Three essays on organizational paradox, history, and resilience: An ethnography of Buddhist temples

This dissertation investigates three organizational tensions that are most salient in Korean Buddhist temples: (1) finance versus religion, (2) change versus tradition, and (3) adaptation versus stability. Specifically, drawing upon paradox theory, my first essay examines how Buddhist monks address tension between business work to support the organization’s financial sustainability and Buddhist meditative practice to support their religious conviction. I report the findings at both organizational and individual levels of analysis, in an effort to unpack how an individual level paradox is manifested to an organizational level paradox. The second essay explores an enabling role of history in facilitating organizational change. Focusing on a Buddhist Master Monk’s historical narratives on changes, I analyze how the Master Monk selectively interprets the organizational history and develop it as a convincing storytelling tool to reduce organizational members’ cognitive resistance, thereby facilitating changes. The third essay investigates how Buddhist temples adapt to external environments while simultaneously keeping their core identity intact i.e., organizational resilience. The third essay aims to shed more light on a longitudinal process of organizational resilience. Empirically, I have conducted multiple rounds of ethnographic fieldwork in Korean Buddhist temples to deeply immerse myself into the research context. Rich data from the fieldwork allowed me to develop the distinct essays on organizational tensions. In the end, the three essays characterize different methodological and theoretical colors. Each study aims to contribute to organizational paradox, history (and narrative), and resilience literature.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph D

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Song, Hee-Chan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bansal, Pratima (Tima)

• Organizational paradox
• history
• resilience
• ethnography
• Qualitative study
• Buddhist temple

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/29445

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/29445