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People invest much time and money in consuming knowledge. We argue that people systematically vary in the types of knowledge they prefer to know and that such preferences can have broad implications for consumer behavior. We illustrate this in the context of the preference for practical versus theoretical knowledge. Specifically, we propose and show that some people prefer to know more about how to apply and make use of phenomena they encounter, whereas others prefer to know more about what explicates and underlies the phenomena. We further propose and demonstrate that the extent to which people prefer practical versus theoretical knowledge can help predict their behaviors in a wide variety of consumption domains such as education (e.g., choice of learning materials, preference for different MBA programs), marketing information (e.g., skepticism toward advertising and reference prices), and intertemporal discounting (e.g., reaction to service delays; preference for fast food restaurants).

This study examines share price reaction to the enrollment by companies in the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. We find that, on average, in the month of enrollment, shareholders of companies that join the CFBAI experience abnormal return of −3% and so do the shareholders of the immediate competitors that do not join the initiative. However, over the subsequent five years, while the shareholders of companies enrolled in the initiative experience an average abnormal return of +16.6%, that of non-enrolled competitors experience a further abnormal return of −34%. The abnormal returns for the two groups (at the time of enrollment and over the subsequent five years) are uncorrelated and so benefitting at the expense of competitors does not appear to be the motive for enrolling in the CFBAI. The study also provides comparison of number of employees and other important financial ratios before and after enrollment in the CFBAI for the two groups.

Early paradox research in organization theory contained a remarkable breadth of inspirations from outside disciplines. We wanted to know more about where early scholarship found inspiration to create what has since become paradox theory. To shed light on this, we engaged seminal paradox scholars in conversations: asking about their past experiences drawing from outside disciplines and their views on the future of paradox theory. These conversations surfaced several themes of past and future inspirations: (1) understanding complex phenomena; (2) drawing from related disciplines; (3) combining interdisciplinary insights; and (4) bridging discourses in organization theory. We end the piece with suggestions for future paradox research inspired by these conversations.

Entitlement persists on the basis of race, gender, age, sexuality, language and able-bodiedness, despite all efforts to eradicate it – and abetted by some efforts to preserve it. Compounding this, as teachers, it is easy for us to become habituated to possessing the only knowledge of value in the room. This chapter takes place against a backdrop of movements such as Black Lives Matter, and its Australian manifestation, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Me Too movement, on women's workplace rights and freedoms, movements against homophobia and transphobia, and quests for equality of accessibility. In particular, we explore the notion that Australia is a haunted nation – one that has not confronted its colonial past or properly reconciled with its first peoples and their descendants. Just as the nation needs to come to terms with its past, our conversations for this chapter will confront us with our own pasts and differing subjectivities. We make use here of our own stories in challenging entitlement, in ourselves and others.

Interdisciplinary research allows us to broaden our sights and expand our theories. Yet, such research surfaces a number of challenges. We highlight three issues – superficiality, lack of focus, and consilience - and discuss how they can be addressed in interdisciplinary research. In particular, we focus on the implications for interdisciplinary work with paradox scholarship. We explore how these issues can be navigated as scholars bring together different epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies within interdisciplinary research, and illustrate our key points by drawing on extant work in paradox theory and on examples from this double volume. Our paper contributes to paradox scholarship, and to organizational theory more broadly, by offering practices about how to implement interdisciplinary research while also advancing our understanding about available research methods.