Organizations are not merely mechanical systems that operate through formal rules and hierarchical structures. Rather, they are complex social structures in which diverse values, expectations, perceptions, power relations, and behavioral patterns intersect. For this reason, many behaviors and managerial practices that emerge in organizational life are shaped within a dynamic field of tension and interaction where seemingly opposing tendencies coexist simultaneously. These contrasts—ranging from managerial approaches to employee attitudes—provide an important analytical framework for understanding both the development and the crises of organizations.

This two-volume edited work, titled Duality in Organizational Behavior: The Tension and Interaction of Opposing Concepts, aims to reinterpret concepts that are often examined separately in the organizational behavior literature by analyzing them through the lenses of opposition and tension. The second volume of the series particularly focuses on significant conceptual dualities that arise within the contexts of managerial approaches, employee relations, organizational justice, psychological processes, and cultural dynamics in working life.

In this volume, several concept pairs that directly affect organization–employee relationships are examined in detail, including corporate citizenship versus corporate exploitation, participative management versus authoritarian management, fair performance evaluation versus perceived injustice, and psychological contract loyalty versus psychological contract breach. In addition, tension areas emerging in managerial processes—such as innovative management versus status quo–oriented management, value- and happiness-oriented management versus performance-oriented management, horizontal versus vertical management approaches, and conflict avoidance versus constructive conflict—are also comprehensively analyzed.

In the later chapters of the book, the social and cultural dimensions of organizational life are explored through concept pairs such as employee loyalty versus turnover intention, employee empowerment versus controlling management, organizational psychological safety versus psychological threat, individualism versus collectivism, and workplace civility versus microaggression. These analyses demonstrate that organizational behavior phenomena cannot be adequately understood from a single perspective; rather, they should be interpreted within a multilayered field of interaction shaped by opposing tendencies.

This book seeks to strengthen the view that opposing concepts in the organizational behavior literature should be examined not merely as comparative constructs but as processes that mutually reinforce, reproduce, and transform one another. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the development of a more flexible, pluralistic, and critical perspective for understanding the complexity of organizational life.

Prepared with contributions from scholars from various universities, this volume offers a conceptually rich reference source for researchers, graduate students, and management practitioners in the field of organizational behavior.