Julie-Maude Normandin, PhD

Resilience as a theoretical concept and policy proposition is constantly being redefined and clarified. But when it comes to implementation, public managers and bureaucrats have to take ownership of resilience and translate it into practical forms that make sense to them intellectually and operationally. In this chapter, we first explain how resilience is presented in the literature as, variously, a paradigm change, a governance model to better manage complex issues, and a destination to reach.… Show more

Resilience as a theoretical concept and policy proposition is constantly being redefined and clarified. But when it comes to implementation, public managers and bureaucrats have to take ownership of resilience and translate it into practical forms that make sense to them intellectually and operationally. In this chapter, we first explain how resilience is presented in the literature as, variously, a paradigm change, a governance model to better manage complex issues, and a destination to reach. Second, we analyse how public managers and bureaucrats responsible for implementation in London and Montreal have interpreted and used resilience. Finally, we discuss how paradigm change, governance transformation and goal attainment perspectives end up converging into a relatively similar meaning in both cities. What these cities are lacking to take the next step toward urban resilience is the strategic endorsement of political authorities to support this important transformation. Show less

The literature on paradoxes and pluralism has grown over the last decade (Glynn, Barr, and Dacin 2000; Lewis and Kelemen 2002; Kraatz and Block 2008; Denis, Langley, and Rouleau 2007; Lewis and Smith 2014). Both areas focus on multiplicity in or around organizations and study a range of phenomena, such as logics (Besharov and Smith 2014), regulatory pressures (Gotsi et al. 2010), objectives (Michaud 2014), and identities (Pratt and Foreman 2000; McGivern et al. 2015). Despite their converging… Show more

The literature on paradoxes and pluralism has grown over the last decade (Glynn, Barr, and Dacin 2000; Lewis and Kelemen 2002; Kraatz and Block 2008; Denis, Langley, and Rouleau 2007; Lewis and Smith 2014). Both areas focus on multiplicity in or around organizations and study a range of phenomena, such as logics (Besharov and Smith 2014), regulatory pressures (Gotsi et al. 2010), objectives (Michaud 2014), and identities (Pratt and Foreman 2000; McGivern et al. 2015). Despite their converging interests, notions of paradox and pluralism have rarely been directly juxtaposed; analysis has developed in parallel. The aim of the present chapter is twofold: it first brings the two concepts together to discuss their possible interrelation and the implications this suggests for the study of paradox within organizations; second, it contrasts current notions of paradox and pluralism and seeks to expand our understanding of these concepts by looking at them through alternate theoreticallenses. We begin by defining the concepts, describing their features and looking at possible connections between them. A briefliterature review identifies the main strategies employed to manage pluralism and paradoxes and leads us to consider alternate theoretical prisms, namely Critical Management Studies (CMS) and complexity theory, which may open new lines of inquiry into paradoxical situations in organizations. The chapter concludes with a discussion based on three interrelated points, which relate to the animation of paradoxes and pluralism, the question of performativity without instrumentality in the management of paradoxes, and, finally, the coexistence of … Show less