Ambivalence in Organizations: A Multilevel Approach

The experience of simultaneously positive and negative orientations toward a person, goal, task, idea, and such appears to be quite common in organizations, but it is poorly understood. We develop a multilevel perspective on ambivalence in organizations that demonstrates how this phenomenon is integral to certain cognitive and emotional processes and important outcomes. Specifically, we discuss the organizational triggers of ambivalence and the cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which ambivalence diffuses between the individual and collective levels of analysis. We offer an integrative framework of major responses to highly intense ambivalence (avoidance, domination, compromise, and holism) that is applicable to actors at the individual and collective levels. The positive and negative outcomes associated with each response, and the conditions under which each is most effective, are explored. Although ambivalence is uncomfortable for actors, it has the potential to foster growth in the actor as well as highly adaptive and effective behavior

Our Collective Tensions:Paradox Research Community’s Response to COVID-19

In this commentary on three articles from dozens of paradox theory scholars on paradox approaches to examining the COVID-19 pandemic and how the COVID-19 pandemic informs paradox theory, the authors involved in coordinating the collection of three papers discuss the process of bringing together scholars from around the world to discuss the pandemic. Four other preeminent paradox theorists offer additional commentaries on the papers in this Collection.</p

The Lived Experience of Paradox:How Individuals Navigate Tensions during the Pandemic Crisis

This is a dialogue and part of an article series involving many authors. </p

Professionals' Identity Responses to a Regulatory Change Impacting the Nature of a Profession: the Case of French Veterinarians

Thesis advisor: Michael G. PrattDespite calls to understand the micro-foundation of institutional theory and to understand how professional identity change relates to the broader macro context (e.g., Lok, 2010; Lepisto, Crosina and Pratt, forthcoming); exploration of the link between a field-level institutional change and the individual professionals' identity responses within the field remains. For this dissertation, I conducted an inductive qualitative study of French veterinarians and their reactions to "the Service Directive", a European Union regulation that re-categorizes veterinarians as "service providers" from "healthcare professionals." Drawing on interviews with practicing veterinarians, leaders of the field, observations, and archival data, my dissertation advances our understanding of professionals' responses to an institutional change which can potentially redefine what their profession is. My findings suggest that professionals negotiate an institutional change (in this case, the Service Directive) at the professional level before its formal implementation and before individual professionals within their organization engaged in any form of response. My dissertation introduces a model centered on understanding how veterinarians responded to this change at the individual level (and more particularly, in terms of identity) within their organization. This model suggests that individual professionals perceive the institutional regulatory change in hopeful, fearful or ambivalent manners. I found that these perceptions are influenced by professionals' work orientation and perceived organization's time orientation. Further, I found that these perceptions lead to different types of identity responses: identity expansion, identity maintenance, giving up a possible self, and de-emphasizing an existing identity. My research enriches emerging perspectives on identity responses to an institutional change by pointing out various identity responses and tying them to the perceptions of an institutional change. My research further suggests that such a change can be perceived as an opportunity, as a threat, or both, not solely as a threat. Furthermore, my dissertation introduces the notions of orientation (work orientation and perceived organization's time orientation) as key to the processing of an institutional trigger. Finally, it calls attention to an emotional processing of the institutional trigger.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Management and Organization

Kidnapped in the line of work: Navigating risky/safe work domain paradox

International audienc

The Lived Experience of Paradox: How Individuals Navigate Tensions during the Pandemic Crisis

Organizational life has always been filled with tensions, but the COVID-19 pandemic is amplifying this experience in fundamental ways. Across the globe, employees have had to quickly adjust to working from home, striving to remain productive while adapting to new technologies and work-practices (Lanzolla, Lorenz, Miron-Spektor, Schilling, Solinas & Tucci, 2020). Essential employees, such as medical personnel, have been grappling with the desire to deliver care to those with need without risking themselves (Kniffin et al., 2020). Leaders have been balancing optimism with realism and finding ways to engender psychological proximity despite managing their followers from afar (Gibson, 2020). These interconnected tensions have been accentuated not just within domains (e.g., work), but also across domains (Ladge, Clair & Greenber, 2012). Working parents, for example, have been renegotiating boundaries as they pursue their work goals while home-schooling their children and caring for their elderly relatives (Power, 2020)

Kidnapped in the line of work: Navigating risky/safe work domain paradox

International audienc

Fostering Paradox Resonance: Exploring Leaders’ Communication of Paradoxes during Crisis

The communication from leaders during a time of crisis significantly impacts how the crisis unfolds. Leaders also play a decisive role in fostering either virtuous or vicious dynamics when organizations are torn between competing demands (Smith, 2014). But never has it been more pressing for organizational leaders to be mindful of what and how they communicate than in the COVID-19 crisis. While paradox scholars have predominantly been occupied with understanding leaders’ actions to make a paradox salient (Knight &amp; Paroutis, 2017; Pradies et al., 2020), the paradoxical tensions heightened by COVID-19 such as ‘standing apart together’ have highlighted that we should not solely examine leaders. We need to unpack the relationship between leaders and followers as well as the mechanisms that sustain this relationship. This is particularly the case in a context, where people are expected to cooperate, while being physically dispersed. Paradox theory offers insights as well as sensemaking and decision-making resources for leaders, yet paradox leadership in theory and practice must include paradox followership and followers’ resonance in order to understand and facilitate collective action during times of crises, grand challenges and continuous change in a VUCA-world