Public administration and management (PAM) are increasingly characterized by enduring structural contradictions arising from grand societal challenges, institutional pluralism, and growing demands for accountability, participation and performance. Public organizations are expected to reconcile competing expectations from diverse stakeholders—citizens, political actors, professionals, and experts—while operating under conditions of uncertainty, resource scarcity, and complex governance arrangements.
While tensions and contradictions have long been acknowledged in PAM scholarship, they have traditionally been approached through lenses such as hierarchical control (Weber 1958), trade-offs and dilemmas (Hood 1991), or wicked-problem perspectives (Angeli, Camporesi, and Dal Fabbro 2021). Paradox theory offers a complementary lens to deepen our understanding of these tensions by conceptualizing them as contradictory yet interdependent elements that persist over time (Smith and Lewis 2011). Rather than seeking definitive resolutions, a paradoxical perspective highlights how actors navigate, accommodate, and enact tensions through ongoing strategies and practices (Lewis and Smith 2022).
Although paradox theory has gained traction in management and organization studies, its application within PAM remains fragmented and still emerging, despite its strong potential to illuminate governance dynamics, organizational processes, decision-making and multi-level interactions (Adeoye and Ran 2023; Ingaggiati et al. 2024; Qi and Ran 2023).
This panel seeks to broaden and strengthen the conversation by inviting contributions that explore tensions, contradictions and competing demands in PAM and reimagine them as potentially assuming a paradoxical nature.