Multilevel Theory Building: Benefits, Barriers, and New Developments

TLDR

Multilevel theories span organizational behavior levels, synthesize across disciplines, and identify characteristics, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors that shape organizations, but face barriers such as conflicting interests, heuristics, and scope. The article focuses on benefits, recent developments, and barriers to multilevel theory building. A sensemaking perspective can be used to explore creativity when analyzing several levels, including the inter‑ and intrasubjective levels as well as the collective level.

Abstract

The article focuses on benefits, recent developments, and barriers to multilevel theory building. It states that multilevel theories span levels of organizational behavior and foster synthesis within the organizational sciences. It mentions that multilevel theories help identify characteristics, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors that help shape the organization. It states that some barriers to multilevel theories include conflicting interests, heuristics, and scope. It mentions that a sensemaking perspective can be used to explore creativity when analyzing several levels, including the inter- and intrasubjective levels as well as the collective level.