The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox

Wendy K. Smith is Associate Professor of Management in the Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware, and Research Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation. Her research explores how leaders and their organizations manage strategic paradoxes. She has published articles on strategic paradoxes in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Harvard Business Review, and is cofounding a blog on paradox leveragingtensions.com. Her missions is to help create a better world through 'and' thinking.

Marianne W. Lewis is Dean of the Cass Business School, City University of London Her research explores leadership paradoxes in managing tensions, conflicts, and contradictions. Her paper, "Exploring Paradox: Toward a More Comprehensive Guide" received the Academy of Management Review Best Paper Award in 2000. Her work also appears in such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, the Journal of Operations Management, and Harvard Business Review. As a dean, she consistently applies her theories and theorize the applications.

Paula Jarzabkowski is a Professor of Strategic Management at Cass Business School, City University London. Her research focuses on strategy-as-practice in complex contexts, such as regulated firms, third sector organizations and financial services, particularly insurance and reinsurance. Her work has appeared in a number of leading journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization Studies. Her most recent book, Making a Market for Acts of God: The Practice of Risk-Trading in the Global Reinsurance Industry was published by Oxford University Press in 2015.

Ann Langley is Professor of Management at HEC Montréal, Canada and holder of the Chair in Strategic Management in Pluralistic Settings. Her research focuses on strategic change, inter-professional collaboration and the practice of strategy in complex organizations. In 2013, she was co-guest editor with Clive Smallman, Haridimos Tsoukas, and Andrew Van de Ven of a Special Research Forum of Academy of Management Journal on Process Studies of Change in Organizations and Management. She is also coeditor of the journal Strategic Organization, and co-editor with Haridimos Tsoukas of a book series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies published with Oxford University Press. She is Adjunct Professor at Université de Montréal, and University of Gothenburg.

The notion of paradox dates back to ancient philosophy, yet only recently have scholars started to explore this idea in organizational phenomena. Two decades ago, a handful of provocative theorists urged researchers to take seriously the study of paradox, and thereby deepen our understanding of plurality, tensions, and contradictions in organizational life.

Studies of organizational paradox have grown exponentially over the past two decades, canvassing varied phenomena, methods, and levels of analysis. These studies have explored such tensions as today and tomorrow, global integration and local distinctions, collaboration and competition, self and others, mission and markets. Yet even with both the depth and breadth of interest in organizational paradoxes, key issues around definitions and application remain. This handbook seeks to aid, engage, and fuel the expanding interest in organizational paradox. Contributions to this volume depict how paradox studies inform, and are informed, by other theoretical perspectives, while creating a resource that enables scholars to learn about and apply this lens across varied organizational phenomena. The increasing complexity, volatility, and ambiguity in our world continually surfaces paradoxical dynamics. Thus, this handbook offers insights to scholars across organizational theory.

Organizations are rife with paradoxes, evident in persistent and interwoven tensions for example between stability and change, flexibility and control, diversity and inclusion, long term and short term, social and financial, learning and performing. This Handbook investigates paradoxes across various organizational phenomena and levels of analysis.