Collaborating for Competition? Unpacking Ambiguities and Paradoxes Across the Academic Profession

Abstract

This paper unpacks the complexities, ambiguities and paradoxes associated with the concepts of competition and collaboration, using the academic profession in the Nordic countries as an empirical case. We relied on paradox theory to reconceptualise the complex and dynamic relationship between competition and cooperation. Our analysis focused on the ways in which university-based academics in the Nordic countries navigate the tensions and paradoxes associated with the interplay between competition and cooperation while shedding light on the nestedness among various levels of analysis. The findings not only show that the competition–cooperation interplay is strongly present throughout multiple contradictory tensions, but also that the tensions and paradoxes identified act as push factors in the further development of the academic profession and the higher education systems in which these are embedded.