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This paper aims to examine how firms respond to societal moral degradation in a transition economy from the corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspective.

Based on a survey of 302 firms operating in China and using hierarchical regression, this study explores the effect of societal moral degradation on firm CSR implementation.

The study finds that the amount of CSR performed by firms in a transition market will reduce when they face increased moral degradation in the business field. The authors also find that CSR philanthropy is more significantly deterred by societal moral degradation than CSR sustainability.

These findings reveal that firms conducting CSR initiatives need to strategically consider the great influence of environment. Meanwhile, strategic CSR decisions should be fully aware of the different characters of different CSR forms.

This paper draws on the strategic choice theory and contributes to understanding of the influence of specific environmental factors in transition economies on CSR implementation. Based on two main categories of CSR, this study develops a framework that explores how firms choose different CSR forms when they encounter severe moral degradation in business sector.

The decision regarding ethics and compliance management (ECM) adoption and its actual implementation is usually deliberated as an important corporate social responsibility (CSR) matter. Building on the strategic choice perspective, this study aims to investigate the forces and mechanisms underlying the link between ECM adoption and its substantial implementation.

The study is based on survey data of multi-national companies (MNCs) in Asia.

The authors find that firms adopt ECM initiatives due to the impact of critical field events coupled with institutional mimesis and the salience of risk reduction. Moreover, reinforced by top management support and ethics transgressions, firms are inclined to engage in sincere ECM implementation.

The study examines important antecedents of ECM adoption and implementation in market MNCs. In doing so, it contributes to the broader CSR literature.

Practical wisdom from Chinese classical traditions is still an enlightening resource for contemporary management. Based in traditional Chinese perspectives, this paper aims to explore the influence of ethical leadership and social capital on customer relationship.

The authors conduct a survey of senior executives in 215 Chinese companies. Structural model testing and hierarchical regressions are used to analyze the data.

The empirical analysis affirms the authors' hypotheses that both ethical leadership and social capital have significant influence on customer relationship.

The results imply that traditional Chinese perspectives on contemporary management research have a potentially important impact.

It may also be valuable for Chinese firms to incorporate classical traditions into their daily practice: to enhance ethical leadership and obtain more social capital.

This study is a modest step towards an integration of traditional perspectives into research on the role of ethical leadership, and social capital, in maintaining good customer relationship in China.

This article is a commentary on The “Global Implications of the Indigenous Epistemological System from the East: How to Apply Yin-Yang Balancing to Paradox Management” (Li, 2016), which is a timely and important piece. Li (2016) offers epistemological insights into what Yin-Yang is, why Yin-Yang can serve as a guiding frame of thinking, and how to apply this frame of thinking to paradoxical issues to organizations that compete in a complex cross cultural world. Western management philosophies and perspectives have dominated the mainstream theories in organization and management around the world over the past five decades, paying very limited attention and appreciation to Eastern philosophies that exist already for over 2500 years (e.g., 551–479 BC’s Confucianism). In this commentary, we added more explanations, suggesting that given intensified complex and competing needs to fulfil for today’s businesses, the indigenous Eastern epistemological wisdom of Yin-Yang balancing is an important guide to understand paradoxes and tensions. Yin-Yang balancing provides a holistic comprehension concerning our complex reality. It treats two opposite elements of any paradox as partial trade-off as well as partial synergy within a spectrum of holistic and dynamic balancing. We reinforce that the duality perspective has good potential to help us better understand the process of a multitude of conflictual and competing needs organizations must simultaneously accomplish. This potential is deemed to work not merely for firms competing in the East or other developing countries but can extend to organizations, large or small, in the West or developed countries as well.

This commentary echoes Li’s point (2016) that Yin-Yang balancing has significant and extensive applications when a growing number of organizations, local and foreign, are compelled to become ambidextrous when facing complex new business realities and having to deal with intensified competing needs they have to simultaneously, interactively and dynamically satisfy. This commentary discusses some distinctive characteristics of Eastern philosophies, followed by articulation of some critical lacuna, we think, concerning the Yin-Yang duality that should be answered. In this commentary, we amplify Li’s main points, along with our suggested agenda for future research that can further develop Yin-Yang balancing to a theory of managing paradox.

Eastern philosophies have long been dominated by five pillars or five schools of mastery thoughts originating mainly from China – Confucianism (Ru Jia), Taoism (Tao Jia), Legalism (Fa Jia), Militarism (Bing Jia), and Buddhism (Fu Jia). The Yin-Yang philosophy is one of the central notions of Taoism which teaches us how to act in accordance with nature. Founded by Laozi and Zhuangzhi, Taoism is rooted in an understanding of the “way” (i.e., Tao), which is the shapeless force that brings all things into existence and then nurtures them. That is, Tao means the natural course, which is spontaneous, eternal, nameless, and indescribable. Unlike Confucianism, Taoism favors philosophical anarchism and pluralism. Tao manifests itself through natural principles or philosophies, including Yin-Yang duality, circular nature of changes, wu-wei (natural course of action), and harmony with internal and external environments.

We endorse Li's view (2016) that Western and Eastern management philosophies have their respective strengths and weaknesses, neither one alone is sufficient to manage all types of problems. Thus, a better solution is the one that can integrate Eastern and Western epistemological systems into a geocentric meta-system. The world is entering into a globally-interconnected era, requiring both the organic complexity and ambiguity and the mechanistic simplicity and clarity. Increased global interconnectivity accentuates complexity and interdependence while increased competition fortifies dynamism and uncertainty. This will cause more, not less, paradoxes than before. To this end, Yin-Yang balancing is an audacious and judicious frame of thinking toward paradoxes because this philosophy embodies a unique ability to address the key challenges of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty and embraces multiplicity, diversity and inter-penetrability.

After centuries of Western economic dominance, China, India and the rest of the East, alongside emerging economies more broadly, are beginning to challenge the West for positions of global industry leadership. At a deeper level, the transformation from “West Leads East” to “West Meets East” heralds the need for ambidextrous or ambicultural thinking: making simultaneous use of opposites, or simultaneously balancing seemingly contradictory forces and needs, such as efficiency and flexibility, competition and cooperation, stability and adaptation, exploitation and exploration, global and local, privatization and state-ownership, market-based and relationship-based strategies, individualism and collectivism, and long-term and short-term

Enlightened by Yin-Yang balancing, there is a great potential of co-evolution, convergence and co-reinforcement of different philosophies. It will not be easy for any single study to reveal a roadmap for this, but it is feasible for the management research community to finally make the trip with our continuous and collective efforts. Some Western management theories, such as organizational ambidexterity, loose coupling, collaborative competitive advantage, co-opetition, transnational solution (integrated global integration and local responsiveness), to name a few, share some core values of Yin-Yang balancing, even though such sharing has never been articulated explicitly. Similar to the same difficulty facing any other philosophies to be transformed into actionable theories, we have a long journey to navigate in quest for extending Yin-Yang balancing to a universally accepted theory of managing paradoxes. Li’s article (2016) sheds much light for us to forge ahead to this direction.

This paper aims to provide an overview of this special issue.

The guest editorial introduces the papers in this special issue, focusing on practical wisdom for management from the Chinese classical traditions.

Chinese culture increasingly will permeate international culture and move from peripheral to mainstream status. To ignore this in management education would be a grave oversight.

The issue offers insights into the value of practical wisdom from Confucianism, the origins of Chinese classical trditions and Daoism, and the various streams of thought within the classical Chinese traditions and their contemporary relevance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine knowledge and attitudes about preconception health care among Chinese immigrants in Canada.

A cross-sectional internet-based survey, informed by the principles of the health belief model, was administered to a convenience sample in Ottawa, Canada. In total, 76 respondents from the Chinese community participated in the online survey.

Overall, participants demonstrated: low to moderate awareness of preconception related risk factors and preconception health; neutral to slightly positive attitudes toward carrying out preconception care; considerable confusion over the differences among preconception care, premarital health care (Mainland China), and prenatal health care; great sensitivity to subjective norms related to spouses, parents, and friends; and a strong desire for receiving information and communication from health care professionals.

An emphasis on reducing misperceptions and offering information about the preconception period and potential severe pregnancy-related risks may contribute to a better knowledge and intended behavior toward preconception care among Chinese immigrants, and ultimately optimize both their reproductive health and their future children’s health.

The cultural norms and population policies in the sending country may frame immigrants’ knowledge and attitudes related to preconception health care. This study fills the gap in the literature regarding Chinese immigrants’ knowledge levels and attitudes toward preconception care in Canada and thus offers insights into how to deliver culturally competent care and design effective communication strategies to reach out to ethnocultural communities.

Using Generation Z consumers from China as an example and focusing on the nostalgia-driven design of brand spokes-character, this study sought to update research on the causal relationship between nostalgia and brand attitude for younger consumers. Two types of nostalgic brand spokes-characters (i.e., eliciting personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia) were examined separately and compared to verify their contributions to more positive brand attitude, as well as related mechanisms, that is, whether consumer trust in the spokes-character mediated the relationship between nostalgic spokes-characters and brand attitude.

An experiment was first conducted to test the causal effects of brand spokes-characters designed to elicit two types of nostalgic feelings (i.e., personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia). Then, the authors investigated the influencing mechanism of nostalgic brand spokes-characters based on bootstrap mediation models.

The results revealed that for less familiar brand spokes-characters, either type of nostalgia-driven design would enhance consumers' brand attitude. Moreover, consumer trust in the spokes-character mediated the relationship between personal-nostalgic brand spokes-characters and brand attitude.

This study was the first to examine personal nostalgia and historical nostalgia separately regarding the effects of nostalgic spokes-characters and related mechanisms. By combining methods of experimental design and bootstrap mediation modeling, it provided a more robust evaluation of nostalgia-driven design, and supported using certain nostalgic styles for designing brand spokes-characters, which can help modern brands draw more interest from young consumers and promote more positive brand attitude.