Paradox - Publications - Faculty & Research

2011
Working Paper

Embracing Paradox

By: Michael Tushman, Wendy K. Smith and Andy Binns

Trying to resolve the paradox between innovation and the core business only weakens the CEO and dooms the company. Exceptional leaders embrace tensions associated with exploiting prior strategies even as they explore into the future. View Details

Keywords: Cash Flow; Innovation Strategy; Leadership; Management Teams; Resource Allocation; Conflict of Interests; Business Strategy

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Research Summary

Senior Teams and Paradox

By: Michael L. Tushman

This research area explores processes senior teams employ in order to attend to and deal with... View Details

October 2022
Article

How Leaders with Divergent Visions Generate Novel Strategy: Navigating the Paradox of Preservation and Modernization in Swiss Watchmaking

By: Ryan Raffaelli, Rich DeJordy and Rory M. McDonald

How do leaders with divergent visions for their organization come together to create a novel strategy? This paper employs paradox as a lens to investigate how leader-dyads can integrate opposing strategies to produce a new, generative approach. Drawing on a qualitative... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Paradoxes; Senior Leaders; Organizational Reinvention; Leadership; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Change; Manufacturing Industry; Consumer Products Industry; Switzerland

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18 May 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Embracing Paradox

Keywords: Re: Michael L. Tushman

2019
Article

Creativity from Paradoxical Experience: A Theory of How Individuals Achieve Creativity while Adopting Paradoxical Frames

By: Goran Calic, Sébastien Hélie, Nick Bontis and Elaine Mosakowski

Purpose: Extant paradox theory suggests that adopting paradoxical frames, which are mental templates adopted by individuals in order to embrace contradictions, will result in superior firm performance. Superior performance is achieved through learning and creativity,... View Details

Keywords: Cognition and Thinking; Creativity; Learning

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An Uncomfortable Predictability Paradox

In predictive regressions, we test the null hypothesis that a predictor has no information about expected returns, i.e. beta equals zero. However, the literature neglects to recognize that we are testing a joint hypothesis. The maintained... View Details

2015
Report

The Global STEM Paradox

By: Mark R. Kramer, Kate Tallant, Amanda Oudin Goldberger and Flynn Lebus

Despite increasing numbers of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduates worldwide, STEM jobs remain unfilled in developed and developing countries. Through an exploration of the root causes of this global STEM paradox, FSG offers an answer to this... View Details

Keywords: STEM Labor; Science; Information Technology; Engineering; Jobs and Positions; Global Range

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July – August 2011
Article

The Paradox of Samsung's Rise

By: Tarun Khanna, Jaeyong Song and Kyungmook Lee

Twenty years ago, few people would have predicted that Samsung could transform itself from a low-cost original equipment manufacturer to a world leader in R&D, marketing, and design, with a brand more valuable than Pepsi, Nike, or American Express. Fewer still would... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Design; Research and Development; Marketing; Business Processes; Brands and Branding; System; Globalized Markets and Industries; Transformation; Cost; Forecasting and Prediction; Production; Quality; China; India; Turkey

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17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

neighborhood. Research by Leach and others indicates that people who survive disasters are able to regain cognitive function quickly after the event, assess their new environment accurately, and take goal-directed action to survive within it. This is the balance that... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

April 2010
Article

Complex Business Models: Managing Strategic Paradoxes Simultaneously

By: Wendy K. Smith, Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman

As our world becomes more global, fast paced and hypercompetitive, competitive advantage may increasingly depend on success in managing paradoxical strategies - strategies associated with contradictory, yet integrated tensions. We identify several types of complex... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Management; Strategy

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June 2011
Article

The Paradox of Excellence

By: Thomas J. DeLong and Sara DeLong

Why is it that so many smart, ambitious professionals are less productive and satisfied than they could be? We argue that it's often because they're afraid to demonstrate any sign of weakness. They're reluctant to ask important questions or try new... View Details

Keywords: Employees; Innovation and Invention; Strength and Weakness; Performance Productivity; Risk and Uncertainty; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction

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06 Aug 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Field-Level Paradox and the Co-Evolution of an Entrepreneurial Vision

Keywords: by Ryan Raffaelli and Richard DeJordy; Manufacturing

December 2021
Article

Three Paradoxes of Climate Truth for the Anthropocene Social Scientist

By: P. Devereaux Jennings and Andrew J. Hoffman

Climate change has been one of the most contested truths for the past two decades. Many social scientists within the academy and this volume have spent years discerning the nature of this truth and articulating its importance for business, organizations, and society.... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Knowledge Sharing

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