WEST MEETS EAST:

NEW MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS, THEORIES AND TRENDS

Our field of management scholarship has internationalized in many ways over the past decades,
but its speed does not match that of today’s globalized society. Of the 17,846 Academy of
Management members, the United States still represents 54% of its membership, and only 18%
of its members are based in institutions outside the “West” (North America and Europe; as of
February 15, 2015), of which 9% have institutional affiliations in Asia. A similar pattern is seen
in publication propensity, with 8% of the 943 authors of papers accepted for publication in the
Academy of Management Journal (AMJ) during the preceding five year period (2010 –2014)
being based in Asia, and coming almost exclusively from Hong Kong, China, and Singapore.
Further, our perception of Asia has had a predominant mainland China locus, but with the
emergent signs that other Asian countries or regions are now beginning to publish in the
journal’s pages as well, including India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Thus, we see it as
important to consider a broader cognizance of Asia and its scholarly traditions and management
practices. However, in one respect, the management field does not appear to be internationalizing
successfully: in terms of tapping into new concepts and theories from these varied contexts.
Although Asia is where most authors outside the West publishing in the AMJ were based, our
knowledge about management and organizations in the East remains relatively limited or
colorized with a Western lens.

In fact, there have been various calls to go beyond Western settings, and to tap into the empirical
phenomena of the East and its cultural, philosophical, and broader intellectual tradition to create
a richer, more robust field of management, in terms of understanding and managing
organizations and behavior globally (e.g., Barkema, 2001; Tsui, 2007, 2009). However, despite a
strong increase in studies using Asian data, this typically involved applications of existing
Western theories rather than development of new theories. Most studies on Eastern cultures over
the past decades have come from China. Yet, a detailed content analysis of the 259 articles
involving Chinese samples published in the six leading management journals, including the AMJ
(Jia, You, & Du, 2012), revealed only a few papers that discuss new phenomena: guanxi (Xin &
Pearce, 1996), network capitalism (Boisot & Child, 1996), and market transition theory (Nee,
1992). This condition is not unique to scholarship from China. Our review of the literature from
the East suggests that there is scant new theory or understanding about management in the
Middle East, India, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, or other Eastern countries, particularly in
our leading management journals. Without assuming that these Eastern contexts necessarily have
unique management practices, the lack of attention is puzzling. What might explain this
mystifying lack of attention toward identifying potentially unique management practices in new
Eastern contexts but with long histories and deep cultural traditions? And how can we address it?

In this special research forum (SRF), we develop the case that “East” implies very different, and
indeed a great variety of, contexts for organizations and individuals, in terms of institutions,
philosophies, and cultures, and correspondingly different management practices as well. We
discuss a range of management writings documenting these practices. We draw on insights from
Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan’s (2007) study identifying trends of theory development in
management in the West. We observe that, despite the increasing emphasis in recent years that
accepted papers should offer theoretical contributions, most contributions tend to be “in the
neighborhood” of previous concepts and theories. We discuss early work that generated the new
paradigms, theories, and concepts of the 1950s–1980s to identify conditions facilitating new
theory development.

Then, we discuss how we aim to make a contribution to new theory development in the Eastern
context through this SRF. We go on to discuss the contributions of the six papers in this SRF, in
terms of the approaches and methodologies they use, and the new concepts and theories they
suggest. This is followed by a discussion of the degree of novelty in terms of which new papers
suggesting new concepts can be evaluated, introducing the terms “construct infusion,” “construct
equivalence,” and “construct salience.” We end with a discussion of conditions facilitating new
theory development and phenomena-focused research, driven by observed empirical puzzles and
management problems.

CONTEXTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST

A significant economic trend of our time is the rise of Asia in the world economy. 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 and underlying managerial philosophies and perspectives. By 2030, Asia’s
economy is estimated to be larger than that of the United States and the European Union
combined (National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends Report, 2012). Asia is the world’s
largest and most populous continent, comprising more than 4.2 billion people (60% of the world
population) living in 46 different countries or territories. It is the fastest-growing economic
region and features some of the world’s longest economic booms, starting from the Japanese
“economic miracle” (1950 –1990), the Miracle on the Han River (1961–1996) in South Korea,
and the economic boom (1978 –2013) in China.

East is not synonymous to, but, instead, a central part of, Asia. Although the societies are
immensely mixed geographically (East Asia, Central Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast
Asia, and West Asia), politically and economically, they broadly share cultural values and
philosophies. Further, there is great variation among nations, states, and regions within the
Eastern context, but there are clear differences between the East overall and the West in terms of
institutions, philosophies, and cultural values.

Institutions

Institutional environments, especially formal institutions, are extremely varied in Asia.

Constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, one-party states, federal states, liberal
democracies, and military dictatorships are all present in the region. India and Japan were among
the first Asian countries to establish a Western-style democratic system. In China, Singapore,
Indonesia, and Malaysia, the one party system is still in relatively firm control, although facing
pressure to change. South Korea (and several other nations or economies, such as Taiwan) has
gone through the process of transformation to a democratic leadership. Overall, Asia has strong
state control, which has been viewed as one of the key factors in promoting efficient social
reforms and economic development (World Bank, 1993).

As a result, fast economic growth has been seen in mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia,
Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia. In South Korea and mainland China, a large number of
strong companies have been created with the help of state intervention. However, strong
government control can bring potentially restrictive covenants, particularly a difficulty in
maintaining an arm’s length relationship between business sectors and political leaders, which is
responsible in part (with notable exceptions of Singapore and Hong Kong) for the rampant
corruption, weak enforceability of law, and uncertainty in regulatory policies (Stiglitz & Yusuf,
2001). These institutional characteristics explain why Asian businesses immensely care about
their relationships with governmental authorities. Among informal institutions, many Asian
societies are relationship centered, being culturally rooted in Confucianism, which views people
as relational beings. Governance by social relationships is still a strong force maintaining social
order and stability (Luo, 2000). Many societal rules, values, and norms in Asia are derived from
the relationship-centered pervasiveness, which explains why trust building, social capital,
networks, relational governance, and reciprocity maintenance are critical in the East.

Philosophies

Given the complexity and volatility of the political and institutional environments of the East, a
major source of stability is its deep-rooted cultural values, traditions, and philosophies that guide
entrepreneurs and executives to lead, manage, and grow their businesses. The East is rich in the
variety of philosophical traditions and religions. Confucianism is deeply rooted in Korea,
Singapore, and Taiwan. Buddhism is practiced in Japan, Taiwan, Burma, and Thailand;
Catholicism is dominant in the Philippines; and Islam in Indonesia, Malaysia, and much of the
Middle East. Within China, there are five major schools of philosophy; four locally developed
(Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Militarism) and one imported (Buddhism).
An empirical study found that Chinese citizens cognitively combine Taoism and Buddhism due
to the high level of similarity between their basic tenants (Pan, Rowney, & Peterson, 2012).
Confucianism is an ethical and philosophical system, emphasizing that human beings are
teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor, especially self-
cultivation. Confucianism also teaches the importance of observing one’s role in relation to
others, and the need to be obedient to authority. Its emphasis on morality, benevolence, and
authority forms the foundation of paternalistic leadership (Farh & Cheng, 2000), which was
found to be prevalent among Chinese family firms operating in Taiwan and Southeast Asia
(Redding, 1990).

Similar to Buddhism, Taoism favors philosophical anarchism, pluralism, and naturalism. Tao
manifests itself through natural principles, including yin–yang duality, the circular nature of
changes, natural courses of action, and harmony with internal and external environments. Its key
tenants of mindfulness, compassion, a middle path, and interdependent causation have
implications for leadership and management, though its passivity may be inconsistent with the
extremely dynamic and competitive business terrain in the contemporary setting. Legalism has a
philosophical view of the human being as dependent, disliking responsibility and pursuing self-
interest. Legalism defines a system of detailed policies and rules to govern followers and the
exercise and preservation of power by leaders. Legalism proposes rule by law and not the rule of
law, in that the law covers everyone but the leader. There are clear reward and punishment
systems applied equally to anyone who does not perform or breaks the laws. In an analysis of the
leadership practices of 15 successful Chinese entrepreneurs, Ma and Tsui (2015) found legalism
to be the most prevalent philosophy underlying their leadership and management practices,
followed by Confucianism, and, lastly, Taoism.

Finally, The Art of War, written by the prominent military strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu,
articulated various components and tactics of militarism. This ancient text covers analysis of
internal and external environments, strategic planning, positioning, and defensive and offensive
strategies in various competitive scenarios. Militarism enlightens how to win battles but
advocates how to establish and cultivate relationships and partnerships. It further holds that
knowledge is a greater weapon in battle than the pure force of strength. In the corporate world,
many Japanese and Korean companies make Sun Tzu’s book required reading for their key
executives. The book is also popular among Western managers, who turn to it for inspiration on
how to succeed in a competitive environment (e.g., McNeilly, 1996).

Cultural Values

Differences in cultural values between the East and the West are well-studied topics at the
individual and team levels of analyses. Cross-cultural studies have shown significant differences
in values, beliefs, and approaches to problem solving (e.g., Hall, 1989; Triandis, 1995), and these
differences have proved to be persistent over time (Barkema & Vermeulen, 1997). Out of the
long list of cultural values, individualism– collectivism and power distance may be considered
the most prominent values that distinguish the East from the West, as they are at the core of how
people view/ deal with their relationship with others.

“Individualism– collectivism” refers to the extent to which people value individual versus pursue
group interests and goals. For individualists, the self is an independent entity that has a set of
unique characteristics. Self-interest and individual goals take priority over group interest and
goals, and getting their own work done is more important than maintaining group harmony. For
collectivists, their relationship with others is an integral part of the self. Fitting in with the group
is more important than being unique; interpersonal harmony is of paramount importance, and
group instead of individual interests and goals take precedence. There is robust research evidence
that people from the East (e.g., China, Japan, Korea, India) are more collectivistic than are
people in the West (e.g., United States, Canada, United Kingdom, the Netherlands) (Chen, Chen,
& Meindl, 1998; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995).

Collectivists also tend to make a sharp distinction between in-group and out-group members,
which reflects particularism rather than universalism (Schwartz, 1992). Thus, Chinese people
typically believe that it is acceptable to treat people differently depending on their relationship
with oneself, whereas people in the United States tend to believe that it is only fair to treat
everyone the same based on a set of principles or rules (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2012).
Based on differences in this belief, it follows that (a) the Chinese have low trust in strangers and
need to develop guanxi (particularistic ties) before engaging in meaningful interactions, and (b)
they are flexible in dealing with problems, as different solutions and options can be applied in
different contexts (people and situation). In contrast, Americans can be thought of as having high
trust in strangers (coined as “general trust” by Fukuyama, 1995), but little flexibility in dealing
with similar issues in different contexts.

While individualism– collectivism deals with relationships with peers and the group as a whole,
“power distance” describes how people view and react to vertical relationships. Power distance
refers to the extent to which an individual accepts unequal distribution of power in institutions
and organizations (Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman, 2000). Research has indicated that people
from the East (e.g., Japan, China, India) regard unequal distribution of power as more acceptable
than do people in the West (e.g., United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands). Leaders in
high power distance cultures tend to be more authoritarian (demand total control and obedience)
than those in low power distance cultures (Pellegrini & Scandura, 2008). Employees who
endorse a high power distance value tend to respect authority and follow leader decisions rather
than exercise autonomy in decision making (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). They accept the
imbalance of power between themselves and their superiors, and are less likely to initiate
changes to the status quo. In contrast, people with low power distance orientation tend to view
themselves as equals of their supervisors and are willing to exercise autonomy and take
initiatives to make changes.
Another important difference between the East and the West is the communication style people
adopt in conveying and interpreting meanings (Hall, 1989). High-context communicators (e.g.,
those in Japan, Korea, or China) tend to rely heavily on contextual cues to avoid conflict or
embarrassment, whereas low-context communicators (e.g., those in the United States, Canada, or
the Netherlands) tend to use explicit and coded messages (verbal language and written words)
while relying very little on the context itself in conveying meaning (Gudykunst et al., 1996;
Holtgraves, 1997; Matsumoto, 1996). More recent research has focused on deciphering the
meaning of context, and has identified four key dimensions: the message, relationship, spatial,
and temporal contexts (Adair, Buchan, Chen, & Liu, 2013). This study found that people in
China and Chile (high-context culture) relied more on contextual cues in communication than
did people in the United States (low-context culture). Such efforts documenting major
differences are intended to be indicative, rather than exhaustive, comparisons of the East and the
West in their formal and informal institutions, traditional philosophies, and cultural values.

Contemporary Practices and Management Knowledge in the Eastern Context

The different institutions, philosophies, and cultures in the “East” are associated with different
management practices and business systems (Whitley, 1992), some of which became well known
in the West in the 1970s, when several major Asian players began to emerge internationally. For
instance, the Japanese “Theory Z” model of management (Ouchi, 1981), which combines
Japanese and American management practices, was seen as a major challenge to the American
management model.

The Asian management practices and business systems reflect many of the philosophical and
cultural features discussed above; for instance, the importance and process of networks (Chang
& Hong, 2000; Keister, 1998). In Japan, large business groups (keiretsu) have maintained a
closely interlocked, self-financed and extensively networked group structure to strengthen their
capability to deal with external uncertainties and externalities (Luo, 2001). In South Korea,
chaebols have maintained close relationships with the Korean government and each established
sophisticated business networks inside and outside the group (Chang, 2003; Steers, Sin, &
Ungson, 1989). These close family and business ties and networking dynamics reduce the
dependency on governmentally owned or controlled resources and supports organizational
flexibility to cope with environmental uncertainty and turbulence.

Chen and Miller (2010) used an “ambicultural” perspective to describe Asian firms’ tendency as
more ambidextrous than their Western counterparts in pursuing simultaneous fulfillment of two
disparate, and sometimes seemingly tensional, objectives. This ambidexterity simultaneously
facilitates short-term firm growth and long-term competitive positions in the global marketplace.
Ambidexterity is consistent with cultural (e.g., yin– yang philosophy) and institutional (e.g.,
regulatory uncertainty) conditions facing Asian firms. This ambicultural perspective is also
reflected in some Korean firms’ (e.g., Samsung) success in mixing Western best practices with
an essentially Japanese system (Khanna, Song, & Lee, 2011). Finally, Cappelli, Singh, Singh,
and Useem (2010) studied leadership characteristics of successful Indian firms, and found that
the primary difference between Western and Indian executives lied in the degree to which
strategies and goals reflected core values and community embeddedness.

Beyond formal business organizations of some scale, there are a variety of social and
institutional challenges in the emerging economies of the East that are not faced in the developed
Western context to the same degree; for instance, approximately one billion people, mostly in
Asia, live on the equivalent of less than $1 per day. Awareness of management researchers of
these issues has increased over the past decade (e.g., Mair, Marti, & Ventresca, 2012; Peredo &
Chrisman, 2006; Prahalad, 2004). The current management literature, built from studies of large
listed corporations in highly developed economic contexts, has far too limited a repertoire of
solutions and empirical evidence to aid practitioners and policymakers in these economically
disadvantaged regions of the East (George, McGahan, & Prabhu, 2012). In fact, most private
organizations (e.g., social entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations) addressing these
issues are relatively small. The presence of widespread poverty in India, Africa, and other
regions in Asia (for that matter, the rest of the world) would require novel approaches to
entrepreneurship and business development (e.g., George, Kotha, Parikh, Alnuaimi, & Bahaj,
2015). It is presently not clear whether—and which— concepts and theories developed in the
Western context of large organizations premised on shareholder value creation in relatively open
market economies apply to currently emerging, new business models based on social goals (i.e.,
poverty reduction) in informal contexts in the “East,” or whether—and which— new concepts
and theories are needed.

However, despite the very different—and the great variety of— contexts in the “East” (e.g.,
institutions, philosophies, and cultural beliefs), their economic and social challenges, and
associated management practices, this has led to very few new concepts and theories in our “top
management journals.” The largest number of studies on Eastern cultures has come from China
in the past 30 years. Nevertheless, as mentioned, an analysis of 259 - 464 Academy of
Management Journal April articles involving Chinese samples published in the top six
management journals, including the AMJ (Jia et al., 2012), led to only three new concepts being
introduced. The other articles essentially applied existing Western concepts and theories to
Chinese samples. Even for cross-cultural comparisons, researchers used existing concepts to
compare samples from the East and the West, without introducing new concepts capturing
Eastern phenomena (except the idea of guanxi or network capitalism). Despite the great variety
in institutions, philosophies, cultures, and associated management practices, there are no new
concepts on management in the Middle East, India, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, or other
Eastern countries. This is a puzzling observation. It was, in fact, the main reason for our call for
papers in AMJ inviting new concepts and theories on the “East.” However, a more fundamental
question is why do we see so few new concepts and theories tapping into the “East?” Especially
in view of the large number of concepts, theories, and paradigms that emerged from the “West?”
And what can we do to address the issue? It is to these questions that we turn next.
THEORY DEVELOPMENT IN MANAGEMENT STUDIES OVER TIME

How did the management theories that we have today come about? Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan
(2007) analyzed 667 AMJ articles in 75 issues (1963–2007) and found that most theories in the
management field had been developed between the 1950s and the 1980s, and that new theory
development has stalled in recent decades. Their results were not surprising since the period of
the 1950s to the 1980s was a time of rapid industrialization and growth of American and
European economies. Theories were created to explain a variety of perplexing phenomena in the
management of organizations in those early years of theory development. For example, the
human relations theory explains why workers respond to management attention and the
importance of informal groups (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1949). Simon (1960) offered the idea
of bounded rationality to explain why organizations do not make optimal but only satisficing
decisions; the contingency theory informs why organizations differ in how they are structured
(Burns & Stalker, 1966). In Europe, Emery and Trist (1946) formulated the socio-technical
systems theory to emphasize the importance of the interdependence between the technical and
social systems of the organization. Child (1972) offered the strategic choice theory after
observing that not all organizational actions were deterministic in nature. Noticing the
importance of both environmental control and the agency of organizational leaders led to the
open systems view of the organization (Katz & Kahn, 1966), the external control and structural
power theories (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978), and institutional theory (Scott, 1987). Interestingly,
most of these new theories from the earlier years were published in books rather than journals.

After this, one might expect a period of “normal science” (Kuhn, 1996) or incremental research;
however, the actual pattern appears to be richer and more interesting. After generating many new
paradigms and theories in the 1950s to the 1980s, Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan (2007) found that
there has been an increase in (papers offering) theoretical contributions; however, these appear to
have happened mostly “in the neighborhood” of existing theories and paradigms. They identified
“builders” (articles generating new concepts, often through inductive studies), “expanders” (new
theoretical formulations of existent theories, often derived in a hypothetico-deductive way),
“qualifiers” (often adding a new mediator or moderator), “testers” (novel tests of theory of
limited novelty), and “reporters” (testing a theory in a different setting). Further, they found that,
in tandem with editors emphasizing the importance of theoretical contributions, the number of
expanders had gone up in recent decades, at the expense of testers and reporters, suggesting an
increase in the number of theoretical contributions (while no upward trend was discovered in the
proportion of builders over the five decades).

However, Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan (2007) also noted that much of the progress of theories
was in terms of improved formulations of earlier theories, and adding antecedents of key
constructs, or moderators and mediators (expanders and qualifiers). Second, they noted that
expanders—that is, novel hypothetico-deductive contributions derived from existing theories—
implied a bridge with existing theory, facilitating other researchers to accept the new theoretical
contribution during and after the selection and publishing process (consistent with the observed
higher number of cites of these articles as well). Qualifiers also enjoyed relatively high citations
scores on average, benefiting from continuity with established literatures and paradigms
(McKinley, Mone, & Moon, 1999).

Finally, although the number of builders appears not to be increasing over the entire window of
five decades, there appears to be a slight increase towards the end of this period, coinciding in
time with editors emphasizing interesting, innovative, and novel research. A substantial number
of new constructs emerged since the 1980s. For example, Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan (2007)
listed 30 new constructs but noted many cases in which an existing concept was reconceptualized
or redefined, or in which a more specific version of a broader construct was introduced. The rate
of new and reconceptualized constructs being introduced appears to have increased in the last
years of the window of analysis (until 2007), which, the authors conclude, is partially
symptomatic of the increase in expanders in the 2000s. They conclude that, if interestingness,
innovativeness, and novelty continue to be emphasized in management research, it will be
critical to ensure that new and reconceptualized constructs actually do add value to the literature
(see Pfeffer, 1993; Spell, 2001).

In sum, the overall pattern appears to be one where many new theories were introduced between
the 1950s and the 1980s, with an increase in theoretical contributions in the form of
modifications and expansions of these theories from the 1980s onwards. This may suggest that
the management field in the West has reached a stage of paradigm maturity (Pfeffer, 1993). As
Kuhn (1996: 35) observed, “perhaps the most striking feature of the normal research problems
we have just encountered is how little they aim to produce major novelties, conceptual or
phenomenal,” although the analysis above suggests a slightly richer and more nuanced story.
While many contributions in the early period implied novel theories and paradigms, later periods
were mostly extensions of existing theories that emerged from the West in the 1950s through to
the 1980s.

This period of “normal science”—with few novel concepts and theories emerging— coincided
with the rise of empirical studies venturing beyond the Western context, including the very
different contexts, economic and social challenges, and management practices of the “East.” It
also coincided with newly emerging economic and social challenges and management practices.
Management has experienced dramatic changes in technology (e.g., digitization, the Internet),
globalization, and economic development since the 1980s, introducing new business models and
many new industries. In fact, an AMJ special issue on “New Management Challenges in a New
Time” invited and published papers conceptualizing and testing a variety of new hypotheses—
on speed, timing, and the changing nature of competition—to address these new management
puzzles and problems (Barkema, Baum, & Mannix, 2002). However, neither this special issue
nor later papers in our top management journals introduced many new concepts and theories.
Likewise, a recent special issue invited papers on new business models in emerging economies
aiming at social goals in terms of serving the poor (George et al., 2012), but this also led to few
novel concepts and theories. This contrasts with the rich variety of new concepts, theories, and
paradigms coming out of the Western (mostly, the United States) context in the 1950s to 1980s.
What insights can be gleaned from these earlier developments, potentially inspiring richer theory
for novel management practices addressing economic and social challenges in other regions and
for more recent times as well?

Conditions Facilitating New Theory Development

To answer this question, we need to go back to the conditions for theory development in the
earlier years. Concepts, theories, and paradigms reflect observations of empirical puzzles and
problems and the “worldviews” (reflected in institutions, philosophies, cultural beliefs) of a
particular place and time (Kuhn, 1985). North America of the 1950s to the 1980s showed
tremendous economic growth in the context of a relatively open market economy, with large
companies emerging and internationalizing, and a relatively strong emphasis on shareholder
value creation. From a cultural perspective, North America showed an emphasis on
“individualism,” rather than on power distance and “long term orientation,” as compared to
China and other Asian countries (Hofstede, 1991). Western Europe, to some extent, echoed these
conditions; in particular, the United Kingdom. These worldviews (embedded in local institutions
and cultural beliefs, and with major religions including Protestantism and Catholicism) formed
the context for emerging management practices, perceived management puzzles and problems,
and for creating new management concepts, theories, and paradigms as well.

We consulted two books reporting on the creation of influential theories in management and
organizations. The first was Great Minds in Management by Smith and Hitt (2005), in which the
editors invited 24 scholars who contributed the most influential theories in management to reflect
466 Academy of Management Journal April on the process through which they developed and
refined their theories. The second book was Pugh, Hickson, and Hining’s (2007) Great Writers
on Organizations, which provided a synopsis of key ideas of 65 scholars who the editors felt had
provided lasting theories or ideas since the beginning of the twentieth century. They began with
Max Weber’s (1947) theory of social and economic organizations, in which he introduced
“bureaucracy” as the “dominant institution of modern society” and “technically the most
efficient form of organization possible” (Pugh et al., 2007: 5). They ended with Schumacher
(1981), who proposed that “small is beautiful because it is the way to humane efficiency in the
organizations of our time” (Pugh et al., 2007: 302). These two books on scholars in management
and organizations give some insight into the conditions that may have contributed to the rise of
new concepts and theories.

The earlier theorists were observant of the social concerns of their times, engaged in the
production problems of organizations, or were puzzled by observed variations of organizational
forms and practices. Taylor (1911) observed much inefficiency and great antagonism between
labor and management. Mayo (1933) was surprised by the 250% turnover in one department of a
spinning mill, compared to 6% in all other departments. Cyert and March (1963) wondered how
complex organizations make decisions in the context of conflicting goals and abounding
uncertainty. Woodward (1965) was curious about the differences across firms in levels of
authority and spans of control. Staw (1976) was puzzled by the continuing investment by
government or by businesspeople into failing projects and wondered why organizations or people
threw good money after bad. Child (1972) observed that managers exercised discretion in a
variety of areas, much different from the deterministic view of organizational structure prevalent
in the decade before (e.g., technology, scale, or environment). Pfeffer and Salancik (1978)
wondered why some organizations are more powerful than were others. Ouchi (1981) observed
the rising Japanese economic power in the late 1970s and sought to identify the different
management approaches between the American and Japanese firms.

The motivation to develop the theories was to understand these management conundrums and to
find solutions to pressing management problems of the time. In these early days, with no prior
theory to use, researchers had to select their own relevant management puzzles, anomalies, and
problems, and create their own understanding (concepts and theories) of them. In fact, some
practicing managers developed their own theories (e.g., Barnard, 1938; Sloan, 1964) to explain
management systems and account for management success. There were few journals, and so
many authors reported the results of their research in books (Argyris, 1957; Lawrence & Lorsch,
1967; March & Simon, 1958; Mintzberg, 1973; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Taylor, 1911;
Thompson, 1967; Vroom, 1964; Weber, 1947). Books allow theorists the space to discuss the
relevant management issue, phenomenon, or puzzle being analyzed, as well as the new
theoretical ideas and empirical method.

These developments triggered a rich variety of concepts, theories, and paradigms, including
human relationships theory (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1949), strategic choice theory (Child,
1972), institutional theory (Scott, 1987), and so on. However, over the past two decades, the
focus shifted from “contribution to practice” to “contribution to theory.” This increasing
attention to theory, and the correspondingly decreasing attention to puzzles, problems, and
economic and social concerns in practice, appears to have led to more theoretical contributions,
but in the neighborhood of existing paradigms, with few (entirely) novel theories and concepts
tapping into regions beyond the “West” or into newly emerging puzzles and problems. In the
words of Barney (2005: 296): “Prior literature is both a guide and a blinder.” So what can we
learn from how the field of management started, in terms of developing a richer variety of novel
concepts and theories? What can our journals do to self-correct? It is to this question that we turn
next.

What Can Journals Do? Lessons from Our SRF

Journals can contribute to new theory development by encouraging research on new management
puzzles and problems. AMJ’s current editorial team has published a series of editorials on “grand
challenges” calling for research on the bigger challenges facing society and how management
and organizations can play a role (George, 2014)—for example, the implications of climate
change (Howard-Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins, & George, 2014) or aging populations (Kulik,
Ryan, Harper, & George, 2014) for management. Our call for this SRF encouraged authors to
submit novel theories and concepts to capture management puzzles or phenomena of the “East,”
while discouraging marginally novel contributions, e.g., “qualifiers” (like simply adding a new
moderating “culture” variable), testers, and reporters.

As our discussion above suggests, simply inviting new theory—for instance, through SRFs— is
not enough. Learning from the early days of management research, what is needed in addition is
tapping in depth and inductively into new management problems and puzzles, either in new
geographies beyond the West or with newly emerging management practices associated with
new economic and social concerns. Contemporary researchers may benefit from better
methodologies around inductive research in this respect; for instance, in generating grounded
theory and using ethnographic research to tap into new concepts and theories. Consistent with
this view, our call explicitly invited inductive research.

In addition, we tried to self-correct as an editorial team. Editors and reviewers may evaluate new
research according to the topics, theories, and research methods defined by existing paradigms.
Researchers apply self-regulation and tend to follow existing paradigms in terms of questions,
theories, and methods. Venturing outside an existing paradigm is therefore a risky decision by
any author, nascent or seasoned. We tried to self-correct for potential biases in several ways. We
developed a database starting with scholars who had reviewed for the AMJ and were listed at
Asian schools, supplemented with our own knowledge and networks of experts. We typically
used two international reviewers for each submission from this database, supplemented with
researchers based in the West. Rejections (both initial submission and revisions) typically
required the concurrence of two guest editors, and sometimes three, to reduce idiosyncratic
biases of individual editors. In fact, as some (but not all) authors had not been actively engaged
in theory-building work before, we used a more intensive and developmental editorial process
than usual. This included a two-day paper development workshop (in Guangzhou) with all
authors and papers in receipt of a “revise and resubmit” request, to further support the paper
development process.

We received 73 submissions. Most of the “desk rejects”—papers rejected without review (30)—
were “reporters” (Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007). Of the papers that got rejected after review
(37), most seemed to be reporters, testers, or qualifiers. However, most of the accepted papers (6)
seemed to be builders or expanders, or a mixture. We discuss these papers in the next section, in
terms of the types of approaches and methodologies they used as well as their specific theoretical
contributions.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SIX PAPERS IN THIS RESEARCH FORUM

Most accepted papers have inductive elements. For instance, in the dojo (a space committed to
Japanese martial arts) study, the author records his observations and identifies a phenomenon
that is not often observed in U.S. culture (Cole, this issue). That is, when the grandmaster of the
dojo observes a student violating the dojo norm, he would never directly tell the student and
correct him on the spot. Instead, he would communicate his dissatisfaction in very indirect ways
(e.g., looking at the student up and down without saying a word). Moreover, Cole observes that
not every student can understand the indirect message, especially if the student is from the
United States. In his article, Cole documents these cases and identifies their common
characteristics. On the basis of this, he forms his research questions: “What is the nature of these
common characteristics?”, “What happens when the indirect communication does not work?”,
and “Why did not the grandmaster communicate directly in the first place?” He then engages in a
qualitative analysis of these cases guided by the existing theoretical frameworks in cross-cultural
communication, and discovers the answers to the questions he set out to study. To conclude, he
proposes a theoretical model that provides new insights into the existing communication
literature, which might be generalized to contexts outside Japan.

Several new constructs emerge from this study. One is the new insight on the context of
communication (Hall, 1989). Cole proposes two new constructs: “message content” (implicit or
explicit language) and “message context” (shared understanding: reliance or non-reliance on
context) to describe the extent to which a person is a high context communicator. A true high-
context communicator is a person who uses implicit language and relies on “shared”
understanding in conveying a message. When such communication fails, two processes are likely
to occur. One is “continuum staggering,” in which the person will try to use less implicit but
more explicit language to convey meaning, and the other is “continuum straddling,” in which the
person creates a new shared understanding for people involved in the context to make the
message clear. These new constructs become 468 Academy of Management Journal April
building blocks of a new theoretical model of high context communication, suggesting a new
lens to explain why people adopt high-context communication, when they make adjustments to
that (boundary conditions), and how they do it.

The authors of the “paradoxical leadership” study, Zhang, Waldman, Han, and Li (this issue),
observed many leaders who engage in seemingly paradoxical behaviors in Chinese
organizations. For example, the leaders in the study reported that they should treat all employees
equally but they also emphasized the importance of treating different subordinates differently
depending on the situation. This triggered the research questions: “What are commonly observed
paradoxical behaviors?”, “Why are leaders engaging in these behaviors?”, and “What are the
unique effects of these leader behaviors on employee outcomes that are not explained by existing
leadership theories such as transformational leadership?” The authors identify Taoist integrative
thinking as a psychological underpinning. Then, they use rigorous steps to establish a scale that
measures paradoxical leader behaviors, testing how integrative thinking is responsible for these
behaviors and the positive consequences of these behaviors on employee outcomes beyond other
types of leader behaviors. Finally, a new leadership theory emerges that enriches the existing
leadership literature.
Paradoxical behavior by lower-level leaders (the sample of this study) is an underexplored
phenomenon even though it is ubiquitous in the Chinese context. Treating people differently and
inconsistently is often described as bad practice in the Western leadership literature, as it violates
the universalism or justice value. However, the yin–yang philosophy rooted in the Chinese
culture would suggest that two opposites often could be integrated to produce better results than
either behavior alone. The article’s authors propose a new construct: “paradoxical leader
behaviors.” These behaviors are defined as seemingly competing yet interrelated behaviors of the
leader to simultaneously and over time meet structural and follower demands of the organization.
Through qualitative and quantitative approaches, the authors identify five types of behavior,
labeling them as “combining self-centeredness with other-centeredness,” “maintaining both
distance and closeness,” “treating subordinates uniformly while allowing individualization,”
“enforcing work requirements while allowing flexibility,” and “maintaining decision control
while allowing autonomy,” contributing to anew leadership theory.

The study on person– organization fit by Chuang, Hsu, Wang, and Judge (this issue) shares
similar characteristics. The authors view the “fit” issue quite differently than does the dominant
literature in the West. The main difference is in whether people view “fit” as a static or a
dynamic concept. Whereas fit is often seen as static in the West (i.e., one’s current values and
skills fit the organizational requirements), Taiwanese workers tend to view it as dynamic (i.e.,
one can change oneself, in both values and skills, to fit the need of the organization after
becoming a member). Based on this observation, the authors ask the following questions: “Is this
a reliable phenomenon?”, “What are the key characteristics of this phenomenon?”, and “Why is
this happening in Taiwan?” Following the grounded theory approach, they interview employees
working in various Taiwan organizations and document in detail their responses. After analyzing
the interview notes, they are able to answer their research questions and propose a theoretical
model of person– organization fit that sheds new light on the existing fit literature.

The authors adopt a dynamic view of fit on the basis of the Confucian doctrine of self-cultivation
and serving the collective, and they propose several new constructs to capture the dynamic
process. First is the distinction between “task-related fit” and “relation-related fit,” indicating
that Chinese employees not only pay attention to whether they have the competence to complete
a task, but also are concerned about the extent to which they have harmonious relationships with
colleagues at work. Fit means both, not just one or the other. Second is the notion of “dynamic
fit”; that is, if one does not have the skills to complete a task at the time of entering the
organization, one can always learn and cultivate oneself to become qualified and competent.
Moreover, in addition to completing tasks and building harmonious relationships with co-
workers, one will continuously improve personal capabilities and achieve the realization of
making contributions to the collective. These new constructs that enable a more nuanced
understanding of fit include “cultivation,” “competence at work,” “harmonious connections at
work,” “balance among life domains,” and “realization.”
Li and Liang (this issue) were intrigued by their observation that some successful Chinese
entrepreneurs ran for election in the national, provincial, and municipal governments’
representational com mittees. These committees, even though only a part-time engagement,
require a lot of time, and these successful entrepreneurs did not seem to need any further
government connections for their businesses. The authors’ knowledge of Confucian philosophy
suggested to them that these political behaviors might be more socially oriented than self-interest
based. Confucius teaching emphasizes the roles of a person throughout the different stages of
their lives. This life-stage model of human development and contribution has some similarity but
is not identical to the Western career/life models. The Confucian social model (which the authors
develop, based on Confucian teaching) specifies a focus on self-cultivation in early life,
developing family and professional success in middle life, and contributing to society in later
life. This final stage is not evident in Western life-/career-stage models. However, Confucius
offered a prescriptive model of life development—not all people move through all stages, and
most do not reach the final “sage” stage. Only those who are pro-socially motivated would
consider acting on the final stage of expectations consistent with Confucian teaching. Further, in
the Chinese context, being a government official was and still is the most influential position to
effect changes at a societal level. Using both a survey and a secondary dataset of listed private
entrepreneurial firms, the authors find support for their hypotheses that the pro-social motive was
strong among successful entrepreneurs who either desired or have attained political
appointments. Successful entrepreneurs with a higher level of pro-self motive, on the other hand,
expressed a lower desire to pursue political appointments.

The contribution of this study is in the meaning of political connections for entrepreneurs with
different degrees of salience in their pro-self and pro-social motives. The Western literature has
treated political connection as pursuit of economic interests, consistent with the study’s Chinese
entrepreneurs with a strong pro-self motive. The authors reason that the pro-social motive and
willingness of successful entrepreneurs to participate in political life for the betterment of the
society might be unique to China due to its Confucian influence. In the West, the desire to
contribute to social or public good may not be life-stage dependent. This Chinese study, rooted
in the traditional Confucian philosophy, clearly enriches the career-/life-stage theories of the
West.

Chen, Chittoor, and Vissa (this issue) study the social channels that CEOs use to transfer
material information to equity analysts in India. Specifically, they argue that embedded network
ties between equity analysts and the CEOs of the firms they follow influence the accuracy of
analysts’ earnings forecasts. Analyses of earnings forecasts issued from 2001 to 2010 by equity
analysts in India reveal that CEOs blend reliance on traditional institutions of caste and regional
language with contemporary institutions such as universities as the locus for such ties. They find
that CEOs from the post-economic-reform generation in India are more likely to transfer material
private information via their school ties while pre-reform generation CEOs favor caste or
language ties. Similarly, they ask if organizational form, whether a domestic business group or a
Western multinational corporation, affects the use of such social ties. Here, they find that
domestic business groups legitimate the transfer of private information along particularistic ties,
whereas multinational corporations mitigate such transfers.

Chen et al. (this issue) identify how traditional social institutions, such as caste and regional
language, persist in their effects, despite India’s growth and transformation story. Like the Li and
Liang (this issue) study of the Confucian social model, these authors raise a particularly
important point for the special research forum—that our research should incorporate the
influence of larger, historical social structures within which economic action is embedded, and to
view business groups as repositories that blend modern management practices with
particularistic behavioral patterns among top executives. Though this study does not tackle a new
construct, it does well in highlighting that “modernizing” does not equal “Westernizing” in the
Asian context. The use of traditional constructs of caste and language is well understood in the
relational demography literature (e.g., Tsui, Egan, & O’Reilly, 1992), yet its juxtaposition in a
contemporary setting of CEOs social ties and organizational form (business group versus
multinationals) shows that some relational attributes do not change, even if the world changes
around us.

Reinecke and Ansari (this issue) conducted a six month ethnography of Fairtrade, an
organization straddling Western (or Northern) markets and Eastern (or Southern) development.
During the fieldwork, the authors observed heated conflicts between the market-driven,
economic demands of the North and the development-driven, social requirements of the South.
The authors observe that conflicts centered on the tension between Northern clock time (a pre-
defined, unitary measurement of events, activities, and tasks) to evaluate outputs, and Southern
process time (inter-subjective and event based) closer to the outcomes and processes of human
development.

These observations trigger the question: “How does the organization manage this tension?”
Qualitative analysis suggests two mechanisms: “temporal reflexivity” (both sides of the
organization beginning to understand each other) and “mutual interdependencies” (only
cooperation can lead to success for both). These mechanisms jointly induce “ambitemporality,” a
new concept indicating the development of processes and structures that can simultaneously
handle both types of time within one organization. Hence, time can be “agentic,” the outcome of
a managed process, rather than driven by an external cultural context. This also suggests a
missing link in understanding how organizations may be able to operate simultaneously in
Western and in emerging economy contexts, reaching both economic goals (related to clients in
the West) and explicitly addressing crucial aspects of their social goals (i.e., event-based
processes related to producers in the South).

A common feature of these six papers is that authors tapped inductively into an observed
empirical puzzle or problem, often starting by documenting it in some depth, then asking the
“why” question, then undertaking analysis, eventually leading to the proposal of novel constructs
and theories. An additional interesting pattern emerged from informally looking at the
backgrounds of the authors of these articles. Most authors had (a) lived in the broad environment
of the observed phenomenon or puzzle for a number of years, beyond the time span of their
inductive research projects, and (b) had multicultural exposure, whether individually, as a team,
or both. Having “lived experience” (including local language skills), beyond the time line of the
research project, seems to echo the in-depth experience with local management problems and
conundrums that many early management theorists had. A multicultural background may have
helped to identify novel problems and puzzles. If one lives in one culture all her life, everything
happening in that culture is “normal.” Alternatively, living in different cultures and experiencing
“cultural shock”—a series of events that shock cognitions of what seems to be “normal” in one
culture into being perceived as “strange” in another—stimulates observing what is unique or
perplexing, for example, in the “East,” and thinking about the “why” question, increasing the
likelihood of developing new concepts and theories.

Management theorists can also learn from research in other disciplines, such as sociology and
development (in terms of conceptualizing and measuring social goals) and anthropology, which
conceptualize phenomena—in terms of what, how, and, often, why, given a specific when,
where, and for whom (see Whetten, 1989)— based on local people’s understanding of local
phenomena.

A Potential Difficulty with Testing Eastern Constructs as Distinct from Western Ones

Though several Asian concepts exist, few manuscripts with these concepts have managed to
successfully navigate the review process. Part of the challenge stems from ineffective framing
and articulating of the contribution by authors not familiar with the AMJ style (George, 2012).
However, the fundamental issue is likely a deeper problem. We see three types of challenges
faced by researchers studying phenomena in the new cultural contexts: (1) construct equivalence,
(2) construct salience, and (3) construct infusion.

Construct equivalence is when the constructs are essentially the same; for instance, the constructs
of trust or respect have their Eastern equivalents, most often with a local nomenclature.
Therefore, validating a new scale for trust based on nomenclature differences but not
theoretically substantive differences do meet the threshold for theoretical contribution. A
predominant number of submissions to this special forum fell in this category— existing
construct, but named differently and framed as a new construct. On close reading, it becomes
apparent that the underlying construct has the same form and function as an existing Western
counterpart. Submissions with this approach did not fit the purpose of this research forum, and
were not invited for revision.

Construct salience is when a specific attribute of an existing Western construct becomes more
pronounced in the Eastern context. One example is the Chinese word moqi (mo-chee), defined as
perfect understanding between two individuals (e.g., supervisor and subordinate; co-workers;
teammates) without saying a word. In practice, moqi involves high-context communication in
which there is alignment of individuals’ understanding of the goals and tasks needed to be
performed—akin to improvisation in jazz, where the other team member reciprocates without the
need to articulate specifically a set of tasks or actions. In theory, however, Western constructs of
mutual knowledge and common ground provide equivalent constructs, but the Eastern high-
context communication environment makes the construct more salient or important. While the
moqi construct itself might not be a new concept, its application and context make the effects of
mutual knowledge more salient. The study of Indian social ties and the salience of specific
attributes of these ties (language, caste, school) and its impact on organizational action or
performance (Chen et al., this issue) is an example of construct salience. Likewise the Confucian
social model study (Li & Liang, this issue) of the high degree of salience in the pro-social
motivation of some Chinese entrepreneurs (at least in the context of serving government roles).

Construct infusion adds new elements that flavor an existing construct in the literature by making
it richer and nuanced. For example, the Chuang et al. (2015) article discusses dynamic fit based
on the Confucian doctrine of self- cultivation and serving the collective. Here, the “fit” construct
itself is well understood in Western theories, but what they provide is a new interpretation by
infusing the context into the existing construct to reveal new nuances. The new interpretation of
dynamic fit helps explain other related concepts, such as “harmonious connections at work” or
“balance among life domains.” The constructs of “continuum staggering” and “continuum
straddling” in high-context communication (Cole, this issue) are another example of construct
infusion. “Paradoxical leadership behavior” (Zhang et al., this issue) is a new construct infused
into the leadership literature. Finally, although the prefix “ambi-” is well known in management,
often referring to managing two processes with seemingly opposite characteristics, the new
construct of “ambitemporality” (Reinecke & Ansari, this issue) helps to understand how an
organization managed tensions related to different understandings of time, enabling the
organization to address both economic goals (associated with large Northern companies and their
clients) and social goals (of Southern small producers living in poverty).

Scholars who intend to import new constructs from the Asian context face an added set of
challenges compared to Western scholars, with the first being to understand the concept as
distinct from existing Western constructs, or whether overlaps exist. In reality, many constructs
have equivalents—thus, it may be futile to convince readers of something being entirely novel
when equivalents exist. As the six papers show, potential strategies to overcome the contribution
threshold for an article could lie in understanding whether there is construct salience or construct
infusion; salience would highlight when a specific construct or its attribute becomes more
important, and infusion is when the context adds a particular dimension or idea that has not been
observed or discussed in the existing Western literature. In the rare case that a construct is indeed
new to the Western world, then the processes of identification, validity, reliability, and the
boundary conditions need to be clarified.
The new concepts and theories developed from an Eastern context (as presented in this special
issue) may serve as a starting point to develop more universal theories that explain phenomena in
Western contexts as well, just as original theories developed in the West have been tested in
places beyond the West. This process can be coined as “the evolution of theories” (Whetten,
2014). It suggests that a theory often goes through several stages to become a good theory that
can explain a large amount of phenomena (i.e., a universal theory). The first stage is to establish
a solid theory regarding the relationship between X and Y in one single context (indigenous).
This context can be East or West, any particular country or region, or any industry or firm. To
increase the explanatory power of the theory, the second step is to test if X is also related to a
group of outcomes, such as y1, y2, and y3, in the same single context; or to test if X is related to
Y in a different context, such as context1, context2, and so on. The last stage of the theory’s
evolution would be to identify boundary conditions and underlying mechanisms regarding the
particular theory between X and Y in all different contexts (universal).

For example, the paradoxical leader behaviors identified in the Zhang et al. (this issue) study
may be examined in the same Chinese context to see if they also affect other employee work
outcomes besides the proactive behaviors they tested. For example, job creativity may also be
influenced by leaders’ paradoxical behaviors (based on integrative thinking), as these behaviors
might stimulate employees to follow suit and integrate differing perspectives to think about their
job, which are likely to induce new ways of solving problems and completing tasks. The theory
of paradoxical leadership can also be tested in a different cultural context that shares the Taoist
philosophy, such as Japan. If the findings are replicated, a context that has less commonality can
be chosen to test the 472 Academy of Management Journal April theory. Eventually, through
testing the theory in numerous contexts, the boundary conditions would emerge to account for
the potentially differing findings, and the underlying mechanisms will be discovered to
understand why paradoxical leadership would affect employee behaviors in certain cultural
contexts but not others.

DISCUSSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Reducing biases due to normal science by actively tapping into a variety of worldviews
(embedded in local institutions, philosophies, cultural beliefs), and perceived management
puzzles and problems, may lead to a rich variety of concepts, theories, and paradigms in
management—as happened in the North American context in the 1950s to 1980s. It may also
lead to the further development of these theories in terms of antecedents, mediators, modifiers,
and outcome variables, and to identifying boundary conditions in a highly diverse and changing
world. This is relevant from a practical perspective as well. New assumptions and theoretical
models—adopted to explain empirical phenomena better—may influence, and potentially
change, debates and perspectives outside the narrow domain of research (Kuhn, 1985). In sum, it
may increase the validity and the relevance of management research, in terms of explaining new
management puzzles, solving new management problems, and addressing new social concerns.
Below, we will first give some suggestions for further research. We will then offer an “agentic”
view on how individual researchers, journals, and management schools may reduce biases
implied by normal science, potentially increasing the theoretical contribution, timeliness, and
relevance of management research.

New Studies of Emerging Management Issues in the East

Recognizing that different values and norms guide people’s behavior in the East and the West—
often manifested in how people communicate (Hall, 1989) and why they misunderstand one
another—studying communication in Asian organizations will bring new insight into the
leadership and management literature. Cole’s (this issue) paper clarified the meaning of high-
context communication by introducing two components—message content (implicit versus
explicit) and message delivery (indirect versus direct). Implicit and indirect communication is
the highest-context communication, in which all meaning is conveyed through contextual cues
rather than words; explicit and direct communication is the lowest-context communication, in
which all meaning is conveyed through words. While both represent extremes, implicit and
indirect communication is more likely to occur in Asian organizations than in U.S. companies,
where explicit and direct communication is more likely. Interesting research questions regarding
the highest-context communication include “What is implicit and indirect communication?”,
“How does it convey meaning?”, and “When will targets understand implicit and indirect
communication?” To answer these questions, Cole and Chen (2015) developed a new construct,
“inception” (i.e., the active yet covert manipulation of environmental or communicative cues),
which may be used to avoid conflicts, to save face, or to evoke intrinsic motivation. We
encourage more research on these and other forms of communication prevalent in the East and
West, on how and why they influence management practices and behavior, and on the boundary
conditions for such theories.

Another important area of research in the Eastern context is the nature and potential evolution of
leadership in organizations. Beyond the idea of paternalistic leadership (Farh & Cheng, 2000)
and the leadership model of successful Indian firms (Cappelli et al., 2010), little is known about
leadership in Asia. Ma and Tsui (2015) showed the cultural root of legalism in the modern
management practices of structure and control, and the influence of Confucianism on
contemporary forms of paternalistic leadership. Zhang, Chen, Chen, and Ang (2014) suggested
promising ideas for studying leadership in China in response to changes in the institutions,
cultural values, and new generations of workers. These externalities may require changes in
leadership approaches in firms. Zhang et al. (2015) found that Chinese leaders, even those at
lower organizational levels, engage in paradoxical behaviors to meet the paradoxical
requirements of firms and followers. The Asian context, characterized by both deep traditions
and modern practices, may be particularly germane to the study of paradox at the individual,
firm, and societal levels.
Many Asian businesses, especially from China and India, are becoming global firms. Analyzing
the motivation and pattern of outward direct investment is another interesting topic for future
research. Child and Marinova (2014) discuss the implication of both home and host country
contexts for Chinese enterprises investing into foreign countries. They argue for sensitivity to
both home and host country contexts, and study how the institutions and political systems in
those contexts affect strategies and resource development associated with international
expansion. While these insights were developed from the China context, Child and Marinova
(2014) argued that this theory can be applied to outward foreign direct investment from any
country.

Internal to the firm, many Asian businesses, especially medium- and small-sized ones, only
possess ordinary resources and do not own strategic or critical capabilities as implied by the
resource based view (Barney, 1991). While they may be at a disadvantage in term of unique,
valuable, and non imitable resources, these firms know how to combine generic resources they
can purchase and generic capabilities they possess. This composition based strategy (Luo &
Child, forthcoming) involves amalgamating an extended array of product features, functions, and
services, providing customers with new services, value, convenience, and time savings at a cost
that is significantly less than that of non-amalgamated functions or services. Many Asian firms—
notably, those from South Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China—adopt this strategy because a
pure cost leadership strategy would not support sustained growth, while pure differentiation is
not appropriate due to a lack of advanced technologies, brand reputation, and innovation. Future
research could investigate how, why, and when these firms create competitive advantage,
whether they are a uniquely suited to the Asian context, or whether it has implications for
management theories and practices beyond Asia.

Finally, to tackle some of the grand challenges of poverty, poor healthcare, and access to
education, multilateral agencies, governments, non-government organizations, private firms, and
individuals are stepping up with solutions to what appears as intractable social ailments. Many of
these problems leave individuals helpless, wanting or aspiring for a better life (e.g., George et al.,
2015; Tsui, 2013). Yet true solutions will tend to have multiple parties with differing incentives
and goals working together to make a dent in these broader social challenges. These settings
make for interesting contexts to learn and study coordination challenges, organizational design
and business models, public–private partnerships and novel governance structures (e.g.,
Roehrich, Lewis, & George, 2014; Tihanyi, Graffin, & George, 2014). The sociocultural context
of poverty could yield novel insights into what motivates workers, how individuals transition
between jobs and joblessness, or when individuals take up entrepreneurship or self-employment.

Such research may also explore why so few business models (e.g., of social enterprises and other
social businesses, or non-governmental organizations) scale up, limiting their social impact. Or,
how and why organizational factors (networks, leadership, and so on) contribute differently to
organizational performance at different growth stages (Barkema, Coleridge, Qin, Smit, & Stam,
2014; Busch & Barkema, 2015). This research will likely need to be inductive, to explore
whether new concepts and theories are needed to understand entrepreneurial organizations
operating in informal contexts serving people in poverty in Asia (and other parts of the world),
rather than existing ones. Moreover, while economics-based theory (e.g., the modern theory of
finance) suggests context-free measures of an organization’s economic performance (e.g.,
shareholder value), its social performance (Tsui & Jia, 2013) will likely depend on institutional,
economic, and cultural aspects of local settings and on target groups (women, youths, etc.),
requiring an understanding of the organization’s interactions with local target groups and
communities. This suggests multidisciplinary research in which management researchers may
cooperate with researchers from development and anthropology (Barkema, Priego-Hernandez, &
Soylu, 2015; Huang, 2015), potentially leading to new theories, concepts, and performance
measures.

These are just a few illustrations of exciting research opportunities for the Eastern context, with
potential implications for enriching management knowledge in the West. Engaging with these
“new” research questions will require scholars to break out of the bondage of normal science.
Below, we propose an “agentic” view for individual researchers, for journals, and for
management schools to advance the creation of new concepts, theories, and paradigms, which we
believe is important for the development of scholarship and management knowledge in Asia and
beyond.

An Agentic View of Creating New Theories and Paradigms

We will first discuss potential actions of individual researchers. We encourage an agentic view—
that is, researchers making explicit choices about which novel management problems or puzzles
to study, and addressing which economic or social concerns, rather than be driven by “given”
theoretical gaps in existing paradigms. This is similar to what early management theorists did,
leading to a rich variety of concepts, theories, and paradigms, although contemporary researchers
need to show how new concepts and theories add to existing ones (see our discussion of
construct salience, etc.), while benefiting from contemporary research methods and
methodologies. The early days of management research and the contributions to this SRF jointly
suggest going beyond “one-shot” studies of new settings; for instance, based on “lived
experience” to adequately tap into local management problems, puzzles, and underlying
worldviews, and having multicultural experience as individuals or as teams, facilitating an
understanding of which management puzzles are interesting and novel in a new setting.

Publishing books may be an appropriate avenue to surface novel management problems, and to
suggest initial questions and answers, as well as popular articles, followed by more neutral,
scientific work (Abrahamson, 1996; Abrahamson & Fairchild, 1999), while the new journal
outlet Academy of Management Discoveries has the explicit remit to describe new management
phenomena. An agentic view, building on a researcher’s individual worldviews and knowledge
advantage (in terms of cultural and philosophical beliefs, knowledge, values, and social
concerns), will likely lead to more novel concepts and theories, potentially triggering more
interesting debate and increasing the relevance and impact for society of the research (Kuhn,
1985).

Second, journals may help reduce biases due to normal science. For instance, by using
procedures that correct for potential editor or reviewer bias. In this SRF, we experimented with
using multiple editors for editorial decisions to correct for potential idiosyncratic biases. Journals
may also—perhaps even more consciously than they already do— select multicultural sets of
reviewers, to increase the likelihood of recognizing and tapping into novel management
conundrums, concepts, and theories that explicitly add to existing theory. Journals may also—
even more systematically—use special research fora inviting inductive work on emerging
management problems, puzzles, and worldviews (e.g., related to organizations or ecosystems
addressing aging, climate change, poverty) that are highly relevant but differ from those that
triggered the original paradigms. These efforts may also lead to further new concepts, theories,
and paradigms, and, in turn, increase the relevance and social impact of management research.

Third, management schools may help to reduce biases due to normal science and increase the
likelihood of research that addresses contemporary social concerns. Just as organizations can
adopt an agentic view towards culturally embedded concepts such as “time” (Reinecke & Ansari,
2015), management schools can be agentic in terms of supporting research on management
puzzles and problems related to a specific geographical setting (e.g., Asia, South America,
Africa) or newly emerging management puzzles and issues—for instance, by recognizing,
rewarding, or funding such research (e.g., through external funding or research centers). This is
particularly relevant, because such research may take longer to develop and to publish than
research that narrowly fits existing concepts and theories, due to the need to develop new
measures, or because of higher costs, larger problems of data collection, and biases of
established journals. Hence, schools may strategically tap into management puzzles and
problems, building on their worldviews and competitive advantage (in terms of cultural and
philosophical beliefs, knowledge, values, and social concerns), and where they are particularly
interested in supporting debate and relevance for society. For example, schools in Asia, South
America, and Africa might opt to exploit their relative strengths (i.e., tapping into local problems
or puzzles) and build a distinct, competitive advantage in the global game of competition for
management schools, in addition to contributing to (building up competencies and output in)
normal science. Or, management schools may tap into management problems and puzzles related
to newly emerging economic, social, or environmental concerns, with similar implications.

Interestingly, the agency of management researchers, schools, and journals actively supporting,
selecting, studying, and publishing research on a variety of novel management problems and
puzzles may lead, at the aggregate level of the management field, to more novel concepts,
theories, and paradigms; transcending the constraints of normal science and the setting from
which management research emerged, and potentially—through journal articles, education
(bachelor’s and master’s degree-taught programs, executive education, PhD programs), books,
and popular press articles and blogs—leading to more timely debates and more relevance for
society.

In sum, we strongly encourage researchers, journals, and management schools to be “agentic” in

terms of selecting management problems and puzzles based on their worldviews and social
concerns, causing useful variation in the system rather than uniformity implied by normal
science, given the large potential benefits for researchers, management schools, the field of
management as a whole, and in view of the potential relevance and impact for society.