Event System Theory

Q Academy of Management Review2015, Vol. 40, No. 4, 515–537.http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0099

EVENT SYSTEM THEORY: AN EVENT-ORIENTED APPROACH TOTHE ORGANIZATIONAL SCIENCES

FREDERICK P. MORGESONMichigan State University

TERENCE R. MITCHELLUniversity of Washington

DONG LIUGeorgia Institute of Technology

Organizations are dynamic, hierarchically structured entities. Such dynamism is re-flected in the emergence of significant events at every organizational level. Despite thisfact, there has been relatively little discussion about how events become meaningfuland come to impact organizations across space and time. We address this gap by de-veloping event system theory, which suggests that events become salient when they arenovel, disruptive, and critical (reflecting an event’s strength). Importantly, events canoriginate at any hierarchical level and their effects can remainwithin that level or travelup or down throughout the organization, changing or creating new behaviors, features,and events. This impact can extend over time as events vary in duration and timing or asevent strength evolves. Event system theory provides a needed shift in focus for orga-nizational theory and research by developing specific propositions articulating the in-terplay among event strength and the spatial and temporal processes through whichevents come to influence organizations.

Time is like a river made up of the events whichhappen, and a violent stream; for as soon asa thing has been seen, it is carried away, andanother comes in its place, and this will be carriedaway too (Aurelius, 167).

That our experience of life can be described interms of events is something that has been rec-ognized since antiquity. The things that happento us—the events of our work and personal lives—form the core of what is called “experience.”Events occur over time, playing a major role inshaping thoughts, feelings, and actions. In fact,when people describe their lives, they oftenrefer to events as central to their development,

character, and circumstance. As Pillemer notes,“In every life, the ongoing stream of mundanedaily occurrences is punctuated by distinctive,circumscribed, highly emotional and influentialepisodes” (2001: 123). Some have gone so far as tosuggest that “the world is composed of eventsand experiences rather than substantial entities”(Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas, & Van de Ven,2013: 5).In organizations, events occur at every hierar-

chical level, from the most molar environmentallevel to the most molecular individual level, andtheir effects can travel up, down, or within hier-archical levels. This seems an obvious fact,making it all the more surprising that scholarshave largely failed to offer a comprehensiveaccount of the central role events play in un-derstanding organizational phenomena. Thisrepresents a significant gap in our under-standing of organizations, in part becausefocusing on events calls attention to dynamics,change, and system interrelationships that haveheretofore been neglected in theory and re-search. Although certain types of events havebeen studied and process-oriented researchconsiders events a part of the broader process

We thank former associate editor Ingrid Fulmer and threeanonymous reviewers for their constructive and generativecomments throughout the review process. The resulting arti-cle is significantly better as a result of their efforts. We alsowanted to acknowledge the helpful comments of MarionEberly, Gary Johns, Robert Liden, and Deborah Rupp on ear-lier versions of the manuscript. We are indebted to you foryour thoughtful comments. Finally, thanks to Adela Garza forher insightful comments and copy-editing assistance on nu-merous drafts of the manuscript. Dong Liu acknowledgessupport from the grant of the National Natural Science Foun-dation of China (71472147), the Fundamental Research Fundsfor the Central Universities, and the Research Funds ofRenmin University of China (11XNL002).

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http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0099

flow, scholars have largely focused on enduringfeatures of the work environment as the keycause of organizational phenomena.

Concerned with quite different phenomena,feature-oriented theories focus on the relativelysalient, enduring, and stable representative fea-tures of individuals, teams, and organizations.For example, in job characteristics theory, dif-ferent degrees of a feature-oriented independentvariable (e.g., an individual’s amount of jobautonomy) are presumed to lead to differentamounts of a feature-oriented dependent vari-able (e.g., job satisfaction). Features operate, inpart, by structuring daily experiences, reflectingthe generally stable amount of a particular var-iable for an individual, group, or organization.Thus, variance in features causes variance insome feature serving as the dependent variable.

Without a doubt, features are crucial, thussupporting the considerable attention given tothem in past research. Yet it is also clear thatorganizational phenomena are not solely limitedto features. This has been increasingly recog-nized under the auspices of event-oriented theoryperspectives. Events differ from features in manyways, but perhaps the greatest difference lies inthe fact that events are discrete and bounded inspace and time. In addition, events can become“strong” enough to produce change or variabilityin behaviors or features and can lead to sub-sequent events. In this way, events can formlarger chains of events that affect organizationsacross time. For example, a terrorist attack maychange security systems, a new law may bringexpanded and intrusive internal regulations, anew boss may implement substantial changes inorganization rules, and the unexpected turnoverof a valued team member can influence the mo-tivation and goal-oriented behavior of those whoremain.

To move toward a more event-oriented per-spective, we develop event system theory (EST),an overarching event-oriented theoretical systemthat bridges and ultimately extends feature- andprocess-oriented perspectives. In so doing, wemake three important theoretical contributions.First, event-oriented theories have been rela-tively rare, particularly when compared to feature-oriented theories. As we will show, however, anexplicit focus on events generates unique in-sights and forces scholars to theorize acrossspace and time, which is often neglected infeature-oriented scholarship. For example, most

phenomena have downstream consequences,yet feature-oriented theories are typically silentwith respect to such effects. A natural outcomeof thinking across space and time is that itprompts a focus on change, dynamics, and lon-gitudinal phenomena. Because feature-orientedresearch focuses on the amount of a constructand covariation among constructs, it often neglectschange and development.Second, even though a body of event-oriented

research (including process- and change-basedresearch) exists, it has been limited in importantways. This includes focusing only on certaintypes of events (e.g., affective events, CEO suc-cession), treating events in a dichotomous man-ner (i.e., the event occurs or does not occur)without understanding the underlying eventcharacteristics (i.e., what makes events impactfuland trigger changes), taking a retrospective ap-proach by examining a specific event only after itappears to have been impactful, and offeringonly descriptive accounts of event patterns. Intotal, these limitations make it difficult to offerpredictive, multilevel accounts of changes inorganizational phenomena over time.Third, EST serves as a pivotal bridge between

feature- and process-oriented theory and re-search. Importantly, it can be used to betterdescribe the multilevel nature and temporal dy-namics inherent in organizational phenomenaassociated with events, thereby offering a morecomprehensive and veridical account of organi-zational behavior. For example, the unfoldingmodel of turnover (Lee & Mitchell, 1994) showedhow both events and features impact turnoverdecisions. This included three event-precipitatedturnover paths (e.g., being passed over for pro-motion, receiving an unexpected job offer) andone feature-driven turnover path (e.g., level ofjob dissatisfaction). These paths varied in theamount and type of deliberation, behaviorchange (e.g., search behaviors), and time toactually depart (a subsequent event). Con-sidering only events or features would haveled to a deficient theory and understanding ofthe phenomena.To develop EST, we draw from and extend open

system theory to explain when and how eventsaffect the behavior and features of organizationalentities and trigger subsequent events. We thenplace EST in the context of the larger ontologicaland epistemological commitments currentlypresent in the field of management as reflected

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in variance- and process-oriented theories. Fol-lowing this, we define what events are, describewhat makes some events stronger than others,and discuss how events impact outcomes de-pending on space and time.

EST IN CONTEXT

EST and Open System Theory

Open system theory (Katz & Kahn, 1978; vonBertalanffy, 1950) has proven to be influential, inpart, because it provides a general frameworkwithin which to understand how organizationsfunction. The basic principle of open systemtheory is that organizations import some form ofenergy from the environment, transform thisenergy in various ways, and produce some sortof output that is exported back to the environ-ment (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Less well recognized,however, is that organizations are composedof events:

The human organization lacks structure in thisanatomical sense; its land and buildings aretrappings; its members come and go. Yet it hasstructure; membership is not accidental and thebehavior of members is not random. We have ar-gued that the resolution of this paradox lies in thepatterns of the events of organizational life them-selves. The events are structured, and the formsthey assume have dynamic properties. Social or-ganizations as contrived systems are sets of suchpatterned behavioral events (Katz & Kahn, 1978:753-754).

Events maintain or create organizationalstructures (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999), whichcan be enduring (leading to stable organiza-tional structures over time) or dynamic (leadingto changes in organizational structures overtime). This tension between stability and changeis captured in open system theory through theconcept of steady states and dynamic homeo-stasis (Katz & Kahn, 1978; Lewin, 1947; Luenberger,1979). Open systems attempt to achieve a degreeof constancy embedded in an equilibrium in termsof the inflow and outflow of goods and materials(Berrien, 1961; von Bertalanffy, 1950). This con-stancy is manifested in organizational structuresand functions that allow for variation in inter-dependent entities’ actions and behaviors inadapting to nonroutine events.

The focus in open system theory has beenon the recurring events that help create asteady state and enable routine organizational

functioning (Miller & Rice, 2013; Rice, 2013). Lessattention has been paid to nonroutine events andhow they can change organizational functioning.To address this gap, EST focuses on how eventscommand attention and impact organizationalbehaviors, features, and subsequent events acrosslevels and time. In EST, events can influence or-ganizational entities through changing or creating(1) individual or collective behaviors (e.g., indi-viduals or groups voluntarily terminate and quittheir jobs after experiencing shocking events[Lee &Mitchell, 1994]; airline passengers have totake off their shoes to pass security screeningafter the 9/11 terrorist attacks), (2) features (e.g.,a merger changes existing justice norms andleads to the formation of a new division in themerging companies [Monin, Noorderhaven,Vaara, & Kroon, 2013]), or (3) subsequent events(e.g., a counteroffer from one’s current companycauses one to give up on moving to a new com-pany; the Enron scandal resulted in a number ofsubsequent events, including the bankruptcy ofthe Enron Corporation and the de facto dissolu-tion of Arthur Andersen LLP).System theories maintain that components of

a system interface with one another rather thanoperate exclusively to determine the propertiesand functioning of that system (Ahrne, 1994).Thus, drawing from system theories (Berrien,1961; von Bertalanffy, 1950), we define the eventsystem as a complex of three interacting eventcomponents: (1) event strength (an event’snovelty, disruption, and criticality), (2) eventspace (where an event originates and how itseffects spread through an organization), and (3)event time (when an event occurs, how long anevent remains impactful, and the evolution of eventstrength).

EST and Variance- and Process-OrientedTheories

Historically, two major types of theories havebeen forwarded in the organizational sciences(Mohr, 1982). The first, variance theories, areprimarily concerned with issues of covariationamong constructs. This reflects a research tradi-tion focused on how relatively stable featuresare interrelated, which has yielded consider-able insight into how the amount of a given or-ganizational feature is related to the amount ofanother organizational feature. For example,variance-oriented research might examine how

2015 517Morgeson, Mitchell, and Liu

an organization’s cultural values (an organiza-tional feature) are related to its reputation (anotherfeature). Exploring feature interrelationshipsdominates the organizational sciences and flowsdirectly from the assumptions articulated inAristotle’s Metaphysics, which gives primacy tothe quality of things.

The second major theory type is a direct re-action to the philosophical limitations in sucha “thing-quality paradigm” (Rescher, 1962: 410).Termed process theories, these theories involveunderstanding how patterns of events lead tooutcomes (Pentland, 1999). This reflects a re-search tradition consisting of “stories about whathappened and who did what when—that is,events, activities, and choices ordered over time”(Langley, 1999: 692). Although a more recent ad-dition to the organizational sciences, process-oriented theories also have a long philosophicaltradition, reflected in the idea that “natural ex-istence consists in and is best understood interms of processes rather than things—of modesof change rather than fixed stabilities” (Rescher,1996: 7).

Interestingly, variance-oriented theories elevatethings (i.e., features) at the expense of processes,whereas process-oriented theories elevate pro-cesses at the expense of features. Rescher goes sofar as to suggest that “process has primacy overthings. Substance is subordinate to process:Things are simply constellations of processes”(1996: 2). These two major types of theoriesrepresent competing world views that espouseincommensurate ontologies.

EST shares elements of both variance andprocess theories but integrates and goes beyondthem in important ways. For example, althoughevents can be characterized and quantified ina variety of ways (EST focuses on the crucial roleof novelty, disruption, and criticality), much likewhat occurs in variance theories, the phenome-non itself is a transitory and unstable process(i.e., events arise and impact entities). Impor-tantly, although process theory focuses on theprocess whereby events cause outcomes, itlargely deals with events as a whole (i.e., processstudies do not clearly quantify events). In addi-tion, it does not consider an event’s essentialnature (i.e., what makes some events strongerthan others) and the implications this has foroutcomes (i.e., how event strength leads to out-comes). This orientation may result from thephilosophical commitments of process theory,

which explicitly denies the existence of discreteevents. For example, Rescher notes that “the ideaof discrete ‘events’ dissolves into a manifold ofprocesses which themselves dissolve into furtherprocesses” (1996: 29).EST bridges variance and process theories by

offering an integrative framework that consists ofquantifiable events that exist uniquely in spaceand time and within the flow of other entities andevents, forming a process over time. Extendingprior variance and process theories, EST articu-lates why event strength is quantified by novelty,disruption, and criticality (indicating whatmakes events meaningful and impactful). ESTthen focuses on the interplay between eventstrength and spatial and temporal factors thatchange or create behaviors, features, and sub-sequent events (i.e., the amount of a given eventcharacteristic interfaces with spatial and tem-poral factors to bring about the change in theamount of an organizational phenomenon). Assuch, EST integrates and extends variance andprocess theories to offer unique and importantepistemological and ontological contributions tothe organizational sciences. We begin our de-velopment of EST by defining the term event andthen considering issues associated with eventstrength, space, and time.

DEFINING EVENTS

Previous Conceptualizations

The general idea that one should study eventshas a long philosophical tradition, ranging fromDewey’s (1929) view that discrete experiences area key unit of analysis to Pepper’s (1948) “con-textualism” that suggested phenomena can onlybe understood in terms of distinct events and thesurrounding context. In the organizational sci-ences, many micro-oriented scholars have usednumerous terms to describe events, such as crit-ical incidents (Flanagan, 1954), shocks (Fligstein,1991; Lee & Mitchell, 1994), jolts (Meyer, 1982),milestones (Hannigan, 1995; Hoffman, 1999), oc-currences (Basch & Fisher, 1998), prototypic ex-emplars (Ligon, Hunter, & Mumford, 2008), crises(Gersick, 1991), turning points (McAdams &Bowman, 2001), and emergencies (Latane &Darley, 1969). Other scholars have specificallyused “event” terminology, focusing on such thingsas affective events (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996),justice events (Rupp & Paddock, 2010), anchoring


events (Ballinger & Rockmann, 2010), embeddedorganizational events (Peterson, 1998), momen-tous events (Pillemer, 2001), positive events (Ilies,Keeney, & Scott, 2011), negative events (Lavallee& Campbell, 1995), daily life events (Langston,1994), work events (Mignonac & Herrbach,2004), uncommon events (Latane & Darley, 1969),stressful life events (Holmes & Rahe, 1967), andnovel and disruptive events (Morgeson, 2005).

Much of the above literature has a more micro,quantitative, and predictive orientation. There isalso substantial macro literature focused onthe topics of sensemaking and organizationalchange that is more qualitative and retrospectivein nature, where events are seen as foundationalfor sensemaking or organizational change pro-cesses. Scholars have described these eventsas discrepant (Weick, 1995), surprising (Louis,1980; Maitlis, 2005), confusing and uncertain(Cornelissen, 2012; Sonenshein, 2007), unusual(Vaara, 2003), critical (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001),unexpected (Nigam & Ocasio, 2010), complex(Cornelissen, 2012), disruptive (Stigliani & Ravasi,2012), and interrupted (Weick, 1995). In this liter-ature many types of events have been investi-gated, such as organizational entry surprises(Louis, 1980), organization identity threats(Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), strategic change ini-tiatives (Gioia & Thomas, 1996), acquisitions(Vaara, 2003), and disruptive occurrences on theshop floor (Patriotta, 2003).

Although important, there are several prob-lems associated with past event-oriented re-search, ultimately limiting its usefulness asa general theory of events. First, many of thedefinitions are relatively broad or inclusive.For example, affective events are defined as “achange in circumstances, a change in what oneis currently experiencing” (Weiss & Cropanzano,1996: 31), a definition that potentially includesalmost anything to which a person has anaffective reaction. Second, the definitions areoften circular. That is, events are commonlydefined by their outcomes and are viewed asnegative and positive if they produce such anoutcome (e.g., Ilies et al., 2011; Lavallee &Campbell, 1995). Third, much of this researchfocuses on the adjective that precedes the word“event” (e.g., positive, anchoring, interruptive)and describes people’s responses to certaintypes of events rather than what distinguishessalient events from nonsalient events. EST ad-dresses these limitations and offers a concise

definition of events in terms of their attributes(not their content) as a prelude to under-standing how and why events can impactorganizations.

Toward a Definition of Events

Floyd Allport offered perhaps one of the earli-est, complete, but somewhat abstract and broadaccounts of events. In writings stretching acrossthree decades, Allport (1940, 1954, 1967) articu-lated a view of science centrally organizedaround events. His view has been influential,with many of his core organizing concepts serv-ing as the foundation for seminal works in theorganizational sciences (e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1978;Weick, 1979). We draw from and further developthis view of events. Allport’s basic unit is theentity, which is any “explicitly denotable” thing.Entities have “continuances,” or ongoing stableways of being. When entities meet, events canoccur. From our perspective, entities can includeindividuals (e.g., subordinates, leaders, uppermanagers), teams, departments, organizations(e.g., competitors, suppliers), and environments(e.g., regions, industries). In this way, entitiesare independent “objects.” This highlights thefact that events arise and take on meaning frommultiple sources and at multiple hierarchicallevels (Langley, 1999) and that all entities pos-sess the potential to act or be acted upon. Forexample, workers may interact with seniorleaders or customers; teams may interact withother teams, customers, and suppliers; or orga-nizations may operate within certain kinds oftechnical and natural environments, all of whichcan produce events.Given this potential interaction, Allport de-

fined an event as the point in space and timewhere entities or entity actions contact, encoun-ter, or meet each other. Events thus reflectdiscrete, discontinuous “happenings,” whichdiverge from the stable or routine features ofthe organizational environment. This view ofevents is deliberately broad and comprehen-sive in that it allows one to analyze any opensystem in terms of events, ranging from themolecular to the molar. Yet this breath andflexibility is also a potential limitation, in partbecause this conceptualization implies thatvirtually every happening (e.g., having lunchat work, answering the phone, meeting a cus-tomer) might be considered an event.


Because EST is organizationally focused, wefurther refine and develop this conception ofevents in three ways. First, to separate events fromentities’ responses to events, we define events asbeing part of the environment or context that isexternal to the perceiver (Johns, 2006; Mowday &Sutton, 1993). Events may originate inside or out-side the organization, but they constitute observ-able actions or circumstances (e.g., a hostiletakeover attempt, a new competitor’s product,a machine failure, a new CEO). Internal psycho-logical processes may lead to or reflect reactionsto events, but they are not events in themselves.

Second, events are bounded in space and time(i.e., discrete) such that they have an identifiabletemporal beginning and end and evolve in a spe-cific setting. They also represent some disconti-nuity, thereby possessing a nonroutine character.Scholars working in this domain have come tosimilar conclusions. For example, affective eventstheory suggests that events are important hap-penings that occur “in a certain place duringa particular period of time” where there issome key “change in circumstances” (Weiss &Cropanzano, 1996: 31). Similarly, research on“surprises” suggests that an event is “unexpectedand draws attention away from the standardprogression of the work” (Bechky & Okhuysen,2011: 239). Events break people out of estab-lished routines as well as their own automaticcognitive processing (Morgeson, 2005), and theycommand our attention (Mowday & Sutton, 1993).

Third, events can result from the actions ofa single entity on another entity or can occur whenthe actions of multiple different entities converge.Regardless of the specific form of interaction,events have a decidedly between-entity (as op-posed to intra-entity) character. Thus, an eventoccurs between entities, represented by their in-teraction (Weick, 1987). Rousseau and Fried cap-tured this idea nicely, describing events asincluding an “intersection of an action with itscontext” (2001: 9). Thus, events are external,bounded in time and space, and involve the in-tersection of different entities. Having definedevents, we turn to describing how and why eventsimpact the behavior and features of organiza-tional entities and trigger subsequent events.

EVENT STRENGTH

Entities encounter numerous events on a day-to-day basis, yet not all events are salient or

command attention (Nigam& Ocasio, 2010). Routinehappenings are ignored, whereas more significantevents prompt controlled information processingand entity action (Morgeson, 2005). Considerableresearch has supported the idea of two modes ofinformation processing (Bargh, 1994; Evans &Stanovich, 2013; Kahneman, 2003, 2011; Petty &Cacioppo, 1986; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977): auto-matic (implicit, rapid, shortcuts) and controlled(explicit, effortful, slow, logical). We are interestedin how events engage this second type of in-formation processing.Researchers have discussed how events and

controlled information processing can triggerorganizational changes (e.g., Armenakis &Bedeian, 1999; Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, & Hunt,1998; Isabella, 1990). Yet such research takesa retrospective approach to studying how orga-nizations respond to events that have happenedand were found to be important (i.e., having cre-ated some changes). A key unanswered questionrevolves around what it is about events thatcommands attention and produces change.Building on previous research, EST focuses onthe key event characteristics of novelty, disrup-tion, and criticality, which provide particularlyimportant information about event strength.

Event Novelty

Novelty reflects the extent to which an event isdifferent or varies from current and past behav-iors, features, and events, thus representing anew or unexpected phenomenon (Lee & Mitchell,1994; Morgeson, 2005). Novelty helps an eventstand out and triggers in-depth interpretation.The controlled information processing associ-ated with novel events centers on informationsearch and involves questions such as “What isthis?” “How did this happen?” and “What in-formation do I need to interpret what is happen-ing?” This information processing occursbecause there are no established scripts or rou-tines to guide action. For example, the constructof surprise is driven by novelty and is defined aschange and contrast (Louis, 1980). Novel eventsdiffer or reflect a break in expectations (Ballinger& Rockmann, 2010; Bechky &Okhuysen, 2011) andare unanticipated (Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton,1981), nonroutine (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001), un-common (Latane & Darley, 1969), and surprising(Cornelissen, 2012). Variation from expecta-tions prompts entities to engage in controlled


information processing and to initiate changes.In the presence of routine events, entities may notengage in deliberate analysis or strive for changesbut may instead resort to established and familiaractions and responses.

Examples of novel events include the in-troduction of new work procedures, new mem-bers joining a work team, or a competingcompany designing a new product. The publi-cation of the new business school rankings in1988 (in Businessweek) was a surprise andcaused major immediate deliberations and long-term changes in business schools (Elsbach &Kramer, 1996). The 9/11 tragedy was a surpriseand had major consequences for travel in theUnited States. When events are novel, entitiesare usually ill prepared with a set of rules orprocedures to effectively respond to the events.As such, novel events require entities to changeor create new behaviors, features, and events inorder to respond to the event.

Proposition 1: The more novel an event,the more likely it will change or createbehaviors, features, and events.

Event Disruption

Disruption reflects a discontinuity in the envi-ronment (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001), where theexternal situation has somehow changed. Asa result, it concerns the amount or degree ofchange in usual activities (Dohrenwend, Raphael,Schwartz, Stueve, & Skodol, 1993; Perkins, 1982)and reflects perceived threats experienced withmajor disruptions (Morgeson & DeRue, 2006).The terms disruptive (Hannigan, 1995; Patton,2010) and upheaval (Gersick, 1991) have beenused to describe these events. In short, things donot continue the way they did prior to the event.Disruption to the ordinary and predictable flow ofexperience triggers further analysis (Stigliani &Ravasi, 2012). In other words, disruptive eventsmay block or transform ongoing routines andrequire entities to adjust and adapt (Zellmer-Bruhn, 2003). This requires more deliberate,effortful information processing and changesto existing behaviors and features or the crea-tion of new behaviors, features, and events.Such information processing might involvesuch questions as “What behaviors need tochange?” and “What routines or rules need tobe adjusted?”

Organizational examples include a majorconflict between business units, a significantfailure in equipment essential to the productionprocess, or a substantial change in a project’sdeadlines. Other events at the environmentallevel can occur as well. The Exxon Valdez oil spilland the Tylenol tampering incident are eventsthat caused major significant short-term disrup-tions for the companies involved and long-termconsequences for the industry and the public asa whole (e.g., double-hulled tankers and tamper-proof packaging; Elsbach & Kramer, 1996).Disruptive events break entities out of their con-ventional thinking and response mode andcompel them to change.

Proposition 2: The more disruptive anevent, the more likely it will change orcreate behaviors, features, and events.

Event Criticality

Criticality reflects “the degree to which anevent is important, essential, or a priority” to anentity (Morgeson & DeRue, 2006: 273) and typi-cally triggers additional analyses and changes(Vaara, 2003). The more critical the event, themore likely it will be seen as salient and requireunusual attention and action. Entities will notinvest valuable resources and effort in inter-preting and handling ordinary or trivial hap-penings. Others have suggested that criticalityreflects an event’s potential to have an influenceon the “horizon” (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001; Pirola-Merlo, Hartel, Mann, & Hirst, 2002) and may cur-tail the attainment of important goals such thatthe “centrality of the goal at stake in the ex-change matters” (Ballinger & Rockmann, 2010:378). Crises can “threaten the most fundamentalgoals of an organization” (Weick, 1988: 305).In their qualitative examination of events,

Morgeson and DeRue (2006) found that 20 percentof critical events had implications for perfor-mance, with another 15 percent related to in-terpersonal conflict that negatively influencedteam and task processes. Because critical eventstend to command attention and influence re-source allocation (Gersick & Hackman, 1990),they often become a central focus until they areresolved. Effortful analysis is needed to de-termine how much attention the event needs andwhat and how many resources should beallocated to dealing with it. Organizational


examples include the bankruptcy of a key sup-plier or the unexpected death of a key executive.Much of the research on organizational “threats”describes major, financially related events (e.g.,a new product that captures the market) thathave implications for organizational survivaland development (Hermann, 1963). When eventsare critical, new behaviors, features, and eventswill be more likely to emerge. In contrast, whenevents are not critical, entities may not pay at-tention or react to them.

Proposition 3: The more critical anevent, the more likely it will change orcreate behaviors, features, and events.

Combining Event Characteristics and theInterpretive Process

Although we have discussed each of the eventcharacteristics separately, it is clear that allthree are present in varying amounts in everyevent. A key question thus revolves around howthey combine to influence behaviors, features,and events. We suggest that they combine in anadditive fashion, where the confluence of eventcharacteristics determines the overall “strength”of an event, much in the same way that “situa-tional strength” reflects the extent to which situ-ations can constrain behavior (Mischel, 1969). Forexample, novel, disruptive, and critical eventsare more likely to affect organizational entitiesthan are novel but nondisruptive and uncriticalevents. Because novelty, disruption, and criti-cality represent different aspects of an event,however, they can function independently. Forexample, disruptive events (e.g., major storms)are not necessarily novel. This suggests it ispossible that two characteristics (or even one)can yield a strong enough event to prompt con-trolled information processing.

Event strength focuses on the general impactevents have on behaviors, features, and sub-sequent events. Yet there is an interpretive pro-cess that occurs between event occurrence andentity action. This involves analyzing meaning,making sense of important issues (Gioia &Thomas, 1996), and communicating and reachingagreement about what is happening and how toproceed. It includes scripts, schemas, cognitivemaps, symbols, metaphors, and accounts (Gioia,Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi, 1994; Orbuch,1997). In short, this sensemaking process (Weick,

1988, 1995) involves “figuring out what is going onand what should be done” (Vaara, 2003: 863). Be-yond acknowledging its occurrence, we do notcover this process in detail largely because thereis already substantial literature on sensemakingat the macro, organizational level and cognitiveinformation processes at the micro, individuallevel. This literature is rich and extensive;therefore, we concentrate on the more novel the-oretical analysis of what determines eventstrength and how events impinge on organiza-tional entities across space and time.

EVENT SPACE

Event space reflects the specific location wherean event originates and how its effects spreadthrough an organization. Events occur in a spe-cific place, location, or hierarchical level. Thissuggests that events can arise at every hierar-chical level and can have a downward, upward,or within-level impact. This event spatial di-rection reflects the multilevel nature of event ef-fects and represents how the effects of an event“move” through organizational space. Given thisevent movement, there are a number of importantfactors related to event origin, spatial dispersion,and spatial proximity that govern how much anevent will influence an organization. These fac-tors serve to moderate the relationships betweenevent strength and outcomes. By describingthese spatial facets, we build on our previousdiscussion of the impact of events by situatingevents in the context of the larger organizationand environment.

Event Spatial Direction

Events and their effects can travel within oracross all organizational levels (e.g., environ-ment, organization, team, individual). This canbe thought of as event spatial direction, whichgenerally takes one of five prototypical forms.Figure 1 illustrates the general forms event ef-fects can take in an organization.1

Single-level effects. Most simply, events canhave a single hierarchical level effect onbehaviors, features, or subsequent events

1 There are a potentially large number of different waysevents can impact behaviors, features, and subsequentevents. Figure 1 illustrates a range of ways events have theireffects but is by no means all inclusive.


(Figure 1). These single-level effects reflectevents that arise and effectuate changes at thesame hierarchical level (i.e., individual, team,organization). That is, an event arises at a givenlevel and its impact is restricted to that samelevel. This is perhaps the most commonly studiedevent effect as it reflects a traditional disciplin-ary approach where scholars focus on howevents at a given level influence outcomes at thatsame level.

For example, at the individual level, scholarshave studied how justice events (Event 12) canspark positive and negative emotions and sub-sequent behavior (Weiss, Suckow, & Cropanzano,1999). At the team level, a lapse in patient care(Event 2) can lead to new policies (which be-come features over time) concerning the treat-ment of patients (Blatt, Christianson, Sutcliffe,& Rosenthal, 2006). Finally, at the organiza-tional level, scholars have explored howa range of organizational events such as newtechnology introductions (Event 3) impact rolebehavior (Barley, 1986) and power dynamics(Burkhardt & Brass, 1990) and how mergers and

acquisitions (Event 4) can impact managerialinterpretations of change (Isabella, 1990) and“post-acquisition integration challenges” (Event 5;Vaara, 2003). As this range of examples demon-strates, the event and its associated outcome(s)reside within the same hierarchical level.Top-down and bottom-up direct effects. Events

can have a top-down (e.g., organizational to in-dividual) direct effect on lower-level behaviors,features, and subsequent events. Typically, thiskind of effect involves a higher-level event con-straining or enabling lower-level processes(Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). The idea of top-downdirect effects is that the event itself directly in-fluences lower-level phenomena. Of course, byexpanding across levels we are not only spread-ing the controlled cognitive activities but alsoengaging broader social processes, such as in-fluence and power.For example, Tilcsik and Marquis (2013) re-

cently examined how “mega-events” (e.g., theOlympics, national political conventions) andnatural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) canimpact corporate philanthropy in U.S. communi-ties. These are two different types of environ-mental events, in that mega-events are planned,anticipated, and actively sought by a given

FIGURE 1Prototypical Effects of Events on Entitiesa

a The prototypical examples are illustrative and not exhaustive. The specific effects shown in the figure are linked to theexamples described in the text.

Note: Numbers within each event correspond to the numbered examples used in the text.

2 All event numbers correspond to the numbers found inFigure 1.


community, whereas natural disasters are neg-ative exogenous events. Not surprisingly, bothevents produced behavioral change in corporategiving, but the form of the effects differed some-what. Mega-events (Figure 1, Event 6) led to anincrease in giving by local corporations, but theimpact of natural disasters depended on the se-verity of the event itself. Major disasters hada negative effect, but more minor disasters hada positive effect. This research shows thathigher-level environmental events can have adirect effect on lower-level behavior, changingwhat had been fairly stable organization-levelbehavior. Although not discussed by Tilcsik andMarquis (2013), it is also possible to imagine howsuch events can also influence the team and in-dividual levels. This might involve developingnorms around becoming involved in promotionalactivities (in the case of mega-events) or volun-teer activities (in the case of natural disasters), asillustrated by the event effect arrows extendingto these lower levels in Figure 1.

Events can also have a bottom-up direct effect onhigher-level phenomena. These bottom-up directeffects reflect how lower-level events can causebehavioral change, the emergence of new or al-tered features, or subsequent events at higher or-ganizational levels (Figure 1). Bottom-up directeffects are typified by the emergence of new ordifferent phenomena at higher organizationallevels (Hitt, Beamish, Jackson, & Mathieu, 2007;Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). The bottom-up directeffect of events is the main way collective phe-nomena emerge, as individuals and collectivesinteract to create larger collective structures(Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). For example, thereis emerging evidence to suggest that some in-dividuals are qualitatively better performersthan others (Humphrey, Morgeson, & Mannor,2009; O’Boyle & Aguinis, 2012). These “stars” or“strategically core” individuals are responsible fora disproportionate share of the organization’s suc-cess and output. Now imagine what might happenif one of these star performers left an organization(Event 7). Beyond the obvious effect on organiza-tional performance, another potential outcome isthat other team members may also decide to leave(Event 8), as turnover has been shown to be “con-tagious” in teams (Felps et al., 2009). Recognizingthis, organizations may directly intervene bygranting workers more work scheduling autonomy(a behavioral change) or by making structuralor policy changes to create a better working

environment (a feature change). Another exam-ple could be a worker being accused of theft (Event9), prompting his coworkers to come to his defenseor introduce new monitoring activities. Finally, or-ganizational events can impact the broader envi-ronment. For example, in 1984 the Union Carbidepesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released toxicgas (methyl isocyanate) into the environment(Event 10), resulting in thousands of deaths in thesurrounding community (Event 11; Weick, 1988).As these examples illustrate, there are a numberof ways in which events can have bottom-up di-rect effects on behaviors, features, and events.Top-down and bottom-up moderating effects.

Events can have a top-down moderating effect onthe relationship between lower-level behaviors,features, and events. This kind of effect occurswhen the relationship between two lower-levelbehaviors, features, or events is shaped, changed,or moderated by a higher-level event (Kozlowski& Klein, 2000). Also called cross-level moderation,what is unique to EST is the prediction that itis an event rather than a stable higher-levelfeature that moderates lower-level relationships(Figure 1). There are fewer examples of this kindof top-down moderating effect of events in theliterature, but there are a number of scenarioswhere this is likely to occur.For example, considerable evidence demon-

strates that social features such as feedback fromothers and social support are negatively relatedto turnover intentions (Humphrey, Nahrgang, &Morgeson, 2007). This suggests that jobs providingfeedback and offering supportive relationshipsare more enjoyable, leading to lower turnover in-tentions. Yet the relationship between these pos-itive social features and turnover intentions islikely to be influenced by higher-level events. Forexample, as a result of the financial crisis of 2008(Event 12), many organizations, such as GeneralMotors and Chrysler, declared bankruptcy (Event13). An organizational event like bankruptcy un-doubtedly has a direct effect on job characteristicsand turnover intentions (as described in top-downdirect effects), aswell as weakens the relationshipbetween social job characteristics and turnoverintentions (i.e., a top-down moderating effect).This occurs, in part, because experiencing sucha novel and disruptive event focuses attention onsaving one’s job rather than worrying about thequality of the immediate work environment. An-other example is how organizational adoption ofnew team structures (Event 14) might lessen the


direct relationship between leadership behaviorand team performance (a feature).

Although not identified in existing multileveltheory, EST suggests that events can also havea bottom-up moderating effect on the relation-ship between higher-level behavior, features,and events. This kind of effect occurs when therelationship between two higher-level behaviors,features, or events is shaped, changed, or mod-erated by a lower-level event (Figure 1). This isanalogous to the top-down moderation describedpreviously, with the key difference being that themoderating effect is emanating from lower-levelevents. To the best of our knowledge, there are noexamples or elaboration of this kind of bottom-upmoderating effect of events in the literature, butthere are scenarios where this may occur.

For example, a strong individual event couldmoderate relationships at higher aggregate levels.The death of Steve Jobs (a particularly strong in-dividual event; Event 15) undoubtedly moderatedmany important relationships at Apple Computer’sorganizational and team levels. Because Jobs di-rectly handled important new product launches,often obsessively planning and rehearsing eventhe smallest details, it is likely that new productlaunches (Event 16) were less successful (anorganizational-level feature) after his death thanthey were before. Similarly, stable routines inproduct development teams (a team-level feature)were likely disrupted, leading to new team be-haviors as teammembersmade sense of the event.Another example might be how new governmentalregulations (Event 17) and their impact on financialreporting requirements (an environmental feature)may be influenced by the lobbying efforts of a sin-gle influential organization (Event 18).

Event Origin

With an understanding of event direction, weturn to a consideration of how an event’s origin (thehierarchical level at which an event occurs) caninfluence behaviors, features, and events. Eventsmay originate inside or outside the organizationand have direct or indirect impact on entitieswithina focal organization. Events can occur at any hier-archical level, but assuming equivalence in eventstrength, events that occur at higher levels (e.g.,CEO, top management team) are likely to havea much larger organizational impact than eventsthat occur at lower levels (e.g., an employee retiresand leaves the team). This is largely due to the

potentially larger scope of events at higher orga-nizational levels and the increased likelihood thatthese events can impact the overall context, po-tentially shaping behaviors, features, and events atlower levels (e.g., employees’ behaviors, divisionfeatures, events happening to project teams).For example, Chen and Kanfer’s (2006) theory of

team motivation suggests that downward teamcontextual influences on team members are quitepersistent and pervasive over time. In contrast,upward influences of team members on team-related dimensions may only occur in situationsthat allow team members to affect their teams(e.g., a team member is asked by the team leaderto design a new team decision-making process).In addition, top-down effects “can be manifestwithin short time frames, whereas emergent,bottom-up linkages necessitate longer time frames”(Kozlowski & Klein, 2000: 23). Because organiza-tions, teams, and individuals are all nested withinthe external environment, events arising in theexternal environment can have a wide-rangingimmediate impact. One has only to look at suchthings as serious natural disasters, extreme mar-ket fluctuations, or terrorist attacks to understandhow virtually every aspect of organizational lifecan be affected. In contrast, lower-organization-level events (e.g., a poor performer in a shop floorteam) can often be isolated or “walled off” fromother individuals or units, thereby minimizingtheir impact. Thus, the influence of event strengthon event outcomes may depend on event origin.

Proposition 4a: Event origin moderatesthe relationship between event strengthand event outcomes such that novel, dis-ruptive, and critical events originating athigher levelswill bemore likely to changeor create behaviors, features, and eventsthan events originating at lower levels.

Proposition 4b: Event origin moderatesthe relationship between event strengthand event outcomes such that novel, dis-ruptive, and critical events originating athigher levels will be more likely to mod-erate the relationship between lower-level behaviors, features, and eventsthan events originating at lower levels.

Event Spatial Dispersion

Regardless of the hierarchical level at whichthey originate, events can vary considerably in the


extent to which their effects are dispersed through-out the organizational hierarchy (holding timeconstant; Abbott, 1984). Some events arise andremain at the same hierarchical level. For exam-ple, product development teams might havea major disagreement over project requirements,reducing the amount of helping within the team(a behavioral change), as well as producing poorcommunication structures (a feature change)and requiring a revision to the productionschedule (a subsequent event). In this examplethe changes take place at the team level acrosstime.3 This is illustrated in the shaded section ofFigure 2.

Events might also occur at a given level buthave an effect that extends to other levels overtime. Continuing with the product developmentteam example, the disagreement might alsoaffect the decisions of team members to remainwith the organization and the organization’sability to meet key customer deadlines. In turn,missing a key customer deadline may causethe customer to move that business to a com-petitor and may lead to lower organizationalreputation in the broader business environ-ment. As shown in Figure 2, because of theoriginal team-level event, individuals maydecide to quit their jobs (a subsequentindividual-level event), the organization mayfail to meet the deadline of delivering newproducts (a subsequent organization-levelevent), and the customer may shift businessto a competitor (a subsequent organization-level event), which may result in lowerorganizational reputation (a change in an envi-ronmental feature). Thus, event strength may in-teract with event spatial dispersion to impactevent outcomes, with events influencingmore organizational levels creating greaterchanges.

Proposition 5: Event spatial dispersionmoderates the relationship betweenevent strength and event outcomessuch that novel, disruptive, and criticalevents that impact a greater number oflevels will be more likely to change orcreate behaviors, features, and eventsthan events that impact fewer levels.

Event Spatial Proximity4

Hierarchical organization is created to take ad-vantage of the division of labor and unity of com-mand (Hinds & Kiesler, 1995). Nevertheless, “thedivision of labor into functionally specialized unitsand unity of command constrain communicationlinkages to specified vertical connections withinthe chain of command” (Hinds & Kiesler, 1995: 375).In other words, the greater the distance betweentwo organizational levels, the less likely entitiesaffiliated with one level will access informationand be influenced by events arising at the other.For example, a production teammember’s turnoveris more likely to impact his or her team leader thanthe company CEO. In addition to this “vertical” orhierarchical aspect (the number of hierarchal levelsbetween two entities), event proximity has a “hori-zontal” component (the physical distance betweentwo parties at the same hierarchical level). For ex-ample, two employees or teams could have similarhierarchical levels but be distant in terms of wherethey are in the organization chart and be separatedphysically (different floor, building).Social information processing theories suggest

that spatially proximal entities are subject to socialinfluence “through exposure to or inaccessibility ofother individuals [and] organizational subclimatesand events” (Rice & Aydin, 1991: 224). In addition,knowledge sharing is less likely to happen whenorganizational members operate at organizationallevels or locations more distant from each other(Ipe, 2003). Hence, spatial distance may weaken theimpact of event strength on event outcomes. Whenentities are closer to the location where an eventoccurs, they may have more direct and effectivereceipt of information and cues regarding the event.Consequently, they will be more strongly influ-enced by the event.

Proposition 6: Event spatial proximitymoderates the relationship betweenevent strength and event outcomessuch that novel, disruptive, and criticalevents closer to the entity location willbe more likely to change or create be-haviors, features, and events thanevents that are farther away from theentity location.

3 Dispersion contains some elements of space and time, asillustrated in this example.

4 We focus on physical distance. Scholars have alsodiscussed psychological distance, but a consideration ofthis issue is beyond the scope of our present discussion.


EVENT TIME

Events are bounded in time; this is part of whatdistinguishes them from more chronic features ofthe work environment. This temporal aspect ofevents raises a number of intriguing issues withrespect to their impact on behaviors, features,and subsequent events. Events can be transitory,with effects limited in time or scope, or long-lasting, with a correspondingly larger impact.The timing of events in an entity’s developmentalhistory can play an important role in determiningan event’s impact. Event strength also can varyover time, and the trajectory of event strength islikely to interact with general event strength toimpact event outcomes. It is to these temporalissues we turn.

Event Duration

Although events are bounded in time, they arealso likely to vary in duration. Some events mightlast only a brief moment, whereas others mightextend over time, having a stronger influence.Duration is likely to moderate the impact of eventstrength on event outcomes. Assuming equiva-lence in novelty, disruption, and criticality,events that last longer are more impactful onorganizational entities than events that areshorter in duration. A study of production andservice teams found that longer event durationhad a greater impact on team functioning

(Morgeson & DeRue, 2006). When events linger,additional attention and resources may beneeded to ultimately respond to the event itself.For example, a long-lasting lawsuit may costa firm’s top management, department managers,and lower-level employees considerable timeand effort. Shipp and Jansen (2011) maintain thatlonger episodes of person-environment (PE) fitexperiences are more likely to be included in PEfit narratives. Therefore, event strength and du-ration may interact to affect event outcomes.When events last longer, event novelty, disrup-tion, and criticality will be more strongly relatedto changing or creating behaviors, features, andevents.

Proposition 7: Event duration moder-ates the relationship between eventstrength and event outcomes such thatnovel, disruptive, and critical eventsthat are longer in duration will bemorelikely to change or create behaviors,features, and events than events thatare shorter in duration.

Event Timing

Research suggests that entities (e.g., organi-zations, teams, and individuals) experience dis-tinct stages of development (Allen & Meyer, 1993;Gersick, 1988; Quinn & Cameron, 1983) and have

FIGURE 2Example of Impact of Events on Entities


different needs at these different stages (Smith,Mitchell, & Summer, 1985). For example, Quinnand Cameron (1983) identified four differentstages in an organizational life cycle: entrepre-neurial, collectivity, formalization, and elabora-tion. Each stage is associated with uniquedemands and needs. At the entrepreneurialstage, new ventures may concentrate on attract-ing investments and increasing their marketvalue. Thus, a new venture will be more likely torespond to investment requests than acquisitiondeals (two different events) because it is focusedon growth and enhancing value for the mergerand acquisition market. At the elaborationstage, new ventures have become established.This results in an emphasis on creativity andinnovation to foster organizational revitalization.Accordingly, firms at this state will be more re-ceptive to events that lead to innovative changesin organizational practices (e.g., rewarding em-ployees for proposing new ideas for organiza-tional development) than events that formalizeproduction and management processes (e.g., in-troducing additional layers of management).

Similarly, team development models suggestthat teams go through a series of stages, in-cluding forming, storming, norming, perform-ing, and adjourning (Tuckman, 1965; Tuckman& Jensen, 1977). At the norming stage, appoint-ing a new transformational leader is likely tomotivate teammates to overcome difficultiesand establish effective processes, therebyallowing the team to realize its goals. In con-trast, at the adjourning stage a team hasreached its goals and is ready for disbandment.Thus, in this stage events related to recognizingteam members’ accomplishments and arrang-ing their future activities will be appealing tomembers. Events that match the developmentstage of entities may trigger responses and re-actions significant enough to bring forth changes.5

Finally, at the individual level, a leader’s de-velopmental readiness and trigger events jointlylead to authentic leader development (Avolio &Hannah, 2008). Similarly, and consistent with PEfit theory and research (Edwards, 2008), when

events fit more with a person’s developmentstage by meeting the distinct needs and de-mands of that stage, events are more likely tohave a larger impact.

Proposition 8: Event timing moderatesthe relationship between event strengthand event outcomes such that novel,disruptive, and critical events that bet-ter match the needs associated with thedevelopmental stage of entities will bemore likely to change or create behav-iors, features, and events than eventsthat do not match the needs associatedwith the developmental stage.

Event Strength Change

Events are dynamic and evolutionary. That is,as they unfold and interact with circumstancesand entities upon their inception, events maybecome more or less novel, disruptive, and criti-cal. As a result, their overall strength can changeover time. For example, the confrontation be-tween Democrats and Republicans over healthcare reform began with heated debates but laterescalated to the historic shutdown of the U.S.government, resulting in hundreds of thousandsof federal employees suffering unpaid leave.Another high-profile event occurred in Seattle.

The legislature committed to constructing atunnel beneath the city so it could tear downa viaduct damaged by earthquakes. Diggingcommenced in 2013 but, after starting, the borer(dubbed “Big Bertha”) encountered a buried pillar,which stopped progress. Event strength increasedover the subsequent months as the exact cause(they did not know for weeks what had happenedor why) and amount of damage were ascertained.The latest description of the event is that the maindrive bearing needs a repair that could take oversix months. Thus, event strength has increaseddramatically in that the event is far more novel,disruptive, and critical than originally thought. Inaddition, there are new work schedules, lawsuitsover who will cover the costs, renegotiations ofcosts, changes in material needs, and cost in-creases up to four times original estimates. Andthe outcomes of this event are still unfolding.Gestalt characteristics theory highlights that

the extent to which entities are affected by theirexperiences is ascribable to their general level(the average strength of the experiences over

5 Although we do not outline the interpretive process thatfollows an event’s occurrence, it seems that an entity’s de-velopmental stage can also impact the interpretation of theevent itself (i.e., perceived novelty, disruption, and criticality).The dynamics of this interpretive process are worthy of furtherdevelopment.


time) and development trend (the experiencesbecoming more or less salient over time; Ariely &Carmon, 2003). More recently, Liu, Mitchell, Lee,Holtom, and Hinkin pointed out that “people usesalient summary features of their experience overtime (e.g., change trajectory) to describe the pastand project the future” (2012: 1362). Supporting theunique effects of the general level and develop-ment trend of experiences on entities’ behaviorchange, Liu et al. (2012) found that the averagelevel and change trajectory of job satisfactionexperiences exerted significant effects on turn-over at both the individual and unit levels. Ina study of physically painful events, Ariely (1998)demonstrated that the slope of an experienceprofile reflective of a painful event’s developmenttrend significantly predicted one’s summaryevaluation of experience. In addition, Hausknecht,Sturman, and Roberson (2011) modeled justiceexperience trends and showed that employees’improving justice experiences over time engendermore favorable job attitudes. Finally, consistentwith temporal construal research (Trope & Liber-man, 2003), projection into an event’s future alongwith its current magnitude may impact ongoingdecisions and behavior.

Accordingly, the impact of an event’s averagestrength across time on event outcomes may bealtered by changes in event strength over time(i.e., the evolutionary trend of past and currentstates as well as future prospects of eventstrength). Specifically, when an event’s strengthdisplays a faster growth trajectory, the event’saverage strength will be more likely to influenceevent outcomes. In contrast, when an event’sstrength displays a faster declination trajectory,the event’s average strength will be less likely toinfluence event outcomes.

Proposition 9: Event strength changemoderates the relationship between anevent’s average strength and eventoutcomes such that in the presence ofgreater increment (decrement) in theevent’s strength over time, the event’saverage strength will be more (less)likely to change or create behaviors,features, and events.

DISCUSSION

EST contributes to and extends variance- andprocess-oriented perspectives by developing

a comprehensive and integrative account of howevents become meaningful and come to impactorganizations across space and time. By in-corporating elements from both perspectives,EST outlines how characteristics of events existwithin a multilevel system characterized by dy-namic processes over time. This helps closea significant gap in our understanding of orga-nizational dynamics, change, and system in-terrelationships. This is a crucial gap to fillbecause organizations are dynamic and charac-terized by both stability and change. Althoughwe have a considerable understanding of sta-bility, we know comparatively less about change.Events are a useful construct through which tounderstand both stability and change, and ESTintegrates and extends past event-oriented re-search by describing the specific spatial andtemporal processes by which events come to in-fluence organizational entities. Although wedraw from existing research when possible, ESTpresents some unique challenges for theory andresearch. In this section we discuss EST’s impli-cations to assist scholars using EST to developevent-oriented theory. We then describe someareas for future research.

Theoretical Implications

As a theory that serves as an integrative bridgebetween variance- and process-oriented theo-ries, EST has a number of important theoreticalimplications.Events and organizational change. Perhaps

one of the major reasons for the dominance offeature-oriented research is that features do ex-ert a strong influence on organizations. Thiscreates a strong tendency for homeostasis orroutines, where “individuals and groups developcognitive structures, habits of mind, to guideautomatic cognitive processing” (Louis & Sutton,1991: 70). However, “discrepant events . . . triggera need for explanation” (Louis, 1980: 241). In otherwords, automatic processing and habits of mindreflect routines that are maintained until inter-rupted by an event such that “habitual behavior,once established, persists more or less automat-ically until and unless something specific hap-pens to break a group out of its routine” (Gersick& Hackman, 1990: 80). Thus, events are often themeans by which entities come to evaluate,change, or otherwise interrupt their routines orregular behavior.


The organizational change literature describesnumerous aspects of the content and process ofchange (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999), as well ashow change is diagnosed, remedies for change,strategies for impacting the change process, andemotional reactions to change (Armenakis &Harris, 2009). Yet little is said about the roleevents might play in terms of event-generatedchanges across hierarchical levels and overtime, or how change-related processes mightdiffer for events versus features. Moreover, Johnsconcluded that there is little research on thecontextual influences of time and space and “thisunnatural, acontextual bounding of time andspace foregoes the considerable advantage ofstudying whole events and processes” (2006: 390).To more completely explicate the roles of events,EST shows how events evolve in organizationsacross organizational levels and over time, andhow event spatial and temporal factors interplaywith event strength to change or create behav-iors, features, and events. Thus, EST presentsa number of opportunities for advancing the or-ganizational change literature.

Research opportunities arising from EST. In-stead of focusing on the stability inherent infeatures, the theoretical focus in EST naturallyshifts to changes as prompted by events overtime and across organizational levels. Theoreti-cians could investigate events that seem, basedon the literature, to cause individual, team, ororganizational changes such as layoffs, mergers,promotions, and new leadership. This shift inframe of reference brings to the foreground gen-eral questions about change, including changesin norms, interactions, relationships, and perfor-mance, all of which highlight the importance ofevents and their contrast with features. Examplesfrom the goal-setting literature and entrepre-neurship literature highlight some of theseopportunities.

For example, EST offers a number of opportu-nities for extending goal-setting research, par-ticularly in terms of how organizational eventsexert a top-downmoderating effect on changes innew goal adoption and old goal abandonment.New goals are often embraced after events, es-pecially events that signal the successful com-pletion of previous goals. Examples includea surprise award, an unexpected promotion, ora transfer to a new division. Adoption andabandonment, however, often go hand in hand.An event represents a disruption that may

prohibit the accomplishment of an existing goalforever and require a set of new goals. An un-expected workforce reduction would do this, aswould many major events at the organizationallevel (e.g., a merger, a competitor scooping thecompany’s new product design that is still inprocess). What often emerges from these eventsis a new goal, which reenergizes and redirectsfuture action. Goal abandonment and adoptionmay also have effects on goal space and timingdimensions. Leaving or adding a goal may in-fluence the whole goal hierarchy in terms of pri-orities as well as goals in other domains (e.g.,home or hobby activities). A new downstreamand long-term goal may require new subgoals. Inshort, the use of EST may interface with goal-setting theory in new and important ways.As another example, a valuable extension of

entrepreneurial research would be to look at theways events experienced by entrepreneurs leadto the emergence of new ventures. Entrepre-neurial theorists have traditionally stressed thenotion that entrepreneurship emerges from en-trepreneurial opportunities, which are “thosesituations in which new goods, services, rawmaterials, and organizing methods can be in-troduced and sold at greater than their cost ofproduction” (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000: 220).Drawing on EST, scholars can investigate theways events may function as entrepreneurialopportunities to fuel entrepreneurship. For ex-ample, mega-events (e.g., the Olympics, WorldCup) may trigger a quantum increase in newventures in the hosting cities. In addition, certainevents may prompt individuals to become en-trepreneurs without the presence of entrepre-neurial opportunities. For instance, after havingher proposal for a new business rejected by theCEO, a top management team member may de-cide to start a new business to compete with herformer company. These are but two examples ofhow using EST may yield new insight into thefield of entrepreneurship.The interface between events and features.

When examining events, scholars should not ig-nore the critical role of features but should con-struct an integrative theory-building approachthat examines the ways features and eventsjointly or independently affect entities. This mayenable the development of more fine-grainedorganizational theories, enhancing their explan-atory power and impact. Liu, Kwan, and Fisher(2014) showed that the interactions between


a CEO’s core self-evaluations (a personality at-tribute) and two event strength indicators (criti-cality and novelty) explained a much largerportion of the variance in new venture perfor-mance than did a CEO’s core self-evaluationsalone. This highlights how a joint considerationof events and features can enhance our un-derstanding of organizational phenomena.

Event clusters and chains. In developing EST,we focused on understanding what constitutesan event and how events impact entities acrossspace and time. This involved treating events asdiscrete occurrences. Many events possess asingularity that lends itself to focusing onevent strength and organizational impact withoutconsidering other events. Yet multiple (different)events can occur closely in space and time, form-ing a distinctive “event cluster” that can signifi-cantly impact entities. These event clusters mightform from independent events that occur withina certain time frame and impact the same un-derlying behaviors, features, or other events. Thepotential combinations are too numerous to con-sider in this initial exposition of EST but certainlywarrant further conceptual work.

Events can also be seen as causing a numberof things to happen over time or downstream inthe organization, forming what could be termedan event chain. For example, the wide-rangingresponses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks show howan event may change or create behaviors, fea-tures, and events in the long run. Among otherthings, responses to 9/11 resulted in new and in-vasive surveillance of U.S. citizens. Similarly, inorganizational acquisitions new employees en-ter (and others exit), changing well-establishedinteraction patterns and group composition.New rules are implemented that change long-standing features (e.g., rules for promotion orraises or allocation of parking spaces). Sub-sequent events like new computer software fortracking employee attendance might be seen asdirectly caused by the takeover. We can expectand track these chains of an event’s effects.Identifying, describing, and examining suchevent chains is a way to explicitly incorporatespace and time into conceptual models.

Psychological processes underlying the re-lationship between events and outcomes. Asmentioned earlier, there are some activities thattranspire between when an event is first noticedand the event’s eventual outcomes. Although wedid not specify the psychological processes that

link event novelty, disruption, and criticality toevent outcomes, this is clearly an important areafor additional conceptual work. Cognitive andsocial processes push entities toward action. Yet,after deliberation, entities might decide they donot know what to do, they do not have the re-sources to deal with the event, or there is nourgency to respond. The point is that furthertheoretical elaboration is needed to specificallydescribe this overall process and how it unfoldsover time.Unique outcomes of events. Organizational

theories have been criticized as being overlystatic when, in fact, many organizational phe-nomena are dynamic in nature (Liu et al., 2012).One explanation for this criticism is that mosttheories focus on stable features of individuals ortheir organizational environment, which tends toresult in a focus on amounts of a stable outcome(e.g., a given level of entrepreneurial orientationas an individual attribute of a CEO is related toa given level of venture performance). When fo-cusing on events, however, change-related out-comes become relevant and may help us todevelop new and different types of dependentvariables. First, events can elicit behavioralchange or create new behavior. Such change orcreation can happen quickly and be major, inpart because events can disrupt steady statesand produce effortful, controlled informationprocessing (Morgeson, 2005). This type of reap-praisal often does not occur when focusing onlyon features of organizational phenomena.Second, even if some events only occur for

a brief moment, they may permanently changeexisting features of the work environment or maygenerate new features. For example, a personmight be highly committed to the organization (afeature of an individual’s job attitudes), yet whenthe company is faced with a new internationalcompetitor (an environmental event), the organi-zation’s response might be to ask employees towork overtime more frequently. As a result, theemployee’s commitment may drop significantly.An unexpected promotion (an individual event),however, might serve to subsequently raise theemployee’s organizational commitment to pre-organizational event levels. Although this isa simple example, it illustrates how a diverse setof events occurring at different organizationallevels can have a marked impact on the levels ofexisting features. In addition to changing exist-ing features, events can beget new features. A


new policy or procedure in response to an eventmay, in turn, become a feature after it is acceptedand routinized over time. For example, qualitycontrol routines in a pharmaceutical plant mightcontinue until there is a contamination event.Such an event may alter existing quality controlroutines (i.e., features) and introduce new ones.Another example would be new safety regula-tions put in place after an accident on the shopfloor. In these ways a fleeting event can have anenduring impact by producing new features.

Third, events may cause subsequent events tooccur over time. The 9/11 terrorist attacks createda number of subsequent events (e.g., summits ofworld leaders and military actions) to counter thethreat of terrorism. When an influential managerleaves her organization, her subordinates mayquit their jobs to join her at the new organization,thereby creating a chain of turnover events. Assuch, although some initial events may not di-rectly impact entities, they may still trigger sub-sequent events that require more immediatereactions from the entities.

Methodological Implications

Because many of our methodological pre-scriptions and techniques have been developedfor feature-oriented research, they are not nec-essarily well-suited for an event-oriented ap-proach. Events can be short, infrequent,unexpected, and nested, so conducting event-oriented research has its share of challenges,particularly when compared to feature-orientedresearch where phenomena accumulate slowlyand are fairly static or stable over time. Fortu-nately, as event-oriented research has increased,methodological tools have been developed,modified, or adopted to facilitate such research.There are a range of research design and dataanalysis issues that must be taken into consid-eration in order to pursue an event-oriented pro-gram of research.

A key issue revolves around what to measure.If it is a description of the events themselves,records, reports, and perhaps behavioral obser-vations might be appropriate. If it is an in-terpretation and reaction to the event, theresearcher has to consider using interviews, ob-servations, and questionnaires. The advent ofsocial media (e.g., blogs, Facebook, Twitter) andthe increasing ubiquity of audio and video moni-toring of the workplace provide many opportunities

to both measure the event and gather immediatereactions to it. Another important methodologicalissue revolves around when to measure events.One strategy involves measuring features andbase rates, then capturing the event while it isoccurring (or very shortly thereafter) using expe-rience sampling methods (Hektner, Schmidt, &Csikszentmihalyi, 2007). Because events oftenevolve and change as they unfold, continuedtracking of event strength and movement acrosslevels and time is necessary.Conducting event-oriented research poses a

number of interesting data analysis challengesas well. Perhaps the greatest challenge is thefact that events are nested within individuals,teams, and organizations, creating dependencieswithin a data set, particularly when multipleevents are measured for a given entity (e.g.,measuring consecutive workdays for a job in-cumbent, multiple events for a work team, ora series of corporate announcements). This de-pendency in the data violates the assumption ofindependence common for most statistical tech-niques. Fortunately, analytic methods have beendeveloped that can account for this lack ofindependence, such as hierarchical linearmodeling. Alternatively, many process-orientedscholars use qualitative procedures to analyzeevents and their effects on individual and orga-nizational change. For example, the processstudies highlighted in the recent Academy ofManagement Journal special issue offer a rangeof potential ways to use qualitative methods tostudy events (Langley et al., 2013).

Future Research Directions

It is important to mention, on the one hand, thatnot all events are negative (think of winning thelottery, discovering a drug that cures cancer, orwinning a new customer account). These kinds ofevents may cause new or altered behaviors andfeatures and generate other events, all of whichmay take adjustment time and incur costs of onesort or another but will still be seen as positiveevents. On the other hand, many events arenegative, and perhaps there are ways we canavoid, deflect, or reduce their negative impact. Indescribing EST, we have largely taken what canbe thought of as a “reactive” view of events. Thatis, these events arise in the external context, ul-timately resulting in new or altered behaviorsand features or subsequent events. Although


such an approach is appropriate given our goalsof describing how event strength, space, andtime affect entities, it does neglect some poten-tially more “proactive” views of events, espe-cially ways that negative outcomes may beanticipated and managed. In this regard thereare two key proactive aspects of EST that areimportant to consider for future research.

First, as suggested by Aspinwall and Taylor’s(1997) research on proactive coping towardstressful events, entities can attempt to an-ticipate the occurrence of events and preparefor them (i.e., proactive coping). One’s ownhistory and the history of similar entities pro-vide nformation about possible future events.Forecasting and scenario planning can aidpreparation for novel, disruptive, and criticalevents. Simulations can be devised for train-ing and awareness purposes. Engaging inpreparatory activities has been shown to be aneffective strategy, particularly when novelevents occur (Morgeson, 2005). Further explor-ing the character and effectiveness of theseproactive strategies is an important area offuture scholarship.

Second, although events arise in the externalcontext, we have not discussed in detail thespecific sources of events. Although many eventssimply arise without any deliberate planning,other events can be created strategically to cre-ate a desired effect. This proactive creation ofevents could be used by entities at any level tocreate change in the organizational environment.For example, a leader may create an event (e.g.,initiate conflict with a close competitor) to stimu-late a change in organizational culture, interrupta dysfunctional routine, or signal an externalthreat. Although exploring this kind of proactiveevent creation is beyond the scope of our model,EST does offer some insight into the kinds ofevents that might be created depending on thereactions and change one is seeking to achieve.

CONCLUSION

EST provides a shift in focus for organizationaltheory and research. The majority of publishedresearch focuses on what we call features—stable properties of individuals, teams, organi-zations, and environments—and explores howentity features cause subsequent entity features.Sometimes the entities are within levels (e.g., atthe individual level, where people with higher

positive affect have higher levels of job satis-faction), and sometimes they are across levels(e.g., at the organizational and individual levels,where a supportive organizational culture islikely to reduce employee turnover). In contrast,EST focuses on events, which result in changes incurrent behaviors and features and the creationof new behaviors, features, and events over timeand across levels. The specific propositions ofEST describe how events become impactful, aswell as the spatial and temporal processesthrough which they cause outcomes. AlthoughEST has the potential to create new and sub-stantive contributions to our understanding ofchanges in entities, clearly much more needsto be done. We hope that EST represents animportant step toward a more event-orientedscience.

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Frederick P. Morgeson ([email protected]) is the Eli Broad Professor of Management atMichigan State University. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University. His researchhas spanned a number of different areas, including exploring the role of leadership inself-managing teams and the nature of the relationship between leaders and followers;examining fundamental questions about the nature of work; studying the effectivenessand consequences of different selection techniques; and developing multilevel andevent system theory.

Terence R. Mitchell ([email protected]) is a professor emeritus at the University of Wash-ington. He received his Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Illinois.His research focuses on motivation, leadership, turnover, and decision making.

Dong Liu ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of organizationalbehavior in the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Tech-nology. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the Michael G. FosterSchool of Business at the University of Washington. His research interests include cre-ativity, turnover, event system theory, teams, and international entrepreneurship, witha particular focus on exploring the multilevel interface between individuals and orga-nizational context.


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