Unpacking the Bottom-Up Emergence Underlying Collective Phenomena: A Mixed Method Approach

Abstract

As one of fundamental process underlying collective phenomenon, bottom-up emergence or process involves both convergent and divergent forms through which different lower-level characteristics (e.g., cognition, affect, behaviors) of a group create meaningful higher- level properties. Until now, qualitative method has provided valuable insights for theory building. However, since the bottom-up process entails a complex casual structure, it is very challenging for qualitative method to unravel the multiple conjunctural causation, especially when it comes to understanding how related but diverse lower-level characteristics contribute to collective property (divergent forms). This paper therefore introduces approaches to work with qualitative method: Casual mapping technique to elicit the cognitive representation of interlinked concepts embedded in the expertise of participants around a domain and social network analysis to identify the casual structure through which bottom-up emergence unfolds. With the case of collective turnover, we illustrate how this mixed method can address these issues and provide an alternative way for researchers to interpret the reciprocal complexity of convergent and divergent forms and the structure role of constructs underlying the process, which in turn help both theorists and practitioners to manage collective phenomenon in organization.