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The purpose of this study is to understand the concept of stakeholder marketing orientation (SMO), its dimensionality and the development of an SMO scale. Further, the study also aims to analyze the impact of SMO on business performance (BP) in Indian pharmaceutical marketing companies. The moderating role of organizational culture between the study variables (i.e. SMO and BP) is also evaluated.

The data regarding SMO are gathered from 93 owners/managers of pharmaceutical marketing companies operating in North India. The underlying dimensions of the scale are identified through exploratory factor analysis. Further, the reliability and validity of the scales are also checked. Further, the partial least square (PLS) technique is used to analyze the study variables.

SMO is established as a multi-dimensional scale comprising system thinking (personal consideration of stakeholder, the relationship of stakeholder, systematic problem-solving and interdependence), paradoxical thinking (decision control and autonomy, uniformity and individualization and distance and closeness) and democratic thinking (ease for the stakeholders to share their voice, involvement in decision-making, the existence of participatory culture in the organization). The SMO showed a positive and significant impact on BP (market growth, return on investment, return on asset and market share). Further, the results also indicated the moderating role of organizational culture between SMO and BP relationship.

This study primarily focuses on the measurement of SMO, exploring its dimensions (system thinking, paradoxical thinking and democratic thinking) and validating using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and PLS techniques. Further, the sample size of the study is small (n = 93), and hence confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and covariance based-SEM could not be applied. It is suggested that future research needs to be undertaken with a bigger sample in the pharmaceutical sector and later in other sectors to validate the results of the study. The impact of moderating variables such as organizational culture, industry size, type and owner experience can also be explored between the study variables in the future. The study is limited to the measurement of SMO from owners/managers’ perspectives, other internal (employees) and external stakeholders such as suppliers, distributors, chemists and hospitals were not contacted because of time constraints. Future research needs to consider the perspectives of these stakeholders in grounding the conceptual framework of SMO.

This research contributes to the development of the SMO scale. It is identified as a practice, based on system thinking, paradoxical thinking and democratic thinking, which provides an organization with better performance. The study results help in strengthening SMO and BP in pharmaceutical marketing industries.

This paper aims to advance the paradox management perspective by applying it to open innovation networks in Finland and argues that paradox management is an important explicit logic to consider in the management of open innovation.

Interviews sought the views of diverse network participants, including companies, universities, and government agencies.

The open innovation networks exhibited many of the same tensions discussed in innovation initiatives within organizations, but additional complexities arose from both internal and external factors.

The study examined open innovation networks when the collaboration in the networks was still in early phases. Thus, the study does not capture the paradoxes, underlying tensions, and management approaches as they change in later phases.

The open innovation networks require the ability to excel in managing a set of paradoxical tensions using a complex repertoire of approaches. Open innovation can be seen as an important way to create dynamicity and change, and if managers are able to manage tensions using a complex set of behavioral approaches, they can more likely achieve increased innovation.

The open innovation literature recognizes paradoxes but does not address their management directly. This paper deepens the understanding of paradoxical tensions and their management across open innovation networks that take the form of public‐private partnerships.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative framework and solution for balancing exploitation–exploration tensions and their management.

A case study method was adopted to uncover what underlies tensions and contradictions between exploitation–exploration that emerge for Chinese manufacturing companies due to the competitive global environment and their latecomer disadvantages when they source new technologies by cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The acquiring firm that acquires two companies is thus not a single but a cross-case study.

The authors present three contradictory points needing to be balanced and according to which three paradoxes emerge: exploitation from a similar knowledge base and innovation from a complementary knowledge base, efficiency and flexibility, as well as profit and breakthroughs. The authors theorize how paradoxical integration helps manage these interwoven tensions. Further, the assimilate-integration-apply (AIA) path suggests a new behavior logic and path choice for Chinese companies when they follow an ambidextrous strategy.

This paper has implications for future research and for companies’ everyday practice on ambidexterity in Chinese society.

The authors combine ambidexterity perspective and AIA path with linkage-leverage-learning (LLL) to offer an alternative framework and solution for balancing exploitation–exploration paradoxes in EE firms’ internationalization to increase LLL’s explanatory power.

Because of globalization, an increased focus on more effective team‐building has become a greater priority. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and describe a new paradigm of key leadership perspectives that is of major importance and value to this effort.

This paper is based on extensive research by the authors regarding the leadership perspectives global managers consider to be of major importance in the team‐building that has helped them achieve success.

The key leadership perspectives are: paradoxical thinking that nurtures understanding based upon use of both hemispheres of the brain; controlled reflecting that fosters reactions based on internal self‐talk rather than external events; intentional focusing that facilitates the ability to be centered on expected outcomes; instinctive responding that cultivates the ability to recognize and use intuitive impulses; inclusive behaving that nurtures actions based upon a concern for the whole; purposeful trusting that places confidence in events and processes that accompany change; and relational being that fosters strength by maintaining positive interactions with others.

This new paradigm will contribute to science within the field of global strategic management by filling the gap of developing a global leadership model.

Firms must find new and creative ways, such as the proposed new management leadership team‐development paradigm, to interact with, motivate and mentor management teams to achieve the desired levels of global operations.

In this paper, a new array of leadership perspectives is presented that can appreciably impact the effectiveness of management and team‐building in a globally‐based organization.

Socioeconomic stress has been a major influence on organizational development during the past decade, and will continue for the foreseeable future. This treatise aims to focus on The Key and its importance for effective organizational development via leadership responses to communication challenges during the present era. It is a conceptual paper based on an actual case.

The Key is a concept that refers to the thoughts and feelings (based on attitudes) that a leader reflects in communications and interactions with his/her universe, a universe that exists both internally within an organization as well as externally to it. The case focuses on communication challenges encountered by Judith Campbell, executive vice president of Creative Innovations, Ltd, and her interaction with Jonathan Bryant, president of Bryant and Associates, Ltd, an organizational development firm. Communication challenges that had arisen primarily due to socioeconomic stress, were seven in number: tendency to rely on only logical thinking; negative responses to external influences; lack of expectations for positive results; tendency toward reliance on sensory input; actions that ignore an inclusive perspective; failure to value and trust in change; and lack of commitment to interactive relations.

Following Bryant's counsel, Campbell chose to address these communication challenges with a training seminar that focused on a paradigm of seven leadership responses related to The Key. These were: Paradoxical thinking; Controlled reflecting; Intentional focusing; Instinctive responding; Inclusive behaving; Purposeful trusting; and Relational being. The training program, as described herein, proved to be very enlightening to the participants and quite effective for the continued organizational development of the firm.

The paper reveals the results of a training program based on seven communication challenges the results of which can be used to aid in continued organizational development of a firm.

The purpose of this paper is to connect the literatures on sustainability, innovation and paradox to suggest that sustainability constraints – simultaneously addressing commercial and sustainability goals – will increase organizational innovation.

Drawing from the literatures on paradox, innovation and sustainability, the authors develop theory about how managers can deliberately enhance the generation and implementation of creative ideas within their organizations.

The authors build on the existing literature that suggests sustainability considerations should be strategically and deeply integrated elements of business activity by developing arguments about how such integration improves organizational performance. The authors argue sustainability considerations, by creating unique forms of constraints, improve organizational success by enhancing creative idea generation and implementation.

Even strategic leaders espousing to only maximize economic efficiency face the challenge of effectively managing sustainability constraints. The discrepancy between what they should do and the problems they face means strategic leaders often have fewer tools to manage and reflect on their own decision-making than is available in the management literature. This paper presents arguments from diverse research that describes potential decision processes and their outcomes.

This paper highlights an important shift in how sustainability constraints are fundamental drivers of long-term organizational performance.

Extant literature treats the simultaneous attention to sustainability concerns and commercial success as difficult accomplishments of clever strategic leaders. Instead, the authors propose that simultaneous attention to sustainability and commercial imperatives is fundamental to long-term organizational success, because it is a powerful determinant of new products, services and business models.

Why did some individuals have relatively little trouble balancing work and home demands during the COVID-19 lockdown, while others felt overwhelmed? Although ample studies have recently been generated regarding COVID-19 employment challenges, this question has not yet received sufficient scholarly attention. This research integrates work–home conflict theories with the paradox-mindset framework, in order to suggest a new theoretical approach for understanding individual differences in addressing work–home conflict.

During the first two weeks of the COVID-19 epidemic in Israel, the author gathered 117 completed questionnaires from their colleagues in the Israeli higher-education system, who were working remotely and teaching online during the lockdown imposed to control the epidemic. Based on a path-model analysis, the author examined whether their experiences of strain and tension in the work domain might be indirectly and positively associated with workplace outcomes via positive associations between these experiences and paradox mindset, as well as negative associations between paradox mindset and work-to-home conflict (WTH) and home-to-work (HTW) conflict.

The study findings highlight the beneficial effect of paradox mindset on the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes. Although working remotely has great potential to increase the strain and tension experienced by employees, applying a paradox mindset reduces the experience of work–home conflict and is positively associated with certain work outcomes.

This research integrates work–home conflict theories with the paradox-mindset framework. The beneficial effects of a paradox mindset on the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes are highlighted.

The paper debunks Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang is superior to any other cognitive frames or logical systems for paradox research. The purpose of this paper is to alert the Chinese indigenous management researchers to the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and over-confidence.

To show that Peter P. Li’s assertion is doubtful, the authors identify the flaws in his analysis.

The authors find that there are three serious flaws in Peter P. Li’s analysis. First, there are four defects in the typology of cognitive frames he built in order to compare Yin-Yang with the others. Second, his understanding of dialectics in general and Hegelian dialectics in particular is flawed. And finally, without resorting to Yin-Yang, many scholars can develop theories that are equivalent to those derived from Yin-Yang.

Due to the page limit, this paper only focuses on arguing that Yin-Yang is not superior to other cognitive frames or logical systems without going one step further to explain in which situations Yin-Yang are valuable and might be more suitable than others for helping us understand some research issues.

This paper implies that we should not blindly believe that the Chinese way of thinking and acting is superior to other people’s. Chinese people should be open-minded in the globalized era, not only promoting their own culture but also appreciating and learning from other cultures.

The reduction of cultural exceptionalism and ethnocentrism can make cross-cultural communication and interaction smoother.

This paper is a rigorous critique on the “Yin-Yang being superior” assertion of Peter P. Li.

This paper aims to unfold the path of how the complexity of culture issues leads to a rising pressure for paradigm changes in the research on culture in international management. In terms of academic debate about culture, the crucial paradigm shift has not yet happened. Research and writing are still dominated by a mechanistic-rational approach which does not quite know to handle cultural phenomena which by nature are mutuable, often transient and invariably context-specific. Rising pressure is observed for paradigm changes through three main trends: integration of West-East dichotomy, coexistence of convergence and divergence; and dynamic vs static perspectives. It is argued that the unresolved debate on the culture construct and its measurement, the epistemological stance by researchers and associated methodological choices in culture studies reinforce these trends pressuring for a paradigm shift.

This paper reviews the knowledge based on culture studies to establish the contributions of culture studies in international business and the foundation of its knowledge base. The conceptual foundation of culture, its multi-level and multi-dimensionality and critical issues in research epistemology and methodology are analyzed to discuss emerging trends in the process of an imminent paradigm change.

By unfolding the nature of abstract and high-order definition of culture, the focus is on deciphering the complex construct and multi-level and multi-dimensionality in measurement, which, in turn, interact with the epistemology of culture researchers and the choice of methodology used to carry out culture studies. Eventually the interaction of the three studied elements drives the proposed three paradigmatic changes in the evolving business environment.

The identified trends in existing culture research keep the importance of culture studies in international business management thriving as we point to their relevance for the envisaged paradigm shift.

The three paradoxes discussed challenge researchers who aim to contribute to the knowledge base of culture in international business. In addition, the debate cannot be ignored by international business managers as culture is a key informal institutional driver that influences international business performance.

The review of the knowledge base on culture studies in management contributes to a better understanding of the envisaged paradigmatic shift of the discipline. The debate on the complexity of culture studies is extended to three tendencies for potential paradigmatic change, with implications discussed to suggest future research.

In the face of external paradoxical requirements, the cognitive framework of managers and employees use to perceive, interpret and reconstruct information is important to ease anxiety and improve job performance. The Yin-Yang balancing of eastern philosophical thought is particularly good at explaining and predicting changes and conflict environments. For this reason, this study aims to propose the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework based on the Yin-Yang balancing theory and its antecedent framework.

This paper contrasts the similarity and differences between Chinese and Western philosophy’s thoughts on paradoxes. On this basis, the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework is proposed. Then, the paper puts forward the antecedent framework of managers’ cognitive framework and employees’ paradoxical cognitive framework.

This paper proposes the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework includes the following three dimensions: the unity-in-diversity of paradoxical elements, the asymmetric balance of paradoxical elements and mutual transformation of paradoxical elements. In addition, this paper proposes an antecedent framework of the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework – the paradoxical requirement of organizational environment exerts a direct impact on managers’ and employees’ paradoxical cognitive framework; managers’ paradoxical cognitive framework has a positive impact on paradoxical leadership; paradoxical leadership exerts an indirect impact on employees’ paradoxical cognitive framework through the collective paradoxical cognitive framework; paradoxical leadership directly affects employees’ paradoxical cognitive framework.

This paper focuses on comparing the similarities and differences of the individual paradoxical cognitive framework in Chinese and Western cultures and proposes the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework and its antecedent framework. Future research needs to further verify the theoretical framework proposed in this paper.

This paper makes a detailed comparison of the paradox views in Chinese and Western philosophy. It is the first to propose the eastern construction of the paradoxical cognitive framework and its antecedent framework, laying a theoretical foundation for future empirical research.