, activity theory, process theories, evolutionary theories, institutional theory, sensemaking theory, and paradox theory, to name a few.

9. Process-based systems approaches to the study of dialectics, paradoxes, and contradictions encompass an array of topics, including leadership (Cunha, Kamoche, & Cunha, 2003; Cunha, Rego, & Vaccaro, 2014; Manz, Anand, Joshi, & Manz, 2008); organizational structuring (Fombrun, 1986), organizational identities and identification (Fiol, 2002; Kozica, Gebhardt, Muller-Seitz, & Kaiser, 2015; Ladge, Clair, & Greenberg, 2012); organizational sustainability and risk (Arjoon, 2006; Benn & Baker, 2009; Hahn, Preuss, Pinkse, & Figge, 2014; Juanillo & Scherer, 1995), corporate social responsibility and crisis planning (Castello & Lozano, 2011; Pang, Cropp, & Cameron, 2006); organizational time (Cunha, 2004); formalization and interorganizational relationships (Vlaar, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2007); and strategy and organizational performance (Bourgeois & Eisenhardt, 1988; Costanzo & Di Domenico, 2015; Ghemawat & Costa, 1993). These studies affirm the importance of paradoxes and contradictions in processing complex issues, engaging multiple corporate stakeholders, negotiating legitimacy, and buffering against uncertainty. In the research on information technology, paradoxes of connectivity constitute the nature of virtual and telework in ways that shape decision making processes, cultural norms, and the emergence of new organizational forms (Bryson, 2008; Child & McGrath, 2001; Drummond, 2008; Hedberg & Jönsson, 1978; Leonardi, Jackson, & Diwan, 2009; Wilson, O'Leary, Metiu, & Jett, 2008).

10. See Langley and Sloan (2011) for a review of the work on dialectics and organizational change. As a technique, dialectical inquiry was a type of organizational intervention aimed at enhancing effective decision making in top management teams (Bergadaà & Thiétart, 1997; Cosier, 1983; Cosier & Aplin, 1980; Kleist, 2013; Mason, 1969; Mason & Mitroff, 1979; Mitroff & Emshoff, 1979; Schweiger & Sandberg, 1989; Schweiger, Sandberg, & Ragan, 1986; Schweiger, Sandberg, & Rechner, 1989; Schwenk, 1984, 1989). As a mantra, dialectics generated creative synthesis between opposite poles (Harvey, 2014), developed innovative-supportive cultures (Khazanchi, Lewis, & Boyer, 2007), signaled wicked problems (Stoppelenburg & Vermaak, 2008), and fostered contextual ambidexterity (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Im & Rai, 2014; Smith & Tushman, 2005). As a narrative, dialectics served as a conceptual lens to describe and interpret organizational change processes. Dialectics as critique parallels our treatment of critical theory and postmodern studies on power relationships and domination.

11. These new directions are not the same as trialectics, which is a logic of change grounded in unity and attraction rather than in struggle or opposition (Ford & Backoff, 1988; Ford & Ford, 1994, 1995). Trialectics works from discontinuous change based on mutations while dialectics works from contradictions grounded in continuous management of tensions (Carini, Palich, & Wagner, 1995).

12. The latent contradictions that set the stage for the role of dialectics in institutional change are: (1) inefficiencies; that is, contradictions between performance and market alternatives, (2) non-adaptability or contradictions in responding to environmental jolts, (3) institutional incompatibilities that stem from deeply held but opposite values, and (4) misaligned interests that develop from efforts to meet opposing interests and demands (Seo & Creed, 2002).

13. Of note, structuration studies treat reproduction and transformation of structures as occurring in a dialectical interplay. That is, ongoing actions and interactions both maintain some structural properties of the current system while changing others.

14. Of note, Hegel’s (1969) notion of dialectics is teleological in that it has a determinant end that resolves the contradiction. Other dialectical theorists reject this view and adopt a model of indeterminacy in which the two opposing tendencies continue their ongoing relationship. This explanation led some scholars to conclude that Hegelian notions of synthesis favored one pole over the other through the practice of negation (Ford & Backoff, 1988). This review by necessity glosses the tenets of critical theory and the distinctions between Hegel's (1969) and Marx’s (1906) uses of the dialectical method. For Hegel, history progressed dialectically through thesis-antithesis leading to a synthesis as a resolution to past struggles. Marx departed from this socio-historic process through treating dialectics as a kind of truth barometer that required consciousness of inherent contradictions to affect economic and structural change.

15. Notably, although contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes are all frequently cited in postmodern literature, a majority of studies opt for the term tension to describe organizational actors’ experiences in dealing with struggles over meaning.

16. This tradition examines a variety of topics from an array of theories, including organizational culture (Badham, Garrety, Morrigan, Zanko, & Dawson, 2003; Coupland, 2001; Henderson, 2003; Hodgson, 2004; Hylmö & Buzzanell, 2002; Kan & Parry, 2004), participation and democracy (Groscurth, 2011; Koschmann & Laster, 2011; Musson & Duberley, 2007; O'Connor, 1995; Stohl & Cheney, 2001), feminist theory (Ashcraft, 2005, 2006; Buzzanell & Liu, 2005; Fletcher, 2004; Ford, 2006; Katila & Merilainen, 2002; Mills, 2002; Sotirin & Gottfried, 1999; Townsley & Geist, 2000), postcolonial theory (Norander & Harter, 2011; Pal & Buzzanell, 2013), and actor-network theory (Ahrens & Mollona, 2007), among others.

17. Importantly, while postmodern research embodies the assumption that living out the dialectic between power and resistance both enables and constrains action, only a small number of investigations focus on this type of process outcome (Ahrens & Mollona, 2007; Holmer-Nadesan, 1996; Putnam, 2004; Van den Brink & Stobbe, 2009).

18. In communication, the initial focus on relational dialectics was in the study of interpersonal relationships, specifically, how they develop, maintain themselves, or deteriorate over time (Baxter, 2011; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996).

19. See, for example, Apker, Propp, and Zabava Ford (2005); Barge, Lee, Maddux, Nabring, and Townsend (2008); Bochantin (2014); Bridge and Baxter (1992); Considine and Miller (2010); Dean and Oetzel (2014); Donohue, Pugh, and Sabrie (2014); Driskill, Meyer, and Mirivel (2012); Erbert, Mearns, and Dena (2005); Galanes (2009); Gibbs (2009); Jameson (2004); Jenkins and Dillon (2012); Lewis, Isbell, and Koschmann (2010); McGuire (2006); McNamee and Peterson (2014); Pitts, Fowler, Kaplan, Nussbaum, and Becker (2009); Putnam et al. (2014); Sias, Heath, Perry, Silva, and Fix (2004); Thatcher (2011); Tracy (2004); Zorn, Roper, and Richardson (2014).