By considering the interactions of two creative groups in temporary organizations during two media projects the author proposes a model illustrating how they repeatedly change formation so that individuals can manage job interdependencies and new issues arising while developing, building up, and synthesizing new ideas into a final creative solution. This theory on creative group dynamic coordination builds theory on how and why creative groups coordinate, challenges assumptions about the role of formal structures and informal practices by demonstrating how the two dynamically interact and complement each other to facilitate coordination via the emergence of what one would expect to be “un-coordinated methods”, and provides an alternative perspective to the stages the groups have to go through by emphasizing a cyclical and not a linear team developmental process.

This study contributes to theories of creative group coordination. Recent research explains that creative groups coordinate via role structure and role enactment, where team members enter into a role and find expectations and resources to negotiate it via role enactment (Bechky, 2006), the crew rarely breaks out of their role or act contrary to role expectations (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009), and to deal with surprises they coordinate via a larger understanding of a task, entailing a detailed knowledge of the work of others and knowledge of how the collective task advances (Becky & Okhuysen, 2011). Others suggest that coordination in the case of creative group work requires integration, but also de-integration, allowing for independent work, where group members can act individually, introduce ideas, and push the group into unfamiliar problem domains that disrupt a sense of predictability and common understanding (Harrison & Rouse, 2014).

The research mentioned above highlights the interactions taking place within a creative group leading to team coordination, explaining how team members act and interact either individually or collectively in order to coordinate, but omits the existence of a coordination process and thus an explanation of how it unfolds, including specific group coordination stages. Contrary to this, this study extends theorizing on the importance of cyclical group interactions that over time can produce a creative composition (Harrison & Rouse, 2014) by suggesting a cyclical coordination process, highlighting the key role of the emergence of a changing sub-team created initially to deal with the basic creative and technical issues and then to face job interdependencies and the discovery of new issues, and more specifically its initial formation, dynamic restructuring, revision and final dismantling, thus highlighting a move from a linear toward a cyclical team coordination process. This study thus suggests that theoretical accounts on how creative groups coordinate cannot be reduced in explaining how team members individually act or collectively interact, but also needs to consider the coordination process taking place, through a team developmental process, underlying the way the group flexibly adjusts during the dynamic interplay taking place between formal coordination structures and informal coordination practices.

5.1 How Group Dynamic Coordination Develops

This study contributes to our understanding of how formal coordination structures and informal coordination practices in a temporary organization dynamically interact, and how this process unfolds, leading toward creative group coordination via the use of methods one would expect to be “un-coordinating”. The emergent model proposes that within formal structures that include role constraints and the subsequent informal creation of a sub-team, team members enact informal coordination practices that do not only help them handle job interdependencies but also collectively search for and deal with emerging new issues and resulting puzzles, thus breaking ground by considering different options and suggesting new directions. This way the sub-team coordinates via de-integration, and more specifically by encouraging its members to informally pull role constraints further, stretch them and then relax them, allowing for the emergence of surfacing ideas and alternatives not previously considered, thus enabling creative work by infusing unpredictability and new understandings. To accommodate for all these, team roles and composition flexibly and informally adjust before the sub-team finally dismantles and reverts to its initial formal structure.

5.2 Why Creative Group Coordination Occurs?

Several studies mainly explain how while ignoring why people engage in certain coordinating activities (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009). The author thus aims to make a contribution by considering the reasons why creative group members in a temporary organization engage in such coordinating actions, highlighting three stages during the process that lead toward this type of behavior: the initial issues group members need to deal with, the identification and management of their jobs’ interdependences, and the subsequent emergence and handling of new issues.

This brings together the literature on formal role structure (Bechky, 2006) and proactive creativity (Harrison & Rouse, 2014).

In line with Edmondson (1999) this study’s findings on formal crew team structuring consisting of a distinct formal role structure and a specific role assignment show that these formal coordination structures promote group learning and experimentation as they provide an appreciation of existing group norms. This initial stage then establishes a sense of psychological safety that makes members at a later stage feel safe to take creative risks within these bounds, and thus acts as a foundation that establishes a climate for the states to follow, that is the emergence and management of job interdependencies and the discovery of new issues. Furthermore, the author showed that team members draw on this formal coordination structures to develop a vital awareness of the level of interdependence within which their efforts have a collective bearing (Ben-Menahem, von Krogh, Erden, & Shneider, 2016), establishing the grounds for informal coordination practices.

This study also shed some light to the idea of proactive creativity (Harrison & Rouse, 2014) by showing how informal coordination practices contribute toward team coordination via the use of what one would expect to be “un-coordinating methods” in the form of team “de-integration”. More specifically, this study contemplates how the members of the group push against the boundaries of their idea space, becoming aware of one another’s experimentation, thus reaping the benefits of divergent thinking and individual exploration that results in the emergence of an array of ideas and options. The author has thus explained that to achieve team integration while generating something truly creative is often the result of a logic that points to tendencies rather than fixed norms (Adorno, 1999), where choosing a solution in relation to an issue regarding a job interdependency for example, creates a sense of finality for the current problem in hand, but also generates a tendency for future solutions (Harrison & Rouse 2014) necessary to seek as a result of emerging new issues. This is considered major due to the fact that the solutions given will eventually have to fit together while aiming to reach a satisfactory level of group creativity leading to the final creative product.

The findings also enrich the literature on the creation and changing formation of sub-teams, in a cyclical team developmental process.

Structural contingency theory does not explain how structural designs adopt over time as task conditions change (Cronin, Weingart, & Todorova, 2011; Hollenbeck et al., 2011). Previous research identified extensive bureaucratic mechanisms that can increase organizational flexibility by transforming more traditional bureaucratic structures (Adler, Goldoftas, and Levine, 1999) explaining that they can serve as important sources of flexibility when they are combined with structuring processes (Ciborra, 1996), thus emphasizing that bureaucracy can help produce rapid structural variation in response to situational contingencies (Bigley & Roberts, 2001). This study’s emerging model adds to this as it explains how the process unfolds starting with formal role structures acting as a formal coordinating mechanism which then transforms into informal practices, highlighting the way a sub-team in a temporary organization is initially formed, then dynamically restructures and finally dismantles while aiming to handle uncertain and continuously changing task conditions.

Furthermore, several studies that focus on structural adaptation note the importance of coordination and communication behaviors necessary for teams to adopt (Hollenbeck et al., 2011; Moon, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Ilgen, West, Ellis & Porter, 2004) and support that partial structure can be conducive to and required for improvisation (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Moorman & Miner, 1998; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999). Building up on these ideas, Bigley & Roberts (2001) considered the effects of variable structuring on improvisation and developed a model on the basic processes for rapidly altering formal organizational structures that are deliberately and purposefully developed and codified in a set of formal procedures, thus their development and retention is strategic. The emergent model of this study adds to this by highlighting the fact that this flexible team re-structuring can also develop informally, without the existence of a pre-determined strategic process in place within the organization, thus no need for either an omniscient designer responsible to structure the specific team (Puranam & Raveendran, 2013; Orlikowski, 2008) or for team members to possess a representation of the optimal interdependencies that connect them (Puranam & Swamy, 2011). The findings showed that based on the specific needs of a scene a creative sub-team in a temporary organization is initially formed on the spot and then is informally re-structured to manage job interdependencies and the discovery of new issues via “de-integration”, that is a temporary relaxation of formal role boundaries where sub-team members develop ideas, suggest new directions and synthesize them into a final solution in a cyclical sub-team structural adaptation that although one would expect to be “un-coordinating” in fact it is critical for creative team coordination. What evolves is a dynamic interplay of formal coordination structures and informal practices of coordination through a cyclical team developmental process that suggests an evolutionary relationship and thus a dynamic endogenous nature, where designs can evolve toward better fit (Cardinal at al., 2011)

5.3 Linear Process to Cycle

The emergent model underlines the importance of a cyclical team developmental process leading toward a creative composition, in line with Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro (2001) observation that outputs of previous group interactions become the input for the next phase of work, the next set of interactions, thus adding to the importance of momentary interactions in collective creativity suggested by Hargadon & Bechky (2006).

The findings affirm and extend this work by highlighting the way an initial sub-team is formed to handle the preliminary phase of work, then it is revised in terms of both its members and respective duties and responsibilities in order to handle surfacing job interdependencies and emergent new issues, before finally dismantling and its members reverting to their formal roles, in what appears to be a cyclical team developmental process. The emergent model is thus not only about understanding the way sub-team members interact and build up creative ideas within the team but also about how the sub-team restructures to enable progression to what is considered a satisfactory point of group creativity.

The emergent model also adds to the theory of developmental process leading to organizational fit (Siggelkow, 2002) where initially ill-fitting designs can evolve toward better fit (Cardinal et al. 2011) in that it focuses on the interactions taking place at each stage, thus explaining not only how but also the reasons why, something the author considers important for the management of such a developmental process. The emergent model thus contributes toward the understanding of the complexity of doing creative work (Howard, Culley, & Dekoninck, 2008).

The findings on a cyclical creative process are also in line with Harrison & Rouse (2014) in terms of suggesting the importance of viewing creativity as compositional rather than a unitary idea, where a group works together to integrate their ideas into a coherent whole. The model proposes that based on initial formal role structures, team members enact informal coordination practices that assist them handle job interdependencies, as well as search for and discover new options, puzzles, and suggest new directions in a state of de-integration. Role constraints are initially pulled further, then stretched and finally relaxed, allowing for the emergence and evaluation of new ideas and alternatives on the way to the final creative solution, before team members finally integrating back to their original formal roles. This is in line with past work considering creativity as a process of idea integration and selective retention in group work (Im & Workman, 2004; Simonton 2010). This work extends this theory by adding that during this developmental process of ideas integration team roles (duties and responsibilities) and structure flexibly adjust, and that the same process starts all over again with the shooting of a new scene in the same team developmental cyclical path.

5.4 Implications for Practice-Based Research on Coordination

The present study builds on the stream of practice-based coordination aiming to contribute toward closing a gap in research between theory and real world occurrence (Orlikowski, 2010), while responding to the calls of an in-depth explanation of how coordination works (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009) as well as a clarification of both the conditions under which formal and informal elements interact and the extent to which informal interactions “follow” from the formally designed and imposed organizational elements (McEvily et al., 2014).

Recent work on coordination focuses on the way groups flexibly adjust to coordinate while responding to crises (Faraj & Xiao, 2006) and disasters (Majchrzak et al., 2007; Weick & Roberts, 1993) where coordination includes integrating interdependent tasks, drawing from work on improvisation where simultaneous planning and action allow groups to manage unexpected challenges (Moorman & Miner, 1998). This study’s emergent model is in line with this research, as it highlights the transformation of formal coordinating mechanisms into informal practices, including the identification and management of job interdependencies and emergent issues, that help a creative group flexibly adjust and coordinate via the evolution of “un-coordinated” methods, and do so through a cyclical team developmental process considered critical for creative team coordination.

Informal coordination practices have been the focus of another line of practice-based research that shows the efficacy of roles in facilitating non-programmed coordination in dynamic settings like fire-fighting, trauma departments or film crews (Bechky, 2006; Bigley & Roberts, 2001; Klein et al., 2006) emphasizing that even with role encoding responsibility, some informal practices in the form of “constrained improvisation” are required to execute shared work (Bigley & Roberts, 2001) and that people flexibly react to changing environments or changing task demands within the scope of their highly specified roles. Taking this idea further, Valentine & Edmondson, (2015) explain that in some situations a role structure with de-individualized roles can be organized in a rather stable structure that enables personnel act like a team, suggesting that informal practices can be developed from a formal role structure and that the two interact in a dynamic way. This research also supports the idea of a dynamic interaction between formal coordination structures and informal coordination practices (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009) and by illuminating this relationship, the emergent model supports the integration of practice-based research with the literature on the integrating conditions for coordination that can be accomplished not only through formal means but also through informal and emergent interactions in an organization (Bruns, 2013; Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009). More specifically, the author proposes that formal coordination structures and informal coordination practices in a temporary organization interact in a cyclical dynamic way where informal practices arise as a function of expertise diversity, constituting second-order practices that pull the diverse expert practices together, and that this is appropriate when coordinating work requires customized adjustments rather than routine interactions (Bruns, 2013). The emergent model suggests that in creative group work, including team members with different roles based on their expertise diversity, coordination is a function of a flexible team adjustment relying on initial formal team structures—that include both distinct role structuring and the assignment of specific roles—and the subsequent development of informal coordination practices. The formal role structures do not necessarily provide sufficient structure for effective coordination. The evolution of informal practices, one would expect to be “un-coordinating,” that enable individuals to cohere into a temporary interdependent performing unit via an understanding of job interdependencies and emergent issues, is what facilitates coordination in a creative team. This team developmental process is a necessary condition for creative group coordination, because it allows for the team to flexibly integrate and de-integrate in terms of both team roles (duties and responsibilities) and structure, and at the same time be creative.

The emergent model based on research conducted in temporary organizations shows that the initial team structure including role constraints is important in enabling team members achieve a satisfactory level of understanding of the task and lays the groundwork for the emergence of informal coordination practices that can assist with the management of emerging job interdependencies and new issues. What the author uncovered is that this initial role constraint is relaxed as informal coordination practices evolve and the initial sub-team formed is revised into a new team where roles and composition flexibly and informally adjust. This team developmental process allows its members to focus on a narrower scope while at the same time bound into a meaningful grouping that can interact fluidly and continuously build up on initial ideas in a creative process aiming to materialize the director’s idea. The informal coordination practices that the author came across were based on intense communication, continuous adjustments, team member collaboration, and exchange of details about domain-specific specializations. What is worth noting is that they require a high level of flexibility if the sub-team is to continuously adapt within changing formations and ensure its members can interact in a way to achieve coordination while continuously advancing their thoughts toward reaching a satisfactory level of creativity.

Several practice scholars consider that to achieve a thorough understanding of the way group coordination unfolds we need to consider the recursive effects between the team’s formal structure and the emergence of informal coordination practices (Ben-Menahem, von Krogh, Erden, & Shneider, 2016). In a similar note, the emergent model shows how informal practices dynamically interact with formal role structures, but the author also argues that formal structures are present even during the unfolding of the informal practices because they act as a safety net on which team leaders can fall back on, whenever they consider it necessary during the integration and de-integration process, in order to avoid de-integration leading toward a group structural breakdown. The initial role constraints might provide boundaries that preclude the sort of group chaos or dissensus that generally emerges when individuals disrupt group coordination patterns (Barker, 1993; Van Dyne & Saavedra, 1996). This supports the idea that informal practices arise as a function of formal structures (Bruns, 2013) and that the two elements are embedded within each other (Okhuysen & Bechky, 2009) and continuously and mutually interact.

5.5 Broader Implications, Boundary Conditions and Limitations, Directions for Future Research

Film production bares several of the “unusual” context characteristics and thus trying to understand creative group coordination in that context can fall within what Bamberger and Pratt (2010) label as “unconventional” organizational research, that is research where either or both the sample and the context are unusual by today’s norms.

More specifically, film projects are of limited duration, require diverse skills to complete a complex task, the crew form an organization only for the duration of the shoot and then disband, film sets are both physically and temporally isolated from the outside world, film production is characterized by strongly enforced interdependent activity and lacks the permanent structures such as stable rules and hierarchies (Bechky, 2006).

This “unconventional” management research can lead to what Bamberger and Pratt, (2010) identify as an “extremism” which allows the capture of constructs and relationships that may be too weak to notice or capture in traditional settings, thus facilitating the development of richer theory, and as in the case of this research, such “extremism” can provide the rapid cycles lacking in more traditional contexts thus helping to explore emergent patterns in a much shorter period of time by shortening cycle time.

In addition, the context chosen gave the author the opportunity to view the way a creative group coordinates in a transparent manner as he was physically part of the shooting process. This gave him the opportunity to capture people’s thoughts, ideas, and discussions, thus follow closely the team developmental process.

Another major advantage was that the author had the opportunity to view the complete sequence of production, from the very start to the very end of each scene’s shooting, that is a full repetitive cycle, and to investigate this process for a period of ten months in the first and three months in the second case. Also, the fact that the film achieved high ratings and got very positive critics boosted the author’s belief on the group’s creativeness.

5.5.1 Boundary Conditions / Limitations

Despite the strengths described above, it is important to consider the findings and theorizing in terms of the study’s boundary conditions and limitations.

In this research setting, creative group coordination requires a continuous and developmental integration of contributions between team members through a sub-team change of team roles and structure leading toward the final creative solution. Consequently, the findings cannot be generalized to cases where collective work requires loose coupling of contributions that need to remain distinct and only nominally respond to changes in other contributions (Orton & Weick, 1990) and where for example coordination does not require deep dialogue (Majchrzak et al., 2012) or changes to practice (Burns, 2013).

In addition, the teams observed lacked the conventional bureaucratic hierarchical structure as they had a relatively flat group structure, team members worked together for a temporary period, and the group could flexibly change its structure. In a similar line, previous studies have suggested that the impact of changing team structures depends on employee involvement with their formation (Langfred, 2007) and that this partial or underspecified structure is conducive and required for improvisation (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Moorman & Miner, 1998; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999) which is vital for organizational effectiveness especially when an organization faces an unpredictable environment and consists of skilled, knowledgeable and resourceful people.

Consequently, this study’s findings are likely more useful in temporary groups with a similar flat and flexible team structure, and this should be taken into consideration when aiming to apply the emergent model of dynamic creative group coordination to different contexts.

Moreover, team members work under both immense time pressure and uncertain conditions while aiming to materialize a written script, never being sure either when they have reached the optimal level of creativeness or what the best of many different routes to follow would be in order to achieve the necessary coherence of group members’ contributions that will assist them reach this level. Previous researchers have also considered the effects of constraints suggesting that they can act as a useful device to facilitate the generation of ideas and coordinate the group (Harrison & Rouse, 2014) and also achieve a group flow that enhances creative performance (Sawyer, 2007). The need for coherence while aiming to generate something truly creative has also featured in previous work emphasizing that all individual decisions made need to coalesce into a coherent, intelligible whole (Ford & Sullivan, 2004) following a logic that points to tendencies rather than fixed norms governing what should be done or not done (Adorno, 1999). These specific conditions, the constraints imposed by the written script and the need for coherence in order to find the best possible option, may lead toward specific members’ behaviors and attitudes not likely to apply in other work contexts, something one would need to bear in mind when making use of the emergent model.

5.5.2 Future Research

The author observed the first season of two film projects, ten and three continuous months respectively, that was not the complete duration of the projects as their filming lasted for more than one season. Future research could consider how this dynamic group coordination evolves, and more specifically how the structural adaptations described in this study’s emergent model may have an impact over the performance of the group members as the project progressively develops. It might be that the cycle the author observed might alter in the final stages of the project or that the interactions observed may prove to be either more or less significant in the latter project stages. Future research could apply the emergent model to longer projects to observe any possible differences.

Scholars of organizational theory need also to pay attention to the group characteristics to better understand creative group coordination. Previous studies showed that employee knowledge (Reagans, Argote, & Brooks, 2005; Feldman, 2000; Klein et al., 2006), reliability (Bechky, 2003) and differences in the status of group members (Metiu, 2006; Edmondson, Bohmer & Pisano, 2001; Lee, 2002) impact team coordination. Insights into how coordination relates to the group’s experience and gender composition, as well as the members’ degree of expertise and individual creativity level could provide a more nuanced understanding of coordination in creative groups.

More specifically, experienced team members could find it easier to handle job interdependencies and changing team formations. Team member expertise also seems to play a major role because according to this study’s emergent model the fact that team members rotate between different roles in their careers and are thus aware of what is expected seems to help them manage the complexities in the coordination of diverse knowledge domains. This raises the question about the role of team expertise in making contributions compatible so that they can then be integrated in a coherent manner during the team developmental process. The group’s gender composition also opens up possibilities for future research as previous research showed that it would affect team communication (Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi, & Malone, 2010). How could team coordination differ in predominately male to female group? Finally, team member coordination could relate to differences in the members individual creativity level as it could correlate with the introduction of new ideas and the subsequent discovery and development of new issues during the team developmental process. Do the changes in team formation relate to the individual creativity level of team members?

Future research can extend this study’s findings by paying more attention to the individual differences in group membership described above. This seems vital in a creative team context because it could shed light on what individual characteristics are important when forming such a team.

The distinctive characteristics of this research’s context mean that further empirical research is necessary to consider how the emergent model can apply to different settings in the same industry or similar settings in different industries, where interdependent creative work may be organized in a temporary manner. More specifically, project-based environments requiring creative group work, including advertising, consulting, and high tech firms, that have become very important recently (Shenhar 2001; Grabher 2002). How can team coordination be achieved in a context where team members do not possess the expertise film crew possess in several different positions? How do teams develop and change their formation in these settings? How do team members handle job interdependencies in a way to remain creative?

This study’s emergent model shows a team developmental process that coheres and integrates into a final creative “solution”. This process leads to several questions that could be further examined in future work. Are team-members open to the team roles and formation changes occurring during the unfolding of the coordination process emphasized in the emergent model? This seems vital for settings where team members are under immense time pressure to create. How can group members’ interactions be managed in such a way so that all creative ideas emerging during this developmental process can first cohere and then integrate into a synthetic final creative “solution”?

Lastly, the role of leadership forms an important opportunity for future work. Some authors suggest that leadership relates to group coordination through three integrating conditions: accountability as a way to enact formal authority and organizational standards (Gittell, 2000), predictability by defining the tasks that must be accomplished as well as the timing or order in which they must happen (Faraj & Xiao, 2006), and common understanding in terms of knowledge of the different parties in an interdependent situation (Reagans, Argote, & Brooks, 2005). This raises questions as leadership may also need to be considered in relation to the team developmental process described in this study’s model where it has been found not to be very actively involved. Should leadership play a more active role during the team roles and formation changes described in the emergent model? Should leadership adjust, and if yes how, during the different team developmental phases?

5.5.3 Practical Implications

This study offers in-depth insights into a cyclical team developmental process leading toward creative group coordination through a dynamic interplay of formal coordination structures and informal coordination practices, and more specifically a role and structural adaptation of an emerging multidisciplinary creative sub-team working toward the final creative product.

Firstly, management concerned with improving this process should pay particular attention to employee recruitment and more specifically consider not only the individual abilities necessary for each position but also specific employee characteristics that are also important like the need for individuals to be curious, ready to explore and be able to flexibly cohere and integrate their contributions with those of other team members. Management should then provide the necessary autonomy as well as the appropriate supportive training.

Second, the model indicates to changes occurring during the team developmental process and more specifically to temporary changes in the members’ roles, duties and responsibilities in order to handle job interdependencies and emerging issues. Consequently, it is important that team members are exposed to the work in other domains in order to familiarize themselves with different perspectives and resulting diverse contributions. Management could thus support shared practice by both organizing in-house workshops, where different job descriptions can be formally communicated and presented, and encouraging employees to take an interest in different domains via fostering dialogue between peers.

Third, the emergent model indicates that integration of contributions between both team members responsible for the creative and members responsible for the technical part of the project is a vital prerequisite to achieve team coordination. Consequently, employee appraisal should also include traits like the ability of team members to comprehend both the creative and technical part of the project during its execution, and to understand how the contribution of a technical team member for example relates to and can be used to build upon that of a creative team member. Management could provide employees with related workshops and courses as well as foster discussions and social events to enhance employee understanding of both the technical and creative part of the project and the way they merge during the project.

Finally, this study highlighted the importance of employees being encouraged to develop ideas during the team developmental process, and that constraints can be useful as they help in both generating new ideas and integrating them into a final creative solution. A valuable starting point in addressing this is for management to first highlight to employees the importance of generating new ideas while at the same time acknowledge that at some point, and as a result of constraints that limit possible options, they need to work more interdependently toward the option that works best. Through the use of informal demonstrations during the unfolding of this process management can explain to employees the need to express their ideas, challenge other peoples’ ideas, and then negotiate within the boundaries set by constraints, fostering a dialogue conducive to a group decision making process under the guidance of the team’s leader.