Emergence and Emergents in Entrepreneurship: Complexity Science Insights into New Venture Creation

Emergence is at the nexus of entrepreneurship and complexity science because the former studies how and why new organizations emerge, and complexity examines the emergence of new order in dynamic systems. As a means of summarizing work in emergence, this invited paper presents six insights that complexity science has brought to entrepreneurship: An emergence process generates an emergent outcome; emergence is driven by agency; emergence increases the capacity of a system; emergence occurs in cycles; emergence follows a distinct logic; and entrepreneurial emergents follow an 80/20 rule.