Business and Peace-Building

4  Paradigms

In the age of climate change, global unrest and greater connectivity due to mobile phones, the internet and the media, scholars, politicians and practitioners in the NGO sector use the term ‘paradigm shift’ to indicate large-scale changes in perception and interpretation. The use of the term in most articles, books and the popular press, however, is both imprecise and misleading. Drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s original work, which developed the modern use of the term, this chapter describes what a paradigm actually is and how the term can be used to describe shifts in understanding at an organisational and societal level. Paradigm shifting is then suggested to reframe decision-making on social and environmental issues at the local level, ...