Generative Emergence: Exploring the Dynamics of Innovation and Change in High‐Potential Start‐Up Ventures
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Author | Claudine Kearney,Benyamin Lichtenstein |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12604 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 34, 898–914 (2023)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12604
Generative Emergence: Exploring the
Dynamics of Innovation and Change in
High-Potential Start-Up Ventures
Claudine Kearney 1and Benyamin Lichtenstein 2
1Graduate School of Healthcare Management, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ballymoss
Road, Dublin, Sandyford, 18, Republic of Ireland 2College of Management, University of Massachusetts
Boston, Boston, MA 02125, USA
Corresponding author email: claudinekearney@rcsi.ie
Start-up and early growth of new ventures is a complexprocess, lled with challenges and
learning amidst continuous dynamic change. Understanding these dynamics is a critical
goal for entrepreneurs and has been researched by entrepreneurship scholars using com-
plexity sciences. Building on this literature,we explore the ‘dynamics of emergent change’
by interviewing 20 founders/CEOs of young, high-potential ventures in the Republic of
Ireland to generate theory on howthese dynamics are experienced throughout the start-up
journey. Our ndings suggest a set of process dynamics that are commonly experienced
as instability,tension, non-linear change, unpredictability and surprise, as well as the out-
come dynamics of emergent structures, ongoing creation of new knowledge and enhanced
capabilities. These are experienced across every aspect of entrepreneurship,from within
the specic innovation, through marketing, operations and nance. These ndings con-
tribute towards our understanding of how the entrepreneurs deal with these dynamics.
Given the current success of their venture, we take their suggestions as an outline for
‘generative leadership’ – behaviouraland strategic tools for enhanced venture growth and
development.
Introduction
The emergence of a new venture, its start-up and
early development, is a journey of possibility,
uncertainty, learning, innovation and change. En-
trepreneurs seek to capitalize on an opportunity
by creating a quality offering (product/service)
that provides value for customers, produced
through the entrepreneurs’ expertise, innova-
tions and networked resources (Eckhardt and
Shane, 2003; Gartner, Carter and Reynolds, 2004;
Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Shane and Venkatara-
man, 2000; Stevenson and Gumpert, 1985). The
entrepreneurial start-up journey is rarely straight-
forward, entrepreneurial processes are complex
and multi-faceted (Davidsson and Gruenhagen,
2021), leading to adaptive changes that are often
unexpected and somewhat dramatic, including
major shifts in entrepreneurs’ expectations, plans
and actions (Meyer, Gaba and Colwell, 2005;
Mullins and Komisar, 2009; Sarasvathy, 2001).
However, with appropriate support, timing and
good fortune, a venture often emerges, generating
new value for customers through a nancially
viable and growing venture (Morris, Schindette
and Allen, 2005; Zott and Amit, 2007).
How does emergence happen? Morespecically,
how does new order arise and stabilize in ven-
tures? Are there certain dynamics that underlie
an emergence, and if so, how are these dynam-
ics experienced by new venture founders/CEOs?
Those questions are the source of this research
study, which aims to identify a set of core pat-
terns and processes in new venture emergence and
understand how these dynamics are experienced
by entrepreneurs. In order to gain leverage for
this inquiry, we draw on the complexity sciences,
which have been used to examine these drivers of
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal of Management published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Academy
of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Li-
cense, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-
commercial and no modications or adaptations are made.
Generative Emergence 899
order creation in social systems for over 25 years
(Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997; Cheng and Van de
Ven,1996; Dooley, 2019; Goldstein, 1988; Holling,
2001; Sorenson, Rivkin and Fleming, 2006).
Entrepreneurship scholars have applied the
complex systems models of emergence to gain in-
sight into new venture emergence (Bygrave, 1989;
Gartner, Carter and Reynolds, 2004; Kozlowski
and Chao, 2012; Lichtenstein et al., 2007; Steven-
son and Harmeling, 1990). A continuous stream
of research has been extending these concepts
into entrepreneurship theory (e.g. McKelvey,
2004c), later referred to as the ‘complexity sci-
ence of entrepreneurship’ (Fulmer and Ostroff,
2015; Goldstein, Hazy and Silberstang, 2010;
Lichtenstein, 2011, 2016).
Until now, these studies have been predomi-
nantly conceptual, using one of the sciences of
complexity to explain how some of these dynam-
ics of emergence may be triggered or expressed
(e.g. Gartner and Brush, 2007; Garud et al., 2015;
Lichtenstein et al., 2007). However, few studies
have examined how entrepreneurs building a
high-potential start-up venture experience these
dynamics. Given the value of understanding how
emergence unfolds, we explore how entrepreneurs
experience these core dynamics during times of
early and rapid venture growth.
We started by reviewing complexity science
studies of entrepreneurial emergence and order
creation, to identify a robust set of dynamics
discussed in the literature. We then draw on the
most common of these dynamics to analyse in-
depth interviews with the founder/CEO of 20
high-potential start-up ventures (less than six
years old). Based on the current success of these
ventures, our inquiry was designed to show how
these dynamics are perceived and adopted by each
founder/CEO. Our ndings demonstrate the most
prevalent dynamics, and their impact across the
venture. This contributes to addressing the long-
standing knowledge gap about the micro-level
experience of emergence itself (Juarrero, 2000;
McKelvey, 2004a; Nair, Gaim and Dimov, 2020).
Furthermore, we examine how the entrepreneurs
used these dynamics to their advantage, by taking
actions that encourage one or another of the dy-
namics to be expressed within their venture. These
behaviours and actions are introduced as a
potential style of leadership, linked to ‘generative
leadership’ (cf. Lichtenstein and Plowman, 2009;
McKelvey and Lichtenstein, 2007). We believe
that applying these dynamics to high-potential
start-ups can enhance the quality of emergence
and early growth.
Theoretical foundations of emergence
The discipline of entrepreneurship was one of
the rst and most active disciplines to utilize
the complexity sciences as a theoretical lens, be-
cause they are both focused on the same outcome,
namely emergence (McKelvey, 2004c; Stevenson
and Harmeling, 1990). Emergence is the creation
of a new system or entity, with capabilities that go
far beyond the combined capabilities of its agents
(e.g. employees). Classic denitions from scholars
such as Anderson (1972) explain that emergence
is most evident when a new ‘level of analysis’ is
created, for example when trying to explain how
the wetness of water emerges solely through gas
molecules, or seeing how ventures have an identity
that goes beyond the activities of their employees.
Complexity science has long studied emergence,
especially in mathematical, algorithmic, thermo-
dynamic and biological systems (Goldstein, 2001;
Holland, 1995; Prigogine and Stengers, 1984). The
micro-processes of emergence have been explored
using chaos theory (Cheng and Van de Ven, 1996;
Goldstein, Hazy and Silberstang, 2010; McElroy,
1999; McKelvey, 2004c), complex adaptive sys-
tems (Dooley,1997; Fuller and Moran, 2001; Nair,
Narasimhan and Choi, 2009), dissipative struc-
tures (Leifer, 1989; Prigogine and Stengers, 1984)
and self-organization (Drazin and Sandelands,
1992), among others (Lichtenstein, 2011; Swen-
son, 1992). Each theoretical lens opens unique
ways to see dynamics of emergence, as they unfold
in entrepreneurial systems.
A crucial insight from these studies is that emer-
gence leads to greater capacity in operational out-
comes. This increase in systemic capacity was rst
discovered in the thermodynamics of dissipative
structures (Prigogine and Glansdorff, 1971; Swen-
son, 1989). These studies have identied a set
of processes or ‘dynamics’ which lead to emer-
gent structures. The value of this insight has been
well explored by scholars applying complexity
science to new venture creation (Gartner, 1993;
Goldstein, Hazy and Silberstang, 2010; Lichten-
stein, 2011; McKelvey, 2004b), and rapid growth
(Carter, Gartner and Reynolds, 1996; Lichtenstein
et al., 2007).
© 2022 The Authors.British Journal of Management published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British
Academy of Management.
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