Time: 1:30 -3:00 PM, 22 April, 2021

Speaker: Associate Professor Zhang Yan

Location: A28, MBA Education Center

Zhang Yan, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Peking University. His main research interests are management psychology, leadership, team, conflict management. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, Human Resource Management, Academy of Management Journal, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, Journal of Management Science and other top journals at home and abroad published more than 30 articles. He has presided over a number of projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, including a project for outstanding youth funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management and Management and Organization Review.

I investigated how founding CEOs from Taoist cultures infuse one paradoxical component into the other when managing temporal and social-relational tensions in corporate development. I used an inductive methodological approach to analyze 71 in-depth qualitative interviews with founding CEOs and their direct subordinates from 13 Chinese privately owned companies. I found cognitive and behavioral approaches geared to temporal and social-relational tensions. Following yin-yang philosophy, CEOs cognitively identified ways to infuse competing elements into each other and took specific actions to do so, going beyond the both/and approaches identified in current paradox management theories. This research adds nuance to our understanding of the intersection of leadership and paradox, particularly regarding how leaders infuse one competing element into the other in tension management based on the yin-yang view.