The Dynamics of Emergence: Cognition and Cohesion in Work Teams

Emergence as a multilevel process has received limited research attention in the micro-meso disciplines of organizational science. Our intent is to explain the conceptual underpinnings of emergence and to advance a more dynamic, process-oriented conceptualization. We discuss emergence as a bottom-up, multilevel process and focus attention on three neglected issues: (a) emergence is dynamic, (b) manifests in different idealized forms, and (c) can vary in form over time. We consider two core phenomena in work teams-cognition and cohesion-to illustrate how this dynamic and multifaceted perspective on emergence can advance theory development and new research directions. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.