Organizations are often described in the management literature as orderly, rational, and coherent systems. In reality, however, they are complex social structures in which opposing tendencies, values, and behavioral patterns coexist simultaneously. Leadership styles, employee behaviors, organizational cultures, and managerial approaches rarely operate through linear and one-directional processes; rather, they gain meaning through dynamic tensions and interactions generated by opposing concepts. For this reason, many phenomena in the field of organizational behavior cannot be adequately explained through normative dichotomies such as “good–bad,” “right–wrong,” or “effective–ineffective.” Instead, it is necessary to understand how these phenomena coexist within the same organizational context and how they interact with one another.

This edited volume, titled Duality in Organizational Behavior: The Tension and Interaction of Opposing Concepts, aims to reconsider pairs of concepts that are frequently treated as alternatives in the organizational behavior literature through the perspectives of duality, paradox, interaction, and tension. This perspective argues that organizational phenomena cannot be fully explained through one-directional cause–effect relationships. On the contrary, concepts that appear to be mutually exclusive often coexist within the same organization, at the same time, and sometimes even within the behavior of the same organizational actors.

The first volume of the series examines important conceptual dualities related to key themes of organizational behavior, including leadership, employee behavior, organizational climate, and psychological processes. In this context, several concept pairs are analyzed from different theoretical perspectives, such as developmental coaching versus control-oriented guidance, hierarchical mobbing versus reverse mobbing, organizational citizenship behavior versus counterproductive work behavior, ethical leadership versus toxic leadership, organizational silence versus organizational voice, voluntary participation versus compulsory participation, reactive management versus proactive management, and work engagement versus burnout. In addition, significant psychosocial aspects of organizational life—such as organizational trust versus fear climate, positive versus toxic organizational culture, psychological capital versus learned helplessness, and organizational identification versus alienation—are also discussed within this framework.

The chapters included in this book go beyond merely comparing these concept pairs. They explore the organizational conditions under which these phenomena emerge, how they mutually reinforce or trigger each other, how they may transform over time, and what kinds of organizational consequences they generate. In doing so, the book offers readers the opportunity to evaluate organizational behavior phenomena from a more holistic, contextual, and critical perspective.

Prepared with the contributions of distinguished scholars in the field, this volume aims to provide a conceptual framework for researchers, graduate students, and management practitioners in the field of organizational behavior. In this regard, the book seeks to create a new platform for discussing opposing concepts in organizational behavior literature and to encourage a more integrative understanding of their dynamic relationships.