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Human Relations
[0018-7267(200205)55:5]
Volume 55(5): 483–503: 023425
Copyright © 2002
The Tavistock Institute ®
SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks CA,
New Delhi

Management paradoxes: A relational view

Stewart R. Clegg, João Vieira da Cunha and Miguel Pina e
Cunha

A B S T R AC T Paradox is gaining more and more pervasiveness in and around

organizations, thus increasing the need for an approach to manage-
ment that allows both researchers and practitioners to address these
paradoxes. We attempt to contribute to this project by suggesting a
relational approach to paradoxes. To this aim, we first present the
state of the art of research on management paradoxes and then
explain four regularities surfaced in the literature on this topic. We
conclude by arguing that taking these regularities as a whole allows
us to suggest a new perspective on paradoxes – one with a positive
regard for the co-presence of opposites but that takes seriously the
potential relationship between these.

KEYWORDS dialectics  management  organizations  paradox  relational

Introduction

The key characteristic of paradox is ‘the simultaneous presence of contra-

dictory, even mutually exclusive elements’ (Cameron & Quinn, 1988: 2).
Paradox is thus bounded by two opposites. All organization is founded on
paradox: on the one hand it contains free, creative, independent human
subjects; on the other hand the relation between these subjects aspires to be
one of organization, order and control. The paradox is evident: how does the
freedom of individual subjectivity accommodate the strictures of organiz-
ation? How does the structure of organization envelop the freedom of
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484 Human Relations 55(5)

individual subjectivity? To use Gidden’s (1986) language, organizational

strictures are structural (note the passive verb) whereas subjects will be struc-
turing (note the active verb). Structures are centripetal, bounding and con-
straining. Routines, resource allocations, interpretive schemes and norms, are
all examples of ‘poles’ that create structural constraint. Structuring will be
centrifugal and enabling. It is agency and everyday practice that accomplishes
structuring.

Paradoxes of control

Classically, structural control has dominated structuring freedom and

regarded the simultaneity of control and unfreedom as morally right and
legitimate. Thus Taylor (1947) contended that corporate success came from
optimizing the production process, especially via micro-managing the way
workers performed their tasks. To do this properly workers must cede control
and middle managers must assume it, by engineering appropriate knowledge
of work, its measurement and design. Against this tradition, there has been
a long-running debate concerning the labour theory of value (Walton and
Gamble, 1972). Wage-labourers, in principle, are free subjects, yet are faced
with the necessity of selling their labour power, which means that they must
submit to the ‘unfreedom’ of exploitative organization relations, whereby
surplus value is extracted from them. While the Marxist reformulation of this
Ricardian problematic (see Clegg et al., 1986) has found little favour in
management and organization theory (but see Clegg, 1979), the control pole
has been dominant in organization theory discourse (Clegg and Dunkerley,
1980). This is the case even in labour process theory, where resistance to
constraint is celebrated as an empowering affirmation of the free subjectiv-
ity routinely crippled by control.
The paradox of organization as the restraint of free subjectivity by con-
straining order may be seen as something to be sustained or endured in any
of three different ways. First, the two opposite poles of a paradox may be
present simultaneously, beyond the will or power of management. Little can
be done other than to acknowledge their presence, perhaps realize a strategy
that was not predictable at the beginning through the interplay of deliberate
and emergent strategies and learn from it in future planning efforts
(Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985). Second, the two poles of a paradox may
operate at different levels in the organization. A given dynamic may be true
of individual behaviour but the opposite may apply at the organizational
level. Again, there is not much to say about how managers can handle this
type of tension other than recognize and prepare for it. The complexity
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 485

approach to organizational phenomena provides an illustration of this

perspective (e.g. Prigogine, 1984; Stacey, 1991). In this view, while individual
behaviour can be subjected to the will of management, via normative or
rational control, the organization is essentially an emergent system. Man-
agers are relatively powerless to control it. Finally, the two poles of a paradox
may succeed each other at different points in time. This is the dialectical view
of organizational evolution, derived from Hegelian-influenced Marxism.
Thesis follows antithesis in a never-ending succession, where a given dynamic
is followed by its opposite, only to emerge again (Benson, 1977). Managers
are urged to brace themselves for this succession of dialectical thesis, anti-
thesis and synthesis as new thesis. These dynamics are inherent to the evol-
ution of their organization and there is little that they can do to help or hinder
them. Greiner’s (1972) model of organizational growth illustrates this
dynamic. In his model, Greiner shows how stages of stability are followed by
revolutionary change that eventually crystallize in a new equilibrium.

Paradoxes of dysfunction

Some authors regard paradox as a dysfunctional state that should be elimi-

nated, often engaging in heated debates in support of one of the extremes of
a paradox (e.g. Ansoff, 1991, 1994; Ansoff et al., 1970; Mintzberg, 1990,
1991). A further three ways to handle paradox are suggested by these
approaches. The first argues that management must choose between two
opposite poles. This view is now outside the mainstream of organization
theory because it espouses that there is one right way to manage. In the past,
scientific management, for example, chose exploitation over exploration, and
many of the more recent quality management approaches have followed this
rationale in their emphasis on ‘standards’ (Brunsson et al., 2000). Elsewhere,
modern management approaches have a stronger focus on exploring the
environment for new sources of revenue, discounting the value of exploiting
current sources of revenue, because of turbulent environments and the emerg-
ence of new competitive landscapes (Bettis & Hitt, 1995). The second
approach seeks to strike a balance between the two poles of a tension. This
is probably the most accepted strategy for dealing with paradox because it
supports the contingency approach to management (Burns & Stalker, 1961).
The two opposite poles of a paradox are seen as the extremes of a continuum.
Organizations choose their position depending on internal (e.g. company
size) and external factors (e.g. level of industry rivalry). Fiedler’s (1965)
contingency model of leadership illustrates this approach: leaders position
themselves in a continuum bounded by task orientation and relationship
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486 Human Relations 55(5)

orientation, depending on the level of task structure, the leader position

power and the nature of the leader–member relations. The third approach
argues for managers to integrate opposites and ‘solve’ tensions through syn-
thesis, forgoing compromise, a view whose increasing visibility has been
driven by research on emergent and deliberate change that attempts to
replace paradox with concepts and practices that bring the poles together.
While a western need to be consistent makes the task of merging opposites
into a workable synthesis especially difficult (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), Brews
and Hunt (1999) suggest that the conceptual opposition between emergent
and deliberate strategies may be a false one and Edelman and Benning (1999)
illustrate how incremental change may have revolutionary consequences, a
process first described by Henderson and Clark (1990) in their treatment of
architectural innovation.

Paradoxical flaws

Previous attempts to deal with paradox only do so partially and are flawed
– not only from the viewpoint of researchers but also that of professional
managers. We will propose a model that allows managers to use paradox to
the benefit of their organizations and provide a basis for researchers to
ground their attempts to understand how tensions work in and around
organizations. We then build on four regularities found in the literature on
management paradoxes to support an alternative perspective for under-
standing and dealing with paradoxes in management and organizations. We
suggest that there is a relationship between the poles of most paradoxes. If
the structural pole of these paradoxes is kept at a minimal level, the relation-
ship between opposites is mutually reinforcing. This relationship is a local
one, in the sense that it cannot be designed generically – it emerges from
situated practice. We conclude by arguing that taking these regularities as a
whole allows us to suggest a new perspective on paradoxes – one with a
positive regard for the co-presence of opposites but one that also takes seri-
ously the potential relationship between these.
The previous approaches all exhibit some limitations in dealing with
paradoxes. Those that argue that paradoxes are inherently unsolvable
suggest that the attempt to eliminate paradoxes is a disservice to organization
theory, because it risks oversimplifying it. Tensions are necessary to keep
managers from the temptations of ‘simplicity’ through neat compromises or
syntheses. This approach tends to discount the relationship between the two
poles. In the case of juxtaposition, this perspective contends that managers
and researchers alike have ‘to accept the paradox and learn to live with it’
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 487

(Poole & Van de Ven, 1989: 566). The role of paradox is to keep the organiz-
ation on its toes, in a state of continuous awareness of its own contradic-
tions. This is of little help informing practice where choices have to be made,
even if only by making (whatever) sense of action (Weick, 1987). While juxta-
posing opposites helps people realize the tensions inherent in choices it does
not aid decision.
Those approaches that argue that contradictions appear at different
levels or times limit their relationship to a single direction. When a tension
occurs between two different levels, it is often viewed as nested (for an
example see Gersick, 1991). The ‘higher’ limit of a paradox results from an
aggregation of its lower limit, as in a hierarchy. When that tension occurs in
two different points in time, the relationship between the two extremes of
tension tends to be one of temporal dependence. The ‘earlier’ element of the
tension tends to be framed as a cause of the ‘later’.
While those who espouse that paradoxes can be solved address the
relationship between the two extremes of paradox they remove the tension
inherent in contradictions. By doing so they pay a disservice to both manage-
ment theory and practice by providing a comfortable alternative to the
anxiety brought about by the co-presence of opposites. Therefore, the virtue
of the ‘holding’ approach is the vice of the ‘solving’ approach. By solving
paradoxes, organizations tend to fall into ‘simplicity traps’. They make sense
of their performance by concentrating on a narrow set of factors, removing
the ‘complications’ that supported their performance (Weick, 1979). By
doing so, they may plot their own demise (Miller, 1993). Managers are often
confronted with dilemmas (Weick, 1979). Knowing how to choose, or at least
the consequences of an act of choice, may be helpful in the sense that one
can make a more informed judgement. Nonetheless, making that choice may,
in time, lead one to disregard the forfeited options, which can come back
with a vengeance when the environment changes and current routines are no
longer useful in dealing with the challenges that the organization faces. At
this point, much effort is often put into learning new ways and unlearning
old ones (Argyris, 1991). In attempting to strike a balance between the
extremes bounding a tension, this approach assumes that it is possible to
choose a mix of extremes. Mixing two-thirds of integration with a third of
differentiation, for instance, in order to adapt to a moderately stable environ-
ment, while it has the virtue of helping organizations make choices (e.g.
Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967) does so at the expense of ‘complication’. It may
simplify management processes and decisions in the name of ‘honing core
competences’ (see Hamel & Prahalad, 1994), but, at best, this submits
organizations to their environment as they embark on a never-ending quest
for structural adaptation to regain ‘fit’ (Donaldson, 2000). These two
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488 Human Relations 55(5)

approaches are a paradox themselves. On the one hand we need to maintain

tensions to avoid falling into a ‘simplicity trap’. On the other hand, it seems
naive to assume that there is no relationship between extremes, or that this
relationship is, at best, unidirectional.

The politics and practice of paradox

Paradoxes often prevail for reasons related to the politics of management dis-
course. Choosing and finding a balance between the two extremes of a
paradox or replacing that tension with a synthesis helps managers to push
important dynamics out of the realm of attention. Concertive control, a
possible synthesis between employee autonomy and employee control, illus-
trates this point. While doing research on an organization that had recently
moved to autonomous, self-managed teams, Barker (1993) found that this
autonomy created a set of rational controls that were more constraining than
those of a traditional Weberian bureaucracy. By choosing ‘autonomy’ or by
striking a balance closer to this pole than to its opposite pole of ‘control’, the
organization achieved an apparent synthesis between two opposing
strategies. However, it was a false synthesis inasmuch as autonomy as a strat-
egy resulted in a pervasive and unobtrusive control mechanism, albeit one
presented under the guise of a participatory and ‘liberating’ practice. As this
case exemplifies, failing to sustain the tension inherent in most paradoxes
implies a certain style of politics in the academic discourse on management
– one that prefers the comfort of syntheses and choices to the discomfort of
tension and contradiction. Such a stance either inadvertently or deliberately
supports a paradigm that looks at managerial actions and decisions in a most
uncritical and unproblematic way (see Ezzamel & Willmott, 1998; Sewell,
1998).
Paradoxes sometimes prevail for practical reasons such as when
holding the two poles of paradoxes apart to prevent organizations falling into
a simplicity trap, a destination that almost inevitably results from choices,
compromises or Hegelian synthesis between poles (see Miller, 1993).
However, the usefulness of holding tensions in practice does not preclude one
taking the relationship between their poles seriously. Thus, Orlikowski
(1996) has shown that there is an important relationship between formal
plans and emergent, situated action or improvisation. Ciborra (1996) has
suggested the concept of the ‘platform organization’ to understand how plans
and routines can foster action and novelty. Grabher (1997) used the term
‘heterarchy’ to label the relationship between trust and control in organiz-
ations. These authors share a perspective on tensions as something always
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 489

present simultaneously, where poles are related in a way that allows a syn-
thesis to emerge from that relationship without replacing or attenuating any
of these tensions. We propose building on such research efforts to articulate
a relational approach to management paradoxes. We suggest that paradox
should be sustained rather than resolved and that the relation between its
poles is a matter for serious consideration. We look at this relation as a fertile
ground for syntheses that improve the practice and understanding of manage-
ment without replacing or attenuating the tensions that ground them (see
Figure 1).

Relational approaches to paradox

We have conducted an extensive literature review of paradoxes in manage-

ment and organizations.1 What follows are four regularities that emerged
from this literature review that, taken together, amount to a relational
approach to management paradoxes. (There are some similarities in our
approach to the literature to that which Benson (1977) used.) Regularities
are not recipes or formulas for managing paradox but indicate patterns that
emerged from the literature interested in this phenomenon, as we tried to
make sense of it.
We live in an era of creative destruction (Foster & Kaplan, 2001), new
competitive landscapes (Bettis & Hitt, 1995) and hypercompetition
(D’Aveni, 1995) in which markets change abruptly and product life cycles
shorten (Iansiti, 1995). Exploration, defined as the search for new oppor-
tunities and sources of revenue, and being more alert to the threats posed by

Planning Improvisation Acting

Figure 1 A relational approach to the planning/acting paradox.

Note: The two extremes of this paradox are held intact, but the relationship between them is
treated seriously. In this case, improvisation brings planning and action together but replaces
neither.
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490 Human Relations 55(5)

turbulent environments, seems to be the major senior managerial task.

However, those that heed this calling may be listening to Homer’s sirens
luring managers into an opportunity trap by seducing them to spread their
organizations’ resources too thinly over an increasing set of new ventures
(Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). They risk the undesirable and unfashionable
situation of producing or selling something that no one wants any more at a
better and better price or selling products that consumers desire but at a price
few can afford. Such managers may be victims of contradiction, pushed to
explore new opportunities as they are pulled to exploit them to their organ-
ization’s advantage.
Externally imposed contradictions have internal consequences for
organizations and how they are managed. In fact, with the emergence of the
new rhetoric of turbulent environments and high competition, empirical
research began to point to increased performance ambiguity to such an extent
that performance could no longer be standardized (e.g. Ouchi, 1979, 1980).
Bureaucracies were no longer viable as structures of coordination. Instead,
they had to be replaced with high integration structures such as clans or net-
works (Ouchi, 1980; Powell, 1990). This led to a new set of constraints for
decisions regarding integration and differentiation. In bureaucracies the goal
was to increase differentiation in order to increase efficiency (Crozier, 1964),
relying on standardization to ensure the integration of individual actions with
the fulfilment of corporate goals. In these new contexts, standardization is
not possible; thus integration is pushed down to the individual level (e.g. by
bringing together individual and organizational culture (Schein, 1985)), so
that individuals are, simultaneously, the locus of integration and differentia-
tion. Finally, this new rhetoric of competition and change was joined by a
call for action and flexibility. The popular press was the most articulate, but
by no means the sole advocate of this cause. Peters and Waterman (1982)
promoted a bias for action and consulting companies busied themselves
delivering empowerment programmes (O’Shea & Madigan, 1997). However,
plans continued to play an important role for managers as opportunities for
coordination and as anxiety-reducing artefacts (Mintzberg, 1994) for
embarking on a contradictory journey with the espoused goal of increasing
flexibility, while holding tight to rituals of forecasting and planning.
Contradiction is not only a direct or indirect result of a turbulent
environment. Organizations are fields of power where fights for distinction
and domination often allow (and even foster) contradictory views of the
organization’s future co-existing in a single entity (Bourdieu, 1977; Clegg,
1989; Pfeffer, 1992). Organizations often harbour various political cliques
that, because of self-interest and ideology, have very different organization
plans. The internal variety may be useful in matching the variety observed in
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 491

the organization’s environment but, under certain conditions, it may lead to

destructive internal conflicts, especially in the case of an interventionist leader
(Eisenhardt & Bourgeois, 1988). Moreover, when top management benefits
from extended tenure, the potential advantages of diversity remain untapped.
Nonetheless, these contradictions may still be present, albeit latently, when
one can detect groups with an approach to the organization that contradicts
currently accepted strategy. Lower-level managers often improvise everyday
practice against the mental models that higher echelons espouse (Orr, 1990).
Ultimately, the organization itself may be designed for contradiction. In a
constraining bureaucracy, pockets of resistance tend to be more abundant
than top management would wish as those who inhabit such neglected places
seldom derive any significant portion of self-identity from organizational
affiliation. More often than not they ‘train’ newcomers into the arts of cyni-
cism, irony and resistance to top management initiatives (Kanter, 1993).
The extremes of paradox are too pervasive to be integrated or willed
away. We propose that there is a bi-directional relationship between poles,
in which a synthesis may emerge. The literature on organizational improvis-
ation illustrates this point. Improvisation can be defined as planning as action
unfolds (Weick, 1993). Improvisation can occur when pre-existing plans and
resources are adapted to unexpected circumstances via action, in a synthesis
between the two opposite poles of planning and action. Improvisation is
enacted in the relationship between them but it does not replace either (see
Figure 1). Taken as a whole, we argue that contradictions abound in manage-
ment and organizations and that these contradictions do not go away as those
who try to ‘resolve’ them would wish. We take seriously the possibility of
four recurrently regular relationships between the two poles.

First relational regularity: Management is ridden with

contradictions
In time most management practices create their own nemesis. This is an argu-
ment whose logic parallels that of Marxist dialectics. Every practice contains
the seeds of its own destruction. Organizations are complex entities where
causal relationships are seldom simple, transparent and bi-directional (Crozier
& Thoenig, 1976; Wender, 1968). Thus, most managerial policies spawn a set
of unintended consequences not only because of this complexity but also
because of the imperfection of language as a means of communication. Lan-
guage is not a langue bien faite where every word has a single meaning shared
by an organization or society as a whole (Derrida, 1978) but a collection of
language games with sometimes distant family resemblances between osten-
sibly similar activities (Wittgenstein, 1971). Because organizational processes
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492 Human Relations 55(5)

are mostly collective, their reliance on imperfect means of communication

necessarily leads to highly indexical, invariably different, and often incom-
patible meanings, which, in turn, result in both intended and unintended out-
comes that can jeopardize goals (Clegg, 1975; Garfinkel, 1967). Also, one has
to account for resistance in organizations.2 The enactment of resistance, as
Kanter (1993) has aptly illustrated, often supports the emergence of practices
that, deliberately or not, thwart managerial decisions and policies. In such
cases the locus of contradiction shifts from the anonymity of complex ties
among the organization’s elements to the personae of those that, by will or
fortune, resist both novel and routine organizational policies. In standard
practice managers rarely evaluate the downside of organizational decisions,
such as reward systems, and thus invite behaviours that could easily be pre-
dicted, even by practical actors without a very complex theoretical under-
standing (Kerr, 1975).
Contradiction is not only an unintended outcome of managerial
decisions, it also results from the demands that market and stakeholders
impose on organizations. First, there is the need to explore new opportunities
while exploiting current sources of revenue. Second, there is the need to
increase differentiation in order to reap the benefits from specialization, while
increasing integration to meet the overarching goals of the organization.
Third, there is the need to plan in order to ensure efficiency and consistency,
while remaining open to acting on the spur of the moment in order to ensure
the flexibility necessary to survive when the environment changes (Handy,
1976; Mintzberg et al., 1998). These three contradictions amount to para-
doxes when both poles are simultaneously present.

Second relational regularity: There is a relationship between the

two poles of most contradictions in management and
organizations
Paradox might seem best avoided but it is difficult to do so because of the
three broad contradictions we discussed above. Managers cannot simply
will away emergent and unintended consequences of actions and decisions
when intentions and meanings differ sufficiently from emitter to receiver
that there is little hope of simplifying organization. Multiple stakeholders,
employees with different backgrounds and aspirations, being present in
several markets – these are all pressures fostering contradiction. There is
neither an eventual time nor a future space where paradoxical demands will
go or be willed away. Nor is the diversity of organizational subcultures
easily manipulable. Even if all the members of a given organization share
the same set of demographic, professional and educational backgrounds,
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 493

they eventually cluster in subcultures as their different everyday practices

shape their relationship with the world (Certeau, 1988).
It is undesirable to attempt to dissolve contradictions for practical
reasons. Among many other rationales in defence of contradiction and
paradox, the dilemma identified between exploration and exploitation is
perhaps the most eloquent and persuasive. As Miller (1993) suggests, where
organizations become successful they tend to simplify their representation of
themselves, their environments and, more importantly, their representations
of the causal chains that they believe fuel their success. They are increasing
their exploitative capacities but, unfortunately, this limits their ability to
explore both their own creativity and the environment for new opportunities.
They become better and better at doing what they already do while increas-
ingly failing to learn how to do other things. Curiously enough, companies
who are apt at exploring fall into exactly the same trap. They become better
at finding new opportunities but worse at learning how to do anything else,
including exploiting those opportunities to their advantage. They spread their
resources too thin over an increasing number of opportunities and fail at
exploration. In cases such as these the ability to serve both poles of a paradox
(where both poles of the contradiction are simultaneously present) can help
organizations face emergent challenges in a way that supports sustainable
success.
There are also political reasons why it is undesirable to attempt to dis-
solve contradictions. From a critical perspective, holding paradoxes is crucial
to managerial control. The paradox relating differentiation and integration
is a case in point (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967). Integration ensures that com-
panies’ goals are met and that organizations remain consistent. Differentia-
tion is necessary because of the gains achieved through specialization; also
no person is able to hold all the knowledge necessary to perform all the tasks
an organization requires. Beneath this ‘rational’ narrative there is an under-
lying dynamic of control and compliance. Supervision-based integration is
only the visible face of control in organization. The two other mechanisms
of integration – standardization and mutual adjustment – are much less
obtrusive, but not less powerful (see Sewell, 1998). Differentiation actually
supports integration by removing workers from the resources necessary for
effective resistance. Maintaining the visibility of the paradox between inte-
gration and differentiation increases workers’ ability to resist because they
can see the full set of control mechanisms they are subjected to. Minimizing
it makes it difficult to perceive the control exerted around supervisory
relationships and workers will not have an easy target for resistance where
there is no visible entity against which to resist.
Following Barley and Kunda’s (2001) advice to bring work back in
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494 Human Relations 55(5)

enables us to understand how opposites feed on each other. Intuitively, indi-

viduals are a source of tight relationships between opposites. Small groups
of people make decisions concerning planning and action, integration and
differentiation, as well as exploration and exploitation, inside the same
organization. Even when this is not the case, the organization plays a role in
shaping individual values and beliefs and models of the world as well as in
filtering the information available for individual action and decisions (Meyer,
1982). Such decisions are more often the result of action than that of delib-
eration, which often takes the form of retrospective sense making rather than
an exercise in prospective goal setting. This means that these choices are
made in everyday practice, as people accommodate to local conditions and
challenges (Bourdieu, 1977). It is in their daily work that individuals build
the structures (including plans, interaction patterns and visions of the future)
that will in turn constrain their action (Giddens, 1986).
Recall the earlier discussion of unobtrusive control. Integration was
dominant because first, it was invisible and thus hard to resist and, second,
the practices surrounding differentiation mostly supported integration. The
two opposite poles of management paradoxes are related because they are
both enacted simultaneously and can be unidirectional or bi-directional.
When they are unidirectional one of the poles is dominant and feeds on the
other without giving much back, and thus the tension between them tends to
be obscured. When we are in the presence of a bi-directional relationship it
is usually one of simultaneous and mutual feedback. When paradoxes are
visible the two opposite poles depend upon each other. Integration supports
differentiation and vice versa. Planning supports action and vice versa.
Exploration supports exploitation and vice versa. When paradoxes are
obscured by everyday practices, these relationships are much more asym-
metrical.
It is not much of a leap of abstraction to say that when these relation-
ships are symmetrical, we are in the presence of a synthesis – a synthesis that
emerges in the relationship between the two opposite poles rather than their
merger into a schizophrenic entity. A synthesis is said to occur when both
poles of a paradox are present simultaneously. It differs from a compromise
because the latter results from forsaking part of each opposite whereas, in a
synthesis, opposites are present in their full strength.
To ground this discussion, let us consider improvisation as a synthesis
that emerges in the relationship between action and planning (Cunha et al.,
1999). To improvise is, by definition, to act (see Berliner, 1994; Weick, 1998),
not in a void but as grounded on resources – such as a script, arrangement
or plan – upon which the action is built. The script, arrangement or plan
exerts a centrifugal force on individual creativity. The resultant action is a
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 495

synthesis because we do not give up part of our will to act in order to

accommodate planning. We act because we plan and as we act we make sense
of our performance, redefining our planning as we go along. It is a synthesis
that does not create a new entity replacing and incorporating the two oppo-
sites that ground it. Instead, it emerges in the relationship between these two
poles. This allows us to reframe most paradoxes faced by managers and to
argue that ‘managing paradoxes’ really means turning unidirectional
relationships between opposites into bi-directional ones. When paradoxes
have bi-directional relationships between their poles they will often be
grounded on a minimal structural aspect of the underlying contradiction.

Third relational regularity: In bi-directional paradoxes, the

structural pole is kept at a minimal level so as to ground the
structuring pole in a way that supports mutual and simultaneous
reinforcement between both poles
In much jazz, improvisation is a synthesis that emerges in the relationship
between the musical score and the musician’s real-time creativity (Gioia,
1997). Moreover, the results of creativity feed back on the score in the sense
that successful improvisations may be formalized through writing and repro-
duction. More importantly, improvisations become the de facto score during
a musical performance. Creativity can thus support the score not only in a
post-hoc fashion but also in real time. There are many similar examples in
the management literature. Wack’s (1985) discussion of the role that scenario
planning played at Shell during the 1970s and 1980s oil crises is well known.
Shell’s scenarios allowed them to improvise crisis handling and make sense
in a way that helped shape the unfolding action. Weick (1987) made a similar
point: improvisation can be a substitute for strategy in the sense that action
provides people with more information than that they had available, enabling
them to make decisions better attuned to what is happening. As Weick point-
edly noted, ‘to understand improvisation as strategy is to understand the
order within it and what we usually miss is that a little order can go a long
way’ (1987: 229, emphasis added). The aim is to provide the structuring pole
with enough – but not too much – resources to support its structural coun-
terpart – making this relationship symmetrical.
Keeping the structural side of paradoxes at a minimal level means
taking seriously the curvilinear nature of most structural elements of manage-
ment and organizations. Curvilinear relationships are not exactly abundant
in the literature and this may not be because these relationships are absent
but are simply harder to see (Weick, 1979: 219–31). Moreover, the point of
inflexion in curvilinear relationships is somewhat high in some phenomena
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496 Human Relations 55(5)

(see Cunha et al., 1999), prompting researchers to shift from curvilinear

hypotheses to linear findings.3
Keeping the structural side of paradoxes to a minimum means taking
seriously that ‘small causes lead to big effects’ (see Prigogine, 1984). Not only
can small variations in initial conditions (e.g. choices made by an organiz-
ation’s founder) have sizeable impacts in the long run but adaptability is also
higher at a minimal level of structure (Lane & Maxfield, 1996). Too much
structure locks organizations into a closed set of predictable behaviours. Too
little structure pushes them towards chaos and randomness. A minimal
amount of structure allows organizations to position themselves at ‘the edge
of chaos’ (Pascale, 1999). Here, chaos and order, action and planning, dif-
ferentiation and integration and exploration and exploitation, are all present
simultaneously, feeding on each other to increase flexibility.
Keeping the structural pole of a paradox at a minimal level is as much
about quality as it is about quantity. It does not mean writing shorter plans,
having less integration mechanisms or being less exploitative but using a
different kind of more centrifugal structuring as a source of variety and novelty.
Research has shown that plans can be far less important than the planning
process (Mintzberg & McHugh, 1985; Pascale, 1999; Wack, 1985). Planning
allows people to surface mental models and establish common ground not by
sharing the same values and beliefs about the world but by finding areas of com-
patibility among those values and beliefs (Adler, 1995). Research on coordi-
nation and integration of individual action into corporate goals has shown that
time and timing can be powerful coordination mechanisms, which are both
unobtrusive and visible (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Roy, 1960; Zerubavel,
1982). Material artefacts have also been shown to play a similar role (Carlile,
2000; Clark, 1997), as have the pidgin and creole spoken at the border of
linguistic communities of practice (Galison, 1996). Research on bricolage in
organization (Hutchins, 1991; Levi-Strauss, 1966; Weick, 1993) and corporate
reorientations (Ciborra, 1996; DeGeus & Senge, 1997) shows exploitation
playing an important role in fostering exploration by relying on general-purpose
resources deployed in a wide range of uses, including novel ones. In sum,
‘minimizing’ the structural side of managerial and organizational paradoxes
does not mean shrinking it. Instead, it means looking for structures that exert a
centrifugal force on the structuring process instead of a centripetal one.

Fourth relational regularity: Relational syntheses are situated, not

designed
The structural side of relational synthesis, i.e. those syntheses emerging in the
bi-directional, mutually reinforcing relationships between the two poles of a
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 497

paradox, is apparently an act of design. The structuring side of that synthe-

sis is situated and enacted locally as people deal with routine and novel events
in their everyday practice (Certeau, 1988). This is to say that relational syn-
theses emerge as their structural elements are used as resources for practice.
These practices then either sustain or alter structural elements, closing the bi-
directional relationship between the two paradoxical poles. Although the
structural pole may be designed at the onset, it is changeable in time, through
practice (Bourdieu, 1977). Syntheses are, ultimately, a result of action,
enacted, not designed. In the specific case of the simultaneous presence of
planning and action, improvisation (the relational synthesis between two
poles) emerges as actors attempt to handle unforeseen problems or oppor-
tunities by using plans as a source of declarative knowledge (and often as a
source of coordination) to ground action. The specific way in which the
former will be used cannot be forecasted, designed, prescribed or routinized,
except in retrospect. And thus the synthesis between action and planning in
the structural → structuring relation occurs through practice, not through
prior conception or design. Equally this is the case for the inverse relation
(from structuring → structural). Action on a problem or an opportunity pro-
duces more knowledge about it, knowledge that can be formalized into the
structure that grounds it. Moreover, the practices that underlay this action
may result in more significant changes to that structure by changing norms,
resources and representations, as people attempt to handle the situated chal-
lenges they are facing (Giddens, 1986; for an example see Orlikowski, 1996).
When both relationships come together as people improvise, plans and action
reinforce and shape each other – coming together, as they stay apart.
Individuals or groups use mechanisms such as material artefacts and
roles to handle most of the problems and opportunities that organizations
face in their day-to-day activities (Carlile, 2000; Clark, 1997; Powers, 1981)
by generating the diversity of action necessary to handle unforeseen, although
not necessarily novel, challenges (Weick, 1979). However, as with plans, in
practice the way these are used cannot be designed or understood before such
action occurs. Again, the relationship between the structural and the struc-
turing poles of paradoxes are enacted and not designed. In this case, inte-
gration mechanisms are used to foster the situated deviations to routine
practice (thus increasing differentiation) and are potentially changed by these
very actions. Moreover, in time, improvised roles and modified or newly con-
structed artefacts, are formalized through repeated use, as practices with
good and bad outcomes slowly spread through the organization in the guise
of stories (Machin & Carrithers, 1996; Orr, 1990).
Exploration and exploitation enter a mutually supportive relationship
when existing resources are used to look for, and take advantage of, new
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498 Human Relations 55(5)

opportunities. The popular business press regards exploration as the most

important task for organizations (e.g. Peters, 1987, 1992, 1994), for which
some researchers build a rationale (e.g. D’Aveni, 1995); others study its
success (e.g. Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997), while others warn against its
dangers (e.g. Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). Exploration is a concern for
today’s organizations either because of fact (Bettis & Hitt, 1995) or fashion
(Abrahamson, 1991). But the dangers are all too real, especially the risk of
being spread too thinly over an increasing number of opportunities. There-
fore, pressures for exploration and exploitation are co-present in managers’
concerns. This paradox may be made into a bi-directional relationship
between these poles by relying on a limited set of resources that can be
recombined to take advantage of new opportunities. Again, the way in
which this process unfolds is unforeseeable (Levi-Strauss, 1966; Weick,
1993). It can only be determined in retrospect. The recombination of
resources or, to be more precise, the bricolage that individuals or groups
perform in order to take advantage of opportunities, is a situated practice.
This means that the exploitation → exploration side of this relationship is
enacted, not designed. As the organization uses its resources in increasingly
diverse ways, as it explores new opportunities, it becomes increasingly pro-
ficient in deploying those resources and fosters exploitative gains by travel-
ling through its learning curve. Exploration thus fosters exploitation as the
practice of bricolage increases the intimacy between resources and those that
deploy them.
As a whole, this means that broad relational syntheses emerge locally,
as individuals or groups deal with situated challenges through their everyday
practices, especially as environmental changes and new organizational prac-
tices have planted paradoxes in several areas of management theory and
practice. New competitive landscapes, changes in the workforce and the
emergence of a whole industry behind the diffusion of administrative inno-
vations, demand more of organizations and their managers. Due to digital-
ization, contradictions now co-exist in time and must be tackled
simultaneously (Clarke & Clegg, 1998). The older Hegelian-influenced idea
of an unfolding dialectic that can resolve itself through time is technologi-
cally outflanked in a world saturated with co-evolutionary presence, virtual-
ity and simultaneity.

Conclusion

While acknowledging digital simultaneity, until now management and

organization theory has lacked the necessary overarching framework for its
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Clegg et al. Management paradoxes 499

integration and fruition into insights for practice. It was this that motivated
us to take a detailed look at the literature dealing directly or indirectly with
management paradoxes in order to integrate it in a useful way for both
researchers and practitioners. As a result of this effort we uncovered four
broad common themes. First, the simultaneous presence of opposites (i.e.
paradoxes) is part of the everyday practice of management and not just an
exception that can be willed away. Second, there is often a relationship
between the two opposing poles of these paradoxes, which can take the shape
of a synthesis. Third, this synthesis emerges when the structural side of this
relationship is kept at a minimal level, and the relationship between oppo-
sites is mutually reinforcing. Finally, this relationship is a local one in the
sense that it cannot be designed but emerges from situated practice.
Taken as a whole, this argument coalesces into an alternative approach
to management paradox. It is an approach that understands the practical and
political necessity of holding opposites apart but that, at the same time, takes
the relationship between them seriously, looking for a synthesis in the mutual
supporting interactions between the two opposites that bind paradoxes in
organizations. Ultimately our article is an exercise in both curiosity and hope.
Curious about the results that this approach might have for management
research and practice we hope that academics and managers will find rela-
tional syntheses as compelling as we do.

Notes

1 The fruits of this literature search are available in an earlier article, available from
the authors.
2 Crozier (1964) and Weber (1947) stress the specificity of resistance in bureaucracies;
for a different view that sees resistance as more generic, see Ezzamel and Willmott
(1998).
3 For a very explicit illustration compare Moorman and Miner (1995) with Moorman
and Miner (1998a, 1998b). For the contrary case, see Brown and Eisenhardt’s (1997)
and Kamoche and Cunha’s (2001) discussions of minimal structures; Cunha and
Cunha’s (2001) discussion of multinational virtual teams; Hutchins’ (1991) dis-
cussion of bricolage; and Lanzara’s (1983) discussion of ephemeral organizations.

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Stewart Clegg is Professor of Management at the University of Tech-

nology, Sydney (UTS) and has published many books and articles on
organizations and management.
[E-mail: sclegg@uts.edu.au]

João Vierra da Cunha is a PhD student at the MIT Sloan School of

Management and has published work in journals such as the Journal of
Organizational Change Management and the International Journal of Manage-
ment Reviews, as well as a recent book on Organizational improvisation.
[E-mail: jvc@mit.edu]

Miguel Pinha e Cunha is Assistant Professor at the Facuildade de

Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and has published in the fields
of organizational improvisation and organizational change. Among his
recent work is the book on Organizational improvisation (Routledge, 2002)
with Ken Kamoche and João Vierra da Cunha.
[E-mail: mpc@feunix.fe.unl.pt]