As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainability-peak performance in the present that enables success in the future. This review and the model provide the foundation of a theory of paradox.

As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainability-peak performance in the present that enables success in the future. This review and the model provide the foundation of a theory of paradox.

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A chieving exploitation and exploration enables success, even survival, but raises challenging tensions. Ambidextrous organizations excel at exploiting existing products to enable incremental innovation and at exploring new opportunities to foster more radical innovation, yet related research is limited. Largely conceptual, anecdotal, or single case studies offer architectural or contextual approaches. Architectural ambidexterity proposes dual structures and strategies to differentiate efforts, focusing actors on one or the other form of innovation. In contrast, contextual approaches use behavioral and social means to integrate exploitation and exploration. To develop a more comprehensive model, we sought to learn from five, ambidextrous firms that lead the product design industry. Results offer an alternative framework for examining exploitationexploration tensions and their management. More specifically, we present nested paradoxes of innovation: strategic intent (profit-breakthroughs), customer orientation (tight-loose coupling), and personal drivers (discipline-passion). Building from innovation and paradox literature, we theorize how integration and differentiation tactics help manage these interwoven paradoxes and fuel virtuous cycles of ambidexterity. Further, managing paradoxes becomes a shared responsibility, not only of top management, but across organizational levels.