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The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

Purpose – The author introduces the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, especially its epistemology of Yin-Yang Balancing as the Eastern cognitive frame, to shed light on the debates over the distinction and integration between research and practice as well as between qualitative and quantitative methods so as to solve the problems of relevance-rigor gap as well as complexity-simplicity gap. The author also applies the frame of Yin-Yang Balancing to the development of a novel method of case study.

Methodology/Approach – This is a conceptual article.

Central theme – The Eastern philosophy of wisdom is better at an open-minded exploration of open-ended issues by emphasizing relevance and complexity, while the Western philosophy of science is better at a closed-minded exploitation of close-ended issues by emphasizing rigor and simplicity. A geocentric integration of both Eastern and Western philosophies is needed.

Research and practical implications – Management research is far behind the need for theoretical insights into practical solutions largely due to the increasing gaps between relevance and rigor as well as between complex problems and simple solutions. The root cause of the two gaps lies in the overreliance on the Western philosophy of science, so a new light can be found in the Eastern philosophy of wisdom, and the ultimate solution is a geocentric integration of Eastern and Western philosophies. A novel method of case study can be built by applying the Eastern philosophy.

Originality/Value – The author highlights the urgent needs for the Eastern philosophy of wisdom and its integration with the Western philosophy of science toward a geocentric meta-paradigm. As a specific application of the geocentric meta-paradigm, the author proposes a novel method of case study called Yin-Yang Method.

Grounded in Yijing, the wellspring of Chinese philosophies, this research aims to propose a novel interpretation of the indigenous Yin-Yang harmony cognitive framework, and to elaborate on how to use it as a meta-theorising tool to characterise the conflicting yet complementary dynamics of strategy, commonly seen as the prominent feature of Chinese strategic thinking.

Using the Yin-Yang harmony approach (i.e. Yin as the endogenous factors and Yang the exogenous factors), the authors first put forward eight paradoxical situations facing Chinese organisations as per the changing paradigm of Yijing. Then the authors use the thick description model as a roadmap to identify three evolving trajectories in Chinese higher education (HE) system. Finally, they raise four strategic propositions regarding how competing HE institutes handle the conflicting yet complementary dynamics in China.

Results show that the main strategic choices used by two different types of higher education institutes to cope with the current high-level uncertainty and competition could be described in terms of the two “Qian” and “Li” strategic situations, respectively. More details are discussed in the four propositions.

This research brings potentially valuable implications for global regulators, policymakers, providers and other stakeholders through better understanding of HE-related issues, as well as certain distinct conceptual complexities in terms of developing strategies in China. It implies potentially significant differences in cognition between East and West, and illustrates what may be their workings.

This indigenous eight-dimensional paradigm demonstrates the conflicting yet complementary dynamic gestalt of organisational strategic choices that may only be realised in Chinese terms, and that cannot be elucidated by theories purely derived from Western experience. It thus can foster the transfer of understanding between the East and West and open a new chapter for 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.

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.

China has long been dedicated to introducing the Western management ideas to the local enterprise practice. But the situation has changed since the financial crisis, and the China model has become a hot word with its fast recovery from crisis. Moreover, Chinese traditional culture has become increasingly popular. Yin and yang are the most familiar Chinese philosophical terms to Western minds, and also the core concept of Chinese Taoist philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the yin yang or lao‐tzu influences a firm's core competence and performance, and to demonstrate that the Taoist‐oriented Chinese culture remains meaningful and in many situations powerful in enterprise practice.

A case study is carried out from Town Star Ltd, established in 2001, and located in Linfen city, Shanxi province, China, a city which topped the list of the world's most polluted cities. It is an integrated joint‐stock company, specializing in coal coking chemical industry, gardening, logistics and technology development. Based on the humanized management doctrine, the company has formed the 5S management model which boosts its rapid and sustainable development. It coped well in major junctures such as industry restructuring and transferring, financial crisis, etc. Five key dimensions of the yin and yang, which were applied to the leader's daily behaviors and management style, are: Wu‐wei (inaction), Wu (emptiness), hardness with softness, moderation and He‐xie (harmony). First, this paper built a dynamic company growth model based on this philosophy which enhanced the core competitiveness effectively by emotional management innovation and personalized HRM, among which its pivotal regulator of variables is just yin yang conversion degree. Then an approach is provided to validate the model with empirical data collected from the years 2001‐2010 (2001‐2005, 2006‐2008, 2009‐2010) of Town Star Ltd.

It is demonstrated that yin yang ideology embedded in the company growth model organically is an important means to increase marginal benefit. In practice, the firm with yin yang philosophical ideology would shape a management paradigm which combined rules and human nature appropriately to a family‐oriented business atmosphere. Based on the above philosophical wisdom, Town Star Ltd has harvested good economic and social benefits, strong core competence through the elaborately constructed unique management model and harmonious humanity environment.

This paper opens an avenue for indigenous firms, as a framework for guiding management research and practice in coping with the post‐crisis era. In addition, it is expected to attract more attention from scholars, entrepreneurs both in China and in the rest of the world, to contribute to knowledge creation in Chinese management studies.

Isu diskriminasi antara kaum telah tular di media sosial berikutan isu pemberian vaksin secara jumpa terus yang mula dibukakan di Pusat Vaksinasi Stadium Tertutup pada hari Jumaat, 24 September 2021. Jumlah orang ramai yang ingin mengambil vaksin telah melebihi jangkaan sehingga menyebabkan keadaan menjadi tidak terkawal dan berlakunya pelanggaran Prosedur Pengendalian Standard (SOP). Kajian ini dijalankan untuk membincangkan isu diskriminasi kaum yang berlaku semasa gelombang kedua pandemik COVID-19. Penelitian menggunakan metode kualitatif secara deskriptif. Data yang diperolehi daripada komen-komen dalam halaman Brunei Dot Com, dan Facebook ini seterusnya dianalisis menggunakan model tiga dimensi Fairclough (1992). Hasil kajian mendapati kesemua komen telah menunjukkan sikap diskriminasi dalam kalangan masyarakat Brunei secara sedar ataupun tidak. Isu diskriminasi ini bukan sahaja dapat dilihat dari sudut representasi linguistik, tetapi juga penghasilan dan pewahanaan wacana berkaitan pada halaman Brunei Dot Com, dan Facebook. Kajian ini juga menunjukkan bahawa wacana bukan saja mampu dibentuk masyarakat tetapi juga membentuknya.

The issue of racial discrimination concerning the commencement of walk-in vaccination at the Indoor Stadium Vaccination Centre on Friday, 24 September 2021 was widely addressed in the social media. Chaos ensued as an influx of people attended the centre and violated the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This paper examines the issue of racial discrimination during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Brunei. As a qualitative-descriptive study, data obtained from Brunei Dot Com, and Facebook page, were analysed using Fairclough's (1992) three-dimensional approach. Findings have shown presence of discriminatory attitudes among the local community displayed as deliberately or unintentionally. This is manifested in its linguistic representations, discourse production and consumption in the selected Brunei Dot Com and Facebook pages. This study indicates that a discourse is not only capable of shaping but is also shaped by the community.

Utilizing a paradox perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the leadership-followership dynamic in foreign firms in China, specifically, the extent to which Yin-Yang leadership behaviors of Japanese expatriates and cosmopolitanism of Chinese employees influence employee commitment.

Data were collected through an online survey of Chinese employees who directly report to a Japanese supervisor in a Japanese subsidiary in China. Based on responses from 97 Chinese employees in three Japanese subsidiaries in China, the authors test if their cosmopolitan orientation and perceived Yin-Yang leadership behaviors of Japanese supervisors are related to employee commitment.

Yin-Yang leadership and cosmopolitan followership have a positive effect on employee commitment. Further, cosmopolitanism moderates the link between Yin-Yang leadership and employee commitment such that the follower’s cosmopolitanism compensates for lower levels of Yin-Yang leadership, especially a relative lack of Yin leadership behaviors.

Results suggest that Yin-Yang leadership and cosmopolitan followership work together as a two-way street of cultural adaptability to build employee commitment, highlighting the interplay between leadership and followership in multinational enterprises. Future research should attempt to further refine the Yin-Yang leadership construct, and to gain a larger sample representing multiple expatriate nationalities to corroborate the relationships found in this study.

The study applies a context-based approach to developing culturally relevant leadership, through analyzing both the emic and etic concepts of culture in China. In doing so, the authors extend the application of paradox theories to the cross-cultural leadership literature utilizing the Yin-Yang principle, which is particularly relevant in societal contexts where rapid and dramatic change brings to the fore competing values, needs and employee preferences.

The purpose of this paper is to comment on “Global implication of the indigenous epistemological system from the East: How to Apply yin-yang balancing to paradox management” by Li (2016). As a pioneer in developing indigenous Chinese management theories, Li has been focused on extracting essential principles of the Chinese yin-yang philosophy and applying them to organization and management phenomena within and outside China (Li, 1998, 2012, 2014a, b). In this paper (Li, 2016), Li sharpens his thinking on the unique attributes of the Chinese yin-yang balancing perspective so as to both distinguish it from and connect it to Western Aristotelian and Hegelian philosophies in regard to contradictions and paradoxes that are increasingly more prevalent in contemporary organizations. The author found Li’s paper thought provoking and highly relevant to cross-cultural management research. The author reflects on the yin and yang of the yin-yang perspective itself and discusses how it can be extended for theorizing about cross-cultural or inter-cultural management research.

Applying yin-yang dialectics on the East-West cultural differences, this commentary contends that the strengths and weaknesses of the cultural mindsets of the East and the West are relative and potentially complementary to each other, and seeks to balance and integrate Eastern and Western perspectives for theorizing and tackling cultural differences and conflicts in a globalized world.

On the basis of yin-yang dialectics on cultural differences, a communitarianism model is proposed for cross-cultural researchers to balance and integrate individualism and collectivism, a well-established East-West cultural difference.

The theoretical model of communitarianism builds upon but transcends either Eastern or Western cultural differences toward a viable global value system.

The purpose of this study is to discover and model the asymmetry in the price volatility of financial markets, in particular the foreign exchange markets as the first underlying applications.

The volatility of the financial market price is usually defined with the standard deviation or variance of the price or price returns. This standard definition of volatility is split into the upper part and the lower one, which are termed here as Yang volatility and Yin volatility. However, the definition of yin‐yang volatility depends on the scale of the time, thus the notion of scale space of price‐time is also introduced.

It turns out that the duality of yin‐yang volatility expresses not only the asymmetry of price volatility, but also the information about the trend. The yin‐yang volatilities in the scale space of price‐time provide a complete representation of the information about the multi‐level trends and asymmetric volatilities. Such a representation is useful for designing strategies in market risk management and technical trading. A trading robot (a complete automated trading system) was developed using yin‐yang volatility, its performance is shown to be non‐trivial. The notion and model of yin‐yang volatility has opened up new possibilities to rewrite the option pricing formulas, the GARCH models, as well as to develop new comprehensive models for foreign exchange markets.

The asymmetry of price volatility and the magnitude of volatility in the scale space of price‐time has yet to be united in a more coherent model.

The new model of yin‐yang volatility and scale space of price‐time provides a new theoretical structure for financial market risk. It is likely to enable a new generation of core technologies for market risk management and technical trading strategies.

This work is original. The new notion and model of yin‐yang volatility in scale space of price‐time has cracked up the core structure of the financial market risk. It is likely to open up new possibilities such as: a new portfolio theory with a new objective function to minimize the sum of the absolute yin‐volatilities of the asset returns, a new option pricing theory using yin‐yang volatility to replace the symmetric volatility, a new GARCH model aiming to model the dynamics of yin‐yang volatility instead of the symmetric volatility, new technical trading strategies as are shown in the paper.