Published on: April 2, 2025 at 7:03 pm
Paradox used to be considered a peripheral subject of academic study best suited to philosophy, literary theory, or religious studies. However, the concept—often illustrated with the yin-and-yang symbol—has gained prominence across disciplines and recognition as a valuable tool for analyzing business management and organizations.
Academy of Management Scholar Wendy Smith said that when she started to work on her Ph.D. dissertation in organizational studies, senior faculty told her to avoid studying paradox because, in their opinion, it wasn’t a legitimate research focus area that would open a path to career advancement in academia.
“People told me, ‘You can’t publish papers on paradox in management journals,’” Smith said.“They suggested that paradox theory was not clear and linear enough for organization studies, and instead belonged in philosophy or theology.
“They also warned me about using the language of paradox with business leaders,” she said. “They would say that ‘business leaders will be put off by this idea.’’”
Yet Smith pointed to a significant change in the last 25 years. The tide has turned.
“We are now seeing this revolution of academics and leaders wanting to understand paradox, as they experience organizations and our society as complex and filled with tensions,” Smith said. “Paradox theory offers an approach to value these competing demands and transform them into creative possibilities.
“We are late to the paradox party, and we have some catching up to do,” she said.
Smith notes the historic roots of paradox theory dating back more than 2,500 years. Disciplines such as physics and psychoanalysis have had a paradoxical revolution over the past 150 years. She points to physicists such as Niels Bohr, Michael Farraday, and Albert Einstein that embedded paradox into their insights into quantum physics. She also highlights the paradoxical nature of psychodynamics in the writings of scholars such as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Søren Kierkegaard.
“Now is the time for scholars and leaders to embrace and navigate the paradoxical nature of organizations and society,” Smith said. “This paradox approach is not just, ‘How do we solve problems of innovation and sustainability?’—it’s ‘How do we really fundamentally rethink business and our approach to learning about organizations and leadership?’”
