An Integrative Methodology for Organizational Oppositions: Aligning Grounded Theory and Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The study of organizational tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes is on the rise in the organizational sciences. This article sets forth an integrative methodology for studying these oppositional phenomena by aligning grounded theory techniques with the little “d” and big “D” orientations of organizational discourse analysis. This integrative methodology not only aids in identifying and determining various types of organizational oppositions and responses to them, but also fosters assessment of their potential power effects and micro organizing dynamics. We provide detailed steps for undertaking this integrative methodology, illustrate these steps with an extended example, and conclude with a discussion of new directions for using this approach.

Keywords

oppositions tensions contradictions dialectics paradox discourse grounded theory

The study of organizational tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes has clearly grown in exponential proportions in the past decade. Recent reviews demonstrate the popularity of these concepts in management science (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, & Smith, 2016), organizational studies, and interdisciplinary organizational research (Putnam, Fairhurst, & Banghart, 2016). The first review identified 133 articles in management journals that applied a paradox lens or used paradox as a tool for theorizing about organizations (Schad et al., 2016). The second one uncovered over 850 publications, on approximately 30 different organizational topics, in 140 different journals that incorporated the keywords tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes (Putnam et al., 2016). This work embraces a wide range of perspectives, including dynamic systems theory, institutional theory, structuration theory, postmodern studies, and critical management studies. It focuses on such concepts as tensions (in our view, stress-inducing oppositions), contradictions (interdependent oppositions that potentially negate each other), dialectics (negating oppositions with an ongoing dynamic interplay), and paradoxes (persistent oppositions that often result in an ironic or absurd outcome).¹ Hereafter, we use the term oppositions to refer to these concepts collectively, as they are all indicative of the clashing, push-pull dynamics of organizational life.

Researchers have examined such issues as the following: What are the inclusionary versus exclusionary tensions under which global virtual teams operate (Gibbs, 2009)? How are the contradictory forces of stability and change managed in cases of organizational change (Abdallah, Denis, & Langley, 2011; Ford & Ford, 1994)? What are the dialectical forces at play in the enactment of identity elasticity (Kreiner, Hollensbe, Sheep, Smith, & Kataria, 2015) or organizational transformation (Bartunek, 2006; Benson, 1977; Calori, 2002)? What are the paradoxes of leadership, and how are they managed (Beech, Burns, de Caestecker, MacIntosh, & MacLean, 2004; Collinson, 2014; Manz, Anand, Joshi, & Manz, 2008; Smith, 2014)? Whether it is globalization, new technologies, rapidly changing markets, or a host of other factors, organizations are facing incongruities between the old and new, as realities quickly shift and the boundaries of organizational life increasingly blur.

Despite the growth of this work, only a few essays focus directly on methodology in studying tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes. Andriopoulos and Gotsi (2017), in particular, argue that “paradox researchers are largely puzzled about how to open up space to unpack the socially constructed nature of paradoxes in their empirical settings” (p. 516). Too often, they argue, analysts are content with developing “laundry lists” of paradoxes detached from context, relationships to one another, and links to other aspects of organizational life (see also Putnam et al., 2016; Schad et al., 2016). They also raise concerns about the lack of attention to wider sociocultural influences on paradoxes, the role of multiple interpretations of paradoxical contexts, and the treatment of time.

To address such issues, scholars are drawing on multiple analytic tools in studying oppositions (Andriopoulos & Gotsi, 2017), and they combine methodologies, such as grounded theory (GT) with organizational discourse analysis (ODA; e.g., Fyke & Buzzanell, 2013; Ghadiri, Gond, & Bres, 2015; Holm & Fairhurst, 2018; Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2013; Mease, 2016; Meisenbach, 2008; Musson & Duberley, 2007; Scott & Trethewey, 2008; Sheep, Fairhurst, & Khazanchi, 2017). However, there is a lot of inconsistency across studies, misconceptions about ODA, and underutilized data in using these methods (e.g., Dameron & Torset, 2014; Fairhurst, Cooren, & Cahill, 2002; Jarzabkowski & Sillince, 2007; Jian, 2008; Palmer & Dunford, 2002), which means that scholars rarely build on each other’s work in both methodological and conceptual ways.

We see a vital need for an integrative methodology that entails features of both GT and ODA. Specifically, scholars can enhance theory development through combining ODA approaches that highlight micro-practices of organizing and power dynamics with GT techniques that summarize data and contribute to model building. Table 1 highlights the commonalities and differences between the two approaches and shows how an integrated methodology can embrace the best of each. In this way, theory development is advanced through employing both induction and deduction, broad and narrow foci in generating categories, and interpretations drawn from sociohistorical/cultural and situational meanings. Through developing an integrative methodology, the two approaches are stronger together than they are separately.

Table 1.

Comparisons between Grounded Theory and Organizational Discourse Analysis.

Grounded Theory	Organizational Discourse Analysis
Commonalities
1. Emergent and unfolding from coding and abstracting to categories	1. Emergent and unfolding from tracking patterns of discourse (e.g., sequencing moves, category work) and identifying repertoires of discourse
2. Relies on rich, thick details and descriptions (e.g., ethnography, interview transcriptions, archive)	2. Relies on rich, thick description (i.e., texts of interactions, documents, field notes)
3. Stays close to the data (i.e., “in-vivo” coding in early stages)	3. Stays close to the data (i.e., close attention to words, phrases, arguments, categories, sequences)
4. Iterates between data and analysis (links coding to developing categories)	4. Iterates between data and analysis (links patterns and repertoires in interactions to interpretive claims)
Differences
1. Inductive/abductive	1. Inductive/deductive/abductive
2. Generates categories and maps them to form concepts/constructs	2. Generates repertoires from language and behavior, as they perform in and through social interactions and texts
3. Language as representing phenomena or categories	3. Language as action or deciphering “what is the discourse doing?”
4. Power as a possible topic or area of research	4. Power as continually enacted in d/Discourse through language patterns and systems that exert control
5. Treats meanings as subjective or linked to what people mean	5. Treats meanings as co-constructed in social interactions or in sociohistorical/cultural Discourses

In addition, an integrative methodology helps researchers who are novices to the study of oppositions. These scholars often ask these questions: What kinds of phenomena qualify as organizational tensions? How do analysts identify tensions in the data? How does sensemaking around tensions translate into action? What kinds of data differentiate a tension from a contradiction? A dialectic? A paradox? These concepts are distinct phenomena, ones with different implications for theorizing about organizations and making recommendations for practice (Putnam et al., 2016; Schad et al., 2016). Yet, organizational actors, as well as researchers, often use the terms broadly and interchangeably (e.g., Lüscher & Lewis, 2008). The issue is not simply one of definitions; it entails methodologies because analysts use data to identify and make distinctions among concepts.² In effect, researchers rely on translations of definitions into methodological approaches to identify and name particular types of oppositions. Hence, developing an integrative methodology contributes to theory development through facilitating this translation.

Our goal in this article is to combine particular features of ODA and GT to form a new methodology for the study of oppositions—one that will enhance theory development and enrich data analysis about tensions through, first, revealing the different kinds of knowledge that each produces; second, addressing conceptually rich questions about oppositions (e.g., their sociohistorical/cultural origins, relationships among multiples); third, uncovering how oppositions change as ongoing situations evolve; fourth, distinguishing among tension, contradiction, dialectic, and paradox with greater precision; and finally, providing an exemplar of how to do this type of research. In the next section, we develop this integrated approach through showing how combined features of GT and ODA can address four key questions in the research on organizational oppositions.

An Integrative Grounded Theory and Organizational Discourse Approach

When studying organizational oppositions, scholars generally ask four types of questions: (a) What are the tensions, contradictions, dialectics, or paradoxes in specific organizational contexts? (b) How are they being managed? (c) What conditions are producing them? and (d) What effects do they have on organizing? The first two questions have been de rigueur in oppositions’ research, while the second two, which layer and build on the former, are not only gaining in popularity but also prompting a reconsideration of research methodologies.

More specifically, the primary foci on the first two questions, that is, the identification of oppositions and their management strategies, has typically relied on theory-building methodologies such as GT. It has become a first line of attack for studies that seek to establish a baseline of knowledge about oppositions. The heart of GT is induction, moving from the specific to the general in a series of steps of increasing abstraction.

For example, during the first phase of GT analysis, often referred to as open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), analysts focus on participants’ language, especially their words, phrases, and texts that imply strain, tension, conflict, or dilemma—the first signs of oppositions (Engeström & Sannino, 2011). Open coding gives way to axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) that transforms ordinary language into organizational concepts linked to oppositional structures in the data. Constant comparison and other GT techniques like line-by-line coding, analytic memo writing, theoretical sampling, and negative case analyses aid in identifying oppositional structures (Charmaz, 2006, 2011); they reveal how organizational actors respond to them and, often, with what consequences.

To illustrate, Gibbs (2009) collected data through interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and textual analyses to study global virtual teams. After using a strategy of first order, line-by-line GT coding to generate emergent topics, Gibbs employed a second order, constant comparison method that elicited three major tensions: autonomy-connectedness, inclusion-exclusion, and empowerment-disempowerment, each of which entailed families of subtensions. In doing so, she retheorized global team interaction through inductively generating a tension-centered model. With respect to tension management, Gibbs found that managers were able to transcend them in ways that lower level employees could not (see also Considine & Miller, 2010; Jian, 2007; Tracy, 2004; Zorn, Roper, & Richardson, 2014).

For the third question about conditions that produce tensions, some scholars focus on sociohistorical or cultural assumptions that lay the ground for oppositions. This move occurs because oppositions are often embedded in past practices that take the form of overarching discourses that actors use to navigate current circumstances. Grounding opposition studies in such discourses helps analysts identify and track oppositions over time, analyze cultural patterns and practices that exert force, and situate them in the dialectics of power and resistance (Norton, 2009) and the material and symbolic (Reed, 2005).

For instance, Palmer and Dunford (2002) studied the coexistence and clash of two discourses, competitive individualism and collaborative teamwork, in a multinational travel agency. In their data analysis, they employed GT to identify the contrasting themes of individualism and teamwork and relied on ODA to examine how discourses became oppositional through ways that agency members struggled between them. Then, they studied the conditions in which one discourse became more dominant than the other and how discourses disciplined them in ways in which they were only partially aware (see also Fyke & Buzzanell, 2013; Mease, 2016; Olufowote, 2008; Real & Putnam, 2005).

Analysts like Palmer and Dunford (2002), who study the sociohistorical/cultural role of language, typically use ODA to decipher patterns of words and phrases and how they produce texts in organizational life (Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, 2004; Grant, Putnam, & Hardy, 2011). Like GT, ODA focuses on the lived experiences of actors who engage with oppositions. In addition, discursive approaches often explore how systems of meaning are closely tied to issues of history, culture, and power (Bakhtin, 1981, 1984; Foucault, 1977, 1983). This approach is otherwise known as big “D” Discourse (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000; Cooren, 2015),³ in which analysts single out the time-bound origins, cultural assumptions, and core ideas of language and thought systems that clash to produce tensions, contradictions, dialectics, or paradoxes (e.g., how participatory decision making in a Democratic Discourse can clash with individual decision-making in Authoritarian Discourse).

Finally, the fourth question seeks to understand the organizing (or disorganizing) effects of oppositions, for example, during organizational change or innovation. Analysts often deploy either GT or ODA to focus on different definitions of process. As such, studies that use GT techniques typically treat process as a succession of movements of an identifiable entity (e.g., an organization) over time (Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & Van de Ven, 2013). By contrast, studies that use ODA approaches, particularly those that examine language in social interaction, or what is otherwise known as little “d” discourse, focus on granular processes of “becoming” through exploring unfolding scenes of action and how they build on and amplify each other (Hernes, 2014; Langley et al., 2013).

Focusing on the latter, Sheep et al. (2017) found that actors in an innovation context talked their paradoxical circumstances into being by constructing discursive “knots” of intertwined tensions. This finding countered the prevailing trend in the paradox literature to isolate tensions, examine them separately (e.g., Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Dameron & Torset, 2014; Huxham & Beech, 2003), and ignore many of the details of their interrelationships.

The focus on little “d” discourse in social interaction centers on its relationship to the unfolding scene of action, either in sequences of behavior or category use, which are ideal for examining the micro foundations of organizing (Boden, 1994). Here analysts investigate how opposite poles play out in a sequence of actions, how they emerge categorically in relation to one another (e.g., one overarching category or distinct ones), or how they conflict and exacerbate each other to create inertia or spawn creative energy (see also Canary, 2010; Iedema, Degeling, Braithwaite, & White, 2004; Kreiner et al., 2015).

In effect, researchers need a methodology that embraces induction for coding and abstracting from codes, ties directly to (sociohistorical/cultural) Discourses to track the change in entities, and dives deeply into language and behavior to understand the “becoming” of oppositional pulls. In what follows, we show how specific features of GT scaffold onto aspects of ODA.

Features of the Integrative Methodology

As indicated earlier, GT’s inductive methods make it possible to move from the specific to the general in a series of steps of increasing abstraction. As such, our integrative methodology uses line-by-line coding, stages of coding, and constant comparison from GT to spot clashing Discourses rather than to create “a laundry list” of oppositions. A Discourse makes itself known through its own unique repertoire of speech and behavior; in short, it is a tool bag of terms, arguments, stories, and actions (Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Potter, Wetherell, Gill, & Edwards, 1990; Wetherell, 1998). These tool bags are relatively easy to spot because they have a ring of familiarity to them, much the way we associate the game of tennis with its own unique vocabulary (“When I play tennis, my serve is weak, and I double fault constantly”).

In the integrative approach, researchers draw from GT to develop a list of terms, arguments, and actions. Then, once this list is developed, analysts use constant comparison to see which ones align with each other in rudimentary ways to form a Discursive repertoire. This alignment or patterning of similar types of terms, arguments, or actions ultimately becomes the clue for identifying oppositions and types of oppositions—precisely because two (or more) Discourses can be compared for specific points of contrast since they actually generate the oppositions.

By taking this intermediate step, the analyst tracks how oppositions emerge, splinter into subtensions, and fit together (e.g., clashing Authoritarian and Democratic Discourses generate such subtensions as top-down vs. participatory decision making, restricted vs. shared information, and closed vs. open communication). In doing so, the integrative method buttresses GT’s inductive methods with a sociohistorical/cultural approach that allows investigators to examine the push-pull of Discourses and their intricacies, as well as which ones emerge as more powerful based on the responses that they engender.

Finally, the integrative methodology examines how big “D” Discourse becomes instantiated in local interactions or in little “d” discourse (Potter & Wetherell, 1987). For example, an Authoritarian Discourse suggests a repertoire comprised of sequencing moves in social interaction (e.g., request-compliance) and category work (e.g., use of “boss” and “direct report” categories to reinforce hierarchy). In effect, the use of language (little “d” discourse) positions people in relation to one another and these “positionings” form patterned redundancies in social interaction that often get institutionalized into organizational rules, roles, and systems (Fairhurst & Uhl-Bien, 2012).

The integrative methodology thus draws on the strengths of both approaches. It employs GT techniques to discern oppositions and responses to them, but contextualizes and sources them with a sociohistorical/cultural analysis drawn from big “D” Discourses and operationalizes them in the performative dynamics of little “d” discourse. Big “D” Discourses form the linguistic and behavioral repertoires of organizational actors, and GT techniques enhance analysts’ abilities to spot these repertoires while little “d” discourse identifies their inner workings. Finally, little “d” discourse supplies a grammar for organizing based on how people use talk to position themselves and others vis-a-vis the push-pull of oppositions, while big “D” Discourse and GT techniques move the scope of analysis away from localized interactions. The complementarities of GT and ODA, however, raise a few concerns about epistemology that we now address.

Epistemological Considerations

Both GT and ODA have many forms, ones that differ epistemologically. Many ODA forms are broadly constructionist in orientation (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2014), while GT is largely a postpositivist methodology, even though it includes a variety of strands that range from postpositivism (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to symbolic interactionism and pragmatism (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to constructivism (Charmaz, 2006). Some scholars then treat GT as methodologically dynamic (Ralph, Birks, & Chapman, 2015), in that it can be adapted to multiple philosophical stances as long as analysts explicate their ontological and epistemological views.

Other scholars, such as Greckhamer and Koro-Ljungberg (2005), question whether researchers should transfer methods from one epistemological realm to another. They point out that constructivist GT (Charmaz, 2006; by implication, the “Gioia method”; see Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton, 2013) fails to capture the co-construction of meaning (i.e., how people co-create meaning as they make sense of the world to and with one another). They claim that constructivist GT continues to rely on postpositivist roots in that analysts “discover meanings” that reflect a preexisting reality (Glaser & Strauss, 1967); hence, they treat language as reflecting rather than constructing meaning. This critique of constructivist GT aptly fits the study of paradoxes and oppositions.

The integrative methodology that we propose addresses this concern by employing GT’s line-by-line coding and constant comparison as a first cut on the data and then turning to ODA to examine the co-constructed and generated meanings of oppositions. In the integrative methodology, then, GT does what it was initially designed to do vis-à-vis reflecting meaning (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), but it adds an explicit d/D orientation to focus specifically on matters of co-construction.

Although formulating an integrative methodology with positivist and constructionist assumptions (i.e., GT’s discovery of meaning versus ODA’s construction of meaning) may seem incongruent, current thinking in posthumanist or new materialist epistemology embraces both realist and constructivist ontologies (Barad, 2007; Stavro-Pearce, Barrett, & Cunningham, 1994). Likewise, mixed methods scholars often adopt a pragmatist philosophy that aligns epistemologically inconsistent pairings (Feilzer, 2010; Greene, 2008; Morgan, 2007; Myers, 2014). Like the posthumanists, they are antidualists (Rorty, 1991) who refuse to choose between positivist and constructivist worldviews. They advise researchers to align methods and procedures that work best for answering the research questions at hand (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Myers, 2014), and our integrative methodology follows this leaning.

To summarize, the study of organizational oppositions needs an integrative methodology to address four key questions: What are the tensions? How are they being managed? What conditions produce them? And what organizing effects develop from them? Because of its inductive approach, GT has become the methodology of choice for discerning oppositions and strategies for managing them. However, a GT analysis is not particularly well suited to explore the conditions that produce oppositions or the effects of micro organizing—but it scaffolds nicely with discourse repertoires to reveal how oppositions are sourced in the clash of big “D” Discourses and how they are operationalized in the organizing dynamics of little “d” discourse. In the next section, we show how researchers can use this integrative methodology.

How to Use the Integrative Methodology

To demonstrate how this analysis works, we present six steps for using the integrative methodology. These steps respond to the four key questions that scholars pose about oppositions, but we explore them differently. Specifically, Steps 1 and 2 focus on the first question, that is, what are the oppositions and how do they surface in actions and interactions? Step 3 breaks down the first question by determining the type of opposition evident in the data. Step 4 addresses the third question or the conditions that produce the oppositions through exploring past practices, the sociohistorical or cultural context, and role of dominance in the Discourse. Step 5 focuses on the fourth question, the effects that oppositions have on organizing, while Step 6 centers on the second question, how are the oppositions being managed. Detecting how actors respond to oppositions and how a situation evolves from these responses is the final step because it entails the culmination of previous steps and the full combination of GT and ODA techniques. Thus, the steps show how the integration of GT and ODA addresses the core questions in the study of oppositions through analyses that emerge from multiple readings of the data.

To demonstrate how to use the integrative methodology, we present a case of high reliability organizing (i.e., a high-risk organization that tries to avoid disasters to protect human health and safety). This case involves a police organization and takes as data the transcripts of the interaction and accompanying interviews with police supervisors (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2004; Fairhurst & Cooren, 2004). We selected this case because it demonstrates how to use oppositional analysis in the discourse itself and how interactions among a police rescue team and a victim draw on Discourses and develop points of clash in a very short conversational exchange. For demonstration purposes, we rely on a single transcript of the interaction; it is a matter of public record and is reprinted in the appendix of this article.

Regarding the background of this case, a rookie officer was patrolling one of Cincinnati’s worst crime districts on a February evening in 1998. An assailant motions for the police officer to pull her car over to the curb where he was standing. As she rolls her window down to talk to him, he shoots her four times with a .357 magnum, pushes her to the passenger side of the car, and takes control of the cruiser. A struggle ensues at which point she gets on the police radio and screams for help. It took the Cincinnati police approximately 4 minutes to find her (without the aid of GPS), during which time she manages to kill the assailant. The organizational features of this case center on the interdependent roles, actions and interactions of the actors, and nature of organizing that stems from their actions. During these 4 minutes, the injured officer and the rolling wave of supervisors deployed to find her used two primary Discourses that generated three oppositions, which we later define as one contradiction and two tensions.

Step 1: Use Line-by-Line Coding and Constant Comparison Techniques to Spot Contrasting Repertoires

As mentioned earlier, the easiest way to identify a Discourse is to focus on the terminology, arguments, stories, or actions that have a “ring of familiarity,” which the researcher has heard or seen in other settings (Fairhurst, 2011). Line-by-line coding, drawn from GT, is fine-grained enough to begin listing these features. In the line-by-line coding of the transcript, the researcher develops a list of terms aligned with participants’ roles (see the appendix). For example, line-by-line coding for the person injured (Officer 1212) reveals terms such as “help, shot, shooting, car, screaming, distress, affirmative, Central Parkway north of Liberty.” For the dispatcher, the list might include “location, needs assistance, negative, hurt, officer injured, possible shooting, all cars, approach with caution, units assisting, need a fire company, copy address, car 15 responding.” Finally, for the responding officers, coding might include, “we got location, check on safety, blocking off with four cars, correction, she’s at Liberty, need rescue units, have the perimeter secured, gonna need the recall list, got the address.”

Then, once a list is developed, the analyst uses constant comparison to see which codes align with each other in rudimentary ways. This alignment or thematic patterning of similar types of terms, arguments, or actions becomes the clue for identifying types of Discourses. For example, a systematic comparison of similarities and differences among codes might yield relationships among conditions and consequences of enacting roles, such as for a victim in crisis (“shot, help, hurt, please, I need help”) and police vernacular (“copy, affirmative, rescue unit, distress, perimeter secured, and correction”). The dispatcher plays an interesting role in using both victim and police codes, almost as a translator; for example, “location, officer needs assistance, are you hurt, where are you, copy.”

As we move to higher level codes and look for patterns, we search for contrasting repertoires, many of which have cultural histories that can be explicitly traced and analyzed for sociohistorical shifts. For example, the need for codes to keep radio traffic brief and standardized can be traced to the 1920s and 1930s, as police increasingly adopted radios for their communications (Roufa, 2017). Although the codes have evolved since that time, the basic need for efficient and standardized communications has not. We see this reflected in the officers’ Discourse, namely in (a) the use of police jargon and protocol (lines 16-17: “Officer needs assistance, District One, unknown location…. Possibly shots fired”), (b) the routinization of emotions (lines 1-3: “Help! I need assistance!…Where do you need it?”), (c) recognizing authority relations (lines 27-30: “Check on her safety…. 1212, are you hurt?”), and (d) repetition of messages over the police radio (lines 90-94: “1230…1230 copy”). The analyst observes that all four expressions resonate with a Police Discourse, particularly, the use of organizational protocol during an emergency, which aligns with the history of police radio communications.

However, not all Discourses have easily traceable cultural histories. In these instances, simply treating a Discourse as a cultural tool bag that “goes together” in a recognizable way is sufficient. This is the case with the victim’s repertoire, which is marked by (a) pleas for help (line 1: “Help! I need assistance!”), (b) extreme emotional displays (line 7: screaming), (c) expressions of suffering (line 1: “I’m shot in the (car)!”), and (d) frequent repetition of requests for help (line 4: “Help! I need help!”). Clustered together, the four types of phrases, actions, and repetition suggest a Victim Discourse.

Although a preponderance of interview data seems to dominate research on organizational oppositions, GT techniques like line-by-line coding and constant comparison can be applied to a variety of texts and can capture wide swaths of data to generate patterns that signal types of Discourses.

Step 2: Use Constant Comparison between the Repertoires to Generate Specific Points of Contrast that Clash

Since Discourses can complement each other as much as they can clash, the analyst next uses constant comparison to looks for points of contrast or opposition between the Discourses. Opposition stems from language that enacts strain, conflict, or tension—much like a rubber band stretching or the push-pull of a magnet. To instantiate opposition, actors often manipulate language and use emotion to convey the feelings of conflict or tension.

Moving to a conceptual level, the researcher employs constant comparison to look for evidence of the push-pull of opposites that surface in higher-level categories. For example, Victim Discourse includes references to self, “I need help, I need assistance, I’m shot in the car, I’ve been involved in a shooting,” which suggests an individual level. However, Police Discourse relies on organizationally based concepts, for example, “rescue units, perimeter secure, units to transmit, need a fire company” that indicate a collective reaction to the situation. In effect, Victim Discourse is oriented to the individual, with the injured officer engaged in a life or death struggle, while Police Discourse is collectively oriented around communication efficiency.

Focusing on emotional language and expression is another way that researchers can get at points of contrast that clash. To analyze emotion, we examine specific phrases and actions such as, “screaming,” repetition of “I need help!!,” “I’m shot in the (car)!” and terms for urgency—“please!” The counter to these expressions aims to reduce emotions with the use of terms, such as “officer needs assistance,” “a possible shooting offense,” “need a rescue unit” that typify the Police Discourse. These terms form a category of routinizing emotion through objectifying it, that is, “help” translates into “needing assistance,” and “I’m shot” becomes “a possible shooting offense.” As such, Victim Discourse freely expresses emotion while Police Discourse routinizes it.

We continue to use constant comparison to focus on the conditions and consequences of the scene, a technique used in selective coding in GT. In doing this, another set of contrasts emerge as pushing and pulling against each other in this incident. In particular, Police Discourse contains references that specify the location, correct it, repeat it, and identify the movement of police vehicles. The goal in this situation might be to bring order to a chaotic scene (although there certainly might be situations in which the police would tactically aim for disorder to confuse perpetrators when necessary; this scenario does not seem to be the case). By contrast, Victim Discourse signals chaos and disorder through shots fired and the physical struggle that ensues.

Finally, the analyst could focus on other language uses that might reveal additional types of oppositions; for example, male-female, if gender issues surface in the talk; black/brown-white, if racial issues surface; control-resistance, if authority issues develop; open-closed, if information sharing becomes problematic; or stable-change, if a new technology is introduced. These categories could also signal additional Discourses to include in the analysis.

Step 3: Determine the Type of Oppositions Involved

For Step 3, we recommend that researchers become familiar with the literature on organizational oppositions, especially essays that make distinctions among concepts (Chen, 2008; Putnam et al., 2016; Quinn & Cameron, 1988; Schad et al., 2016; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Even though a number of typologies exist, determining the type of opposition is important since it ties to options for managing oppositions. As we noted in the introduction, the definitional confusion surrounding the terms tension, contradiction, dialectic, and paradox in the organizational literature poses a problem in investigating the effects of oppositions on organizing. This determination of type of opposition needs to be grounded in theoretical understanding of the concepts, rooted in reviews of the literature, and be as consistent as possible across the breadth of the field (Gaim & Wåhlin, 2016). To illustrate how to decipher the type of opposition, we draw from the definitions provided at the beginning of this essay.

Once analysts select conceptual definitions, they need to form operational definitions to identify and make distinctions among concepts in the data. To do this, researchers should translate definitions into categories of language or their interrelationships, such as whether the presence of one pole implies its direct opposite. For example, order-disorder invokes language categories that are mutually exclusive (i.e., order is the opposite of disorder and one can cancel out the other) to form a contradiction. A contradiction entails opposites that are interdependent but mutually exclusive. That is, the oppositional poles depend on each other, but can potentially negate one another. As an illustration, the more “shots fired,” the more disorder prevails, the less the police have control of the situation, and the more likely that disorder will continue.

However, tensions, which refer to simple stress and push-pull between the poles, entail language categories that are logically interdependent, but do not necessarily negate each other. Individual-collective fits this description. The goals of the injured officer and the police rescue team are similar and depend on one another, but the achievement of one pole does not preclude the other (i.e., the individual can remain a victim or assume the mantle of an officer; the police supervisors will do their job either way). Moreover, the analyst might note that since the individual-collective opposition is not a contradiction, it does not qualify as a dialectical tension or a paradox. This is because contradictory relationships are pivotal for defining these terms.

The researcher might also conclude that expressed versus routinized emotion does not qualify as a contradiction and remains a tension for the same reasons. The poles involve language categories that are interdependent (i.e., emotional pleas signal “this is an emergency,” and serve as the grounding for routinizing responses of emergency personnel), but the two do not negate each other. An emotional expression (line 1: “Help!…”) and the routinization of emotion (line 3: “Where do you need it?”) can complement rather than countermand each other.

To decipher a dialectic, which refers to contradictions that exist in an ongoing dynamic interplay, the analyst could focus on the ways that opposites iteratively push and pull on each other, which does not occur in this example. However, let us imagine a consistent problem in emergency rescues in which the police officers were mostly male, and the dispatchers, who are civilians, were mostly female. A dialectic of control-resistance might surface if the female dispatchers thought the officers were overly controlling in ways that inhibited their abilities to properly coordinate and relay necessary communication—and if the officers felt that the dispatchers were not deferring to their authority at the scene. Methodologically, analysts could look for cycles of masculine control and female dispatchers’ resistance, such as narratives of retaliatory gaming or resistance narratives that escalate over time.

Paradox refers to contradictions that exist simultaneously, persist over time, reflect back on each other, and develop into seemingly irrational or absurd situations that ironically make sense. To continue with our previous example, imagine a police organization whose managers attempted to deal with the above problem between female dispatchers and male supervisors simply by replacing them with new female dispatchers and new male supervisors. The paradox, “the more things change, the more they remain the same,” would be an apt description because management had not addressed the underlying causes—in many instances, the gendered structuring of the organization and the use of hyper-masculine Discourses that constrained women’s roles. To discern such paradoxes, analysts should look for ironic framings in narrative accounts, but also rely on multiple data collection methods, including on-site observations in which the analyst discerns unintended consequences or other unlikely outcomes that signal a paradoxical situation.

Step 4: Explore the Push-Pull of the Oppositions. Which One Appears More Dominant and How?

Step 4 examines how Discourses exert power in a situation and how actors are disciplined to conform to them (Bakhtin, 1981, 1984; Foucault, 1977, 1983). In this step, the analyst focuses on the cultural background, training, and sociohistorical context that underlie power or the agency of actors’ behaviors. For example, the analyst might examine how the use of Police Discourse reveals the practice of adhering to or breaking protocol. The power effects of Police Discourse would be reduced if any officers broke protocol, including the injured officer, whose use of Victim Discourse is understandable given that she has been shot four times. The analyst then searches for evidence of the push-pull of power in the Police Discourse, as it clashes with Victim Discourse.

In particular, at line 24 (see the appendix), we observe that the injured officer radically shifts Discourses from “Victim” to “Police” by uttering the word “distress.” Distress in this sense is not a feeling state, but a term from the police repertoire (i.e., Discourse) that signals an emergency. She then provides her location, but elides the emotion of her previous screams for help (lines 24-25), and continues using police jargon when asked again if she’s hurt, by responding, “That’s affirmative” (line 32).

By invoking the Police repertoire, the officer begins a sustained shift from an individual orientation to a collective one, from freely expressing emotion to routinizing emotion, and breaking from disorder to enact order. Her disciplined training—a product of culture and history with regard to policing—wins out over her victimhood (Foucault, 1977, 1983).

Step 5: Examine How the Poles of the Oppositions Manifest Themselves in Sequencing Moves or Category Work

In this step, the researcher explores the organizing dynamics in little “d” discourse by examining specific examples of language-in-use in the data. How do analysts decide to attend to particular types of language? Typically, a researcher has an ill-defined feeling that “something interesting is going on here.” Specific questions that guide this stage include the following: How is the discourse in a particular data set organized? What is the discourse in the data set doing (Potter & Wetherell, 1987, p. 49)?

For this step, the analyst interrogates the methods and procedures of talk.⁴ Even though researchers could draw on a number of ODA approaches and linguistic forms (Cooren, 2015), two of the most relevant ones for studying oppositions and their management strategies include the following:
Sequencing moves which focuses on issues of order and temporal form. Sequencing refers to interactions that develop through an action followed by a reaction, for example, taking turns in talk or interrupting a previous speaker. These moves enact oppositions through balancing, prioritizing, or cycling between poles. Sequencing moves position people with respect to one another and thus have implications for organizing (Boden, 1994). For example, researchers could examine point-counterpoint responses in conversational turn taking as a competitive relationship between people who advocate opposing views. Whenever actors frame opposing poles as balanced (“On the one hand…On the other hand…”), prioritized (“This before that,” “This after that”), or in an ongoing struggle for dominance (“This versus that, this over that, this instead of that…”), they also position the individuals or groups who identify with one pole over the other vis-à-vis their respective interests and how they equate, dominate, or compete with one another.

Category work refers to how actors use language to classify actions, people, situations, or experiences. For example, an analyst might create a code, “expressed disagreement,” in line-by-line GT open coding, but then observe how this action creates a tension by splitting this code into two categories that represent opposing poles. Category work thus refers to ways that actors use categories to classify and differentiate the world in making their actions accountable to others (Jayyusi, 1984; Sacks, 1992). More than just invoking categories, actors also manipulate and form categories, as well as stretch, break, or reconfigure them to make them work to their advantage as they communicate.

To illustrate the analyses of sequencing moves and category work, we focus on two moments of interaction in organizing behavior that enact opposition and responses to opposition in the police case. First, we observe that the injured officer not only shifts Discourses from “Victim” to “Police” in line 24 by uttering the word “distress,” but she also undertakes category work with the use of this word. To wit, she signals the highest level of a police emergency and that she has now resumed the mantle of police officer, one who is coordinating (vis-à-vis precise locations, routinized emotions, and added redundancy) with the officers who are mobilizing around her. Thus, through focusing on category work linked to the term “distress,” we decipher that the injured officer is using language to effectively join the search for her own bullet-ridden body.

The analyst could also focus on sequencing moves, for example, at line 34 when Officer 1080 says, “1080, I’ll be there in five seconds. Blockin’ it off with four cars.” This multifunctional and specifically timed use of language, according to interviews with senior police leaders, demonstrates command presence because Officer 1080 steps into the (sequential) stream of action and signals to the dispatcher, supervisors, others officers and, perhaps most importantly, the injured officer that he is on the scene, taking control, and awaiting medical help that is seconds away.

These two examples move beyond Step 1 and the use of GT coding to spot repertoires in Police Discourse. Focusing on sequencing moves and category work in little “d” discourse illustrates the “muscularity” of language-in-use, that is, the strength of language to organize action and constitute the organization as action (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000; Boden, 1994; Cooren, 2015). After-action reports and training also focus on the organizing potential for this scenario and future ones. To wit, “in category” framing leads to one kind of behavior, “out of category” framing results in another, just like different sequences (re)order which behaviors comes first, next, and so on. A focus on sequences in the discourse also adds the option of examining process as “becoming” or tracking unfolding changes over time. This view differs from examining change in a recognizable entity, in this case, the police organization (e.g., see Kreiner et al., 2015).

Step 6: Use the Combined Techniques of Line-by-Line Coding, Constant Comparison, and discourse/Discourse to Examine Strategies for Managing Oppositions

In the literature on oppositions, management strategies refer broadly to different ways of reacting to, dealing with, or responding to organizational oppositions—and not necessarily to resolving them.⁵ To make choices about how actors manage oppositions, scholars need to draw from the previous five steps, especially integrating knowledge from contrasting repertoires, points of clash, types of oppositions, power issues, and organizing dynamics. Analysts need to take into account the nature of the contrasting repertoires and power issues drawn from the previous steps as well as consider the types of oppositions in a situation. Strategies for responding to tensions, in which the opposites are compatible, might differ from ones in which the poles can negate each other (contradictions and paradoxes). The literature on ways to handle contradictions and paradoxes often recommend “both-and,” instead of “either-or,” strategies for managing the two poles, for example, developing paradoxical thinking, balancing the opposites, or vacillating between poles (Lewis, 2000; Smith & Lewis, 2011). What is missing in this work, however, is that actors manage tensions in their interactions as well as through their behaviors. Moreover, in naturally occurring social interactions, actors employ multiple management strategies, often in sequence, and often concomitant with expressing an opposition that, in turn, signals their management strategies (cf. Sheep et al., 2017; Tracy, 2004).

This link between concurrently expressing oppositions and signaling efforts to manage them has two implications for the analyst. First, the researcher can examine line-by-line coding and constant comparison in the Discourses that simultaneously yield oppositions and their management strategies. As mentioned, management strategies generally fall into two categories, “either-or” and “both-and” approaches; however, they may assume a myriad of forms, including actions taken or not taken and language used or not used (e.g., Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Jarzabkowski, Lê, & Van de Ven, 2013; Poole & Van de Ven, 1989; Putnam et al., 2016; Seo, Putnam, & Bartunek, 2004). Analysts need to be familiar with existing typologies of management strategies because they serve as sensitizing devices during line-by-line coding and constant comparison in searching for oppositional Discourses, but they also need to consider the evolving situation. In effect, Step 6 entails a deeper analysis than simply selecting and labeling types of strategies.

Second, analysts can focus on ways that actors problematize oppositions based on the conditions that underlie them, for example, centering on one or more Discourses as sources of management strategies (Steps 1 and 2). In Authoritarian Discourses, for example, actors frame problems as crises to justify using a command style response (Grint, 2005). Both “Discourse” as a source of management strategies (e.g., Authoritarianism as a sociohistorical/cultural system of thought that privileges either-or, “my way” solutions; Step 4) and sequentialized moves like problem setting (i.e., the way actors order alternatives for addressing problems; Step 5) might be explored.

To return to the police rescue example, we adopt the Seo et al. (2004) typology to illustrate how analysts can identify management strategies. We examined both little “d” discourse and the Discourse of the actors, especially as the oppositions surfaced, and the situation evolved to identify types of management strategies. For example, the dispatcher and fellow officers’ use of Police Discourse throughout the rescue signals an either-or strategy known as selection in which one pole is more dominant than the other, typically through the actors’ expressed preferences (Seo et al., 2004). Use of abbreviated language (e.g., “copy,” “correction,” “assist”) in little “d” discourse, in conjunction with big “D” knowledge of training protocols in routinizing emergencies, signals selection of one pole.

By contrast, analysis of the little “d” discourse of the injured officer reveals that she manifests another either-or strategy called separation, which involves source splitting by beginning with one pole, separating the two, and then alternating to the dominant opposite—depending on the people or units involved, topics, and temporality (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Poole & Van de Ven, 1989; Seo et al., 2004). The analyst could see that during the four-minute rescue, the injured police officer adopts a Victim Discourse during the attack (e.g., pleas for help, screaming), but then shifts to Police Discourse after the initial pleas for help (e.g., “affirmative,” “distress”).

The researcher could also decipher management strategies through examining the “up-tempo” early period when the crisis was at its peak with the later “down-tempo” interaction after resolution was imminent. This analysis reveals a both-and strategy known as integration or balance, which involves combining both poles through compromise and a forced merger between them (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996; Seo et al., 2004). Here, analysts focus on markers that indicate how actors bridge or attempt to balance competing goals. We see this at the height of the crisis when the collectivistic, routinized emotion, and orderly nature of Police Discourse gives way momentarily (and only partially during this segment) to expressions of individualism (e.g., “Let me talk!”), freely expressed emotion (e.g., “I need a rescue unit! I need a rescue unit!”), and disorder (e.g., Disp: “1240 are you on the scene?” 1080: “Come on you guys=” 1240: “Assist! Assist! All emergency traffic. Let me talk.”). The analyst then examines the integration strategy that emerges in amalgamating both Police and Victim Discourse that are copresent during this phase of the interaction.

Deciphering how actors manage and respond to oppositions feeds directly into the ongoing system of organizing, as mentioned in Steps 4 and 5. Ways of managing tensions interface with power issues through the use of responses that close off (e.g., selection, denial) or open up alternatives for organizing (e.g., balancing competing goals, transcending or reframing them). Using the integrative methodology allows analysts to discern how the clash of Discourses generates oppositions and responses to them in the organizing dynamics of little “d” discourse.

Drawing Implications from the Data

Typically, researchers model the interrelationships between opposites through mapping management strategies, the immediate consequences of those strategies (e.g., vicious or virtuous cycles), long-term outcomes (e.g., innovation, sustainability), and other relevant factors (e.g., macro, meso, or micro levels at which oppositions operate; e.g., Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Ospina & Saz-Carranza, 2010; Saz-Carranza & Ospina, 2011; Slawinski & Bansal, 2015; Smets, Jarzabkowski, Burke, & Spee, 2015; Smith, 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2011; Wareham, Fox, & Giner, 2014). The integrative methodology makes it possible to expand this list to include the operation of one or more Discourses, the nature of their power effects, and the micro organizing potential that stems from sequencing moves and category work. As indicated previously, this procedure allows the analyst to adopt two views of process, that is, process as “becoming” and changes in the organization as an entity.

However, there are two other distinct advantages to this methodology for oppositional analysis. First, the integrative methodology makes it possible to examine how oppositions become interwoven with each other. In approaches that rely on GT or ODA alone, scholars often recognize that tensions co-occur (e.g., Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Dameron & Torset, 2014; Huxham & Beech, 2003; Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Tracy, 2004), but their analyses typically do not extend to studying how organizational members actually perceive or articulate their co-occurrence (Sheep et al., 2017). The integrative methodology adds value by making another avenue available. It can help the researcher focus on how actors problematize oppositions as Gordian knots, that is, the ways that tensions become interwoven within each other, like a bowl of spaghetti, in which addressing one set of oppositions tightens the knot among the others (Sheep et al., 2017).

In the police example, we might envision organizational changes in the future (e.g., new technology protocols) and how the tension of stability and change becomes intertwined with individual-collective, expressed-routinized emotion, and disorder-order. For instance, police members might experience the knotting of tensions through protocol changes (stability-change) that create breakdowns in unit cohesion (order-disorder) because individual actions are no longer in sync together (individual-collective), which might lead to angry eruptions (expressed-routinized emotion) and thus even more confusion (order-disorder). As one set of oppositions (stability-change) exacerbates and leads to others, the knotting continues and can engulf the organization. The question then becomes how do organizational actors maneuver within these knotted conditions?

Second, insights from the integrative methodology are ripe for modeling because they highlight the variability in one’s data and the inevitability of disorder and disequilibrium in the process of organizing. Conventional research on paradoxes aims to help organizational members reach a dynamic equilibrium or a state of order in which a system inevitably gravitates toward balance (e.g., Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Schad et al., 2016; Smith, 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Other scholars, however, contend that organizing entails the continual or simultaneous interplay of order and disorder, equilibrium and disequilibrium without resolving tensions or privileging balance (e.g., Burrell, 1997; Cooper, 1986; Fairhurst & Sheep, in press; Sheep et al., 2017). To analyze this process entails capturing the push-pull between order and disorder.

To decipher this interplay, analysts need to focus on the variability in the data. Variability refers to multiple plausible meanings as actors provide different readings of their situation and introduce alternative courses of action. Disorder stems from the possibility of multiple interpretations and different ways to contextualize any given situation, while order entails fixing meanings and agreeing on a particular course of action (Kuhn, 2012; Vásquez, Schoeneborn, & Sergi, 2016).

The integrative methodology allows the analyst to explore how much variability exists in actors’ interpretations of their circumstances. Steps 1 and 2 on detecting contrasting repertoires and points of clash provide clues as to the variety of meanings linked to oppositions, whereas Step 5 allows the analyst to dig deeply into such questions as: Do the actors speak of multiple oppositions and strategies for managing them? How do they “go together”? Are there differences in how actors see the relationship among oppositions? Do recognizable divisions stand out, and do they differ in terms of how they justify (in)action? If so, what multiple meanings prevail and how do they enact the interplay between order and disorder?

Drawing from our police scenario, Police Discourse (e.g., police protocols in Step 1) simultaneously promotes order through standardization, but also disorder through introducing potentially new meanings in nonroutine situations, for example, when an injured person is both a victim and a police officer. As Police and Victim Discourses become intertwined through oppositions (e.g., individual vs. collective; expressed vs. routinized emotions in Step 2), they interact with shots fired and physical struggles to open up multiple meanings of the scenario (disorder and chaos). Actions then interplay with Police Discourse aimed at fixing meanings (e.g., repeating interpretations, specifying locations, and correcting messages) to produce a push-pull between disorder and order. In this case, the degree of initial variability and the interplay between disorder and order move toward equilibrium; however, if the police changed protocols or enacted new messaging systems (e.g., incorporating social media), variability might move toward disequilibrium, especially when multiple oppositions become knotted.

In short, the integrative methodology is not just capable of helping analysts identify oppositions and strategies for managing them, but also helps them decipher knots, the interplay between order and disorder, and the role of (dis)equilibrium in organizing. All provide alternatives for modeling the role of oppositions in organizing.

Discussion

Researchers interested in studying organizational oppositions are often puzzled about how to locate and analyze tensions in the data. This essay sets forth an integrative methodology that aligns the best features of GT and ODA to examine organizational tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes. Our integrative methodology incorporates (a) GT techniques, such as line-by-line coding, constant comparison, and abstracting, to develop opposing repertoires that coalesce into Discourses of speech and behavior; (b) big “D” Discourse analysis to understand the sociohistorical/cultural forces behind oppositions and their subtensions; and (c) little “d” discourse analysis to examine the organizing dynamics instantiated by oppositions that (re)produce the organization. This integrative methodology draws on the strengths of both GT and ODA to enhance theory development through relying on induction and deduction, generating narrow and broad-based categories, and forming interpretations from situational and the sociohistorical/cultural context. It also helps researchers dig deeper into the data to address conceptually rich questions.

In this way, the integrative methodology addresses the four key questions that oppositional researchers raise (a) identifying the oppositions, (b) determining how they are being managed, (c) deciphering the conditions that produce them, and (d) uncovering their effects on organizing. Steps 1 and 2 of the methodology focus on identifying oppositions through the use terminology, arguments, stories, and actions in line by line coding and constant comparison to spot contrasting repertoires via Discourses. Through aligning similarities and differences in these repertoires, the analyst can then determine the points of contrast that cluster into higher-level categories of oppositions. Closely related to the types of oppositions in the data, Step 3 helps the analyst bridge data with theory and use categories of language to differentiate types of opposition, particularly tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes. Step 4 employs big “D” Discourse to ascertain the conditions that produce the oppositions, namely, repertoires that stem from training, past practices, cultural background, and sociohistorical context, ones often linked to power and agency. In Step 5 the researcher centers on the fourth question or the effects of oppositions on organizing through deciphering how patterns of little “d” discourse (e.g., sequencing moves and category work) classify experiences and position people in relation to each other. Step 6 responds to the second question of how oppositions are managed. It incorporates the combined techniques of GT and d/D to track how actors respond to oppositions through ongoing social interactions and evolving situations that change over time.

The integrative methodology also allows analysts to model oppositional phenomena through focusing on multiple, interrelated opposites (e.g., knots) that link tensions to the interplay of order and disorder in organizing and track tension management in the organizational system (i.e., fostering equilibrium or disequilibrium). This tracking or modeling of oppositions counters the tendency within the paradox literature to focus primarily on balance or reaching equilibrium in managing oppositions (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Smith, 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2011).

Importantly, not all data sets are suitable for the integrative methodology. Combining GT with ODA works best with “thick description” that qualitative research often supplies. If a researcher has only interview data with simple, truncated answers to questions, using GT by itself is sufficient for developing content themes. To obtain thick descriptions, interviewers must give participants opportunities to expand on their answers through stories or explanations that provide detailed information about the context. Multiple methods with different kinds of data work particularly well for the integrative methodology because analysts can use GT techniques to summarize data and rely on ODA approaches to “zoom in” on specific details.

Can scholars apply the integrative methodology to organizational phenomena other than oppositions? We see the integrative methodology as an alternative for analyzing any “thick description” data that employs GT techniques. For example, Holm and Fairhurst (2018) used this methodology to investigate a shared leadership intervention in a Danish municipality. The study produced data from 48 tape-recorded meetings over 6 months as well as interviews with members of the senior leadership team. They used GT techniques to identify claims, grants, and resistances to authority displays and relied on ODA to examine specifically timed discursive moves to unpack the interdependence between shared and hierarchical leadership. Thus, the researchers employed the integrative methodology to both summarize and pinpoint the discursivity of shared leadership practices within a hierarchical system.

Another potential opportunity for using this method lies in researching organizational materiality (Leonardi, Nardi, & Kallinikos, 2012). Scholars have debated whether material aspects of organizations, such as bodies, sites, and objects, exist as physical facts or are products of socially constructed experiences. New materialists, such as Kuhn, Ashcraft, and Cooren (2017), however, argue against treating the two as dichotomies and contend that extant methodologies can and should be adapted to focus on relationships between the material and the symbolic. New materialists treat practice as the unit of analysis and examine how human and nonhuman agents form networks with each other and develop into indivisible hybrids. The integrative methodology is ripe for this type of work because of GT’s creative synthesizing abilities and ODA’s attention to cultural practices in d/Discourse. The flexibility that this methodology affords also allows for tracking how material objects and d/Discourses morph with one another through practices and routines in which organizational actors engage. Organizational research that embraces the new materialism needs an arsenal of tools at the investigator’s disposal, and the integrative methodology should be one of them.

Overall, the integrative methodology draws on the strengths of both GT and ODA to enhance theory development and modeling in the study of oppositions. The methodology entails six steps that focus on the four core questions that oppositional researchers raise. In addition, it can be used to examine other organizational phenomena, like leadership or materiality, ones that rely on thick description and GT techniques in analyzing data.

Conclusion

This article sets forth an integrative methodology for studying tensions, contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes. As an analytical approach, it aligns GT techniques with the d/Discourse orientation of ODA to aid in identifying and determining various types of organizational oppositions, responses to them, sociohistorical/cultural power effects, and implications for organizing. As the research on organizational oppositions continues to grow (Putnam et al., 2016; Schad et al., 2016), scholars need fine-tuned methodologies to examine sophisticated questions, build knowledge, and link organizational theory to these important concepts.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Zhuo Ban, Kevin Barge, Suzanne Gagnon, Guowei Jian, Glen Kreiner, and especially Scott Banghart and Mathew Sheep for reading or helping with earlier versions of this article. We wish to acknowledge the members of the paradox subtheme at the 2017 EGOS Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark; Elaine Hollensbe’s Qualitative Methods classes in the Management Department of the University of Cincinnati; and participants in the Workshop on Integrating Grounded Theory and Organizational Discourse Analysis in the School of Business at Aalto University, Finland. Finally, we are deeply indebted to our associate editor, Thomas Greckhamer, and three external reviewers for their many helpful comments and suggestions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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