Siloed Sustainability: How Paradox Management Unravels in Integrative Practice Implementation

Abstract

Organizations often struggle to implement sustainability practices, even when such efforts are strategically prioritized. While paradox studies have highlighted successful cases in which tensions between economic, environmental, and social goals are constructively balanced, less attention has been paid to how the characteristics of the practices themselves complicate paradox management. Through an ethnographic study of LatinCar, the Brazilian subsidiary of a multinational carmaker, we introduce the concept of “integrative practices,” patterns of activity marked by indivisibility, complexity, and non-codifiability, to explain why certain sustainability practices require extensive cross-functional coordination and generate persistent contradictions. In siloed organizations, these integrative practices trigger an integration–differentiation paradox that becomes increasingly difficult to manage. Our process analysis reveals how efforts to work through this paradox inadvertently surface new tensions—jurisdictional, outcome, and attributional—that accumulate and derail implementation. We contribute to paradox theory by illuminating the dark side of paradox management, showing how practice characteristics can undermine actors’ ability to balance competing demands. We also advance sustainability and practice implementation literatures by theorizing the distinctive intraorganizational challenges posed by integrative practices.