In organizational management, tension is ubiquitous in every decision people need to make, be it firm strategic change, venture capital firms (VCs) selecting syndication partners, small business investments, organizational environmental policy inducing employee green behavior, or an employee deciding whether to share knowledge with other work colleagues. Although how to address such tension has attracted scholarly attention for many years, I am very proud to say that the six articles published in this issue provide new theoretical insights and empirical findings that further advance our understandings on this eternal topic.
Building on the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the transparadox perspective, Pang, Liu, and Chen (2022) propose a dynamic process cycle of transparadoxical decision making that consists of three interrelated dimensions: transparadox information navigation, transparadox contextual consideration, and transparadox integration. This model puts optimum balance and oneness in the center to constitute a transparadox mindset, which significantly expands the paradox literature in addressing organizational tension by adding dynamic, cyclical processes. Consistent with the logic embedded in this model, Zheng, Cao, Ren, Li, Ying, and Chen (2022) found that in selecting partners, Chinese VCs tended to strike a balance between reducing institutional uncertainty by forming homogeneous syndications in an immature market and mobilizing heterogeneous resources by investing in innovative companies and syndicate with heterogeneous partners in a stable market. Similarly, Nguyen (2022) revealed that small business investments in Vietnam were influenced by the social ties small firms developed with different constituents, signaling a substituting effect of networking in addressing local institutional weaknesses. Moreover, the findings by Zhang, Zhang, and Jia (2022) on why organizational environmental policy fails to increase employee green behavior suggest that it is due to a paradox employees perceive, cued by the incongruence between organizational environmental policy and supervisor environmental support behavior, that lead to employees’ perception of corporate hypocrisy. Finally, in explaining why knowledge hiding backfired on the hider's innovative behavior, Chen, Luo, Zhou, and Zhang (2022) revealed that it was their silence that prohibited knowledge sharing and elaboration, which was detrimental to their own outcome, a seemingly paradoxical finding.
I hope you find my brief introduction to these articles informative and thought-provoking. I also hope that these articles will inspire you to develop new perspectives to examine your own research questions.
