Search results

The purpose of this paper is to comment on Peter Ping Li’s understanding of Zhong-Yong balancing, presented in his article titled “Global implications of the indigenous epistemological system from the East: How to apply Yin-Yang balancing to paradox management.” Seeing his understanding of Zhong-Yong balancing being incorrect and incomplete, the author proposes an alternative perspective on Zhong-Yong as dynamic balancing between Yin-Yang opposites.

The author first explain why Peter P. Li’s “asymmetry” and “superiority” arguments are flawed by referring to the original text of the classical book of Zhong-Yong (中庸) and a comparison between Zhong-Yong and Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. The author then propose an alternative approach to Zhong-Yong balancing that is embedded in the original text Zhong-Yong but somehow has been neglected by many Chinese scholars. The author concludes the commentary by unifying the two alternative approaches to Zhong-Yong balancing under the inclusion-selection-promotion-transition (ISPT) framework of Zhong-Yong balancing.

There are three main findings. First, as the original text of Zhong-Yong does not prescribe asymmetry, Peter P. Li’s notion of “Yin-Yang balancing” is ironically unbalanced or anti-Zhong-Yong due to his emphasis on asymmetry to the exclusion of symmetry. Second, due to the equivalency between Zhong-Yong and Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, Peter P. Li’s assertion that “Yin-Yang balancing” is superior as a solution to paradox management is flawed. Third, his “Yin-Yang balancing” solution is only (the less sophisticated) one of two alternative approaches to Zhong-Yong balancing, i.e., ratio-based combination of Yin-Yang opposites. What Peter P. Li and many other Chinese have neglected is another approach to Zhong-Yong that is embedded in the original text of Zhong-Yong, which I call “analysis plus synthesis.”

As it is a commentary there are no specific limitations except for what can be covered in the space available.

The “analysis plus synthesis” approach to Zhong-Yong can be adopted by practitioners who are demanded to balance between opposite forces in daily life and work.

The rejection of the “Yin-Yang balancing being superior” assertion facilitates reduction of friction and non-cooperation between intellectual traditions.

This commentary contributes to the “West meets East” discourse by debunking Peter P. Li’s assertion that Yin-Yang balancing is superior as a solution to paradox management and his prescription that balancing between Yin-Yang opposites must be asymmetric. It also contributes to the Chinese indigenous management research by identifying a largely neglected approach to Zhong-Yong balancing (i.e. “analysis plus synthesis”) that is alternative to the commonly understood ratio-based combination approach (e.g. “Yin-Yang balancing”). In addition, it contributes to the management literature by proposing the ISPT framework of Zhong-Yong balancing.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the cultural cognition of Chinese Zhong-yong thinking, which is deeply rooted in Chinese Confucius culture, and to examine how entrepreneurs’ Zhong-yong thinking is related to new venture performance through guanxi network, and also examine how environmental turbulence affects the influencing mechanism.

This paper follows an empirical design. Data are collected from a survey administered to entrepreneurs in new ventures of China. Regression analysis is used to test the hypothesis.

Results show that entrepreneurs’ Zhong-yong thinking is positively related to guanxi and new venture performance, and guanxi mediates the relationship between entrepreneurs’ Zhong-yong thinking and new venture performance. In addition, environmental turbulence moderates the relationship between entrepreneurs’ Zhong-yong thinking and guanxi such that the relationship is stronger under higher technological turbulence or lower market turbulence.

This research uses cross-sectional data, so causal conclusions cannot be made. In addition, more moderators should be considered.

The present study enriches the understanding of how entrepreneurs’ Zhong-yong thinking affects new ventures, which helps entrepreneur understand how to strategize according to external environment and develop what kind of cognitive style to deal with complex situation of their own venture.

This study is a pioneer in exploring non-Western cognitive style–Zhong-yong thinking in entrepreneurial context. It not only enriches the understanding of how Chinese wisdom affects organizational strategy and organizational performance but also advances the cognition research in the field of entrepreneurship.

Zhong-yong thinking is a code of conduct of the Chinese people. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among Zhong-yong thinking, social capital, knowledge sharing behavior, and employee survival ability.

Zhong-yong thinking including multi-thinking, integration and harmony, taking a case study of private enterprise in Guangxi of China. Based on the literature, the establishment of the theoretical model and hierarchical regression analysis are explored.

The multi-thinking, integration and harmony of Zhong-yong thinking have a significant positive effect on social capital and employee survival ability. In addition, employee survival ability is positively affected by social capital. Moreover, knowledge sharing behavior has a positive moderating between the multi-thinking dimension of Zhong-yong thinking and social capital, and the remaining dimensions have no moderating effect. Knowledge sharing behavior has no moderating effect on the relationship between social capital and employee survival ability.

Zhong-yong thinking and social capital are actively affecting employee survival ability. Therefore, companies need to work harder to improve their employees' Zhong-yong thinking and social capital.

The paper extends Zhong-yong thinking, social capital and employee survival ability literature to fill gaps in how China people require to both access employee survival ability. The policy value of the work is in suggesting ways to facilitate employee survival ability of China.

This study aims to integrate conservation of resources theory discus the antecedents and consequences of cyberloafing as well as the boundary effect between cyberloafing and mental health.

The authors collected 431 valid questionnaires in four months. Each questionnaire was divided into two parts that had to be distributed. The interval between the first distribution and the second distribution was 15 days.

The research study revealed that employees’ Zhong-Yong thinking and cyberloafing promote mental health, and cyberloafing has a mediating effect. Mindfulness weakens the positive impact of cyberloafing on mental health.

The research study’s results break the stereotype that cyberloafing is not good for organizations. When managers allow employees to engage in cyberloafing at work, this is conducive to employees’ mental health, which can ensure the company’s sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative perspective on Zhong-Yong that is different from the notion of “Yin-Yang balancing” and apply it to understand the issue of balancing the top-down and bottom-up processes in strategy making.

The authors adopt a “West meets East” mindset and approach to develop an alternative perspective on Zhong-Yong, and then apply this perspective to understand the issue of balancing the top-down and bottom-up processes in strategy making. There are three steps in the process of developing the alternative perspective. First, the authors argue that the essence of “Yin-Yang balancing” is a ratio-based solution to paradoxical balancing, which is in fact equivalent to Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean and compatible with some western management scholars’ approaches to solving paradox. Second, the authors identify a different generic solution to paradoxical balancing implicit in the western management literature. Third, the authors find in the original text of Zhong-Yong equivalent ideas to the identified different generic solution and then propose an alternative perspective on Zhong-Yong that is fundamentally different from the notion of “Yin-Yang balancing.”

Applied to the issue of balancing the top-down and bottom-up processes in strategy making, the new perspective on Zhong-Yong provides us with the following prescriptive insights from the life-wisdom of eastern philosophy: first, top management (e.g. Shun as the sage-king) must listen to various views and opinions also from employees and low-level managers at the bottom of the organization to be better informed about complex issues. Second, top management must analyze the diverse elements of the various views and opinions they collect and synthesize by taking the good from the bad to find smarter solutions and make decisions with better outcomes. Third, abiding by a set of (more or less) cohesive values help top managers be open and receptive to information and insights from low-level organizational members and enhancing unbiased information.

This paper is mainly a theoretical perspective. Empirical work is needed to test the prescriptions offered in this paper.

Practitioners may learn new perspectives from ancient Chinese philosophies on how to balance.

This paper applies a new perspective on Zhong-Yong to an important paradox in strategic management.

This study investigates the direct influence of ambidextrous leadership on employees’ innovation behaviour, the mediating role of innovative self-efficacy and harmonious work passion, and the moderating role of Zhong-Yong thinking.

The authors conducted a series of questionnaire surveys to collect data in three time periods and from multiple sources; 332 supervisor–subordinate matched samples were obtained. The hypothesised relationships were tested using structural equation modelling and ProClin.

Ambidextrous leadership is positively associated with employees’ innovation behaviour, while innovative self-efficacy and harmonious work passion play mediating roles. The analysis further confirms that innovative self-efficacy and harmonious work passion play a chained double-mediating role between ambidextrous leadership and employees’ innovation behaviour, while Zhong-Yong thinking plays moderating roles between ambidextrous leadership and innovative self-efficacy and between ambidextrous leadership and harmonious work passion.

This study demonstrates the influence of ambidextrous leadership on employees’ innovation behaviour, specifically the role of ambidextrous leadership, and extends the relationship’s theoretical foundation. It is also expected to provide inspiration and serve as a reference for local Chinese management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of prestige signals measured by the reputations of the underwriter, auditor and board size on the heterogeneity of investor belief about the true value of IPO in the Malaysian IPO market.

This study employs a sample of 281 IPOs issued between January 2000 and December 2015. The relationship between prestige signals and investor heterogeneity, measured by first-day price range of IPOs, is analysed using cross-sectional regression and quantile regression technique.

Of the three prestige signals, the findings show that only underwriter reputation and board size have significant negative relationships with IPO first-day price range. This implies that IPOs underwritten by reputable underwriters and issuing firms with larger board members have lower heterogeneity of opinion among investors. The findings also show that underwriter and auditor reputations have negative relationship with IPO initial return, suggesting that these prestige signals help to reduce IPO under-pricing, which is a direct cost of raising capital for the issuing firm. Furthermore, the results indicate that offer price, initial return, over-subscription ratio and private placement are associated with higher first-day price range. However, the findings on offer size suggest that larger IPO offer size is associated with lower first-day price range. Overall, the findings suggest that firm’s prestige signals reduce opinion heterogeneity among investors and that lower investors’ heterogeneity leads to lower IPO under-pricing cost for issuing firms.

Despite the importance of underwriter, auditor and board member reputations in signalling firm’s quality and reducing the level of information asymmetry of the listing firm’s issues, research on the effects of prestige signals on investor heterogeneity remains unexplored. This study investigates the role of prestige signals in influencing investors’ heterogeneity in Malaysia. The authors conjecture that underwriter, auditor and board member with higher reputations are associated with lower levels of opinion heterogeneity among IPO investors.

This paper explores what differentiates success from failure in post-acquisition integration. It seeks to overcome some of the limitations of previous research by adopting a more holistic and dynamic examination of the process and by focusing on aspects that can be readily applied in practice. Four cases of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the global automobile industry are examined using secondary data and taking a grounded theory approach. The four cases comprise two pairs of successes and two pairs of failures. Two of the pairs comprise established multinational companies, while two others comprise emerging multinational companies’ acquisitions of Korean automakers; in each case, there was one successful M&A and one failure. It is inducted that what differentiates the successful cases from the failures is their different approaches to two common tensions in post-acquisition integration, namely, their approaches to integration strategy and people issues. A two-level framework is proposed in which post-integration is managed simultaneously and dynamically at the strategic and people levels. These inductive findings, if verified by a more broadly based empirical examination, will extend M&A theory by providing a more integrated and dynamic approach to post-acquisition integration, in which strategic and people perspectives are jointly taken into account and interact with each other, thereby creating value for both acquiring and acquired firms.

The coast at Berakas in the Brunei-Muara district of Brunei Darussalam suffers from erosion caused by a combination of fluvial and marine processes. This paper investigates the rate and pattern of erosion along a 1.8-km stretch of coast to compare the difference between the unprotected and protected sections. We used (i) image and spatial analysis and (ii) field geomorphology. The Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) in ArcGIS was used to compare the study area using two Google Earth images. The study found that the unprotected section had receded by 4.6 m between 2009 and 2019, while the protected section had advanced by 8.0 m over the same period; intense gullying and slumping of cliff continued at both sections. The detached headland breakwaters in the protected section were effective in stabilizing the coast. A concrete drain installed parallel to the cliff edge appears to be capable of intercepting storm runoff, but its effectiveness was undermined by lack of maintenance. We conclude that terrestrial-fluvial processes continue to erode coastal land and cause slumping of the cliff face at Berakas. However, coastal protection structures that curb the marine process could stabilize the coastline, even where sediment transport is active.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether initial public offering (IPO) over-subscription is a function of firm’s prestige signals conveyed by third parties with reputational capital such as underwriter, auditor and independent non-executive board member.

The relationship between prestige signals and over-subscription ratio (OSR) of IPOs is analysed using a cross-sectional regression based on a sample of 393 IPOs issued between January 2000 and December 2015.

The results indicate that IPOs underwritten by reputable underwriters have lower OSR than those underwritten by non-reputable underwriters. While issuer engages reputable underwriter to certify firm quality to reduce information asymmetry, the action brings with it lower initial returns for its IPO. Investors interpret the signal conveyed by issuer’s choice of underwriter from under-pricing perspective and respond accordingly by reducing IPO demand. This implies that investors regard under-pricing as a more valuable signal than firm quality signal associated with underwriter reputation. The findings also indicate that over-subscription increases in IPOs that have above average initial returns and higher institutional participation. Issuing firms that go public in a period of high IPO volume are associated with low OSR.

This is the first paper to examine the relationship between the prestige signals and OSR of IPOs in the Malaysian context.