The food waste paradox ::a managerial awareness - engagement dilemma

Despite its recent prominence, the paradoxical factors that can foster or hinder sustainability management initiatives to tackle grand challenges have remained understudied, especially from a system perspective on latent tensions and wicked problems. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate on the nested tensions in service organizations by exploring the drivers of the gap between awareness and engagement in a study of emerging paradoxes around food waste in restaurants. Nested paradoxes can emerge when the discourse of sustainability action is inconsistent with the actual output—the implementation of food waste management initiatives. Engaging with paradoxical tensions from a systems perspective, the paper discusses how the dominant processes of awareness shape the level of engagement in addressing sustainability management solutions to societal grand challenges. Findings draw on a four-year mixed methods approach with onsite visits, semi-structured interviews, and primary survey data from Primary professionals and uncover the complex, multilevel problematic managers confront when implementing workplace practices to minimize the level of food waste production. Our article contributes to the management literature on paradox by providing a better understanding of the competing approaches and demands of handling the system inherent tensions and socially constructed problems underlying the implementation of sustainability practices. Practical implications as well as potential venues for future research on tackling grand challenges such the “food waste paradox” are offered