Strategizing on the riverbank: State-owned enterprises, paradoxes, and the success of Sberbank

Prior to February 2022, Sberbank was the largest bank operating in Russia and one of the top 20 banks globally. This paper asks how it achieved this position despite facing intertwined strategic and operational paradoxes at the heart of the firm. In particular, Sberbank faced the unenviable position of simultaneously providing an outlet for Russian savings and powering Russia’s development as an agent of the state while also aspiring to be an innovative and full-service financial institution. Exploring how Sberbank coped with these paradoxes in the post-Soviet era, we show how management followed a package of various tactics, including delaying, ignoring, or manipulating directives. In this manner, space was created for management-inspired change, but success was only achieved when tactics were appropriate for the external environment. This reality shows how important context and time are in adopting a strategy for dealing with paradoxes.