(Un)resolving digital technology paradoxes through the rhetoric of balance

Authors: Grigore, G., Molesworth, M., Miles, C. and Glozer, S.

Journal: ORGANIZATION

Volume: 28

Issue: 1

Pages: 186-207

eISSN: 1461-7323

ISSN: 1350-5084

DOI: 10.1177/1350508420968196

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34754/

Source: Web of Science (Lite)

(Un)Resolving digital technology paradoxes through the rhetoric of balance

Authors: Miles, C., Glozer, S., Molesworth, M. and Grigore, G.

Journal: Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society

Publisher: SAGE

ISSN: 1350-5084

DOI: 10.1177/1350508420968196

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34754/

Source: Manual

(Un)Resolving digital technology paradoxes through the rhetoric of balance

Authors: Grigore, G., Molesworth, M., Miles, C. and Glozer, S.

Journal: Organization

Volume: 28

Issue: 1

Pages: 186-207

ISSN: 1350-5084

Abstract:

The organizational benefits of digital technologies are increasingly contrasted with negative societal consequences. Such tensions are contradictory, persistent and interrelated, suggesting paradoxes. Yet, we lack insight into how such apparent paradoxes are constructed and to what effect. This empirical paper draws upon interviews with thirty-nine responsibility managers to unpack how paradoxes are discursively (re)constructed and resolved as a rhetoric of ‘balance’ that ensures identification with organizational, familial and societal interests. We also reveal how such ‘false balance’ sustains and legitimizes organizational activity by displacing responsibilities onto distant ‘others’ through temporal (futurizing), spatial (externalizing) and level (magnifying / individualizing) rhetorical devices. In revealing the process of paradox construction and resolution as ‘balance’ in the context of digitalization and its unanticipated outcomes, we join conversations into new organizational responsibilities in the digital economy, with implications for theory and practice.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/34754/

Source: BURO EPrints