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The author argues and explains that the indigenous Eastern epistemological system of Yin-Yang balancing should be taken as a novel system or frame of thinking, which is deeply rooted in the indigenous Eastern culture traditions, but it has significant global implications, especially in the domain of paradox management. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a detailed elaboration of the indigenous Eastern epistemological system of Yin-Yang balancing in contrast to the Western logic systems; and second, to provide a roadmap for applying the system of Yin-Yang balancing to complex issues in the area of management, in general, and paradoxical issues, in particular.

This is a conceptual paper with a focus on theory-building.

The author elaborates on the indigenous features of Yin-Yang balancing, in contrast to Aristotle’s formal logic and Hegel’s dialectical logic in the West, to further explore the former’s global implications for the increased attention to research on paradox management. In particular, the author posits that Yin-Yang balancing appears to be better suited for paradox management than the more commonly used logics available in the Western literature. Built upon the Yin-Yang balancing, a practical tool of Duality Map for paradox management is proposed.

The system of Yin-Yang balancing proposed in this paper has the potential to embrace logical systems available in the West into a geocentric (East-meeting-West) meta-system. This paper further shows how to apply Yin-Yang balancing with the tool of Duality Map to the most salient paradoxes in the domain of management, including value-profit balance (triple bottom lines), exploration-exploitation balance (ambidexterity), cooperation-competition balance (co-opetition), globalization-localization balance (glocalization), institution-agency balance (institutional entrepreneurship), simultaneously positive and negative attitudes toward an entity (ambivalence), and etic-emic balance (geocentric) across all domains of management research.

The primary challenge for management researchers is to find a way to achieve a geocentric integration between the West and the East at the fundamental level of philosophy. The hope is that the philosophical traditions in the East will facilitate such integration. In particular, the Eastern philosophy of wisdom has a unique capacity to reframe paradox from a negative problem (i.e. a problem of inconsistency to be resolved by dualism in terms of separating opposite elements) to a positive solution (i.e. a solution of completeness or holism to be achieved by duality in terms of partially separating and partially integrating opposite elements).

The purpose of this paper is to examine how paradox emerges during a planned change initiative to improve and dramatically transform inter‐agency information sharing. Based on interviews with key decision makers, the authors interrogate the relationships among institutional contradictions, emergent dualities, the communicative management of related organizational stakeholder paradoxes, and the consequences of enacted solutions.

Interviews with government leaders serve as the data source. These decision makers are from justice agencies participating in planning an information‐sharing program to better protect citizens and their agencies' workforce.

The data suggests that Seo and Creed's institutional contradiction “isomorphism conflicting with divergent interests” gave rise to three interdependent dualities: stakeholder self‐interest/collective good, stakeholder inclusion/exclusion, and emergent stakeholder consensus/leader driven decision making. These dualities were implicated in the enactment of paradox and its management. No matter what strategy the managers used, the consequences themselves were paradoxical, rooted in the same dualities that were originally present.

The authors sought to trace the outcomes of how leaders managed the poles of dualities, and found evidence of unintended consequences that were intriguing in their own right and were linked to stakeholder considerations. The paper underscores the importance of communication in the representation of paradoxes and how they were managed, and the unintended consequences of the solutions.

Leaders' articulations of paradox can be tapped for improving change efforts.

Whereas, institutional contradictions have been examined in reference to emerging paradox, and while paradoxical solutions have been studied widely, little research has investigated how institutional contradictions become simultaneously embedded in the process and the outcomes of organizational change.

The author argues and explains that the indigenous Eastern epistemological frame of yin-yang balancing can be taken as a unique system of thinking toward a meta-perspective. It is not only deeply rooted in the indigenous Eastern culture traditions, but also bears salient global implications, especially in the domain of paradox management. The purpose and contribution of this chapter are twofold: (1) to explain the unique and salient features of yin-yang balancing (the “either/and” system to reframe paradox into duality as partially conflicting and partially complementary, both spatially and temporarily) as compared with the Western logic systems (the “either/or” and “both/or” or “both/and” systems); and (2) to explore the global implications of the “either/and” system for future paradox research, including the three unique themes of overlap between opposites with the “seed” of one opposite inside the other; threshold from the contingent balance between partial separation and partial integration in line with specific contexts through three operating mechanisms, and knot for the special role of third-party to shift paradox from a dyadic level to a triadic and even a multiplex level.

The purpose of this paper is to present the proposition that culture in international management has been dominated by a “Western dualism to measuring culture” (Caprar et al., 2015, p. 1024), which has resulted in severe problems and persistent limitations. The suggestion is that cultural research can be more productively conceived as a paradox involving a duality between two contrasting yet co-determined spheres or domains.

The paper provides an outline of culture as a paradox and an outline of a research approach to address the dualities of culture.

A cultural duality is described, which involves a paradoxical “yin-yang” relationship between two contrasting yet mutually constituted aspects of the collective mind. One domain, which involves conscious cognitive elements has dominated research characterized by positivism and empirical cross-cultural explorations of phenomenological cultural values. The second, more recondite domain, involves unconscious and embodied cultural phenomena, which are more tacit and hidden in indirect expression through communicative interaction, exchanges of symbolic representations and embodied behaviour in context.

A methodological duality of qualitative and quantitative mixing in order to provide a bi-focal understanding of both tacit and explicit aspects of culture is proposed as a research agenda.

The suggestion is that these cultural shadows have been relatively neglected thus far in cross-cultural management research. This means that in order to better comprehend culture as paradox, an equalization of approaches sensitive to both sides of the duality is prescient. In pursuit of this idea, a complementary qualitative analysis directed at more nebulous cultural phenomena is proposed in order to provide a balanced analysis of culture as paradox.

The purpose of this paper is to adopt a paradox lens for dovetailing the human resource management sub-domains of talent management (TM) and diversity management (DM), in the attempt to create closer alignment between the two.

The authors review paradox theory, TM and DM literatures and formulate a paradox that becomes apparent when considering TM and DM simultaneously.

The authors coin this tension as the “exclusion-inclusion paradox,” highlighting that TM and DM reflect contradictory, yet interrelated principles: organizations promote exclusion through a TM architecture that focuses on the identification and development of a few selected employees, while simultaneously, organizations promote inclusion, in the attempt to minimize existing inequalities for traditionally marginalized groups.

Once uncovered, the exclusion-inclusion paradox enables organizational actors to make choices on whether to respond actively or defensively to the paradox. The authors argue for active responses in order to work through the paradox.

This is the first paper adopting a paradox lens in order to interweave the DM literature with TM literature in the attempt to explain how DM and TM constitute contradicting yet interrelated principles.

Scholars increasingly depict hybridity as pervasive across organizations. The authors offer insight about how paradox theory informs and expands this approach to hybridity. To do so, the authors do a deeper dive into paradox theory, comparing and contrasting a dynamic equilibrium approach with a permanent dialectics approach. Integrating these two approaches offers paradox theory insights that can enrich and expand hybridity scholarship. The authors offer suggestions for how paradox theory can help develop a future research agenda for organizational hybridity.

The purpose of this study is to enhance and further an understanding of business to business (B2B) contexts in relation to sensemaking “translations” between “performing” and “representing” of meanings that evolve within an interacting duality. The implications for research are outlined and a need for a corresponding duality in research methods is emphasised.

This is a conceptual paper exploring some of the main implications for indistrial marketing & purchasing group (IMP) and other B2B research of abandoning Cartesian privileging of generalised cognitive ideas over embodied activities in context.

Dualities of general structures and contextual practices are mutually constituted by performing and representing translations. They are described as “chiasmic” or “polyphonic” and regarded as polyvalent, dynamic and non-linear. Embodied contextual activities are described as of equal importance to de-contextual cognitive structures in meaning-making.

Practical actors within business networks are encouraged to continue relying upon practical improvisational coping skills that enable them to be effective, embodied “bricoleurs” within complex, often unpredictable and regularly unmanageable, eventful B2B contexts.

A post-Cartesian focus upon ideas and activities, structure and agency as dynamically evolving multiple dualities promotes an appreciation that contextual practices and decontextualised structures are mutually constituted; supporting a practical and pragmatic turn towards polyvalent and ephemeral, contextualised solutions to a diverse multiplicity of problems and issues. A post-Cartesian focus upon ideas and activities, and structure and agency as dynamically evolving multiple dualities promotes an appreciation that contextual practices and decontextualised structures are mutually constituted and a practical and pragmatic “turn” towards polyvalent and ephemeral, contextualised solutions to diverse problems and issues involving business relationships and interaction.

Fun means different things to different people and the purpose of this paper is to attempt to answer the question “what is fun at work?”. Given that perceptions of fun differ among people, the answer is that a pluralistic concept of fun best captures different notions of what constitutes fun at work.

The research combines two separate studies. The first is an in-depth ethnographic project involving interviews, participant observations and document collection investigating fun and humour in four different New Zealand companies. The second study extends findings from the first by specifically asking participants to reply to survey questions asking “what is fun at work?”.

Currently fun is described in a variety of ways by researchers using different descriptors for similar concepts. Combining current conceptions of fun with the own research the authors categorize the complex notion of workplace fun into three clear categories: organic, managed and task fun. This tripartite conception of fun combines and extends current models of fun and collates earlier findings into a synthesized model of fun. The investigation found that fun is ambiguous and paradoxical which creates issues for both managers and employees. The authors recognize fun as a multifaceted concept and use paradox theory and the concept of flow to theorize the multilateral fun framework.

The authors find significant implications for managers in regards to creating and fostering fun in the organizational context. Differing perceptions of fun may result in misunderstandings that can negatively impact morale and workplace relationships. A wider conceptualization of fun offers potential for more harmonious and productive workplaces and creates a greater tolerance for competing and paradoxical perceptions of fun.

Current literature on workplace fun uses a variety of descriptors of fun and emphasizes a duality between managed and organic forms of fun. In suggesting a new term “task fun” the authors synthesize earlier conceptions of fun to create an integrated model of fun. The model clearly outlines three overlapping yet paradoxical categories of fun.

This paper aims to look into changing future landscapes of business interaction, relationships and networks using the lens of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his key notions of polyphony, heteroglossia and dialogism.

This is a conceptual paper exploring the complex dualities of Bakhtin’s approach involving eternally competing, paradoxical forces of unity and fragmentation; continuity and change; and coherence and incongruity.

Bakhtin’s approach suggests that all phenomena at all levels involve a complex struggle between organizational unity and dis-organizational fragmentation. Bakhtin provides theoretical support for David Boje’s notion of “antenarratives” as key in the making of socially constructed futures. Antenarratives are bridging “tropes” between unifying narratives and fragmented stories.

Antenarratives need to be a focal interest in researching Bakhtinian dualities because they are a catalyst and chiasmus traveling between and inter-animating relations between narratives and stories.

The Bakhtinian schema suggests that practitioners need to maintain a reliance upon “phronesis” or practical wisdom and dexterity that allows them to adapt and improvise in fast-changing and multiple situations and contexts. To enable them to do this, such practical capabilities need the combined cultivation of appropriate embodied skills, capabilities in communicative and symbolic persuasion, as well as analytical reasoning.

Bakhtin’s concepts provide a unique and operationalizable approach to encompassing duality, which addresses the increasing need in business marketing to understand and adapt within increasingly complex and changing landscapes of business interaction, relationships and networks.

Although managing global change is one of the key competencies demanded of global leaders, it is one of the most under-researched topics in the field (Lane, Spector, Osland, & Taylor, 2014). This chapter shares findings from a recent qualitative study that examined how global business leaders navigate complex global changes. Data were collected from 23 global business executives working for 20 unique global enterprises, in 12 different functions, through a pre-interview participant qualifying profile, an in-depth semi-structured interview, and follow-up verification. Findings reveal that global business executives are contextual leaders who juggle both global task and global relationship complexities. The paradox is the process they employ to navigate continuous change, enabled by sensemaking. Finally, as agile learners, they prove that the global leadership capabilities required to navigate paradox can be learned.