Reflections on the 2021 Decade Award: Navigating Paradox is Paradoxical
Date
2022-06-01
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Academy of Management Review
Abstract
We are delighted at the explosion of research advancing and applying paradox theory in the past 10 years and deeply honored to receive the 2021 Academy of Management Review Decade Award for the publication “Toward a Theory of Paradox: A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing”. In this paper, we reflect on the background story to writing this article and suggest that the success of paradox theory, and this paper, may be due relevance, theoretical inclusivity along with targeted efforts for community building. We assess accumulated scholarship, noting both the convergence of key ideas and definitions, while recognizing the divergence of ontologies, methodologies, theories and phenomena. We integrate expanding insights into a framework that we label as the Paradox System, which highlights the breadth of research, depicts the interwoven and paradoxical relationships across categories, and surfaces a core insight that navigating paradox is paradoxical. Finally, we explore the possibility of paradox emerging as a paradigm in organizational studies.
Description
This article was originally published in Academy of Management Review. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0251. This article will be embargoed until 10/12/2023.
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Citation
Lewis, Marianne W., and Wendy K. Smith. 2022. “Reflections on the 2021 Decade Award: Navigating Paradox Is Paradoxical.” Academy of Management Review, June, amr.2022.0251. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2022.0251.