Encore! Maintaining paradox and balance with social drama

Paradoxes are rife in organizations. As a response, scholars have started to build meta-theory, and it is this area to which this article contributes. Specifically, I focus on paradox maintenance and ‘balance’. Using qualitative data from fieldwork carried out in an experimental community, I first show how social ‘performance’ - or drama based processes - can be used to maintain paradoxical environments. Second, the data reveal a new type of ‘hybrid equilibrium’, that moves the conversation on balance away from dynamic versus punctuated models. A third finding describes how a paradox is more conducive to maintenance when there are shared characteristics between a tension and the wider environment in which it is embedded. Overall, the article contributes to how we think of paradox maintenance and balance, as meta-theoretical concepts. With this in mind, the findings also have a strong implications for practice, especially for organizations that wish to exploit some of the benefits that paradoxical environments can potentially offer.