In every sphere,bigger is no longer better: The emergence logic of the Second Industrial Revolution

It is a truism to say that the economy has become global, i.e., that business interests of modern societies have become so interconnected and interdependent that it has become impossible to understand them in conventional economic terms. It is far less of a truism to specify more precisely the nature of this global interconnectedness. This article shows that the emerging ‘new rules’ of the global economy can only be understood in terms of a broader framework that takes paradox as its central ingredient. This paper argues that the management of all phenomena that are global is equivalent to the management of paradox. Paradox is thus seen to be more deeply and more central at the heart of management than has been specified previously.