A colorful infographic illustrating contrasting mindsets and approaches for managing tensions in thinking. It includes sections on traditional versus paradoxical perspectives, emphasizing dynamic, interconnected, and expansive thinking, with illustrations of two heads comparing competing demands and a flowchart of the paradoxical approach.

Research

My research explores how leaders and organizations thrive in times of complexity and change. I study how people navigate tensions—like innovation and efficiency, profit and purpose, stability and change, sustainability and growth—and how embracing these tensions can spark creativity and resilience. As a leading scholar in paradox theory, my work has been published in the top management journals. Here’s a selection.

I’m grateful to be surrounded by a community of incredible scholars doing research in this area. Marianne and I drew on this expanding scholarship in our book Both/And Thinking. Check out the bibliography of that book for more studies about organizational paradoxes.

See full list on Google Scholar →
Wendy K. Smith giving a presentation in a conference room filled with attendees.

Notable academic research by Wendy K. Smith

Besharov, M., & Smith, W. K. 2025. Zooming Out and Zooming in to Expand Research on Multiple Institutional Logics and Organizational Hybridity: Reflections on the 2024 AMR Decade Award:  Academy of Management Review.

Schrage, S., Andriopoulos, C., Lewis, M. & Smith, W.K. 2025 Unleashing the Creative Potential of Research Tensions:  Toward A Paradox Approach to Methods. Organization Research Methods. 

Slawinski, N., Smith, W. K., & Van der Byl, C. A. 2024. Leveraging the Dominant Pole: How Champions of an Industry-Wide Environmental Alliance Navigate Coopetition Paradoxes. Journal of Management, 51(8).

Sparr, J. L., E. Miron-Spektor, M. W. Lewis, and Smith, W.K. 2022. From a Label to a Metatheory of Paradox: If We Change the Way We Look at Things, the Things We Look at Change. Academy of Management Collections 1(2): 16-34.

Lewis, M.W. and Smith, W.K. 2022. Navigating Paradox is Paradoxical: Reflections on the 2021 AMR Decade Award Academy of Management Review. 47(4): 528-548. 

Miron-Spektor, E., Emich K., Argote, L., & Smith, W.K. 2022. Conceiving Opposites Together: Cultivating Paradoxical Frames and Epistemic Motivation Fosters Team Creativity. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes. 171

 

Smith, W.K. and Besharov. M.L. 2019. Bowing Before Dual Gods: How structured flexibility sustains organizational hybridity.  Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(1): 1-44.

  • Distinguished Winner of the 2020 Responsible Research in Management Award

  • Financial Times Top 100 “Business School Research with Social Impact”

  • Translated to Chinese

Miron-Spektor, E., Ingram, A. S., Keller, J., Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. 2018. Microfoundations of organizational paradox: The problem is how we think about the problem. Academy of Management Journal, 61(1): 26-45.

Schad, J., Lewis, M.W., Raisch, S., & Smith, W.K. 2016. Paradox research in management science: Looking back to move forward. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1): 5-64.

  • Best Paper Award Runner-Up, Academy of Management Annals, 2017

Smith, W.K. 2014. Dynamic Decision Making: A Model of Senior Leaders Managing Strategic Paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal, 57: 1592-1623.

  • Most Viewed Papers on the AMJ Website 

  • Best Paper Award, Ivey Business School Institute for Leadership, 2017

Besharov, M. and Smith W.K. 2014. Multiple Institutional Logics in Organizations: A Theoretical Integration. Academy of Management Review, 39, 364-381.

  • Winner – Academy of Management Review Decade Award; 2024

  • Emerald Publishing, Most Highly Cited and Influential,  2017

Smith, W.K. and Lewis, M.W. 2011. Toward a Theory of Paradox: A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 381-403.

  • Winner of the Academy of Management Decade Award 2021 for the most impactful paper across a decade.

  • Reprinted: Smith, W.K. and Lewis, M.W. 2014. The Yin and Yang of Management. Rotman Management Magazine. Fall 2014, 23-28. 

Smith, W.K. and Tushman, M. 2005. Managing Strategic Contradictions: A Top Management Team Model for Managing Innovation Streams. Organization Science, 16: 522-536.

  • Reprinted: Smith, W.K. and Tushman, M. 2007. Gestion des Contradctions Strategiques. In F. Bournois & J. Duval-Hamel & S. Roussillon & J.-L. Scaringella (Eds.), Comites Executifs: Voyage au coeur de la dirigeance: 37-46. Paris: Eyrolles: Editions d'Organisations.

  • Reprinted: Smith, W.K. and Tushman. M. 2010. Managing Strategic Contradictions: A Top Management Team Model for Simultaneously Exploring and Exploiting. Handbook of Top Management Teams. F. Bournois, J. Duval-Hamel, S. Roussillon and J.-L. Scaringella. Houndmills, Palgrave-MacMillian: 60-70.