Summary Smith, W. K., & Tushman, M. L. (2005). Managing Strategic Contradictions: A Top Management Model for Managing Innovation Streams. Organization Science, 16(5), 522–536. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0134

Smith & Tushman (2005) – Managing Strategic Contradictions: A top
management model for managing innovation streams
Summary

 Strategic contradictions need to be managed in order to be successful
 Balancing contradiction in decision-making is rooted in senior team cognitions
 Balanced strategic decision making in context of contradiction is rooted in paradoxical
cognition – paradoxical frames that allow embracing rather than avoiding tensions
 Depending on the locus of integration, these cognitions appear either with the senior leader
or the entire leadership team



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Research basis

 Its important for performance to engage in both exploitation and exploration
 These strategic agendas are contradictory
 Goal: develop a model of managing strategic contradictions that is associated with
paradoxical cognition
 Method: conceptual, using literature on paradox, contradictions, and conflict



Innovation streams

 = the portfolio of products simultaneously managed by an organization or strategic business
unit
 Consists of continued incremental innovation in the extant product as well as min. 1
nonincremental innovation
 Building an innovation stream is challenging because exploration and exploitation are
contradictory:
o Exploration = experimentation & flexibility
o Exploitation = focus & efficiency