ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the degree to which paradox is endemic to organizational life. While the study of organization is of course a social scientific endeavour, unlike the more traditional areas of social science explored in Chapter 3, organization studies (and the related discipline of management science) are consciously multidisciplinary; that is, they build upon both empirical and theoretical advances from those more traditional quarters but do so with a distinct conceptual visage. The chapter is configured around four broad areas of organizational paradox. These are control (including paradoxes of bureaucracy, structure, and leadership); performance (including paradoxes of success and commitment); group dynamics (including paradoxes of group composition, consensus, and organizational identity); and operations (including paradoxes of quality, risk, and technological interaction).
