Wilson K Smith

Biographic Data

ID	682800
NAME	Wilson K Smith
GIVEN NAMES	Wilson K
FAMILY NAME	Smith
SIGNATURE	SMITH W K
AFFILIATIONS	University of Delaware
ORCID	0000-0002-6019-7699
VERIFIED	Yes
TOTAL WORKS	12
TOTAL CITATIONS	0
WORKS AS AUTHOR	12
WORKS AS EDITOR	0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR	1985
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR	2021
H-INDEX	0

Managing the Paradoxes of Place to Foster Regeneration
Open AccessNatalie Slawinski, Blair Winsor et al.ARTICLEOrganization & Environment2021
Organizations face and contribute to mounting social problems and environmental degradation. Regenerative organizations seek to reverse this damage, emphasizing how to help local places flourish. Drawing on a six-year inductive study of one such regenerative organization, we derive an empirically grounded model which argues that regeneration depends on effectively managing place-based tensions paradoxically. Shorefast built social enterprises aim…
Microfoundations of Organizational Paradox
Ella Miron-Spektor, Ella Miron‐Spektor et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2018
Competing tensions and demands pervade our work lives. Accumulating research examines organizational and leadership approaches to leveraging these tensions. But what about individuals within firms? Although early paradox theory built upon micro-level insights from psychology and philosophy to understand the nature and management of varied competing demands, corresponding empirical studies are rare, offering scarce insights into why some individua…
New Ways of Seeing through Qualitative Research
Pratima Bansal, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2018
International audience
The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Ann ca Jh Langley et al.BOOKThe Oxford Handbook of…2017
Organisations are rife with paradoxes, evident in persistent and interwoven tensions for example between stability and change, flexibility and control, diversity and inclusion, long term and short term, social and financial, learning and performing. This handbook investigates paradoxes across various organisational phenomena and levels of analysis.
Paradox Research in Management Science
Jonathan Schad, M W Lewis et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Annals2016
Paradox studies offer vital and timely insights into an array of organizational tensions. Yet this field stands at a critical juncture. Over the past 25 years, management scholars have drawn foundational insights from philosophy and psychology to apply a paradox lens to organizational phenomena. Yet extant studies selectively leverage ancient wisdom, adopting some key insights while abandoning others. Using a structured content analysis to review…
Paradox as a Metatheoretical Perspective
Open AccessM W Lewis, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Applied Behavioral…2014
Organizations are rife with tensions—flexibility versus control, exploration versus exploitation, autocracy versus democracy, social versus financial, global versus local. Researchers have long responded using contingency theory, asking “Under what conditions should managers emphasize either A or B?” Yet increasingly studies apply a paradox perspective, shifting the question to “How can we engage both A and B simultaneously?” Despite accumulating…
Dynamic Decision Making
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K SmithARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2014
Senior leaders increasingly embed paradoxes into their organization's strategy, but struggle to manage them effectively. To better understand how they do so, I compared in-depth qualitative data from six top management teams exploring and exploiting simultaneously. The results informed a model of dynamic decision making in which strategic paradoxes can be effectively engaged. The details of this dynamic decision-making model extend and complicate…
Multiple Institutional Logics in Organizations
Marya Besharov, Marya L Besharov et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2014
Multiple institutional logics present a theoretical puzzle. While scholars recognize their increasing prevalence within organizations, research offers conflicting perspectives on their implications, causing confusion and inhibiting deeper understanding. In response, we propose a framework that delineates types of logic multiplicity within organizations, and we link these types with different outcomes. Our framework categorizes organizations in te…
Toward a Theory of Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2011
As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainabil…
Toward a Theory of Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2011
As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainabil…
Managing Strategic Contradictions
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEOrganization Science2005
Sustained organizational performance depends on top management teams effectively exploring and exploiting. These strategic agendas are, however, associated with contradictory organizational architectures. Using the literature on paradox, contradictions, and conflict, we develop a model of managing strategic contradictions that is associated with paradoxical cognition—senior leaders and/or their teams (a) articulating a paradoxical frame, (b) diff…
Fitting the Ethnographic Atlas to the Apple IIe Computer
Open AccessC Roger Nance, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEEthnology1985

Fitting the Ethnographic Atlas to the Apple IIe Computer
Open AccessC Roger Nance, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEEthnology1985
Managing Strategic Contradictions
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEOrganization Science2005
Sustained organizational performance depends on top management teams effectively exploring and exploiting. These strategic agendas are, however, associated with contradictory organizational architectures. Using the literature on paradox, contradictions, and conflict, we develop a model of managing strategic contradictions that is associated with paradoxical cognition—senior leaders and/or their teams (a) articulating a paradoxical frame, (b) diff…
Toward a Theory of Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2011
As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainabil…
Toward a Theory of Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2011
As organizational environments become more global, dynamic, and competitive, contradictory demands intensify. To understand and explain such tensions, academics and practitioners are increasingly adopting a paradox lens. We review the paradox literature, categorizing types and highlighting fundamental debates. We then present a dynamic equilibrium model of organizing, which depicts how cyclical responses to paradoxical tensions enable sustainabil…
Paradox as a Metatheoretical Perspective
Open AccessM W Lewis, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Applied Behavioral…2014
Organizations are rife with tensions—flexibility versus control, exploration versus exploitation, autocracy versus democracy, social versus financial, global versus local. Researchers have long responded using contingency theory, asking “Under what conditions should managers emphasize either A or B?” Yet increasingly studies apply a paradox perspective, shifting the question to “How can we engage both A and B simultaneously?” Despite accumulating…
Dynamic Decision Making
Wilson K Smith, Wendy K SmithARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2014
Senior leaders increasingly embed paradoxes into their organization's strategy, but struggle to manage them effectively. To better understand how they do so, I compared in-depth qualitative data from six top management teams exploring and exploiting simultaneously. The results informed a model of dynamic decision making in which strategic paradoxes can be effectively engaged. The details of this dynamic decision-making model extend and complicate…
Multiple Institutional Logics in Organizations
Marya Besharov, Marya L Besharov et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Review2014
Multiple institutional logics present a theoretical puzzle. While scholars recognize their increasing prevalence within organizations, research offers conflicting perspectives on their implications, causing confusion and inhibiting deeper understanding. In response, we propose a framework that delineates types of logic multiplicity within organizations, and we link these types with different outcomes. Our framework categorizes organizations in te…
Paradox Research in Management Science
Jonathan Schad, M W Lewis et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Annals2016
Paradox studies offer vital and timely insights into an array of organizational tensions. Yet this field stands at a critical juncture. Over the past 25 years, management scholars have drawn foundational insights from philosophy and psychology to apply a paradox lens to organizational phenomena. Yet extant studies selectively leverage ancient wisdom, adopting some key insights while abandoning others. Using a structured content analysis to review…
The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox
Wilson K Smith, Ann ca Jh Langley et al.BOOKThe Oxford Handbook of…2017
Organisations are rife with paradoxes, evident in persistent and interwoven tensions for example between stability and change, flexibility and control, diversity and inclusion, long term and short term, social and financial, learning and performing. This handbook investigates paradoxes across various organisational phenomena and levels of analysis.
Microfoundations of Organizational Paradox
Ella Miron-Spektor, Ella Miron‐Spektor et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2018
Competing tensions and demands pervade our work lives. Accumulating research examines organizational and leadership approaches to leveraging these tensions. But what about individuals within firms? Although early paradox theory built upon micro-level insights from psychology and philosophy to understand the nature and management of varied competing demands, corresponding empirical studies are rare, offering scarce insights into why some individua…
New Ways of Seeing through Qualitative Research
Pratima Bansal, Wilson K Smith et al.ARTICLEAcademy of Management Journal2018
International audience
Managing the Paradoxes of Place to Foster Regeneration
Open AccessNatalie Slawinski, Blair Winsor et al.ARTICLEOrganization & Environment2021
Organizations face and contribute to mounting social problems and environmental degradation. Regenerative organizations seek to reverse this damage, emphasizing how to help local places flourish. Drawing on a six-year inductive study of one such regenerative organization, we derive an empirically grounded model which argues that regeneration depends on effectively managing place-based tensions paradoxically. Shorefast built social enterprises aim…