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In this paper the authors present a theoretical framework that shows how interaction between two or more companies depends on its context of performance. Reflexivity between two or more levels of context potentially leads the parties to a situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature: paradox. The authors study the manner in which such situations occur and are resolved.

The data in this paper comes from a three‐year‐long multiple case study investigation. Data was gathered from 15 different organizations through interviews, participant observation and document reviews.

Context‐bounded interaction between organizational actors can be interpreted in different, sometimes contradictory, ways, which can create paradox. Parties cannot stay in paradox for long because it may produce adverse personal and social consequences. Thus, resolution of paradox potentially causes significant changes to the structural attributes of relationships.

Paradox has potentially significant and destructive consequences for the quality of business‐to‐business relationships. Organizational actors who understand that paradox has been encountered can develop strategies for exiting paradox and maintaining high‐quality relationships with their partners.

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework that explains how business interaction can lead to paradox, the experience and resolution of which potentially makes significant changes to the structure of business relationships.

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 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.

Substantiates the author′s response of “paradoxical” to the titular question through analysing key transcending issues in her consulting practice. Discusses each of the transcending issues cited in terms of expectation vis‐à‐vis experience in reality which led to resolution in development where differentiation and integration were managed. Categorizes the movement as translative (morphostatic) movement within a horizontal level or transformative (morphogenetic) movement between vertical levels, and refers to all movement as a transition. The experiences noted from the basis for gender leadership in the consulting profession in a turbulent developmental time during the beginning of the paradigm era shift.

Globalization has shifted the comparative advantage in the OECD countries away from being based on traditional inputs of production, such as land, labor and capital, towards knowledge. This has triggered a divergence between the competitiveness of firms and the competitiveness of locations. As the strategic management of firms dictated a response to globalization of outward foreign direct investment combined with employment downsizing at high cost locations, public policy has responded by developing the strategic management of places. Policy to promote entrepreneurship has emerged as playing a central role in the strategic management of places, because entrepreneurial activity is the conduit between investments in knowledge and economic growth at the particular location. However, due to the two sources of market failure associated with investments in knowledge and entrepreneurial activity identified in this paper, private agents will tend to under invest in entrepreneurial activity. A major goal of the strategic management of places is to pursue policies that will compensate for this market failure by promoting knowledge-based entrepreneurship as a vehicle for the employment growth and global competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explain why and how globalization has triggered the emergence of a new type of public policy – the strategic management of places – and the central role that entrepreneurship plays in this new policy.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of paradoxes, underlying tensions and potential management strategies when integrating digital technologies into existing lean-based production systems (LPSs), with the aim of achieving synergies and fostering the development of production systems.

This study adopts a collaborative management research (CMR) approach to identify patterns of organisational tensions and paradoxes and explore management strategies to overcome them. The data were collected through interviews and focus group interviews with experts on lean and/or digital technologies from the companies, from documents and from workshops with the in-case researchers.

The findings of this paper provide insights into the salient organisational paradoxes embraced in the integration of digital technologies in LPS by identifying different aspects of the performing, organising, learning and belonging paradoxes. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the intricacies and relatedness between different paradoxes and their resolutions, and more specifically, how a resolution strategy adopted to manage one paradox might unintentionally generate new tensions. This, in turn, calls for either re-contextualising actions to counteract the drift or the adoption of new resolution strategies.

This paper adds perspective to operations management (OM) research through the use of paradox theory, and we (1) provide a fine-grained perspective on why integration sometimes “fails” and label the forces of internal drift as mechanisms of imbalances and (2) provide detailed insights into how different management and resolution strategies are adopted, especially by identifying re-contextualising actions as a key to rebalancing organisational paradoxes in favour of the integration of digital technologies in LPSs.

The collection and use of personal medical information for mobile health (mHealth) service raise significant privacy concerns. In this context, this study aims to explore the privacy paradox and its impact from the perspective of paradox resolution.

Based on social support theory and privacy calculus theory, this study first studies the effect of social support on perceived benefits, and explores the moderating effect of perceived health status on the privacy trade-off process. Secondly, the study examines the path of “privacy concerns – disclosure intention – disclosure behavior” to verify the existence of the privacy paradox. Following this, based on rational choice theory, the rationality degree is introduced as a moderating variable to investigate both its impact on the central route and the strength of this impact on the privacy paradox.

Empirical results show that informational support and emotional support influence perceived benefits significantly. Perceived benefits significantly influence privacy concerns, and perceived health status has a significant positive moderating effect. The authors further find that there is a privacy paradox within the mHealth context, and the privacy paradox is moderated negatively by rationality degree. The findings indicate that the impact strength of the privacy paradox will decrease with increases in rationality degree.

The findings indicate that it is crucial to evaluate the privacy paradox and its impact from the perspective of paradox resolution.

This study offers a complete comprehension of the privacy paradox in mHealth and provides several valuable recommendations for enhancing both mHealth services and privacy controls.

The objective of this paper is to explain the conceptual framework of paradox.

The paper adopts a theoretical approach. It outlines marketing's current and limited interest in the notion of paradox and highlights the difference between a classic paradox, the tension between transactional and relational marketing, and the Contemporary Marketing Practice (CMP) research program.

A future research agenda for paradox and marketing is speculated on, addressing issues such as likely domains for exploration, methodology, as well as the type of organizational structures and marketing leadership required. Finally, there is reflection on how paradox engineers a strong bridge between theory and practice.

The paper reveals useful information on paradox and marketing.

Identifying the fundamental characteristics of meaning and deriving an automated meaning‐analysis procedure for machine intelligence.

Semantic category theory (SCT) is an original testable scientific theory, based on readily available data: not assumptions or axioms. SCT can therefore be refuted by irreconcilable data: not opinion.

Human language involves four totally independent semantic categories (SC), each of which has its own distinctive form of “Truth”. Any sentence that assigns the characteristics of one SC to another SC involves what is termed here “Semantic Intertwine”. Semantic intertwine often lies at the core of semantic ambiguity, sophistry and paradox: problems that have plagued human reason since antiquity.

SCT is applicable to any endeavour involving human language. Research applications are therefore somewhat extensive. For example, identifying metaphors posing as science, or natural language processing/translation, or solving disparate paradox types, as illustrated by worked examples from: The Liar Group, Sorites Inductive, Russell's Set Theoretic and Zeno's Paradoxes.

To interact successfully with human language, behaviour, and belief systems, as well as their own environment, intelligent machines will need to resolve the semantic component/intertwines of any sentence. Semantic category analysis (SCA), derived from SCT, and also described here, can be used to analyse any sentence or argument, however complex.

Both SCT and SCA are original. Whilst “category error” is an intuitive notion, the observably precise nature, number and modes of interaction of such categories have never previously been presented. With SCT/SCA the rigorous analysis of any argument, whether foisted, valid, or obfuscating, is now possible: by man or machine.

In their articles on “Innovation in Organizations: A Multi-Level Perspective on Creativity,” Robert Sternberg, along with Jane Howell and Kathleen Boies, broach a critical question bearing on the nature of creativity in organizational settings. Why is creativity in organizations so difficult even though organizations say they want creativity? In the present chapter, we examine some likely sources of this paradox and the ways one might go about resolving this paradox. Subsequently, we discuss directions for future research.