Title: Organisational dualities: an integrated review

Authors: Roland Rusjan Figelj; Roberto Biloslavo

Addresses: Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Cankarjeva 5, p.p. 761, SI-6101 Koper, Slovenia ' Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Cankarjeva 5, p.p. 761, SI-6101 Koper, Slovenia

Abstract: Studies on organisational dualities are emerging as a growing body of literature driven by the desire to simultaneously pursue opposites in order to obtain superior performance. However, systematic knowledge about organisational dualities has remained limited. In this study, an integrated literature review is conducted to better understand which dualities exist in an organisation and what is their nature. In the first stage of research based on an in-depth analysis of 72 papers from 5,561 papers reviewed by abstract we found that 21 organisational dualities exist. In the second stage of the research identified dualities were used as keywords and further theoretical support for them was found in 256 in-depth analysed papers from 61,902 papers reviewed by abstract. The main contribution of the paper is the identification of 21 organisational dualities presented across different areas of organisational policy which properly managed can represent an important source of sustainable competitive advantage. This paper concludes by proposing suggestions for future research.

Keywords: management duality; organisational dualities; dilemmas; strategic paradoxes; organisational ambidexterity; tensions; literature review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2015.071828

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2015 Vol.9 No.3, pp.235 - 254

Received: 26 Aug 2014
Accepted: 05 Feb 2015
Published online: 19 Sep 2015 *

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