Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

In the third millennium, organizations face unprecedented challenges as they balance immense power with equally significant responsibility. While organizations continue to innovate and shape society, their impact on both human and non-human entities has raised ethical concerns and demands for new perspectives on power, responsibility, and sustainability. Organizational Paradox Theory (Berti et al., 2021; Smith & Lewis, 2011) exploring how organizations manage competing demands and tensions, provides a compelling lens through which to understand these complex dynamics. This sub-theme explores how paradoxical tensions emerge as organizations navigate the interplay between humans, technology, and nature, all within a “more-than-human” framework.
The sub-theme invites scholars to investigate how organizations reconcile the tensions between growth and sustainability, control and autonomy, human and non-human agency. For instance, as organizations leverage artificial intelligence and smart technologies, they must balance the benefits of technological progress with concerns about ethical responsibility and environmental stewardship (Raisch & Fomina, 2025). Similarly, as organizations engage with ecological systems, they must navigate the paradox of fostering both economic development and environmental conservation (Hahn et al., 2014; Hahn et al., 2015).
Key questions include: How do organizations manage the paradox of human and non-human agency in shaping organizational outcomes? How can paradox theory help reframe ethical responsibility in a more-than-human world? What strategies can organizations employ to balance competing demands for technological innovation and ecological sustainability?
 
What you have just read above (namely, the paragraphs in italics) was generated by ChatGPT 4, answering a prompt which included the Call for Sub-themes for the 42^nd EGOS Colloquium 2026 and the simple request of writing a 200 words proposal inspired by organizational paradox theory. The result is both impressive and underwhelming. Yet, by looking at what is NOT included in this AI generated proposal we can formulate a more insightful and stimulating call for this sub-theme.
 
First, it is useful examining how – with all its novelty – AI is revealing some not so novel dynamics. The tension between AI as a means to augment and as a means to replace human agency (Raisch & Krakowski, 2021), and the possibility to use technology as an exploitation and control based on the creation of docile, ‘cybernised’ employees’ have been recognized for over a century (think of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis). Technology can both solidify the status quo, reinforcing the position of already powerful actors who can mobilize resources and control communication flows, and can shift rules of engagement enabling dialectical change (Clegg, 2023). AI also makes salient the paradoxical tension between exploitation, boosted by the automation allowed by dumb machines and acritical thinking, and exploration, which demands to explore new avenues of thought (Alvesson & Spicer, 2012; Luger et al., 2018; Papachroni et al., 2014).
 
Some innovations may also introduce new, previously not encountered tensions. The increased usage of large language models (such as ChatGPT or CoPilot), presents for example new challenges in distinguishing the quality of an argument from the quality of the argumentation. These eager-to-please models lack authentic understanding but their capacity to process enormous amounts of information and to produce very plausible narratives increases the risk of falling for a fallacious argument that sounds plausible. Thus, it leads us to interrogate on the tension between communication and facts.
 
Another fundamental tensions that AI reveals is one between reasoning, emotions, and identity. The knotting and aligning of tensions (Jarzabkowski et al., 2022; Sheep et al., 2017), alongside the rigid categorization in separate groups, to which specific moral orders (e.g., good, evil) are associated tend to produce extreme polarization (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2023). Such polarization, the rigid either-or view of things, leads to intractable conflicts and to the adoption of simplistic solutions that further hinder our capacity to seek synergies (Carmine et al., 2021). In these circumstances, a dispassionate AI could be seen as an aid to develop a more balanced view of matters. Yet, how can we avoid falling into the trap of confirmation bias and tribalism if we lack empathy?
 
A paradox theory perspective offers a useful conceptual frame, both to generate these questions and to address them. It explains the contradictions that often characterize organizational life as the expression of underlying, persistent contradictions between interdependent elements (Smith & Lewis, 2011) such as individual and collective, change and persistence, emotions and rationality characterized. If some of these tensions manifest as trade-offs for which a compromise solution can be found, in other cases actors are faced with conditions of undecidability, when organizational constraints make decisions self-defying and impossible to account for (Berti & Pina e Cunha, 2023). Paradox literature also offers a rich repertoire of ideas and practices that can be adopted to understand and navigate salient paradoxes (see Berti et al., 2021; Pradies et al., 2023, for recent reviews). Two essential conditions must be present for these coping mechanisms to emerge, harnessing the innovative potential of paradoxes: an appropriate mindset (Miron-Spektor et al., 2018), orienting actors towards the search of both-and accommodations (Smith & Lewis, 2022), and adequate agency, allowing them to deploy these synergic approaches (Berti & Simpson, 2021).
 
In this sub-theme, we continue to welcome submissions that aim to advance our understanding of paradox, dualities, and dialectics (Putnam et al., 2016). In particular, we wish to invite new contributions that explore paradoxes at the intersection of humans and technology, and what a more-than human approach means from a paradox perspective. This can also be an opportunity to address other relevant questions such as paradox knots (Sheep et al., 2017), emotions (Pradies, 2023), relationships (Pamphile, 2022; Pradies et al., 2021); paradox dynamics and processes (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2023); grand challenges (Carmine & De Marchi, 2023; Hahn et al., 2015; Jarzabkowski et al., 2019).
 
For example, we invite papers that explore some of the following, illustrative questions:

• Can AI be used as a remedy against extreme polarization, offering a dispassionate accounts of facts or even aiding to formulate synergic solutions (Burton, 2023)? Or is the lack of empathy, reflexivity and the existence of hidden biases going to exacerbate the problem?

• What role can AI play in staging paradox to bridge societal polarization and divides, fostering spaces for collaborative sensemaking and the co-creation of inclusive narratives (Greco et al., 2024)?

• How can technology support paradox transcendence (Abdallah et al., 2011; Bednarek et al., 2017) by offering new ways to frame problems?

• Emotions play an important role in navigating paradoxes (Pradies, 2023): what is their role in exploring the human/technology tensions and a more-than human approach?

• What type of methods will arise from a more-than human approach to research?

• What is the space for creativity in helping collaboration and cocreation between academic, practitioners and AI as they address paradoxical challenges (Sharma et al., 2022)?

References

• Abdallah, C., Denis, J.-L., & Langley, A. (2011): “Having your cake and eating it too: Discourses of transcendence and their role in organizational change dynamics.” Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24 (3), 333–348.
• Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012): “A Stupidity‐Based Theory of Organizations.” Journal of Management Studies, 49 (7), 1194–1220.
• Bednarek, R., Paroutis, S., & Sillince, J. (2017): “Transcendence through Rhetorical Practices: Responding to Paradox in the Science Sector.” Organization Studies, 38 (1), 77–101.
• Berti, M., & Pina e Cunha, M. (2023): “Paradox, Dialectics or Trade-Offs? A Double Loop Model of Paradox.” Journal of Management Studies, 60 (4), 861–888.
• Berti, M., & Simpson, A.V. (2021): “The Dark Side of Organizational Paradoxes: The Dynamics of Disempowerment.” Academy of Management Review, 46 (2), 252–274.
• Berti, M., Simpson, A.V., Pina e Cunha, M., & Clegg, S.R. (2021): Elgar Introduction to Organizational Paradox Theory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
• Burton, J. (2023): “Algorithmic extremism? The securitization of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on radicalism, polarization and political violence.” Technology in Society, 75, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102262.
• Carmine, S., & De Marchi, V. (2023): “Reviewing Paradox Theory in Corporate Sustainability Toward a Systems Perspective.” Journal of Business Ethics, 184 (1), 139–158.
• Carmine, S., Sharma, G., Pradies, C., & Keller, J. (2021): “Introduction: A Paradox Approach to Societal Tensions during the Pandemic Crisis.” Journal of Management Inquiry, 30 (2), 138–139.
• Clegg, S.R. (2023): Frameworks of Power, 2^nd edition. London: SAGE.
• Fairhurst, G.T., & Putnam, L.L. (2023): Performing Organizational Paradoxes. New York: Routledge.
• Greco, A., Torres, F., Danaj, E., & Smith, W. (2024): “Media Review: Barbie and Ken – Staging Paradoxes to Bridge Polarization.” Organization Studies, 46 (2), 302–306.
• Hahn, T., Pinkse, J., Preuss, L., & Figge, F. (2015): “Tensions in Corporate Sustainability: Towards an Integrative Framework.” Journal of Business Ethics, 127 (2), 297–316.
• Hahn, T., Preuss, L., Pinkse, J., & Figge, F. (2014): “Cognitive Frames in Corporate Sustainability: Managerial Sensemaking with Paradoxical and Business Case Frames.” Academy of Management Review, 46 (4), 463–487.
• Jarzabkowski, P., Bednarek, R., Chalkias, K., & Cacciatori, E. (2019): “Exploring inter-organizational paradoxes: Methodological lessons from a study of a grand challenge.” Strategic Organization, 17 (1), 120–132.
• Jarzabkowski, P., Bednarek, R., Chalkias, K., & Cacciatori, E. (2022): “Enabling Rapid Financial Response to Disasters: Knotting and Reknotting Multiple Paradoxes in Interorganizational Systems.” Academy of Management Journal, 65 (5), 1477–1506.
• Luger, J., Raisch, S., & Schimmer, M. (2018): “Dynamic Balancing of Exploration and Exploitation: The Contingent Benefits of Ambidexterity.” Organization Science, 29 (3), 449–470.
• Miron-Spektor, E., Ingram, A., Keller, J., Smith, W.K., & Lewis, M.W. (2018): “Microfoundations of Organizational Paradox: The Problem Is How We Think about the Problem.” Academy of Management Journal, 61 (1), 26–45.
• Pamphile, V.D. (2022): “Paradox Peers: A Relational Approach to Navigating a Business-Society Paradox.” Academy of Management Journal, 4 (65), 1274–1302.
• Papachroni, A., Heracleous, L., & Paroutis, S. (2014): “Organizational Ambidexterity Through the Lens of Paradox Theory: Building a Novel Research Agenda.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 51 (1), 71–93.
• Pradies, C. (2023): “With Head and Heart: How Emotions Shape Paradox Navigation in Veterinary Work.” Academy of Management Journal, 66 (2), 521–552.
• Pradies, C., Berti, M., Pina e Cunha, M., Rego, A., Tunarosa, A., & Clegg, S. (2023): “A Figure is Worth a Thousand Words: The role of visualization in paradox theorizing.” Organization Studies, 44 (8), 1231–1257.
• Pradies, C., Tunarosa, A., Lewis, M.W., & Courtois, J. (2021): “From Vicious to Virtuous Paradox Dynamics: The Social-symbolic Work of Supporting Actors.” Organization Studies, 42 (8), 1241–1263.
• Putnam, L.L., Fairhurst, G.T., & Banghart, S. (2016): “Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach.” Academy of Management Annals, 10 (1), 65–171.
• Raisch, S., & Fomina, K. (2025): “Combining Human and Artificial Intelligence: Hybrid Problem-Solving in Organizations.” Academy of Management Review, 50 (2), 441–464.
• Raisch, S., & Krakowski, S. (2021): “Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation–Augmentation Paradox.” Academy of Management Review, 46 (1), 192–210.
• Sharma, G., Greco, A., Grewatsch, S., & Bansal, P. (2022): “Cocreating forward: How researchers and managers can address problems together.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 21 (3), 350–368.
• Sheep, M.L., Fairhurst, G.T., & Khazanchi, S. (2016): “Knots in the Discourse of Innovation: Investigating Multiple Tensions in a Reacquired Spin-off.” Organization Studies, 38 (3–4), 463–488.
• Smith, W.K., & Lewis, M.W. (2011): “Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing.” Academy of Management Review, 36 (2), 381–403.
• Smith, W.K., & Lewis, M. (2022): Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.