This paper argues that the apparent contradiction in current conceptualizations of time in organizations (e.g., Chronos vs. Kairos) is only apparent, and that a synthesis between these opposing poles is both possible and desirable. We propose improvisation (where time to plan converges with time...

Contents: Introduction -- 1. What is paradox? Tensions, contradictions and oppositions in organization studies -- 2. How to deal with paradoxes: The role of responses in the construction of paradoxical tension -- 3. The bright side: Paradoxes and positive organizational scholarship -- 4. The...

Management, organizations and contemporary social theory / Stewart Clegg & Miguel Pina e Cunha -- Ethnomethodology / Andrea Whittle & Frank Mueller -- Actor-network theory : Michel Callon, Bruno Latour, John Law / Damian O'Doherty -- Giddens and structuration theory / Ira Chatterjee, Jagat...

Organizational scholars have shown increasing interest in the ways in which managers enact and respond to competing demands and the tensions they prompt as constitutive elements of their organizations. There is now a proliferation of conceptualizations of such competing demands that can be...