Innovation, the development of new and useful ideas by individuals, teams, and organizations, lies at the heart of human adaptation.
Research produced a wealth of knowledge about how innovation emerges. This literature leads to one overwhelming summary: Innovation is paradoxical. As a step toward developing an integrative theory, we applied in 2009 a dialectic perspective to innovation to overcome limitations of dichotomous reasoning
and to gain a more valid account (Bledow et al., 2009). We would like to give an idea of where we are with this kind of theory. We point out that individuals, teams, and organizations need to self-regulate and manage conflicting
demands of innovation and that multiple pathways can lead to idea generation and innovation. Central to our theorizing at this moment are affective shift models and ambidextrous leadership for innovation.