Introduction to Paradoxes and Tensions in Innovation and Implementation of Complex Systems Minitrack

Paradoxes and tensions are ubiquitous to innovation and change in socio-technical systems in a wide range of contexts including but not limited to open innovation, e-health, mobile platforms, and integrated supply chains. Conflicting demands, contradictory practices, and competing views create fiction that can energize or inhibit the performance of a complex socio-technical system. There is a growing literature on paradoxes, tensions, and duality and recently paradox theory has been proposed as an alternative meta-theoretical approach to problems that have previously been addressed by contingency theory or structural theories. Paradox theory reconceptualizes opposing poles of paradoxes, not as a tradeoff but as a duality where the opposing poles of the paradox are leveraged simultaneously and considered as mutually dependent and mutually enabling. The track focuses on papers that theoretically or empirically advance our understanding of how tensions and paradoxes can be leveraged, enhanced, and honed to create new and frame-breaking opportunities, enhance their implementation and acceptance, and ensure successful co-evolution of complex systems in dynamic environments.