New Book Announcement: Performing Organizational Paradoxes
By: Gail Fairhurst (fairhug@ucmail.uc.edu)
Linda Putnam (lputnam@comm.ucsb.edu)
Publisher: Routledge (hardcover, e-book)
Performing Organizational Paradoxes takes a constitutive, process approach to organizational paradoxes. It underscores the performative nature of paradox through its underlying dialectical tensions, its sociomaterial foundations, and power features that bring paradoxes to life, sustain them, and enable their transformation.
The book broadens the research on organizational paradox by embracing a constitutive approach and delineating the debates and misconceptions of this perspective. For the novice reader, several chapters focus on identifying paradoxical tensions in organizations, developing repertoires of responses to them, and relating them to outcomes of organizational processes.
For the advanced reader, key chapters focus on the ubiquity of power and paradox, how bodies enter into paradox in narratives and emotional reactions, and how language cues categories that inventively aid in responding to power and paradox. The last chapter sets forth an agenda for future research that challenges scholars to focus on the ongoing development of organizational paradox. Also, the book employs multiple case analyses and exemplars to illustrate these features of organizational paradoxes.
Filling an important gap in the existing literature, this book is a key resource for scholars and students in the fields of communication, management, educational administration, organizational psychology, and any other fields that study organizations. It is an essential read for scholars interested in the organizing aspects of tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradox.
Table of Contents:
1 Introduction
2 Theoretical Perspectives
3 Multiple Paradoxical Tensions
4 Responding to Paradox
5 Paradox and Process Outcomes
6 Paradox and Power
7 Narrating Paradox, Bodies, and Emotions
8 Paradox Category Work
9 Possible Futures for Paradox Research
To Order the Book: www.routledge.com/9780367856335
Endorsements:
This is a masterful book, written by two masters of the craft. In Performing
Organizational Paradoxes, Fairhurst and Putnam offer what this scholarship
has long needed: an extended treatment of paradox as a unique stance
on the very constitution of organization. Drawing on their grasp of theory,
Fairhurst and Putnam's performativity framework sets forth a unique lens
to the notion of organizing. Their perspective reveals important insights
regarding the multiplicity of knotted tensions, the sociomateriality of all
practice, and the centrality of power. This book holds revelations galore for
readers who are willing to follow the pursuit and promise of paradox.
Timothy Kuhn, Chair and Professor of Organizational Communication,
Department of Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder
Fairhurst and Putnam offer thought-provoking insights into the nature,
responses to and role of paradox in our world. Intricate yet clear, bold yet
nuanced, they empower a constitutive approach. Their research unpacks
paradox-related phenomena, including a sociomaterial ontology and dialectical
dynamics as well as the interplay of power, performativity and
narrative sensemaking. Their creativity and rigor will inspire scholars who
explore paradoxical tensions across disciplines.
Marianne W. Lewis, Dean and Professor of Management, Carl H.
Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati, USA
Fairhurst and Putnam are experts in paradox theory. I am always eager to
read their work as I continue to learn from it and I was delighted to do so
with this book. They have again produced a masterpiece by clarifying and
advancing a constitutive approach to paradox. In doing so, they challenge
our assumptions, deepen our insights, and invite us to improve our understanding.
Anyone who is interested in unpacking how the world operates
needs to read this book.
Wendy K. Smith, Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management,
University of Delaware, USA
These days, organizational scholars tend to reserve their most original and
interesting ideas for academic articles, relegating books to the task of integrating
or elucidating previous research. Fairhurst and Putnam's volume
breaks with this tradition by offering a trove of stimulating, ground-breaking
concepts that greatly enrich paradox literature and push it in new
directions. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the study of organizational
tensions and contradictions.
Marco Berti, Associate Professor, UTS Business School, University of
Technology, Sydney, AUS