Integrating immediate gains with sustainable performance: systematic review of paradox at the intersection of strategic management and innovation

Abstract

Digital technologies introduce change as a permanent feature of organizational life, creating an imbalance between market requirements and organizational capabilities. This article seeks to explore the tensions that organizations are confronted with when they engage in the strategic management of innovation (SMI) to achieve immediate and simultaneously lasting success. The divergent nature of strategic management and innovation promotes opposing organizational demands routed in a diversity of stakeholder agendas that foster an unhealthy tug-of-war over scarce resources. The resulting paradoxes are mirrored in the SMI literature. Hence to promote a more accurate understanding of complex organisational dynamics, this study organizes and integrates the diverse body of knowledge on SMI within the scope of a systematic literature review. By adopting a paradox perspective, a conceptual scheme is developed onto which competing demands are mapped. The application of framework synthesis reveals a wide array of paradoxes at the intersection of innovation and strategic management, including the inter-organisational, firm, project and individual level of analysis, while accounting for certain contextual factors that expose paradoxical tensions. The study thus contributes to the advancement of SMI literature by applying a new conceptual perspective, by employing a fairly new method to framework synthesis, and by recognizing the potential of environmental complexity in reference to subliminal tensions. The article proposes a research agenda with a more nuanced perspective on competing demands inherent in SMI, while also offering managerial implications that account for contemporary imperatives.