Collaborative Research Chair
Collaborative Research Chair for Paradoxical Leadership
Installation period
November 16, 2022 – November 15, 2024
Participating Companies
Alue Co.,Ltd.
Overview
Management leaders are constantly faced with challenges that involve paradoxical elements, or in other words, "paradoxical challenges”. There is the long-standing challenge of "how to reduce costs while improving quality," but recent changes in social conditions, such as "increasing demands for a sustainable society," "a rapidly changing business environment, also known as VUCA," and "changing relationships between organizations and individuals (from enclosure to mutual selection)," are posing the following paradoxical challenges to management leaders. The following are some of the paradoxical challenges facing management leaders.
How to realize both short-term economic benefits and long-term environmental considerations.
How to maintain and develop existing businesses while aggressively taking on new business challenges.
How to achieve diversity while maintaining a consistent organizational culture
How to realize individual autonomous career development while enhancing the organization's ability to execute strategies
Traditional management and leadership theories have emphasized the importance of taking a "either/or" approach to these issues. The idea is that a good leader is one who clearly prioritizes and makes decisive decisions. Of course, there are many situations and issues where this approach is effective.
However, this approach is not effective for the paradoxical challenges posed by recent social conditions such as those just mentioned. It is important to face these issues with the question of how to make the paradoxical elements coexist and "work together" (both/and), rather than "choosing between the two" (either/or).
But, achieving "both/and" is not without its difficulties. It is not uncommon for it to cause confusion in the organization at times. On the other hand, if leaders can successfully deal with these difficulties, tackling "paradoxical challenges" can be an opportunity to create new innovations.
The purpose of this course is to clarify the management style to face and manage the paradoxical challenges that will be required in the future society, and to develop leaders who will be responsible for such management. Combining the knowledge of business administration of Graduate School of Management Kyoto University with the knowledge gained through the practice of organizational and human resource development of Alue Co.,Ltd., we will develop management leaders and disseminate the results of our research through this course.