Li2021 James March and Paradox

Management and Organization Review page 1 of 22
doi: 10.1017/mor.2020.74
Neither-And Thinking: Understanding James

March’s Unique Solution to Paradox
Xin Li (李鑫)
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and Nanjing University, China
ABSTRACT In this article, I propose a typology of thinking pattern that helps us understand
the variants of the so-called ‘both/and thinking’ shared by many organizational paradox
scholars in the West and China. The variants are distinguished by the ‘primary thinking-
secondary thinking’ structure between the combined elementary thinking. One of the
variants, i.e., Neither-And thinking, is associated with James March’s discussion of logic of
consequences and logic of appropriateness. An examination of March’s writings reveals an
additional ‘principle-practice’ structure underlining March’s unique solution to paradox.
Incorporating the ‘principle-practice’ structure into the proposed typology in turn helps us
better understand the other variants of ‘both/and thinking’ such as ambidexterity,
contingency, and Zhong-Yong. The typology shows March’s Neither-And solution is unique
because it embraces a primary neither/nor thinking while all the other variants do not. To
demonstrate the value of March’s unique solution, I apply Neither-And thinking characterized
by the ‘principle-practice’ relationship to paradoxes outside organization studies, e.g., in
Deconstruction, Buddhism, and quantum physics. The wide application of Neither-And
thinking implies that James March’s unique solution to organizational paradox may have
provided a key to understanding paradox in general.
KEYWORDS both/and, either/or, neither/nor, paradox, thinking, typology
ACCEPTED BY Senior Editor Mooweon Rhee
INTRODUCTION
James March’s (1991) analysis of the contradiction between exploration and
exploitation in organizational learning has motivated much research on organiza-
tional ambidexterity (Birkinshaw & Gupta, 2013; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2013).
However, the citation of March’s (1991) article is often used merely as a motivation
for further addressing the issue of organizational paradox (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, &
Smith, 2016), which generates an impression that March has only identified the
problem of organizational paradox but not provided a solution to it. An indication
of this impression is that the name of James March disappears altogether except in
Corresponding author: Xin Li ([email protected])
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The International Association for
Chinese Management Research
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2 X. Li
one chapter that interprets March’s overall scholarship from a paradox perspective
in the nearly 600-page Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox (Smith, Lewis,
Jarzabkowski, & Langley, 2017).
However, as Badham (2017: 277) points out, March’s scholarship exhibits
‘elegant appreciation of three key paradoxes of modernity – paradoxes of ration-
ality, performance, and meaning’. While Badham (2017: 277) has done an excel-
lent job by ‘highlighting and elaborating on the significance of the work of James
March’, his analysis falls short of explicating March’s unique solution to organiza-
tional paradox that is distinctly different from the rest of the organizational
paradox literature.
Both Western mainstream thinking (Smith & Lewis, 2011) and the Chinese
‘yin-yang balancing’ perspective (P. P. Li, 2016) on paradox stress the importance
of ‘both/and thinking’, i.e., embracing and engaging both oppositional demands
instead of choosing either of them (Miron-Spektor, Ingram, Keller, Smith, &
Lewis, 2018). In contrast, March’s thinking on organizational paradox is neither
‘either/or’ nor ‘both/and’, but something similar to yet not the same as
‘neither/nor’. This implies that the mainstream might have not yet understood
the uniqueness and significance of March’s insight on organizational paradox.
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that, on the one hand, implicit in
March’s writings are different types of solutions to organizational paradox, and
on the other, March has implicitly offered a unique solution to organizational
paradox that is of significant value to the research not only on organizational
paradox but also on paradox in general.
To accurately understand March’s unique thinking on organizational
paradox, I argue that a rigorous typological scheme is needed to categorize
diverse patterns of thinking that often cannot be neatly characterized by the
three simple terms: ‘either/or’, ‘both/and’, and ‘neither/nor’. In this article,
I first propose such a typology that identifies nine different thinking patterns by
combining the three simple terms on a two-dimensional matrix. Such a typology
enables us to see the variants of ‘both/and thinking’. One of the variants, i.e.,
Neither-And thinking that is a combination of ‘neither/nor’ as the primary think-
ing and ‘both/and’ as the secondary thinking, in my view, best matches James
March’s unique solution to organizational paradox. Examining March’s discussion
of logic of consequences and logic of appropriateness helps me further develop the
typology, resulting in the refinement of the ‘primary thinking-secondary thinking’
structure into the ‘primary thinking (in principle)-secondary thinking (in practice)’
structure. The typology shows March’s Neither-And solution is unique because it
embraces a primary ‘neither/nor’ thinking while all the other variants do not. To
demonstrate the value of March’s unique solution to organizational paradox, I
then apply Neither-And thinking characterized by the ‘principle-practice’ relation-
ship to paradoxes outside organization studies, e.g., the construction-destruction
paradox of Deconstruction, the illusion-realism paradox of Buddhism, and the
wave-particle paradox of quantum physics. The wide application of Neither-
James March’s Neither‐And Solution to Paradox 3
And thinking implies that James March’s unique solution to organizational
paradox may have provided a key to understanding paradox in general.
A TYPOLOGY OF THINKING PATTERN

In a widely cited article, Smith and Lewis (2011) point out that organizational
research has gone through three phases of development with regard to responses
to tensions between opposing demands. In the first phase, early researchers
often adopted ‘either/or’ thinking, namely, they often responded to tensions by
seeking a one-size-fits-all answer. In the second phase, many organizational
researchers switched to a contingency approach, namely, they often considered
the conditions under which each of the opposites was suitable. Instead of ‘either
A or B’ thinking, contingency theory-minded researchers analyze ‘under what con-
ditions A or B’. In the third phase, organizational researchers are increasingly
adopting a paradox lens that focuses on ‘how to engage A and B simultaneously’.
Smith and Lewis (2011: 382) associate a paradox lens with a ‘both/and focus’.
The notion of ‘both/and thinking’ is shared by many organizational paradox
researchers in the West and China. Yet, scholars have operationalized it in very
different ways. For example, to organizational ambidexterity scholars, ‘to be ambi-
dextrous’ means ‘to be able to do both at the same time’ (Tushman & O’Reilly,
1996: 11); yet, the ambidexterity approaches to ‘both/and’ are typically sequential
or structural separation solutions, i.e., engaging either of the opposing demands in
a particular time or space. Such separation-based ambidexterity thinking does not
correspond to the common understanding of ‘both/and’. Consequently, P. P. Li
(2014: 329) argues, ‘the extant views of ambidexterity fail to account for the ori-
ginal insights’ of James March’s analysis of the exploration-exploitation paradox.
Alternatively, P. P. Li (2016) proposes a ‘yin-yang balancing’ approach to organ-
izational paradox. X. Li (2018) argues that the ‘yin-yang balancing’ approach is a
ratio-based combination interpretation of the Chinese notion of Zhong-Yong (中
庸) that is often associated with ‘both/and thinking’. X. Li (2019) further points
out, Zhong-Yong seeks a position in between two opposite poles, as such both
the ‘yin-yang balancing’ and Zhong-Yong approaches are not ‘both/and’ in its
pure form, and therefore they are not necessarily superior to ambidexterity as
an approach to paradox management.
Another example concerns the contingency approach. While Smith and
Lewis (2011) and Lewis and Smith (2014) initially downplayed the value of the con-
tingency theory in addressing tension, recently they have acknowledged the neces-
sity of the contingency approach. In their own words, ‘[organizational paradox
research] may require both paradox theory and contingency theory approaches.
While the paradox lens clarifies tensions and their ongoing management, contin-
gency theory may contribute insights into shifts between the poles or between dif-
ferent strategies, clarifying conditions that might drive such moves’ (Schad et al.,
2016: 47). Even though the contingency theory seems to be accepted as a legitimate
4 X. Li
approach to organizational paradox, it is obvious that its ‘if-then’ (Lewis & Smith,
2014: 128) or ‘if/then’ (Schad et al., 2016: 48) thinking is very different from the
so-called ‘both/and’ thinking.
In addition to ambidexterity, contingency, and Zhong-Yong approaches, the
organizational paradox literature has identified several other solutions to organiza-
tional paradox. Several taxonomies were proposed to categorize generic solutions
to contradiction, tension, or paradox, e.g., Baxter (1988/1990), Poole and Van de
Ven (1989), Stroh and Miller (1994), and Seo, Putnam, and Bartunek (2004).
Comparing and contrasting these taxonomies reveals important overlaps and differ-
ences among them, as shown in Table 1. For example, Poole and Van de Ven’s
(1989) taxonomy is similar to Stroh and Miller’s (1994) by excluding the ‘selection’
solution included in the other two taxonomies, yet Poole and Van de Ven’s tax-
onomy differs from Stroh and Miller’s by not having the ‘best-of-both thinking’
included in Stroh and Miller’s taxonomy (both of the other two taxonomies have
similar items to the ‘best-of-both thinking’). The problem of lack of agreement
among taxonomies seems to be unavoidable because taxonomies are usually empir-
ically induced rather than theoretically deduced. Therefore, there is a need for a rigor-
ous typological scheme to categorize various approaches to organizational paradox.
In my view, a rigorous typology can be built by theoretical inference or logical
deduction. Here, I adopt a logical deduction approach. As the ambidexterity and
contingency approaches are neither pure ‘both/and’ nor pure ‘either/or’ but
some mixture of the two, I argue a suitable typology can be developed by combining
the three basic or pure forms of thinking, i.e., ‘either/or’, ‘both/and’, and ‘neither/
nor’. In Figure 1, the three basic forms of thinking are placed on both vertical and
horizontal axes to form a 3 × 3 matrix, resulting in nine combinative patterns of
thinking.[1]
To distinguish seemingly identical combinations, e.g., the combination of
(either/or, both/and) from that of (both/and, either/or), I label the combinative
thinking patterns in a particular way. Namely, I choose to combine the first
word (underlined) of the corresponding basic term listed on the vertical axis and
the second word (underlined) of the corresponding basic term listed on the horizon-
tal axis. The two chosen (underlined) words are connected by a hyphen (-). In add-
ition, I label the vertical axis as ‘the primary thinking’ and the horizontal ‘the
secondary thinking’. The use of these terminologies indicates that people may
have complex or flexible thinking so that they can think something on the one
hand while wanting to do another thing on the other. In such complex or flexible
thinking, the primary thinking is more important than the secondary thinking as
the former acts as a guiding principle. In so doing, I force the two combined elem-
entary thinking into a hierarchical relationship in the combinative thinking. In this
way, the six cells on the two sides of the main diagonal line (running from the top-
left corner to the bottom-right corner) of the matrix are labelled distinctly while the
three cells on the diagonal still correspond (but not equate given the hierarchical
James March’s Neither‐And Solution to Paradox

Table 1. Comparison and contrast between existing taxonomies and the proposed typology
The proposed typology Baxter (1988, 1990) Poole & Van de Ven (1989) Stroh & Miller (1994) Seo, Putnam, & Bartunek (2004)
Either-Or Selection (exclusion, Selection

extinguishing)
Both-Or Separation (temporally or Spatial separation; ‘Expanding the context in space, time Separation (through levels of
(ambidexterity) topically) Temporal separation or both space and time’ analysis, topical domains, or
temporal processes)
Both-And Opposition (accept and use ‘Both/and thinking (both sides of the Connection (legitimates dualities,
(yin-yang) constructively the paradox) paradox can be true) embrace differences); Forced merger
Both-Nor Neutralization (compromise, ‘Best-of-both thinking’ (analyze pros Integration (neutralization or
(zhong-yong) not in full intensity, dilution) and cons of both opposites to seek a compromise)
synergistic solution)
Neither-And Reframing (perceptual Synthesis (introduce new ‘Neither/nor thinking’ (choose a third Transcendence (transform
(appropriateness) transformation) terms to resolve the option) dichotomies into a reformulated
paradox) whole)
5
6 X. Li
Figure 1. A typology of thinking pattern
relationship) to the three basic forms of thinking (e.g., the combinative Either-Or
thinking corresponds to the basic either/or thinking).
As this article is concerned about the solutions to paradox (i.e., paradoxical
integration or balance), I am mainly interested in the five solid-line cells in
Figure 1 because each of them contains an element of both/and. My discussion
will then be minimal on the four dash-lined corner cells, none of which contains
a both/and element. Except Either-Nor thinking of the right top cell, I have asso-
ciated a known idea with each of the other three corner cells.
Aristotle’s formal logic is associated with Either-Or thinking because of its
law of identity (i.e., A = A), law of non-contradiction (i.e., A ≠ non-A), and law
of excluded middle (i.e., any concept X must be either A or non-A, not anything
between the two). The lesser-evilism is associated with Neither-Or thinking. The
lesser-evilism suggests ‘of two evils choose the less’. Its primary thinking is that if
one has the freedom to choose then he or she should choose neither of two evils,
while its secondary thinking is that if one has to choose then he or she should
choose whichever is the lesser of the two evils. Nihilism is associated with the
Neither-Nor thinking because ‘The structure of the nihilistic logic is “neither…
nor”: neither this nor that’ (Gutauskas, 2014: 245).
The central cell is labelled Both-And thinking and I associate it with the
so-called ‘paradox lens’ and Chinese Yin-Yang thinking. The authors of
the ‘paradox lens’ define paradox as ‘persistent contradiction between inter-
dependent elements’ (Schad, 2016: 10). Such a definition characterizes paradox
as both contradictory and interdependent. When talking about the contradiction
between exploitation and exploration, these authors argue that ‘Even as these strat-
egies compete for resources in the short term, they are mutually reinforcing to
enable long- term success’ (Smith & Lewis, 2011: 388). So, the term ‘interdepend-
ent’ can be interpreted as ‘mutually reinforcing’ or simply ‘complementary’. Then,
the ‘paradox lens’ views paradoxical opposites as both contradictory and comple-
mentary, which is aligned with Chinese Yin-Yang thinking that is commonly per-
ceived as ‘both/and’ thinking.
The ambidexterity approach is associated with Both-Or thinking. ‘Both/and’
thinking can be detected from the statement of Tushman and O’Reilly (1996: 11),
who have popularized the term ambidexterity: ‘Managers need to be able to do
both at the same time, that is, they need to be ambidextrous’. However, realizing
the tension or conflict between opposing demands, ambidexterity scholars have a
secondary ‘either/or’ thinking in their prescriptions of sequential and structural
separation solutions, namely, either of the opposing demands should be engaged
in a particular time or space.
The contingency approach is associated with Either-And thinking, because
the primary thinking of the contingency theory is ‘either/or’, namely, only one
of the opposites is suitable under a specific condition, and its secondary thinking
is ‘both/and’, namely, as both opposites can be proven suitable under different
conditions one can engage both opposites by shifting between the opposites in reac-
tion to the change of the conditions or by actively changing the conditions.
The notion of Zhong-Yong is associated with Both-Nor thinking because its
primary thinking is ‘both/and’ – X. Li (2018) sees Zhong-Yong as dynamic balan-
cing between Yin-Yang opposites – while its secondary thinking is ‘neither/nor’,
namely, the resulted balance is neither of the Yin-Yang opposites in their pure
forms. X. Li distinguishes two distinct approaches to Zhong-Yong. One is P. P. Li’s
(2016) ratio-based ‘yin-yang balancing’. Another is what X. Li (2018) calls ‘analysis
plus synthesis’ that is discovered from the original text of Zhong-Yong, one of the
four classics of Confucianism. Ratio-based ‘yin-yang balancing’ prescribes a com-
binative solution n percent of which is consisted of the yin and the rest (100-n)
percent the yang (the value of n varies depending on the contextual condition),
for example a combination of 30% investment on exploration and 70% investment
on exploitation. While the ‘yin-yang balancing’ approach aims to be ‘both yin and
yang’, its prescribed solution is actually a compromise between the two opposites,
resulting in neither a purely yin nor a purely yang. Likewise, the ‘analysis plus syn-
thesis’ approaches to Zhong-Yong also results in a combinative solution that is a
mix of parts of the yin and parts of the yang (and therefore neither a purely yin
nor a purely yang). What distinguishes ‘analysis plus synthesis’ from the ratio-
based ‘yin-yang balancing’ is that while the latter treats the yin and yang opposites
as unitary entities, the former approach prescribes dissecting the yin and yang
opposites into smaller parts first (i.e., analysis) and then selecting only the good
or suitable parts for combination (i.e., synthesis).
8 X. Li
I associate James March’s discussion of logic of consequences and logic of
appropriateness with Neither-And thinking because March’s discussion clearly dis-
plays a distinction between a primary ‘neither/nor’ thinking and a secondary
‘both/and’ thinking. A detailed analysis is offered in the next section.
JAMES MARCH’S LOGIC OF APPROPRIATENESS

What makes March’s insight unique is that he has a primary neither/nor thinking
while mainstream scholars focus on both/and. For instance, in dealing with the
rigor vs. relevance paradox, while many scholars call for striving for both
(Bartunek & Rynes, 2014), March always said, ‘I am not now, nor have I ever
been, relevant’, as for him, ‘a feature of scholarship that is generally more signifi-
cant than relevance is the beauty of the ideas’ (March & Coutu, 2006: 84). The
notion of beauty in science does not necessarily equate with rigor in terms of
being either empirically validated or mathematically sophisticated. For the
former (i.e., empirical validity), Paul Dirac, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics,
once stated ‘It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have
them fit experiment’ (cited in Carr, 2007: 9). For the latter (mathematical sophis-
tication), March made explicit, ‘The articles I write are accessible to any manager
who chooses to read them. I don’t write obscurely – at least not deliberately – and
the ideas are not exceptionally arcane. Dull, maybe, but not arcane’ (March &
Coutu, 2006: 84).
To understand why March has primarily neither/nor thinking, we need to
examine his distinction between logic of consequences and logic of appropriateness
(March & Olsen, 2009). In his article ‘A scholar’s quest’, March (2011) compares
and contrasts two traditions for understanding, motivating, and justifying action.
The first is a consequentialist tradition that sees action as being ‘driven by antici-
pations, incentives, and desires’ (March, 2011: 355). The second tradition is a
non-consequential one that sees action as being based on ‘attempts to fulfill the
obligations of personal and social identities and senses of self’ and ‘a willingness
to embrace the arbitrary and unconditional claims of a proper life’ (March,
2011: 356). March attributes a logic of consequences to the first tradition and a
logic of appropriateness to the second tradition. In praise of Don Quixote as a
role model who ‘seeks consistency with imperatives of the self more than with
imperatives of the environment’ and ‘exhibits a sanity of identity more than a
sanity of reality’ (March, 2011: 356), March encouraged us to ‘follow a logic of
appropriateness more than a logic of consequences’ and to ‘pursue self-respect
more than self-interest’ (March, 2011: 356).
March’s distinction is indeed a distinction between extrinsic (consequential-
ism) and intrinsic (a proper life) motivations for action. Motivated intrinsically,
March endeavors to ‘do research not in order to secure their reputations or
improve the world but in order to honor scholarship’ (March, 2011: 356). To
March, ‘Higher education is a vision, not a calculation. It is a commitment, not
a choice’ and a university is not a ‘market’ (‘only incidentally a market’) but ‘more
essentially a temple […] dedicated to knowledge and a human spirit of inquiry’
(March, 2011: 356). In this sense, rigor and relevance can be seen as only two cal-
culative and consequentialist choices, between which many people choose in order
to win in the ‘markets’ for academic and practical influences. In contrast, March
chose to ‘pursue and venerate knowledge and learning as a manifestation of
faith in what it means to be a human being’ and be ‘committed to sustaining an
institution of learning as an object of beauty and an affirmation of humanity’
(March, 2011: 356).
It sounds like a puzzle that while March stresses neither rigor nor relevance,
he has nevertheless achieved both. On the rigor side, as Diane Coutu, a senior
editor at Harvard Business Review commented, March has ‘an almost unprecedented
reputation as a rigorous scholar’ (March & Coutu, 2006: 84). On the relevance
side, March thought, ‘If there is relevance to my ideas, then it is for the people
who contemplate the ideas to see, not for the person who produces them’
(March & Coutu, 2006: 84). Indeed, as Coutu reported, March is deemed by
many prominent management writers as a top management guru only next to
Peter Drucker (cited in March & Coutu, 2006).
A possible answer to this puzzle is: neither/nor thinking or the logic of appro-
priateness enables March to fully utilize the technologies of foolishness and playful-
ness (March, 1982) that are conducive to exploration and creativity. This answer is
plausible given the fact that March has contributed enormously to multiple disci-
plines and been regarded as ‘a scholar’s scholar’ (Lewin, 2018: 649).
A more plausible answer to this puzzle lies in March’s own words. March
(2011: 356) once confessed, ‘I would not pretend that it is possible or desirable
to ignore consequences altogether’ when ‘confronting the ordinary realities of
day-to-day life’. March knew that, ‘our metaphors of business schools have
become indistinguishable from metaphors of markets’, and he acknowledged
that, ‘It is a conception that yields useful insights and is not to be dismissed thought-
lessly’ (March, 2011: 356).
What is embedded but not articulated in March’s words is a solution to the
rigor vs. relevance paradox based on a sort of pragmatism, i.e., a willingness to dis-
tinguish between principle and practice for doing research. March believed that
‘scholars are obliged to advance beauty as well as truth and justice’ (March &
Coutu, 2006: 84). The embedded but unarticulated solution is that scholars
should in principle be motivated by the aspiration of searching for the beauty of
the ideas while taking rigor (truth) and relevance (justice) pragmatically. While
the principle is underpinned by the primary neither/nor thinking, such as pragma-
tism – adopting a secondary both/and thinking in practice – is also justifiable,
namely, the metaphor of a market that is run on the logic of consequences
‘yields useful insights and is not to be dismissed thoughtlessly’ (March, 2011:
356). Indeed, today’s academia is a highly competitive ‘market’ characterized by
the culture of ‘publish or perish’. To survive and thrive, no one can completely
10 X. Li
ignore the dual demands for rigor and relevance. Upholding principles is a virtue,
and being pragmatic is a necessity. March is no exception.
Identifying the principle-practice structure of March’s unique thinking on
organizational paradox in turn helps me refine the typology. In Figure 1, the
refinement is made by changing the label of the vertical dimension from its original
‘primary thinking’ into ‘primary thinking (in principle)’ and the label of the hori-
zontal dimension from its original ‘secondary thinking’ into ‘secondary thinking
(in practice)’.
Defining the primary thinking as one in principle and the secondary thinking
in practice helps us better understand the variants of ‘both/and thinking’. For
example, for people who adopt ambidexterity approaches, they may uphold the
principle of engaging both opposite demands simultaneously, but they realize
that there are serious conflicts between the opposite demands; to reduce or
avoid the conflicts, they act pragmatically by separating the opposites and engaging
each of them in different times and spaces. Likewise, for people who adopt Zhong-
Yong approaches, they may also uphold the principle of engaging simultaneously
both opposite demands, but their pragmatism is not to separately engage both
opposites but to partially combine the Yin-Yang opposites. For contingency-
minded people, although their principle is to endorse either of the opposites in a
specific condition, they can pragmatically engage or switch between two opposites
by actively changing the contextual conditions. For Both-And thinkers who adopt
the ‘paradox lens’, while they associate their primary thinking with a ‘both/
and’ focus (Smith & Lewis, 2011: 382), they can still pragmatically operationalize
their secondary ‘both/and’ thinking into an act of ‘both differentiation and integra-
tion’ (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Smith, 2014).
MARCH’S INSIGHTS ON PARADOX IN LIGHT OF

THE TYPOLOGY
Now, I am in a position to show that, unlike many people who might have
thought that March has only identified the problem of organizational
paradox but not provided a solution to it, there are ample examples in James
March’s writings that correspond or reflect all of the five variants of both/
and thinking identified in the proposed typology. As James March is a very
prolific scholar, it is beyond the scope of this article to make a detailed analysis.
Here, in addition to a few other examples, I focus my analysis on his 1994 book
A Primer on Decision Making because solving paradoxical issues involves a kind of
decision making. Another reason for focusing on this book is that it covers
several seminal works of March’s on organizational behaviors that are more
or less related to organizational paradox, such as the behavioral theory of the
firm, problem of exploration and exploitation, garbage can decision process,
and ambiguities of experience.
Either-And (Contingency)
March’s discussion of the construction of beliefs about leaders can be seen as an
Either-And (contingency) solution to paradoxical claims to truth. March (1994: 180)
presents two opposite views about leaders, namely, Thomas Carlyle believed that
leaders determined the course of history while Leo Tolstoy believed that leaders
had nothing to do with the course of history.
March’s solution to the contradiction between these two opposite views is
that, on the one hand, he argues that ‘the argument between Carlyle and
Tolstoy cannot be settled by recourse to the data of history’ because ‘Each
side can cite “evidence” that can be interpreted to justify its beliefs’; on the
other hand, he argues that ‘leaders are more inclined to believe Carlyle in
good times and Tolstoy in bad times. They tend to take credit for their successes
and attribute their failures to bad luck. Their critics, on the other hand, are
inclined to reverse the attributions’. Clearly, it is a contingency approach to
shift between Carlyle’s and Tolstoy’s views depending on whether it is in good
or bad times.
Both-Nor (Zhong-Yong)
An example of Both-Nor (Zhong-Yong) solution to paradox can be found in
March’s (1994) discussion on the problem of multiple identities of a decision
maker. A decision maker may simultaneously have two or more roles such as
an executive of a firm, a husband of his wife, a farther of his kids, and a son of
his parents. March (1994: 68) points out: ‘The apparent inconsistency between
the variety of roles accepted by any one individual and the concept of a coherent
self is mitigated by having the multiple identifies of any one individual fit together
in a mutually supportive way’. Here, we can see the primary both/and thinking,
i.e., ‘fitting together’ or integration. However, March (1994: 69) argues that,
‘Such integration is accomplished partly by clustering consistent identities and
partly by interpreting any one identity with a consciousness of the other’.
Here, ‘clustering consistent identities’ can be interpreted as selectively combining
elements of different identifies that are consistent or not inconsistent. This solu-
tion is similar to X. Li’s (2018) ‘analysis plus synthesis’ approach to Zhong-Yong
balancing.
Here is another example that corresponds to P. P. Li’s (2016) ratio-based
approach to Zhong-Yong. When talking about the creative tension between pro-
cesses of imagination (or the foolishness of exploration) and processes of execution
(or the discipline of exploitation), March (2010: 81) points out that ‘Either alone is
not enough […] the relation has to evolve in such a way that the ratio of imagin-
ation to the discipline of conventional knowledge is high relatively early in any par-
ticular project and declines over time’.
12 X. Li
Both-And (Yin-Yang)
March’s writings often exhibit a kind of Yin-Yang thinking. One example is
March’s (1994) view on identity formation. March identifies two existing visions
of identity formation, i.e., individualization and socialization. According to the
individualization view, actions arise from self-imposed standards or self-selected
roles and rules. In contrast, in the socialization view, actions are motivated by
learned obligations, responsibilities, or commitments to others. March’s (1994:
63) own view is that there is in general ‘an interaction between processes of indi-
vidualization and processes of belonging’ and ‘the process of adolescent identity
formation and revolt is a complicated mixture of individualistic differentiation
and socialization into group conformity’. The notions of ‘interaction’ and ‘compli-
cated mixture’ seem to be aligned with Yin-Yang thinking.
Another example is March’s discussion of the question whether success sows the
seeds of failure – what Miller (1992) calls the Icarus paradox – March (1994: 34)
argues that there is no simple answer to such a question because ‘Both success
and failure stimulate mechanisms that encourage subsequent success, and both
success and failure stimulate other mechanisms that encourage subsequent failure’.
However, March (1994: 22) also points out that ‘If aspirations adapt to experience,
then success contains the seeds of failure, and failure contains the seeds of success’.
The notion of built-in seeds is highly aligned with Yin-Yang thinking.
Both-Or (Ambidexterity)
With regard to the success-failure paradox, March also seems to have Both-Or
(ambidexterity) thinking. Namely, while March (1994: 34) in principle believes
that there is no simple answer to the success-failure relationship as both success
and failure can stimulate different mechanisms that encourage both subsequent
success and subsequent failure, he nevertheless argues that ‘In technologically
mature worlds, success will tend to breed failure. Slack will produce inefficiencies
and unproductive success-induced search. In technologically young worlds, on the
other hand, success will tend to breed success’. In this case, March adopts a spatial
separation type of ambidexterity approach to the success-failure paradox, namely,
the world is segmented into technologically mature and technologically young
worlds, in each of which a different mechanism determines whether success will
tend to breed success or failure.
One reason for success leading to failure is concerned with the self-confidence
of the decision maker. March (1994: 46) contends that ‘Success makes executives
confident in their ability to handle future events; it leads them to believe strongly
in their wisdom and insight. They have difficulty recognizing the role of luck in
their achievement. They have confidence in the ability to beat the apparent
odds’. What March (1994: 47) wants to warn us is that overconfidence ‘often
leads to disaster’; yet March’s Yin-Yang thinking enables him to recognize that
‘in some situations organizations profit from the individual foolishness that unwar-
ranted self-confidence provides’.
Neither-And
March’s (1994) book A Primer on Decision Making compares and contrasts two major
theoretical perspectives on decision making, one being a theory of rational choice
(limited or bounded rationality about preferences and consequences) and the other
a theory of rule-following (about identities and appropriateness). While supporters
of each theory see the other theory as a special case of the one supported by them-
selves, March (1994) points out that, on the one hand, ‘neither (at least in its present
incarnation) explains enough of the phenomena to claim exclusive rights to truth’
(102); and on the other, ‘many forms of decision making, including both rationality
and rule following, are useful procedures for decision making, but no form guar-
antees intelligence’ (222). March (1994) posits that both rational choice and
rule-following perspectives ‘see decision making process as orderly exercises of
human coherence’ (175); however, decision making in reality is often characterized
by situations of ‘organized anarchies’ where there are ‘unclear preferences’ and ‘no
clear rules for producing success’ (199). The decision making process under such
situations is best described by the ‘garbage can’ model.
The phrase of ‘organized anarchy’ well captures Neither-And thinking,
namely, the term ‘anarchy’ indicates it is neither rational choice nor rule-following,
and the term ‘organized’ indicates that both rationality and rule-following are
useful procedures in the ‘garbage can’ decision process. In the next section, I
show March’s unique Neither-And thinking characterized by the ‘principle-prac-
tice’ relationship can also be used to understand paradoxes outside organization
studies, e.g., Deconstruction, Buddhism, and quantum physics. The wide applica-
tion of Neither-And thinking implies that James March’s unique solution to organ-
izational paradox may have provided a key to understanding paradox in general.
THE NEITHER-AND SOLUTION TO OTHER PARADOXES

Deconstruction
Deconstruction, as a form of philosophical and literary analysis, is derived mainly
from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s work begun in the 1960s.
Deconstruction challenges the characteristically binary ‘either/or’ thinking, i.e.,
the conceptual distinctions or oppositions in Western philosophy. According to
Johnson (1989: 12, italics in original),
Instead of a simple ‘either/or’ structure, deconstruction attempts to elaborate a
discourse that says neither ‘either/or’, nor both/and nor even ‘neither/nor’, while
at the same time not totally abandoning these logics either. The very word decon-
struction is meant to undermine the either/or logic of the opposition
14 X. Li
‘construction/destruction’. Deconstruction is both, it is neither, and it reveals
the way in which both construction and destruction are themselves not what
they appear to be. Deconstruction both opposes and redefines; it both reverses
an opposition and reworks the terms of that opposition so that what was for-
merly understood by them is no longer tenable.
Take the speech-writing opposition that was deemed by Derrida the most
telling and pervasive opposition. Western philosophers often treated speech as
primary to writing. According to the traditional view, speech is a more authentic
form of language because spoken words directly express the ideas and intentions
of the speaker, whereas when written the author’s ideas are not immediately
‘present’ and thus more prone to be misunderstood. Derrida attributes the
primacy of speech over writing to a distorted yet very pervasive conception of
meaning in natural language. According to the entry of ‘Deconstruction’ in
Encyclopaedia Britannica,[2]
As Derrida argues, however, spoken words function as linguistic signs only to the
extent that they can be repeated in different contexts, in the absence of the
speaker who originally utters them. Speech qualifies as language, in other
words, only to the extent that it has characteristics traditionally assigned to
writing, such as ‘absence’, ‘difference’ (from the original context of utterance),
and the possibility of misunderstanding. One indication of this fact, according
to Derrida, is that descriptions of speech in Western philosophy often rely on
examples and metaphors related to writing. In effect, these texts describe
speech as a form of writing, even in cases where writing is explicitly claimed
to be secondary to speech.
As Derrida’s followers would say, the purpose of such a deconstructive ana-
lysis is neither to claim a reversed relationship between speech and writing (i.e.,
arguing speech is secondary to writing), nor to argue that there is no difference
between them, but to displace the oft-said binary and hierarchical relationship
so as to show that neither speech nor writing is primary to the other. While the
principle of deconstruction is neither to destruct nor to construct, through his ana-
lysis, Derrida pragmatically tried to replace the conventional view by his argument
that both speech and writing are forms of a more generalized ‘arche-writing’ that
encompasses all of natural language.
Buddhism
The principle-pragmatism structure of Neither-And thinking also exhibits in the
Buddhist theory of emptiness. According to Westerhoff (2019), ‘There is unani-
mous agreement that Nagarjuna (ca 150–250 AD) is the most important
Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself and one of the most ori-
ginal and influential thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy. His philosophy of
the “middle way” (madhyamaka) based around the central notion of “emptiness”
(sunyata) influenced the Indian philosophical debate for a thousand years after his
death; with the spread of Buddhism to Tibet, China, Japan and other Asian coun-
tries the writings of Nagarjuna became an indispensable point of reference for their
own philosophical inquiries’.
To prove his theory of emptiness, Nagarjuna adopted the Indian principle of
four-cornered negation that can be summarized as ‘S is neither P, nor not-P, nor
both P and not-P, nor neither P nor not-P’ (Raju, 1954: 694). Although Nagarjuna
held the principle that phenomena appearing to exist independently actually are
empty of inherent existence, self-nature, or essence, because of which change is pos-
sible and perpetual, he pragmatically reckoned that these phenomena were not non-
existent but conventionally real. Such a doctrine of the two truths or two realities – a
conventional or nominal truth and an ultimate truth – is, according to Garfield (1994:
219), Nagarjuna’s greatest philosophical contribution to Buddhism.
Hui-Neng (638–713 AD), the ‘Sixth Patriarch’ of Chinese Chan (Zen in
Japanese) Buddhism, pushed such pragmatism to an even higher level. While
Nagarjuna would only negate and not affirm any proposition, Hui-Neng had no
hesitation in offering affirmative propositions of his own. This is evident in a
story recorded in The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. The story goes, ‘At that
time the wind was blowing and the banner was moving. One monk said that the
wind was moving, while another monk said the banner was moving. They
argued on and on, so I [Hui-Neng] went forward and said, “It is not the wind
that is moving, and it is not the banner that is moving. It is your minds that are
moving”’ (McRae, 2000: 26, italics added).
In this story, the two monks thought the movement of banner and the move-
ment of wind as mutually exclusive because the former indicates that the move-
ment of wind was the cause and the movement of banner the effect while the
latter indicates exactly the opposite. However, Hui-Neng accepted neither of the
two opposite cognitive propositions and offered an enlightened insight that can rec-
oncile both of the two, namely, it is the movement or arousal of one’s mind or con-
sciousness that leads one to see only the nominally real phenomena without being
able to see the ultimate emptiness of those phenomena.
While Hui-Neng also upheld the principle of emptiness (neither/nor think-
ing), clearly reflected in his famous poem part of which reads ‘as there is not a
single thing, nowhere could any dust be attracted’, he pragmatically unified the
wind-banner opposites by recourse to the conventionally-understood Chinese
notion of xin (心, i.e., heart/mind) that should in principle be empty of inherent
existence.
Quantum Physics
Whether light is wave or particle is a long-lasting question that many great minds in
human history have wrestled with.[3] In Ancient Greek times, Democritus argued
16 X. Li
that all things in the universe, with light being no exception, are composed of indi-
visible particles called atoms. In contrast, Aristotle believed that light was some
kind of disturbance in the air, which is wave in nature. In the seventeenth
century, two French philosophers, Rene Descartes and Pierre Gassendi, engaged
in a debate where Descartes viewed light as wave while Gassendi asserted that
light was made up of discrete particles. This wave or particle debate was then
picked up by two English scientists, Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke, whose argu-
ments were based on their empirical observations of light’s behaviors. While
Hooke held up the wave theory of light, Newton decided to support the particle
view.
Due to Newton’s fame and reputation, the particle view dominated the intel-
lectual discourse on light for more than one century until an English physician,
Thomas Young, in 1803 discovered in his famous double-slit experiment that
light demonstrated interference effect, a behavior particular to waves. Since
then, light being wave became common sense among scientists.
However, this belief was once again shaken by Albert Einstein’s discovery in
1905 of the photoelectric effect in which ultraviolet light forces a surface to release
electrons. In attempt to explain the photoelectric effect, Einstein followed Max
Planck’s lead to define light as a stream of discrete energy pockets called light
quanta (later renamed into photons). Planck’s and Einstein’s works laid the foun-
dation of the quantum revolution of physics in the twentieth century.
The evolution of philosophical and scientific understanding of light gave rise
to the notion of the wave-particle paradox, which is explained by Einstein as
follows:
But what is light really? Is it a wave or a shower of photons? Once before we put
a similar question when we asked: is light a wave or a shower of light corpuscles?
At that time there was every reason for discarding the corpuscular theory of light
and accepting the wave theory, which covered all phenomena. Now, however,
the problem is much more complicated. There seems no likelihood of forming a
consistent description of the phenomena of light by a choice of only one of the
two possible languages. It seems as though we must use sometimes the one
theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are
faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of
reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but
together they do! (Einstein & Infeld, 1938: 278, italic added)
Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg came up with a coherent explanation of
such a difficulty of forming a consistent description of light, which has been known
as the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to Bohr’s
complementarity principle, any (quantum) object has both wave and particle prop-
erties as complementary aspects of a single reality. Some sort of measurement is
needed to observe the properties of subatomic objects, such as electrons.
Experiments designed to measure the wave properties of an electron will show
the wave aspect, while experiments designed to measure the particle properties of
an electron will show the particle aspect. While the wave and particle descriptions
are contrary or contradictory, they are complementary and indispensable for
defining the true nature of a quantum object.
On a surface (nominal or conventional truth) level, Bohr’s complementarity
principle represents both/and thinking. Yet, on a deeper (ultimate truth) level, it
reveals neither/nor thinking, as Plotnitsky (2013: 8) points out:
Bohr’s earlier approaches to complementarity […] were shaped by the appar-
ently necessary use of certain mutually exclusive conceptions in quantum
theory, such as those of particles and of waves, and the corresponding physical
theories, within the same theoretical framework. This is in part why
Schrödinger’s wave mechanics as a whole, rather than only his equation, initially
had a certain, qualified, appeal to Bohr. Even at this stage of his thinking,
however, Bohr was aware of the difficulties of applying the idea of waves to
quantum objects themselves, even by way of complementarity; he avoids the lan-
guage of waves and, more crucially, the concept of wave-particle complementar-
ity altogether. I would argue that wave-particle complementarity, with which
the concept of complementarity is arguably associated most, did not play a sig-
nificant, if any, role in Bohr’s thinking, at least after the Como lecture and even
there, Bohr’s ultimate solution to the dilemma of whether quantum objects are
particles or waves – or his ‘escape’ from the paradoxical necessity of seeing them
as both – is that they are neither.
The argument that light is neither wave nor particle was later affirmed by
R. P. Feynman who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his fundamental
work in quantum electrodynamics. Feynman pointed out, ‘Historically, the elec-
tron, for example, was thought to behave like a particle, and then it was found
that in many respects it behaved like a wave. So it really behaves like neither.
Now we have given up. We say: “It is like neither”’ (Feynman, Leighton, &
Sands, 1963: 37).
At the core of such neither/nor thinking is the notion that the true nature of a
quantum object is unknowable. A quantum object is neither wave nor particle but
a probability wave, or more specifically, ‘a complex-valued probability distribution
that has quantized (discrete) properties such as energy’.[4] Before a humanly-
devised measurement or observation is made, the nature of a quantum object is
truly uncertain, and all that scientists can say about the object is the probability
it will exhibit a particular physical property such as position, momentum, or vel-
ocity. This interpretation resembles the Buddhist worldview that sees the worldly
phenomena as illusions and lacking of self-nature. This radical anti-realist
Interpretation was never accepted by Einstein who believed that God does not
play dice (Stent, 1979).
18 X. Li
At the core of the famous Bohr-Einstein debate lies the fundamental concep-
tion of scientific objectivity. For Einstein, objectivity and subjectivity are contraries,
while for Bohr, both objectivity and subjectivity ‘are jointly achieved’ (Hooker,
1991: 507). According to Bohr, everything scientists can observe in an experiment
is not the true nature of the observed ‘object’ but a result that is co-constructed by
the interaction between the observed and the observer (including the observational
instruments). Bohr (1938: 436) once made a famous saying that human beings are
‘spectators and actors in the great drama of existence’.
The Copenhagen Interpretation has profound implications for the practice of
science. In Bohr’s (1934: 18) words, ‘in our description of nature the purpose is not
to disclose the real essence of the phenomena but only to track down, as far as it is
possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience’. In a more pro-
active tone, Bohr said ‘There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract
quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to
find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature’ (cited in
Petersen, 1963: 12).
Nevertheless, both Einstein and Bohr ‘attempt to understand the history of
science as a history of increasingly adequate and objective representations of
nature’ (Hooker, 1991: 507). To do so, Bohr pragmatically insisted on the need
of unambiguous and objective description of experience. To make a quantum
mechanical description objective, Bohr (1963: 4) pointed out that ‘the unambigu-
ous account of proper quantum phenomena must, in principle, include a descrip-
tion of all relevant features of the experimental arrangement’. For Bohr, ‘[the] tool
for [formulating unambiguous and objective descriptions] is, of course, plain lan-
guage which serves the needs of practical life and social intercourse’ (Bohr, 1958:
67), with ‘suitable application of terminologies of classical physics’ (Bohr, 1958: 39).
As Faye (1991: 220) points out, ‘Everyday language is also a necessary condition for
unambiguous communication because of the fact that by describing the experi-
ment in the common material-object language, one of whose very functions is to
express the relationship between cause and effect, we are able to pay “proper atten-
tion to the placing of the object-subject separation” [(Bohr, 1958: 78)] that is neces-
sary for unambiguous communication of our experience’. Clearly, while in
principle Bohr insisted on the object-subject interaction, in practice (of science)
he pragmatically emphasized on the object-subject separation.
DISCUSSION
In this article, I propose a typology of thinking pattern that helps us understand the
five variants of so-called ‘both/and thinking’ shared by many organizational
paradox scholars in the West and China. The variants are distinguished by the
‘primary thinking (in principle)-secondary thinking (in practice)’ relationship
between the two combined elementary thinking. An examination of March’s
(1994) A Primer on Decision Making reveals that there is ample evidence that many
of March’s ideas correspond or reflect all of the five variants of the both/and think-
ing identified in the proposed typology. However, I am most interested in the
Neither-And thinking that is associated with March’s discussion of logic of conse-
quences and logic of appropriateness. The typology shows the uniqueness of
March’s Neither-And solution because it is the only one among the five variants
to embrace neither/nor as its primary thinking. The value of March’s unique
Neither-And solution is demonstrated by its wide applicability to paradoxes
outside organizational studies, ranging from Deconstruction philosophy,
Buddhist religion, and quantum physics.
This article contributes to the literature of organizational paradox by demon-
strating that March has not only identified the problem of organizational paradox
but also provided a unique Neither-And solution to it that is of significant value to
the research not only on organizational paradox but also on paradox in general.
Another contribution is the identification of the role of pragmatism in solving
paradox. The necessity of pragmatism may be justified by a seeming paradox of
life, namely, often time, the more one wants the less one gets. Chinese people
often say that one has to give up something in order to make it happen (将欲取之,
必先与之). In this sense, Neither-And thinking can be said as a paradoxical solution
to paradox, namely, it implies that in order to have ‘both/and’ one has to enact
‘neither/nor’. As a Chinese saying goes: the flower that’s purposefully planted may
not blossom, while the twig that is unintentionally inserted into the soil may grow
into a big tree (有心栽花花不发, 无心插柳柳成荫).
There are two limitations of this article. First, the descriptions about the ele-
ments of the typology (i.e., the cells in the Figure 1) are very brief and need to be
further elaborated and backed up by appropriate literature review. This is not
done here primarily due to the limit of my current knowledge. Second, this
article focuses on, in addition to a few others, March’s (1994) book and his 2011
article without examining other writings of March’s. This is partly due to the
limit of space allowed here, but partly due to the limit of my current knowledge
about March’s wide range of academic writings.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I have three suggestions for future research on solutions to paradox.
First, to advance Neither-And thinking we should further study the logic of appro-
priateness. For example, as a decision maker may have multiple identifies (roles)
simultaneously, we should ask the question: when we enact logic of appropriate-
ness, should we take an action that is appropriate to me as an individual human
being or an organizational position holder? Would it be appropriate as the starting
point or for the whole process? Second, we should identify the advantages and dis-
advantages of each of the five generic solutions and theorize what and how to use
them and under what conditions. The extant literature on organizational paradox
seems to assume some solutions are superior to others, however, the contingency
20 X. Li
theory (as a legitimate solution to paradoxical tension) tells us that nothing is always
superior to others. Third, we should examine whether there are sub-categories
within each of the five generic solutions (combinative thinking). As the ambidexter-
ity literature has identified two distinct sub-categories, i.e., structural and context-
ual, and the literature on Zhong-Yong has also identified two distinct sub-
categories, i.e., ratio-based and analytical synthesis, it is my intuition that there
might also be sub-categories in the other three generic solutions to paradox.
NOTES
[1] One may also draw a three-dimensional matrix to make a more sophisticated typology. But, such
a 3 × 3×3 typology will include 27 patterns of thinking, which is too complex to be suitable for
our purpose here.
[2] Available from URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/deconstruction (Cited 16
August 2019).
[3] Much of the information contained in this paragraph and the following one is from an online
peer-reviewed article titled ‘Light I: Particle or Wave’?, posted on www.visionlearning.com.
The funding for this website is provided through grants from the US Department of
Education and the National Science Foundation. Available from URL: https://www.visionlearn-
ing.com/en/library/Physics/24/Light-I/132 (Cited 12 March 2019).
[4] This description is made by Dr. Christopher S. Baird, Assistant Professor of Physics at West
Texas A&M University. Available from URL: http://wtamu.edu/∼cbaird/sq/2013/01/16/is-
light-a-particle-or-a-wave/ (Cited 12 March 2019).
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Xin Li ([email protected]) is external lecturer at Copenhagen Business School

and visiting professor at Nanjing University Business School. His research
focuses on addressing some foundational theoretical questions of strategic man-
agement, international business, paradox research, and indigenous Chinese
management studies. He is particularly interested in bridging Chinese and
Western perspectives in business and management scholarship. He has pub-
lished in Academy of Management Review, Asia Pacific Journal of Management,
Management and Organization Review, among others.
Manuscript received: October 24, 2019

Final version accepted: September 10, 2020 (number of revisions – 2)

Li2021 James March and Paradox

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Management and Organization Review page 1 of 22

Neither-And Thinking: Understanding James

KEYWORDS both/and, either/or, neither/nor, paradox, thinking, typology

ACCEPTED BY Senior Editor Mooweon Rhee

A TYPOLOGY OF THINKING PATTERN

James March’s Neither‐And Solution to Paradox

Either-Or Selection (exclusion, Selection

Figure 1. A typology of thinking pattern

JAMES MARCH’S LOGIC OF APPROPRIATENESS

MARCH’S INSIGHTS ON PARADOX IN LIGHT OF

THE NEITHER-AND SOLUTION TO OTHER PARADOXES

Xin Li ([email protected]) is external lecturer at Copenhagen Business School

Manuscript received: October 24, 2019

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