Introduction: How does novelty emerge?

In this introductory chapter, we clarify how contemporary organizational scholars view emergence and novelty. As the use of these terms has grown, their meanings have become increasingly diffuse. In response, we explicate three lenses that tease out core distinctions between different philosophical and theoretical approaches to studying emergence. Each of the three lenses, which we call respectively spatial emergence, relational emergence, and temporal emergence, is based on a unique pairing of underlying assumptions about the exogenized or endogenized nature of both space and time. Each also has particular implications for practitioners seeking practical insights into emergence, and for researchers conducting studies on emergence. In addition, we introduce the chapters in this volume, which offer a variety of philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives on the theme of novelty emergence. In introducing the chapters in Part I, which engage directly with this theme, we emphasise the interplay between the three lenses. The remaining chapters in Part II address developments more generally in the domain of process organization studies.