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Digital transformation (DT) is a major challenge for incumbent organisations, as research on this phenomenon has revealed a high failure rate. Given this consideration, this paper reviews the literature on DT in incumbent organisations to identify the main themes and research directions to be undertaken.

The authors adopt a systematic literature review (SLR) and computational literature review (CLR) employing a machine learning algorithm for topic modelling (LDA) to surface the themes discussed in 103 peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2022 in a multidisciplinary article sample.

The authors identify and discuss the five main themes emerging from the studies, offering the state-of-the-art of DT in established firms' literature. The authors find that the most discussed topics revolve around the DT of healthcare, the process of renewal and change, the project management, the changes in value performances and capabilities and the consequences on the products of DT. Accordingly, the authors identify the topics overlooked by literature that future studies could tackle, which concern sustainability and contextualisation of the DT phenomenon.

The authors further propose managerial insights which equip managers with a revolutionary mindset that is not constraining but, rather, integration-seeking. DT is not only about technology (Tabrizi B et al., 2019). Successful DT initiatives require managerial capabilities that foster a sustainable departure from the current organising logic (Markus, 2004). This study pinpoints and prioritises the role that paradox-informed thinking can have to sustain an effective digital mindset (Eden et al., 2018) that allows for the building of momentum in DT initiatives and facilitates the renewal process. Indeed, managers lagging behind DT could shift from an “either-or” solutions mindset where one pole is preferred over the other (e.g. digital or physical) to embracing a “both-and-with” thinking balancing between poles (e.g. digital and physical) to successfully fuse the digital and the legacy (Lewis and Smith, 2022b; Smith, Lewis and Edmondson, 2022), enact the renewal, and build and maintain momentum for DTs. The outcomes of adopting a paradox mindset in managerial practice are enabling learning and creativity, fostering flexibility and resilience and, finally, unleashing human potential (Lewis and Smith, 2014).

The authors propose insight that will equip managers with a mindset that will allow DT to fail less often than current reported rates, which failure may imply potential organisational collapse, financial bankrupt and social crisis.

The authors offer a multidisciplinary review of the DT complementing existing reviews due to the focus on the organisational context of established organisations. Moreover, the authors advance paradoxical thinking as a novel lens through which to study DT in incumbent organisations by proposing an array of potential research questions and new avenues for research. Finally, the authors offer insights for managers to help them thrive in DT by adopting a paradoxical mindset.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how new technology-based firms (NTBFs) overcome established notions of scale and scope through business model innovation, leveraging the value from digitalization.

The study adopts an exploratory research design, drawing on a novel data set of 50 publicly available interviews with vertical farming (VF) industry leaders and insiders who represent 36 different organizations from North America and Europe.

The study develops a framework showing how NTBFs leverage the value from digitalization via a paradoxical approach combining both efficiency and novelty value drivers.

The study extends current theorizing on the desirability of a combined business model approach leveraging both efficiency and novelty from digitalization. Furthermore, the study is among the first to investigate the unique and highly technological context of VF.

Sustainability is increasingly at the forefront of the public debate in Europe and the world. However, despite this increased interest, research seems to have partially ignored the importance of its social dimension and the issues related to social equity, people care, protection and personal development at all stages of society and, consequently, of business. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the “soft” dimensions of sustainability, integrating its mainstream “technical storyline” with a “human/social storyline”.

In this paper a taxonomy of the main key drivers of the soft dimension of sustainability is proposed and tested on a sample of Italian companies. Through interviews with their managers, actions and needs in terms of sustainability soft drivers are identified.

The achieved results demonstrated that the case companies differently integrated the soft dimensions of sustainability within their companies. All the sample companies are aware of the role of social sustainability. According to the proposed taxonomy, the systemic drivers of soft sustainability are the main shared ones.

The paper provides new insights into the essence of the organizational soft dimensions and their centrality in the overall achievement of sustainability for companies. It also offers managerial insights into how to effectively manage these dimensions and policy implications about the need for clearer consideration.

This paper aims to explore police perspectives on community engagement strategies within the context of crime prevention in South Africa, focusing on Johannesburg metropolitan police stations. The study’s objective is to scrutinise the effectiveness and challenges of community policing strategies.

Through a qualitative research approach, this study conducted unstructured interviews with station commanders and visible policing officers across 10 Johannesburg metropolitan police stations.

The findings reveal that community policing strategies, such as community–policing forums, sector policing, street patrollers and social media utilisation, can effectively engage communities as partners in crime prevention. However, certain challenges such as resource limitations and difficulties in policing-specific regions, were also identified.

This study contributes to the broader understanding of community–policing partnerships and the practical implications of community–policing strategies in South Africa, suggesting areas for improvement and adaptation to the unique South African context. This knowledge can help optimise efforts to foster stronger relationships between police and communities, bolster public trust and ultimately improve crime prevention outcomes.

An increasing number of last mile deliveries (LMDs) pose many sustainability challenges that retailers and logistics service providers (LSPs) can address. Using cognitive frames (CFs) as a lens, this study explored how retail and LSP managers make sense of sustainable LMDs.

The methodological approach used is a multiple embedded case study. The data were obtained from interviews with retailers and LSPs, supplemented with secondary data for triangulation.

The findings present the operational aspects of LMDs that managers associate with sustainability and indicate that retail and LSP managers frame sustainability primarily as emission reduction. Managers indicate an externalization of responsibility and a compartmentalization of the supply chain, in which social sustainability is not associated with the last mile. Most managers indicate hierarchical CFs regarding sustainability, in which sustainability is an important topic but is subordinate to economic interests.

Collaboration between retailers, LSPs and other stakeholders is viewed as challenging but could alleviate some of the sustainability shortcomings and aid in the paradoxical framing and inclusion of social issues.

A conceptualization of managerial CFs for sustainable LMDs, together with empirical frame indicators and three propositions, is presented, providing novel insights into how paradoxical CFs could make LMDs more sustainable. This approach illuminates the possibilities for how to untangle the operational manifestations of managerial framing and adds to the empirical exploration of CFs in supply chain management.

The integration of industry 4.0 has become a priority for many organizations. However, not all organizations are suitable and capable of implementing industry 4.0 because it requires a dynamic and flexible implementation strategy. The implementation of industry 4.0 often involves overcoming several tensions between internal and external stakeholders. This paper aims to explore the paradoxical tensions that arise for health-care organizations when integrating industry 4.0. Moreover, it discusses how a paradox lens can support the conceptualization and proposes techniques for handling tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.

This qualitative and in-depth study draws upon 32 semi-structured interviews. The empirical case concerns how two health-care organizations handle paradoxical tensions during the integration of industry 4.0.

The exploration resulted in six recurring technology tensions: technology invention (modularized design vs. flexible design), technology collaboration (automation vs. human augmentation), technology-driven patient experience (control vs. autonomy), technology uncertainty (short-term experimentation vs. long-term planning), technology invention and diffusion through collaborative efforts among stakeholders (selective vs. intensive collaboration) and technological innovation (market maintenance vs. disruption).

A paradox theory-informed conceptual model is proposed for how to handle tensions during the integration of industry 4.0. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to introduce paradox theory for quality management, including lean and Six Sigma.

Grounded in paradox theory, and with the objective of structuring and extending existing knowledge of conflicts of interest (e.g. trade-offs) in packaging logistics, the purpose of this paper is to identify categories of paradoxical tensions in packaging systems used in supply chains, and to develop a conceptual framework that describes these categories.

This research uses a theory building approach. It develops a conceptual framework of paradoxical tensions for packed products in supply chains. It revises and extends current knowledge in this domain by applying paradox theory from organisational research.

The paper develops a generic, conceptual framework that identifies, categorises and describes packed product paradoxes on two system levels: supply chain and company levels. The categories of paradoxes refer to performing, organising, belonging and learning.

The framework provides a new theoretical explanation of conflicts of interest in packaging logistics in terms of paradoxical tensions related to packed products in supply chains. It structures and increases general understanding of such tensions within and between actors in a supply chain. The paper also discusses differences in terminology between tensions which are possible to settle and those which lead to paradoxes.

The framework provides a structure for analysing the organisational impact of strategic packaging decisions. It can help highlight different stakeholders' organisational constraints related to packaging.

The framework's systematic categorisation of four types of paradoxical tensions, with thorough descriptions of the meaning of packed product paradoxes of each type, offers an expanded and in-depth explanation of the organisational impacts of packed products in supply chains.

Managing supply chains (SCs) for sustainability often results in conflicting demands, which can be conceptualized as sustainability tensions. This paper studies sustainability tensions in electronics SC contexts and the related management responses by applying a paradox perspective.

A single case study on the electronics SC is conducted with companies and third-party organizations as embedded units of analysis, using semi-structured interviews that are triangulated with publicly available data.

The study identifies tension elements (learning, belonging, organizing and economic performing) conflicting with general social–ecological objectives in the electronics SC. The results indicate a hierarchal structure among the sustainability tensions in SC contexts. The management responses of contextualization and resolution are assigned to the identified tensions.

Framing social–ecological objectives with their conflicting elements as paradoxical tensions enables organizations and SCs to develop better strategies for responding to complex sustainability issues in SC contexts.

The study contributes toward filling the gap on paradoxical sustainability tensions in SCs. Empirical insights are gained from different actors in the electronics SC. The level of emergence and interconnectedness of sustainability tensions in a larger SC context is explored through an outside-in perspective.

The monetary valuation of cultural heritage of a selection of 16 major public, not-for-profit Australian cultural institutions is examined over a period of almost three decades (1992–2019) to understand how they have responded to the paradoxical tensions of heritage valuation for financial reporting purposes.

Accounting for cultural heritage is an intrinsically paradoxical practice; it involves a conflict of two opposite ways of attributing value: the traditional accounting and the heritage professionals (or curatorial) approaches. In analysing the annual reports and other documentary sources through qualitative content analysis, the study explores how different actors responded to the conceptual and technical contradictions posed by the monetary valuation of “heritage assets”, the accounting phraseology of accounting standards.

Four phases emerge from the analysis undertaken of the empirical material, each characterised by a distinctive nature of the paradox, the institutional responses discerned and the outcomes. Although a persisting heterogeneity in the practice of accounting for cultural heritage is evident, responses by cultural institutions are shown to have minimised, so far, the negative impacts of monetary valuation in terms of commercialisation of deaccessioning decisions and distorted accountability.

In applying the theoretical lens of paradox theory in the context of the financial reporting of heritage, as assets, the study enhances an understanding of the challenges and responses by major public cultural institutions in a country that has led this development globally, providing insights to accounting standard setters arising from the accounting practices observed.

The purpose of this study is to apply the concept of organizational ambidexterity as a conceptual lens to increase the understanding of tensions between exploitation (continuity) and exploration (change) in Agile software development (ASD) project teams, and particularly the balancing (ambidextrous) strategies utilized.

A conceptual framework was constructed from interdisciplinary sources on ambidexterity. A literature review of publications on ambidexterity in ASD was then performed, and the results from the selected publications were classified according to an extension of the conceptual framework.

Contextual ambidexterity in ASD is affected by the four basic coherent concepts: time, task, team and transition. The study found that most ambidextrous factors and strategies were task and team-related. In addition, a mixture of hard (performance) strategies and soft (social) strategies is needed in order for people/teams to (be able to) become ambidextrous.

To provide a better understanding of ASD, it is important to identify a broader set of ambidextrous factors and strategies that can impact ASD project teams. The expanded conceptual framework can serve as a basis for future empirical research and provide insights to practitioners on how to strengthen ambidexterity in ASD projects.

The contribution is of great importance for ASD research and practice, as ASD methods are a popular method for managing projects within ASD and in other nonsoftware organizations. In addition, as more and more organizations struggle to deal with rapidly changing environments, interest in the phenomena of paradoxical tensions and the strategy (ambidexterity) to deal with these tensions increase.