The connoisseur’s emancipation of dissonance: how changing the experience of musical tension can inform individual responses to organizational paradoxes

Willemoes-Wissing, U. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5396-387X (2025) The connoisseur’s emancipation of dissonance: how changing the experience of musical tension can inform individual responses to organizational paradoxes. Journal of Political Power. ISSN 2158-3803 doi: 10.1080/2158379x.2024.2447231

Abstract/Summary

Although literature identifies a repertoire of constructive and defensive responses to paradox, the problem of overcoming dissonance remains. While a both-and response at the individual or collective level is desirable, individuals encountering paradoxes will likely respond defensively, separating tensions into either-or poles. Insight into how individuals can work with tension created by dissonance is limited. Musical composition may have something to share. Since the Renaissance, composers have exposed listeners to constructively responding to tension through increasingly dissonant music. Arnold Schönberg’s dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) system emancipates the constraints of dissonance, reducing listeners’ resistance and developing a connoisseur’s appreciation of structural incompatibilities.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/120382
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/2158379x.2024.2447231
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > Leadership, Organisations, Behaviour and Reputation
Publisher	Informa UK Limited
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