The “teacher” and martial arts: A psychobiographical analysis of Jack Ma as a business change agent

Scholars have conducted in-depth research on social change agents, but there are few collaborative studies in this realm between sociology and psychology. From the perspective of psychobiography, this before study uses Jung's Analytical Psychology as a theoretical framework to explore Jack Ma's influence on business change, thereby revealing the deep motivation behind Jack Ma's sudden retirement and choice to be a teacher.This study has collected primary and secondary data about Jack Ma. QSR Nvivo 11.0 was used to encode the text based on video transcription, and then the data were analyzed. This study refers to the key factors of growth and follows the primary indicators of psychological saliency to sort out the data and find out what has special psychological significance, and then conducts three coding processes.This study found that the teacher complex and the martial arts complex are the breakthrough points to understand the business innovator Jack Ma.Jack Ma shapes the image of ordinary teachers through his image management strategy, conceals his deep internal martial arts complex, and balances the displayed martial arts personality mask. He has achieved great success in business innovator, while drawing on his internal personality conflicts to his advantage.