ABSTRACT
In this final chapter we consider the ways in which the positive and the negative are inextricably linked. Doing so enables us to consider the nuances and mutual dependencies between opposites in organizational phenomena as the positive produce negative effects and vice versa. To consider these paradoxical relationships, the chapter is structured in the following way. It starts with a common criticism of POS as not accounting for the complexity of real people and organizations. That POS may sometimes be naïve does not mean that it always has to be so: certainly the desire to see only the good can lead to simplistic views of POS but more nuanced views are available. Positivity and negativity coexist, with each, dialectically, defining the limits of the other such that the positive is not merely the absence of the negative. The presence of the negative in the positive and of the positive in the negative is an always-present possibility. The positive may be rare but its glimpses are worth a great deal in a world in which dialectics are overwhelmingly negative.
