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The purpose of this paper is to determine the value of I‐Ching (also called Book of Changes), the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, which has been used for thousands of years to help people make decisions in daily life. Recently, eastern and western scholars have begun discussing how to apply the wisdom of I‐Ching to the field of business administration, particularly decision‐making practices.

A content analysis method was adopted to uncover possible modern management decision‐making constructs. The single words approach did not find frequently appearing words that integrated decision‐making constructs in the context of I‐Ching. Further uncovering I‐Ching's administrative decision‐making approach, the managerial decision‐making model of I‐Ching is explained, including the premises, the decision contingencies, and the decision process.

By using an academic comparative analysis method, as it applies to managerial decision making, I‐Ching's early management decision‐making model is subsequently compared with western management decision models, which include rational decision making, bounded‐rationality decision making, intuitive decision making, implicit favorite decision making, and garbage‐can decision making.

The majority of scholars that study I‐Ching focus on “practice divination” research, paying attention to the interpretation or critique of the text only. Unfortunately, related literature based upon a social science research foundation is limited.

The value of I‐Ching was determined to lie in allowing flexibility in the decision‐making process.

The discriminative thinking that Chinese entrepreneurs are weak in innovations is widespread. But market competition, which is the main drive for innovations, has been introduced to post‐planning‐economy China for only 30 years or so, and China has only ten years' experience in modern global competition after her entry into the WTO in 2001. Who can say China will not be as innovative as today's advanced counterparts? The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible internal consistencies between one traditional Chinese philosophy, I Ching and modern Western innovation management science. The authors also empirically test the relations between I Ching tradition and innovation performances using cross country data.

First, the authors textually analyzed the consistencies between the book of I Ching and Western innovation management principles, then with that in mind collected cross‐country panel data and tested the hypotheses empirically.

It is found that the philosophies embedded in I Ching could be applied to Western innovation management practices, and cross‐country empirical analysis shows that countries with I Ching tradition achieve better innovation performances, ceteris paribus.

Macro country‐level data were used to test the hypotheses instead of using micro firm‐level survey data. Because the macro data were not collected purposefully for this research, i.e. the authors only borrowed rather than collected the data, perhaps the persuasiveness of the empirical results will be weakened. The authors' future researches in this regard will be based on survey data.

Chinese entrepreneurs should have the confidence that Chinese ancient wisdoms are their strength rather than weakness in innovation activities.

The paper is pioneering in consciously combining I Ching philosophy with Western innovation management sciences. With this kind of synthesis, the paper constitutes a Chinese friendly road map for entrepreneurs to build innovation organizations.

In our last issue Raymond Van Over described some current developments in intuitive decision‐making. In this issue he describes a respected eastern decision‐making tool, the I Ching or Book of Changes, first developed in the twelfth century B.C. Each of the sixty‐four hexagrams of the I Ching stands for a particular basic policy applicable to the life of an individual or human system. The collective learning embodied in the I Ching presents a “network of change processes rather than a structure of policy models.”

By the re‐interpretation of the Book of Changes (I Ching), this article aims to build a framework for analyzing the structure and the evolvement of leadership.

There are 64 hexagrams in Book of Changes. This article focuses the discussion on Qian hexagram, which is the first and the most important one in all the hexagrams. By using metaphysical concepts, this article builds a dynamic leadership system. This leadership system is composed of the four virtues of Qian (with the meaning of heaven, force), which are as follows: Yuan (creation and origination), Heng (cooperation and development), Li (achievement and sharing), and Zhen (firmness and perseverance). Based on this framework, by using the metaphor of dragon, this article develops an evolvement route of leadership according to the six situations set by the Qian hexagram, which are humble stage, emerging from hiding, trying your best, going up or down, reaching excellence, and starting to fall, and discusses the proper leadership in different situations.

There are four elements or virtues in leadership. The importance of each virtue and the key points in each of them change as an organization or a venture evolves from one situation to another. Leaders should match their leadership with the specific situation they are in.

According to the knowledge of the authors, this article is the first one in the world trying to set up a leadership system based on Book of Changes, especially Qian hexagram. The implications provided by this article would be very valuable for leaders to more successfully evaluate their situations and change their leaderships according the different challenges they may face.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

The e-freight program launched by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has gradually become a standard specification for international air freight operations. This study examined critical factors affecting air freight forwarders’ decision to adopt the IATA e-freight using a technology-organization-environment model with air freight forwarders in Taiwan as the base. Our findings show that ‘information technology (IT) competence’, ‘trading partner pressure’, ‘government policy’ and ‘competitive pressure’ all have significant positive effects on air freight forwarders’ decision to adopt the e-freight and the top three factors among these are ‘government funding’, ‘government’s active promotion’ and ‘government’s requirement of electronic air waybill (e-AWB)’. Finally, this study proposes strategies that can encourage air freight forwarders to decide on e-freight adoption for the information of relevant oK regyawniozradtison International Air Transport Association (IATA); IATA e-freight; Technology organization environment model; Air freight forwarder

Indicates that literature on facilities management is written from a Western perspective with no reference to practices in the East: therefore suggests there is profit in integrating Oriental thinking with Western thinking. Takes the ideas of philosopher Lao Tzu and incorporates them with Western thinking to enhance the leadership effectiveness of the facilities manager. Concentrates on the text of the book Tao Te Ching and relates the ideas to management. Provides a summary of the main points of the 37 chapters in book I of Tao Te Ching and provides lessons from the 44 chapters of book II. Concludes that Lao Tzu′s teaching holds a wisdom for the modern team leader but suggests Western facilities management should take note as Western notions of ethics and leadership qualities have already caused erosion of Taoism and Confucianism in the East.

This paper aims to refine cross-organizational knowledge creation theory by exploring the knowledge conversion process of University-Industry (U-I) collaboration in Chinese aerospace industry. An ancient Chinese philosophy named I-Ching is also introduced to illustrate dynamics of knowledge creation to achieve enlightenment.

To describe the knowledge conversion tendency, a theoretical framework is developed by reference to Boisot’s (1995) Information Space. The application of the framework is described in the in-depth case study of micro-electrode manufacturing for aerospace vehicles. The dynamics of each stage in knowledge conversion is investigated with the implications from I-Ching.

Analysis of the results suggests that seven certain stages can be especially indicative of cross-organizational knowledge creation, namely: demand codification; knowledge gain; knowledge digestion; knowledge sharing; knowledge propagation; knowledge spillover and knowledge degeneration. A knowledge gain, digestion, sharing and propagation (GDSP) knowledge creation theory is developed accordingly. The form of knowledge in different stages is variable, the change among various forms is effectively explained by I-Ching.

There is clearly a strong requirement to test the framework further with other cases, such as sampling cases from different industries and of different firm scales. Besides, the knowledge creation processes on the organizational level and the individual level are quite different, which call for further study.

First, the theory helps firms to get a better understanding of the nature of U-I collaboration, that is to say, knowledge creation. That will, in turn, power the firm to take the initiative to participate in knowledge creation activities. Second, the illustration through I-Ching provides reasonable and easily understandable interpretations for Chinese corporate managers and executives. Traditional Chinese culture will be beneficial to make U-I collaborations more efficient and effective in China.

A new “GDSP knowledge creation theory” which enriches and advances the typical socialization, externalization, combination and internalization (SECI) knowledge creation theory in some aspects is proposed. The theory is deeply grounded in Chinese culture. Furthermore, the conversion of different knowledge forms in the theory is considered from a totally new perspective of ancient Chinese philosophy: I-Ching.

This chapter outlines the philosophic underpinnings of the self-management paradigm developed over the past three decades by China’s Haier Group, a global leader in white goods. The successful transformation of Haier from a small resource-poor firm to a dominant global giant is often attributed to the self-management culture established in the company by its legendary leader Zhang Ruimin. This management paradigm is a function of the humbleness displayed by Mr. Zhang Ruimin and rooted in his strong belief in the traditional Chinese philosophy of I-Ching and Daoism. We show how the hexagram of Qian (“qian”: humbleness, modesty) from I-Ching is linked to Mr. Zhang’s humble approach and analyze how the six parts of the hexagram of Qian are related to the six development stages of the Haier Group. These insights are used to give some thoughts to the leadership challenge associated with the creation of a dynamic and responsive global organization.

Badaracco of Harvard Business School suggests a “nudge‐test‐escalate” (NTE) approach in influencing and implementing change. In The Book of Changes (I‐Ching), the most archaic and authoritative works of the Chinese classics, it adopts a “test‐accelerate‐forge” (TAF) approach instead. The purpose of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences between these two models, and addresses the effectiveness of influential leadership when the models are used in the western and eastern settings, respectively. It also looks at the fundamental concepts that underlie the models and discusses the characteristics and virtues that an influential leader must possess in order to make change happen.

The paper reviews the Harvard model by Badaracco and extracts taken from I‐Ching. It makes comparisons between the Chinese and Western perspectives.

The paper provides a discussion on the NTE and the TAF three‐step approaches in their leadership style to understand how western and Chinese leaders exert their power of influence. This paper argues that although each adopts a three‐step approach in its leadership style, the differences lie in the philosophies that are used to guide the leader in influencing others. From the Western perspective, there are three pertinent virtues of “restraint, modesty, and tenacity” in pushing through change, while the Chinese adopt the three virtues of “prudence, balance, and authority” as their essential guide in leadership and by exercising self‐restraint and patience, resonance, and balancing.

The paper presents the pertinence and applicability of the Harvard model and the Chinese model since there is an increase of frequency of cross‐cultural communication in government, business, education, and other organisations. One of the trends in research on leadership is on leaders' quality in relation to organisational ethics and competencies of effective communication.

This paper presents a high level of comparative analyses between two influential models. It points out the need for leaders in both the western and Asian organisations to be aware of the two models so as to enhance their competencies and capacities in maximising change. This paper argues that Harvard model is well designed and highly applicable; and that the Chinese classics on influential leaders are still relevant in today's contexts.