Managing Contradiction: Stockholder and Stakeholder Views of the Firm as Paradoxical Opportunity CYNTHIA E. CLARK, ERICA L. STECKLER, AND SUE NEWELL ABSTRACT Stockholder and stakeholder perspectives have been posi- tioned in the literature as being in tension, and thus a potential source of innovation and change. However, researchers have overlooked a systematic examination of this presumption in theory and in practice. This study explores the ways that stockholder and stakeholder assumptions are presented by theorists and compares these with expressions of stockholder and stakeholder per- spectives used by firms in practice. We argue that theoreti- cal entrenchment dichotomizing these perspectives has disrupted the ability of researchers to leverage this ten- sion. While scholarship remains trapped in a vicious cycle, we also argue that firms in practice express only the accep- tance dimension of a virtuous cycle. Our empirical research demonstrates that firms accept and accommo- date the paradoxical tension between managing for Cynthia E. Clark is an Associate Professor at Bentley University, Waltham, MA. E-mail: cclark@bentley.edu. Erica L. Steckler is a Post Doctoral Research Scholar at Bentley Univer- sity, Waltham, MA. E-mail: esteckler@bentley.edu. Sue Newell is Professor at University of SUSSEX, South Downs, East SuSsex, Brighton BN1 9RH, United kingdom. E-mail: Sue.New- ell@sussex.ac.uk. V C 2016 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK. Business and Society Review 121:1 123–159