EDITORIAL: HUMAN INTERACTION DYNAMICS (HID)—AN EMERGING PARADIGM FOR MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

There is increasing recognition that the link between individual action and organizational processes and outcomes needs to be better understood (Devinney, 2013; Greve, 2013; Winter, 2013). Complexity science provides such a framework and thus offers the prospect for new methods that show promise in this direction (Allen et al., 2013). This Special Issue is an outgrowth of lively discussions on this topic during formal Organization and Management Theory Caucus sessions held at each of the last two Academy of Management meetings, the first in Boston in 2012 with a follow-up in Orlando in 2013. The articles selected highlight an emerging complexityinformed paradigm for organizational research that we are calling human interaction dynamics (HID). The HID approach uses a complex systems theoretical framework to study the nature of fine-grained human interactions and emergent coarse-grained properties as well as the resultant organizing forms that emerge from these dynamics (Hazy 8i Ashley, 2011). Treating agent interactions as the unit of analysis, HID explores the unique and heterogeneous detail within the micro-states that occur during interactions-including the rules that govern these interactions, how they are enacted, and how they change. This heterogeneity makes the human interaction very different from the types of interactions normally studied in the natural sciences.Like the natural sciences, however, coarse-grained structures and properties emerge from these interactions. These emergent forms, like firms, business strategies, or organizational capabilities, also interact across levels of analysis to entrain the same fine-grained interactions from which they are also emerging. The dynamics that provide influence across levels in both directions at the same time are nonlinear and not easily parsed. However, by defining macro-states of the complex system as recognizable "properties" at the coarse-grained level, i.e., coarse-grained properties (CGPs), less important details can sometimes be ignored, or at least set aside for analysis purposes. Using a probabilistic approach that takes into account the system's effective or statistical complexity (Gell-Mann, 2002; Prokopenko et al., 2009), coarse-grained properties and their probable outcomes, such as sales growth or the potential for an innovative product launch, can be modeled and forecasted. HID seeks to use complex systems models and techniques to shed additional light on the efficacy of this process without ignoring the underlying detail of individual choice and action.ACADEMIC STUDIES IN HUMAN INTERACTION DYNAMICSThe first academic paper by Schwandt and Szabla (this issue) brings sociology and social psychology into the complexity conversation to describe the mechanisms at work within HID. Schwandt and Szabla argue that Giddens's (1984) theory of structuration and Stones (2005) extrapolation ofthat theory together connect the mainstream social sciences of sociology and social psychology to complexity research and in particular to the study of human interaction dynamics (HID). Exploring this assertion, Schwandt and Szabla argue that Giddens's notion of duality of structure is congruent with the complexity idea of circular influence (Haken, 2006) between fine-grain interactions and coarse-grain properties (Gell-Mann, 2002) in complex adaptive systems (Holland, 1975). The authors go on to argue that the Giddens' constructs of signification, domination and legitimation reflect the institutional social pressure that shapes the possibility space that constrains individual action. This paper is a good example of the issues associated with defining and representing the structural complexity associated with organizing in general. The nonlinear nature of structural complexity becomes relevant as fine-grain interactions among autonomous agents and the integrative coarse-grain properties that emerge from their interactions becomes the objects of study in HID. …