Though paradox has pervasive effects on science work and sustainability in scientific research, it remains underexplored at the intersection of these contexts. The article addresses this nexus and contributes to the relational perspective on paradox by supplementing the emphasis on systemic relations with human relationships. The study examines experiences of research scientists with striving for sustainability and explicates the tensions they confront between public science and commercial research. It identifies three relational paradoxes: service ethos, role identity, and professional integrity; and it outlines how scientists manage them through approaches premised on differentiation and integration. Through its grounds in relationality, the work affirms the salience of extant themes on paradox for sustainability in science work and poses new theoretical contribution by showing how both paradoxes and responses are embedded in social relations. In effect, scientists address sustainability while engaging with paradox whereby they relate to both public science and commercial research.
AllenS.MarshallJ.Easterby-SmithM. (2015). Living with contradictions: The dynamics of senior managers’ identity tensions in relation to sustainability. Organization & Environment, 28, 328-348.
2.
AndriopoulosC.LewisM. W. (2009). Exploitation-exploration tensions and organizational ambidexterity: Managing paradoxes of innovation. Organization Science, 20, 696-717.
3.
BarryJ.BergE.ChandlerJ. (2006). Academic shape shifting: Gender, management and identities in Sweden and England. Organization, 13, 275-298.
4.
BednarekR.BlumenfeldS.RiadS. (2012). Union-division: On the paradoxes of purpose and membership scope in union mergers. Industrial Relations Journal, 43, 548-571.
5.
BednarekR.ParoutisS.SillinceJ. (2017). Transcendence through rhetorical practices: Responding to paradox in the science sector. Organization Studies, 38, 77-101.
6.
BenessiaA.FuntowiczS.BradshawG.FerriF.Raez-LunaE. F.MedinaC. P. (2012). Hybridizing sustainability: Towards a new praxis for the present human predicament. Sustainability Science, 7(Suppl. 1), 75-89.
7.
BercovitzJ.FeldmanM. (2008). Academic entrepreneurs: Organizational change at the individual level. Organization Science, 19, 69-89.
8.
BergerP. L.LuckmannT. (1966). The social construction of reality. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
9.
BiscottiD.LacyW. B.GlennaL. L.WelshR. (2012). Constructing “disinterested” academic science: Relational work in university-industry research collaborations. Politics & Society, 40, 273-308.
10.
BoxS.CotgroveS. (1996). Scientific identity, occupational selection, and role strain. British Journal of Sociology, 17, 20-28.
11.
BrandtP.ErnstA.GrallaF.LuederitzC.LangD. J.NewigJ.von WehrdenH. (2013). A review of transdisciplinary research in sustainability science. Ecological Economics, 92, 1-15.
12.
BrundtlandG. H. (1987). Our common future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Retrieved from http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm
13.
CameronK. S.QuinnR. E. (1988). Organizational paradox and transformation. In QuinnR. E.CameronK. S. (Eds.), Paradox and transformation: Toward a theory of change in organisation and management (pp. 1-18). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
14.
CleggS. R.Vieira da CunhaJ.Pina e CunhaM. (2002). Management paradoxes: A relational view. Human Relations, 55, 483-503.
DavenportS.BibbyD. (2007). Contestability and contested stability: Life and times of CSIRO’s New Zealand cousins, the Crown Research Institutes. Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice, 9, 181-191.
17.
EllisN.YbemaS. (2010). Marketing identities: Shifting circles of identification in interorganizational relationships. Organization Studies, 31, 279-305.
18.
GeelsF. W. (2010). Ontologies, socio-technical transitions (to sustainability), and the multi-level perspective. Research Policy, 39, 495-510.
19.
GergenK. (1985). The social constructionist movement in modern psychology. American Psychologist, 40, 266-275.
GibbsG. R. (2007). Analyzing qualitative data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
22.
GlennaL. L.WelshR.ErvinD.LacyW. B.BiscottiD. (2011). Commercial science, scientists’ values, and university biotechnology research agendas. Research Policy, 40, 957-968.
23.
Global Science Forum. (n.d.). Best practices for ensuring scientific integrity and preventing misconduct. Paris, France: OECD. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/sti/sci-tech/40188303.pdf
24.
GotsiM.AndriopoulosC.LewisM. W.IngramA. (2010). Managing creatives: Paradoxical approaches to identity regulation. Human Relations, 63, 781-805.
25.
HackettE. J. (2005). Essential tensions: Identity, control, and risk in research. Social Studies of Science, 35, 787-826.
26.
HahnT.PinkseJ.PreusL.FiggeF. (2015). Tensions in corporate sustainability: Towards an integrative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 127, 297-316.
27.
HoskingD.DachlerP.GergenK. (Eds.). (1995). Management and organization: Relational alternatives to individualism. Brookfield, VT: Avebury.
28.
JainS. G.GeorgeG.MaltarichM. (2009). Academics or entrepreneurs? Investigating role identity modification of university scientists involved in commercialization activity. Research Policy, 38, 922-935.
29.
JarzabkowskiP.LeJ.Van de VenA. H. (2013). Responding to competing strategic demands: How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization, 11, 245-280.
30.
KallioK. M.KallioT. J.TienariJ.HyvonenT. (2016). Ethos at stake: Performance management and academic work in universities. Human Relations, 69, 685-709.
31.
LamA. (2010). From “ivory tower traditionalists” to “entrepreneurial scientists”? Academic scientists in fuzzy university-industry boundaries. Social Studies of Science, 40, 307-340.
32.
LarsenM. T. (2011). The implications of academic enterprise for public science: An overview of the empirical evidence. Research Policy, 40, 6-19.
33.
LeitchS.DavenportS. (2005). The politics of discourse: Marketization of the New Zealand science and innovation system. Human Relations, 58, 891-912.
34.
LewisM. W. (2000). Exploring paradox: Towards a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25, 760-776.
35.
LuscherL. S.LewisM. W. (2008). Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 221-240.
36.
LuscherL. S.LewisM. W.IngramA. (2006). The social construction of organizational change paradoxes. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 19, 491-502.
37.
MarksJ. (2014). Toward a systemic ethics of public-private partnerships related to food and health. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 24, 267-299.
38.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
39.
MillerT. R. (2015). Reconstructing sustainability science: Knowledge and action for a sustainable future. New York, NY: Routledge.
40.
NelkinD. (1977). Scientists and professional responsibility: The experience of American ecologists. Social Studies of Science, 7, 75-95.
ShotterJ. (1984). Social accountability and selfhood. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
50.
ShotterJ. (1993). Cultural politics of everyday life: Social constructionism, rhetoric and knowing of the third kind. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Toronto University Press.
51.
SilvaT.CunhaM. P.CleggS. R.NevesP.RegoA.RodriguesR. A. (2014). Smells like team spirit: Opening a paradoxical black box. Human Relations, 67, 287-310.
52.
SmithW. K.BesharovM. L.WesselsA. K.ChertokM. (2012). A paradoxical leadership model for social entrepreneurs. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 11, 463-479.
53.
SmithW. K.LewisM. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36, 381-403.
54.
SmithW. K.TushmanM. L. (2005). Managing strategic contradictions: A top management model for managing innovation streams. Organization Science, 16, 522-536.
55.
SterckxS. (2009). Patenting and the licensing of university research: Promoting innovation or undermining academic values?Science & Engineering Ethics, 17, 45-64.
56.
StrykerS.BurkeP. (2000). The past, present, and future of an identity theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 64, 284-297.
57.
Van der BylC. A.SlawinskiN. (2015). Embracing tensions in corporate sustainability: A review of research from win-wins and trade-offs to paradoxes and beyond. Organization & Environment, 28, 54-79.
58.
WelshR.GlennaL.LacyW.BiscottiD. (2008). Close enough but not too far: Assessing the effects of university-industry research relationships and the rise of academic capitalism. Research Policy, 37, 1854-1864.
59.
WetherellM.MaybinJ. (1996). The distributed self: A social constructionist perspective. In StevensJ. (Ed.), Understanding the self (pp. 219-180). London, England: Sage.
60.
ZabuskyS. E.BarleyS. R. (1997). “You can’t be a stone if you’re cement”: Reevaluating the emic identities of scientists in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 19, 361-404.
