Being versus becoming ontology of paradox management

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical contribution of Li’s (2016) “Yin-Yang balancing” approach of paradox management, as well as its future development to guide paradox management research across the east and west contexts.

It begins by recognizing the importance of paradox management research, especially the indigenous epistemological approach as Li (2016) has followed. The authors take “being” and “becoming” ontology toward social reality as the basic premise in this commentary, and summarize the knowledge that the study has contributed to existing literature.

The “Yin-Yang balancing” approach can extend the knowledge about paradox management phenomena at least from four aspects: the “either/and” frame to view a paradox system, the importance of “seed” or “threshold” in defining moderate rather than extreme groups, duality map as a novel tool for paradox management, and comparison of being and becoming ontology.

Based on the comparison of “being” and “becoming” ontological view, the authors suggest to further develop this “Yin-Yang balancing” approach by emphasizing the following issues: eastern culture does not have exclusive ownership of the “becoming” ontology toward the world, elaboration of alternative theoretical explanation to win out the identity approach about organizational existence, the linkage between the “Yin-Yang balancing” epistemological system and process research method, and boundary condition of the “Yin-Yang balancing” approach.