La gestion paradoxale ou l’art de concilier changements délibérés et changements émergents

The paradoxical approach is attracting increasing attention in management, not least because it seems suited to the turbulent, multidimensional reality of contemporary organizations. Paradox involves the coexistence of apparent contradictions in situations where opposing elements are all important, and choosing between them is not an option (Lewis and Smith, 2023). Consistent with the principles of grounded theorizing methodology, the proposed model is based on the experiences of managers who value their employees' initiative-taking. The simultaneous process of data collection and analysis was based on 21 interviews with managers from five different organizations, 76 hours of observation of management committees and four focus groups. We found that the intention to develop the ability to act (DAA) (i.e. a process that values initiative-taking by focusing on the actualization of skills) can make certain paradoxical tensions salient. More specifically, we have documented four pairs of paradoxical tensions linked to DAA: anticipation/reaction, control/autonomy, collective/individual, and stability/change. In an attempt to understand how managers cope with these tensions, we listed 16 managerial actions grouped on to four axes: alignment, empowerment, buy-in and evolution. In-depth analysis of the four pairs of tensions revealed that each has a deliberate and an emergent pole. The deliberate perspective refers to an articulated intention with a certain level of precision, control mechanisms, and collective agreement, while the emergent perspective is characterized by an absence of prior intention, openness, and responsiveness. Deliberate and emergent poles thus interact to create a constructive tension that makes the organization less vulnerable to extremes (i.e. polarization). We propose that these paradoxical tensions are interdependent, generating a dynamic equilibrium that leads to organizational evolution.