The Paradox Perspective and the Dialectics of Contradictions Research

Abstract This chapter compares paradox and dialectical perspectives on managing contradictions and engages the debate on the further development of the paradox perspective. This perspective provides guidance to managers on how they can increase organizational effectiveness in the face of seemingly irreconcilable tensions. It presents contradictions as persistent, stable, separable, and controllable. The dialectical perspective, in contrast, depicts contradictions as difficult to disentangle from their contexts, continuously changing, and transformed through oppositional processes. While paradox scholars have called for incorporation of dialectics into the paradox perspective, they have done so in a way that preserves rather than challenges or expands the conceptual core of the paradox perspective. This chapter advocates that scholars take a dialectical approach and experiment in establishing a new perspective that sublates the paradox and dialectical perspectives. This contradictions perspective would situate the experience of paradox as one moment in time within a never-ending dialectical process. I briefly discuss the possible outline of this perspective and highlight articles that have moved in its direction.