Improvisation Processes in Organizations
Miguel Pina e Cunha
Nova School of Business and Economics
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Portugal
mpc@novasbe.pt
Anne S. Miner
University of Wisconsin – Madison
USA
aminer@bus.wisc.edu
Elena Antonacopoulou
GNOSIS
University of Liverpool Management School
UK
E.Antonacopoulou@liverpool.ac.uk
Chapter 38 in A. Langley and H. Tsoukas (Eds) (2015) SAGE Handbook of Process
Organization Studies. Sage: London.
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Bios
Miguel Pina e Cunha is professor of Organization Theory at Nova School of Business
and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal. His research has been published in journals such as
the Academy of Management Review, Human Relations, Journal of Applied Behavioral
Science, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of
Product Innovation Management, Leadership Quarterly, Organization, and
Organization Studies. He recently co-authored, with Arménio Rego and Stewart Clegg,
“The virtues of leadership: Contemporary challenge for global managers” (Oxford
University Press, 2012).
Anne S. Miner is Professor of Management and Human Resources Emeritus at the
Wisconsin School of Business. Miner studies organizational learning and improvisation,
including papers on improvisation in product development and organizational learning
from failure. Miner was named 2004 Scholar of the Year by the Technology and
Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management. She has served as
associate editor of Management Science and of Organization Science, and on the
editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly, the American Sociological Review,
the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and
Strategic Organization. Miner’s B.A. is from Harvard, and her Ph.D. from Stanford. She
has also worked as VP of a start-up and as assistant to the President at Stanford.
Elena Antonacopoulou is Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of
Liverpool Management School, where she leads GNOSIS - a research initiative
advancing impactful collaborative research in management and organization
studies. Her principal research expertise lies in the areas of Organisational Change,
Learning and Knowledge Management with a focus on the Leadership implications.
Her research continues to advance new methodologies for studying social
complexity and is strengthened by her approach; working with leading
international researchers, practitioners and policy-makers collaboratively. Her
current study on ‘Realizing Y-Our Impact’ is one example of the approach that
governs her commitment to pursue scholarship that makes a difference through
actionable knowledge. Elena’s work is published widely in leading international
journals and edited books. She has been elected in several leadership roles and has
served her scholarly community as a member at Board, Council, Executive and
Editorial roles of the top professional bodies (AoM, EGOS, EURAM, SMS etc)
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What do disaster workers and units, SWAT officers and film crews, Soviet
special troops, firefighters and medical doctors, IT workers and bank tellers, have in
common? How can large firms, governments and start-ups end up with a deliberate
strategy that was not planned in advance? How do ordinary organizational actors get
things done? According to organizational research, they all improvise. This chapter
reviews the literature on improvisational processes, including gaps and frontiers for
future research, and suggests that Improvisational processes offer a vital framework
for further probing organizing processes.
We organize our review in three main sections. First, we present a basic
working definition of improvisation, and explore contemporary assumptions about its
pervasiveness and impact. Second, we describe four stylized forms of improvisational
processes described in the literature. We arrange the forms using two conceptual axes:
the absence/presence of a common goal and micro/macro (individual vs. collective).
These axes represent oversimplifications of the ongoing flow of organizational life, but
help group prior research. We then describe research on interactions between
improvisational levels and other processes. Finally, we consider gaps and promising
frontiers for future research on improvisational processes as a core element of
organizing.
Definition and key assumptions
Improvisation is itself a process. To assess whether or not improvisation has
occurred, it is not enough to look just at a static outcome. One must also look at the
order of activities occurring over time. In the improvisation process, the design of a
novel activity pattern occurs during the pattern’s enactment. This contrasts with
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classic management theory where actors analyze, make decisions, and then act. The
improvisation processes differ, then, from both fully pre-planned activity, and from
replicating the stable content of a routine.
Researchers sometimes highlight different aspects of improvisation, but the
minimal formal definition of this process involves three conceptual dimensions (Cunha
et al., 1999; Miner et al., 2001; Moorman & Miner, 1998a). These include the
convergence of design and performance (extemporaneity), the creation of some
degree of novel action (novelty) and the deliberateness of the design that is created
during its own enactment (intentionality). The process often involves working with an
improvisational referent (Miner et al., 2001), which might be a prior version of an
action pattern or prior plan. The definition implies that improvisation represents a
special type of innovation. However, the content of an innovation can be planned in
advance, so not all innovation activity represents improvisation. This definition also
implies that improvisation represents a special type of unplanned action: it involves a
deliberate new design, so excludes random change. Thus not all unplanned action is
improvisation.
The condensed articulation of these three dimensions results in a minimalist
definition of pure improvisation as the deliberate and substantive fusion of the design
and execution of a novel production. Some improvisation research has focused
especially on the degree of extemporaneity in activity, and other work focuses on the
degree of novelty, but some degree of both is required for an activity to match this
definition. Without this, improvisation collapses into the already-developed domains
of innovation and organizational change. Throughout this chapter, when we refer to
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organizational actors we include individuals, teams, units, and entire organizations
(Cunha et al., 1999), even while recognizing that these artificially concrete entities can
themselves represent ongoing constructions of many processes.
Pervasiveness of improvisation. Two lines of thinking about improvisation’s
pervasiveness have crystallized to-date. At one end of the spectrum, researchers
highlight that the enactment of even stable routines or plans involves more than
repetition: it often involves the extemporaneous embellishment of daily practice. The
organizational actor engages in a flow of activity (Orlikowski, 1996; Tsoukas & Chia,
2002) and tailors the design of action to a specific concrete setting. This can represent
an ongoing re-constitution of a prior pattern in a unique response in time and space
(Antonacopoulou, 2008). From this perspective improvisation can be seen as part of
most performative activity (Feldman & Pentland, 2003). As March argues (1981, p.
564), “most of the time most people in an organization do what they are supposed to
do; that is, they are intelligently attentive to their environments and their jobs.” To the
degree that this means adjusting prior action templates for each context,
improvisation is pervasive.
At the other end of the spectrum, important theoretical traditions envision
much organizational life as enacting routines, and scripts, norms, traditions or habit
(Cyert & March, 1963), or as planning, analyzing, deciding and then acting (March,
1976; Mintzberg, 1994). Even though routines and regularities in action patterns can
represent effortful achievements, -- not detached objects, -- improvising differs from
the execution of stable elements of routines. It involves some degree of novel
performance relative to a referent (Crossan, 1998; Baker et al., 2003). It also differs
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from planning and then acting because it involves design during, not before,
performance. When the changes to a plan or stable pattern are substantial,
improvisation represents an unusual activity.
Although at first glance these visions seem contradictory, current research
suggests that both visions have authenticity and important promise. Extant descriptive
research supports Weick’s observation that much organizational life can be seen as a
“mixture of the pre-composed and the spontaneous” (Weick, 1998, p. 551). Both
traditions offer doorways to explore how different mixtures of predesigned and
spontaneous activities occur and why they matter.
Impact of improvisation. Contemporary researchers broadly agree that
improvisation can produce mixed results. Historically, two undercurrents have
influenced improvisation theory. Traditional normative efforts to improve managerial
practices promoted replacing improvisation with smarter planning and better
routinization, whether in Taylor’s Scientific Management, TQM, process-reengineering
or strategic planning. This approach underlies even practice-oriented fields such as
manufacturing operations, marketing and disaster management. Theorists often
assume that planning and/or routinization trumps other approaches even more under
conditions of stability.
At the same time, however, careful observers have long argued that emergent,
unplanned and non-routine processes can have value especially in dynamic settings
(March, 1976; Mintzberg, 1994). Perhaps partly to overcome the historical antiimprovisation undertow, some early improvisation research portrayed it primarily as a
source of flexibility, speed and adaptation. Observation of improvisation in practice,
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however, led to the rejection of any unconditional impact, -- either valuable or
harmful. Much research now focuses on contextual features that influence its
occurrence or impact (Cunha, Neves, Clegg & Rego, forthcoming; Hmieleski et al.,
2013; Magni et al., 2009).
The assumption of mixed potential value has helped spur emerging theories
about whether, when and how different contexts promote the value of improvisational
activity, both short-term and long-term. Improvisation’s impact is seen as involving
trade-offs (Vera et al., 2014) and dialectical sub-processes (Weick, 1998; Clegg, Cunha
& Cunha, 2002). For example, the relative balance of structure and freedom is
assumed to play a key role. Improvisation in the absence of structure can potentially
lead to strategic drift or even dangerous lack of coordination (Bigley & Roberts, 2001;
Ciborra, 1999). At the same time, the lack of freedom can introduce structural rigidity
(Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Gong, Baker & Miner, 2009). Improvising over minimal
structures can offer a chance to avoid both risks, and is often presented as a backbone
of effective improvisational action (Kamoche & Cunha, 2001). Other work emphasize
the value of organizational memory (Moorman & Miner, 1998a; Kryiakopouous &
Klien, 2000) or of routinized activities that can be recombined in improvisational
bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005), increasing its effectiveness.
Four Modes of improvisation
We organize extant streams of research through two conceptual axes: (1) the
absence/presence of a common goal, and (2) level of analysis (micro/macro).
Although clearly oversimplying the ongoing flow of action, the two axes offer a useful
heuristic to organize work to date, and they flag coherent issues for future research.
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They help capture work done in different disciplinary approaches and with diverse
degrees of maturity. Based on these axes we identify four modes of improvisation: 1)
Micro improvisation as ad hoc action to accomplish work, 2) Macro improvisation as
strategy, 3) Micro improvisation as political ingenuity and 4) Macro improvisation as
struggle for strategic domination. We discuss them below in that order.
Improvisation in pursuit of a common purpose
Micro improvisation as ad hoc action to accomplish work. At least three
stylized versions of this basic form appear in extant research.
Baseline improvisation as part of practice. Improvisation process researchers
argue that even when organizational actors see themselves as executing familiar
routines, or following plans, they inevitably must tailor their action to the specific
context and time. We refer to this form of improvisation as baseline improvisation, in
the spirit of a basal metabolism rate that is required for a system to operate at all. This
type of improvisation is often seen as being nearly ubiquitous whenever action is taken
and is a natural part of practice (Antonacopoulou, 2008; Orlikowksi, 1996). At least
some of the activities in an action pattern are novel because they are distinct from
prior enactments, due to the unique context.
Resolution of unexpected events or problems. Organization actors also regularly
deal with unexpected events, or with unexpected ‘real life situations” (Jarzabkowski &
Kaplan, 2014). Actors may conclude that a surprise requires an immediate, novel
response in order to get things done (Bechky & Okhuysen, 2011; Cunha et al., 2006).
Spontaneous improvised corrective action can thus emerge (Crossan & Sorrenti, 1997)
and work as a fundamental mechanism of adjustment to keep organizations going.
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Action template re-design. Finally, actors sometimes make major changes to
prior plans or routines during execution, altering at least one core feature above and
beyond what it takes to match action to a local context (Miner et al., 2001). This form
of improvisation is not inevitable, and can vary in how much deviation occurs when
compared to prior action templates (Vera & Crossan, 2005; Weick, 1998). It is often
discouraged in modern, formal organizational life. Even emergency workers who
acknowledge the potential value of constrained improvisation nonetheless discourage
what they call “freelancing” (Bigley & Roberts, 2001) because it can risk lives due to
coordination challenges.
In all three of these forms of micro-improvisation, improvisers are motivated by
the common purpose of “’getting the job done’ in an institutionally complex present”
(Smets et al. 2012, p. 894). In baseline improvisation they routinely adjust action to
context while acting (Yanow & Tsoukas, 2009), making some form of improvisation a
normal feature of organizations life (Ciborra, 1999: 78). In other cases, significant
adjustments occur, sometimes in response to major problems (Weick, 1993; Kendra &
Wachtendorf, 2003). The improvising actors may reflect while acting (Schon, 1983),
but the degree of explicit mindfulness can vary. Actors also adjust through planning
new activities, of course, making the improvisation’s relative presence a salient issue.
The more radical the changes embedded in an improvised design, the more
coordination challenges arise. Considerable research indicates that attention to realtime information and dialectic interactions between actors can help overcome some
improvisational coordination challenges (Crossan, 1998; Kyriakpolous & Klein, 2011;
Moorman & Miner, 1998a).
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Field studies of improvisation have revealed three features of such micro
improvisation with relatively untapped potential for process research, however. First,
even during emergencies, actors sometimes ignore surprises, or stop or make new
plans (Bechky & Okhuysen, 2011). Thus theorizing will match observed processes more
precisely if it explores when surprises do or do not prompt improvisation. Second,
organizational actors sometimes improvise to take advantage of unexpected
opportunities (Weick, 1998; Miner et al., 2001), not just to deal with problems. In
some intriguing cases, the same event can begin as a problem but become a perceived
opportunity (Weick, 1998; Miner et al., 2001; Vera & Crossan, 2005). Thus theory will
also match observed organizational life more precisely if it addresses both problems
and opportunities as potential triggers. Finally, field studies reveal that organizational
actors sometimes improvise in a spirit of play or in pursuit of transcendence, even in
work settings (Hatch, 1997). Exploring whether this motivation for improvisation spurs
distinct outcomes offers a promising, still-undertheorized issue.
Macro-improvisation as strategy
Another body of work has focused on improvisation as a process operating at a
macro or strategic level of analysis (Baker et al., 2003; Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997;
Yanow & Tsoukas, 2009). The first sub-set of this work describes discrete improvised
strategic actions. Traditional strategy research assumes that firms plan in advance
before enacting a strategic action such as a merger, adoption of a market strategy,
investment in a new technology, or change in core goals (Mintzberg, 1994). A discrete
strategic improvisation refers to the process when an organization deliberately enacts
a specific strategic action without planning it in advance. Bingham (2009), for
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example, describes how some firms improvise foreign market entry. The launch of
Virgin Airways represents an iconic popular example.
The second major stream of work describes organizations engaging in strategic
processes that embrace improvisation in an ongoing way. Eisenhardt and Tabrizi,
(1995, p.106) argue that (strategic) “…decision makers avoid planning, because it is a
futile exercise when the environment is changing rapidly and unpredictably.” Brown
and Eisenhardt (1997) propose that organizations can benefit from improvisational
processes when their environment changes deeply and rapidly. The logic here also
holds for developing strategies without routinized stocks of organizational practices
(Bingham, 2009; Gong, Baker & Miner, 2006).
This work has flagged several conditions argued to promote strategic
improvisation’s effectiveness. These include the use of simple rules that allow actors to
improvise within structural designs that synthesize freedom and order, and cultivating
heuristics, which offer enough consistency for efficiency but also flexibility to match
unique aspects of particular opportunities (Bingham & Eisenhardt, 2011). Employees at
the boundary can actively participate in the process, sensing and transmitting
environmental information with potential strategic value (e.g. see Ton, 2014). Strategy,
in this perspective, is a co-evolutionary process of constantly adjusting to a changing
environment via incessant improvisation within some structure and consistency.
The third stream of strategy-related work emphasizes that organizations can
show competencies in improvisation itself, which they rely on as part of their enduring
style of action. Gong et al. argue (2005, p.29) that: “…firms sometimes solve classes of
repeated problems by persistently improvising solutions. ” Baker et al. (2003) called
such capabilities “improvisational competencies.” When an organization feels
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sufficiently confident about its improvisational competence, it may improvise macro
organizational activities such as restructuring (Bergh & Lim, 2008).
In this situation, the organization does not repeat a specific new action pattern
designed during a discrete improvisational incident. Instead, it repeats the
improvisation process itself.
The organization may develop practices such as making internal real-time
communication easier to support anticipated repeated improvisation (Gong et al.,
2005 ). Such improvisational competencies can become a macro foundation of
organizational advantage. The vision of improvisational competencies is also consistent
with improvisation as a process conducted in a dispersed way by communities of
practitioners, -- whether within a focal organization or profession -- who act face-toface with operational problems (Charles & Dawson, 2011). Gong et al. (2005) argue,
however, that such capabilities can also represent a competency trap. The
organization improvises when prior planning would have avoided serious execution
problems.
Improvisation in the absence of shared common purpose
Micro improvisation as political ingenuity
One form of accepted potential differences between parts of organizations,
consists of actors lower in authority structures versus the interests or actions of others
at higher levels in the structure. The organizational “underlife” (Manning, 2008) is a
space where informal experiments are conducted, outside the formal organization’s
scope of attention or outside of higher level formal observers of a given actor or unit.
Miller and Wedell-Wedellsborg (2013) argue that improvisation can play a role in
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efforts to hide actions “below” the formal organization. It can enable deviations from
the organization’s directives in a subtle manner (Crozier & Friedberg, 1976). Actors
may protect desirable professional identities around carefully maintained
improvisational expressions of independence, for example favoring improvisation over
formalized procedures (Orr, 1990). Activities are transmitted via “hidden transcripts,”
and discourses stabilize “beyond direct observation of those in power” (Dailey &
Browing, 2014, p.28).
Underlife is not necessarily improvisational. Actors can also make hidden plans
or follow stable parts of hidden routines outside the observation of formal authority
systems. Nonetheless improvisation can play a key role in underlife processes. One
important stream of evidence appears in the innovation literature. Innovators
sometimes improvise during their discovery projects and hide these activities from
formal scrutiny. In some cases, they conduct experiments in a highly improvisatory
way (i.e. enacting the development on the spot without prior planning, bricolaging) but
also shield these improvisational experiments, to avoid premature assessment or
opposition.
Micro-improvisation as political ingenuity goes beyond the assumption that
individual actors pursue individual self-interests that diverge from formal goals
(Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Mantere & Vaara, 2008). It also includes processes in which
subgroups have different foci of attention based on different contexts for their
experience. Actors also engage in the symbolic management of the degree of
improvisation in their own work. They can “choose their designs carefully to present
some details as new, others as old, and hide still others from view altogether”
(Hargadon & Douglas, 2001, p.499).
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As with other forms of improvisation, observers argue that prior experience can
affect the resources available as part of political ingenuity. For example, de Certeau
(1984, p. 23) argues that, as people gain experience with the inner workings of a
system, they develop a firsthand understanding of the actions possible within such a
system. The re-playing of a game changes the understanding of its rules and opens
new possibilities. Such schemas of action represent one vocabulary available for microimprovisational activities.
Macro improvisation as struggle for strategic domination
Although less well developed than the areas above, descriptions of
improvisation also appear in studies of guerrilla warfare, revolutions and social
movements, even though traditional normative theories of warfare, internal power
struggles and social change focus developing better strategic plan and acquiring
resources. Domination in this context can refer to changing an organization’s identity,
absorbing its resources, changing its core goals or seeking its total annihilation.
Explicit warfare. Strategic guerilla warfare has long stressed improvisational
activity. Improvised surprise attacks are easier to coordinate with smaller groups, and
sometimes harder for larger groups to respond to (Guevara, 2002). As is the case
inside organizations, improvisation makes it less likely that actions can be thwarted by
the larger power, although plans for guerilla actions can also be designed in advance.
Control of powerful opponents. Saul Alinksy (1971; 2010) describes sequences
of improvisational actions involved in the pursuit of control of other organizations. In
real time during a struggle, Alinsky and his colleagues improvised by using proxy votes
as a way to get publicity and affect corporate policies. The initial improvised action
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became a template for both the ongoing use of proxies, but also for value of
improvising when others had more power (Alinsky, 2010). Many social movements
also highlight early improvised actions as touchstones for movement identity, such as
Rosa Park’s keeping a seat on the front of the bus.
Improvised re-interpretation as a tool for control. Macro improvisation for
strategic domination also occurs when the improviser uses on-the-spot reinterpretation of existing meanings as a weapon to gain control. Preston (1991), for
example, describes how a manager re-interpreted the firm’s industry classification to
be one where strikes could not occur, in order to control a pending strike.
Interactions between levels of improvisation and other processes
The dichotomy of micro versus macro processes oversimplifies the multiple
nested subsystems and activities within organizations (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).
Nonetheless, research shows that interactions of improvisational processes can shape
long term organizing patterns. Interactions can involve traditional, explicit feedback
loops. In more nuanced process-oriented frameworks, improvisation can generate
nuanced “successive layerings of backtalk” (Yanow & Tsoukas, 2009, p. 1348) between
organizational participants, material contexts, and processes. In many cases, a
deliberate improvisational process for temporary purposes leads to unintended, more
enduring change at other levels (Smets, 2014; Baker et al., 2003).
In one exemplary study, Smets et al. (2014) describe improvisational activity by
lawyers in a firm combining British and German legal expertise. The lawyers repeatedly
devise modifications of old action templates in an ad hoc way, often in pursuit of
“getting things done.” Smets and colleagues provide convincing evidence that such
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micro-improvisations have lasting influence on firm-level interpretive systems, and
even on field-level norms and practices. Much of the transmission occurs through dayto-day interaction of actors during practice. The study offers an important illustration
of low-visibility, high-impact transformation processes.
In an extensive study of more visible transformation processes during
responses to 9/11, Wachtendorf (2004) describes additional interactions of
improvisational forms and other processes. Some improvisational activity involved recreation of an existing prior command center, and replicated the functions of that
center (reproductive improvisation). Other improvisational activity interacted with
prior templates, major political struggle and deliberate planning to create whole new
systems to move and sort all debris, including human remains (creative improvisation).
This study provides evidence of both gradual and of dramatic transformations that
involve improvisational processes.
Finally, a study of entrepreneurial firms by Baker, Miner and Eesley (2003)
describes multi-level interactions and impact. Some entrepreneurs design a firm as
they execute its founding steps, improvising the entire strategic action of starting a
firm. Early improvisational activity also sometimes shapes core organizational identity
and values. For example, the founder improvised a positive answer to a valued
interviewee who wanted to work at a family-oriented company. A desire for
consistency led the founder to actually enact significant formal family-centered
policies and identity. Originally improvisational activities morphed into inscribed
routines and sources of identity that significantly molded organizations.
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These studies underscore several important multi-level interactions related to
the improvisation process, each worthy of investigation as a distinct overall process
important to organizing.
First, actors sometimes improvise an action pattern as a ‘patch’ to resolving a
problem, but later discard or replace it with a pre-designed pattern (Miner et al.,
2001). These may be dropped after execution, but may also sometimes provide
unexpected insights available to inform disconnected later actions (Antonacopolous,
2009). In a different sequence of activities, the original proto-routine becomes a
legitimate, formally constituted organizational routine within the taken for granted
templates for action. Broad communities can gain experience via repetition of an
initially improvised practice, and transform their improvisations into distinctive
organizational practices (Plowman et al., 2007). A focal practice may be retained
through many other processes including power interactions, interpretive interactions,
simple momentum, and relatively invisible influences during practice (McGinn & Keros,
2002; Smets, et al., 2014).
In another and conceptually distinct sequence, participants first assess the
outcome of an initial improvisational process. If they see it as valuable, they repeat its
content. Improvisation here serves as step in trial and error learning processes that can
affect long-term organizational memory, routines, practices and values (Miner et al.,
2001). Different performance feedback frameworks for assessing ‘success’ of a microimprovisation will lead to different higher-level outcomes. Recent evidence suggests
that forgetting may also make ongoing improvisation more effective (Akgun et al.
2007), consistent with selective retention.
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All of these interaction patterns then, can shape long term changes in
organizing in specific domains such as operations, production, human resources,
product development, financial management, external relations, or partnership
formation. Long-term change will depend on which of the retention processes, such as
power or performance feedback, dominate or interact with each other.
These processes to institutionalize a focal improvised action design differ, we
suggest, from the processes that shape the tendency to improvise in the future.
Developing a tendency to improvise represents a distinct process pathway. This has
obvious implications for organizational transformation (Gong et al., 2005; Winter,
1983). Crossan and Sorrenti (1997) have suggested many organizational contexts that
may promote improvisation, pointing to factors to consider in studying potential
processes by which it develops. Schon’s (1983) work raises interesting questions of
whether skillful improvisational activities have distinct development paths compared
to unskilled improvisational activities.
The extant work, then describes important ways that interactions of
improvisational processes shape organizing patterns. Nonetheless, gaps remain that
suggest promising frontiers for future work, which we discuss below.
Gaps and frontiers in the study of the process of improvisation
The analysis above reveals issues both across and within the modes of
improvisation where further exploration offers special promise.
Gaps and frontiers across modes of improvisation
Four important gaps and frontiers cut across the modes identified above, three
theoretical and one methodological. They include: further development of the role of
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interpretation, the role of non-utilitarian motivations, the role of emotion, and
methodological challenges in detecting improvisation processes.
Interpretive processes and improvisation. Karl Weick (1993) played a leading
role in legitimizing organizational improvisation for scholarly research. His iconic
explication of the Mann Gulch disaster highlighted nuances of disruptions of
interpretive systems and their link to improvisation processes. In other work he
describes many nuanced subprocesses, such as how re-interpretation can play a
decisive role: by repeating a note played in error, for example, the improviser can
transform a mistake into a meaningful musical phrase (Weick, 1998).
Interpretive improvisation can appear in all forms of improvisation. Further
development of its role deserves major attention. What is the role of imagination in
improvisation? How does improvisational practice interweave with interpretation?
Does an improvised re-interpretation unfold differently from a planned reinterpretation? How do problems become re-interpreted as opportunities and the
other way round?
Motivations for improvisation. Current theory sometimes notes the existence
of both problem and opportunity driven improvisations, but studies typically fail to
trace them separately. Do they involve different microprocesses? Field reports
describe how actors sometimes improvise because they enjoy improvising for its own
sake. Does this motivation spur different processes than utilitarian improvisation or
have different long term influence?
Emotion and improvisation. Improvised performances are by definition
irreversible: the pattern already performed cannot be undone. This suggests that
improvising can generate fear, or relief from boredom, as well as feelings of
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transcendence (Hatch 1997; Berliner, 1994; Hmieleski et al., 2013). Do emotional
factors influence all forms of improvisation? Does emotion play a distinct role in links
between micro and macro processes, and the interpretation of improvisation itself?
Insights into these issues can not only advance process understanding of improvisation
but of how of organizational actors embody their practices more broadly
(Antonacopoulou, 2008; Yanow &Tsoukas, 2009).
Detecting improvisation processes. Researching improvisation presents
challenges in part because one cannot deduce from the content of a particular
performance how much in what way it involved improvisational processes.
Time periods used to bracket the flow of action can affect whether a focal set of
activities seems to involve design during execution or instead embody very fastmoving set of cycles of planning then execution (Van de Ven et al., 1999). Choices
about the degree of novelty used to indicate improvisational processes will also shape
the observed relative presence of improvisation. It will help if investigators clarify their
choices on how large a deviation from prior templates (novelty) they require to assess
an activity as improvisational, and how they approach assessing convergence of design
and execution of a performance.
Gaps within each of the four modes of improvisation
Micro improvisation as ad hoc actions to accomplish work. Although much
improvisation research has focused on this form, important questions remain. There is
still relatively little detailed examination of how differences in the degree of novelty
generated during improvisation influence later processes (Vera & Crossan, 2005). How
do we account for the fact that effective organizational actors skillfully navigate
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baseline improvisation in work practices, but other forms of improvisation can create
major coordination problems in the eyes of many organizational actors? How can
improvisations with positive ampliative potential be identified? What specific
characteristics of improvised processes are perceived as relevant enough to be
inscribed in the organization’s memory? Conceptualizing memory as a process can
offer new perspectives on the unfolding of organizational improvisation.
Macro improvisation as strategy. Eisenhardt and her colleagues’ studies often
focused on the fast moving computer industry, but recent work indicates that
principles such as minimal structuring can also be useful in mature industries, such as
retailing (Sonenhein, 2014). Longitudinal and comparative research on start-ups and
entire sectors (Ocasio & Joseph, 2008) can advance understanding of how traditional
forms of strategy (planning) coexist with improvisation. How does improvisation relate
to strategic surprises (Lampel & Shapira, 2001) and sudden organizational collapse?
What safeguards reduce the potential dangers of improvisation that risks an
organizations’ entire resources or identity? What practices reduce the chances of
improvisational drifting? How do contingency planning, experimentation and
improvisation play distinct roles (Binns et al., 2014; Chia & Holt, 2009, Chia, 2014)?
Under what conditions do effective improvisational capabilities thrive versus drifting
into “improvisational momentum” (Gong et al., 2006)? How can effective
organizational improvisation be learned (Vera & Crossan, 2005; Hmieleski, Corbett &
Baron, 2013)?
Micro improvisation as political ingenuity in the organizational underlife. The
investigation of how power influences practitioner’s ability to recognize and pursue
non-sanctioned opportunities to acquire resources and to act “undercover”
21
(Mainemelis, 2010) will be immensely helpful for probing improvisation’s link to
organizing (Kamoche et al., 2003; Yanow and Tsoukas 2009). The potential for hidden
improvisation also highlights the possibility of reverse pattern in which organizational
actors hide planning or routines under the guise of improvisation. March’s and his
colleagues’ studies of garbage can processes (1986), for example, describe this
relatively underexplored process.
Macro improvisation as strategic domination. Re-examination of undertheorized descriptions of improvisation processes in warfare or in social movements
offers a promising window for theory development. For example, how do guerilla
warfare units achieve transitions to enduring organizations that can operate as equals
in a world of enduring, formalized organizations? How do emotional and interpretive
activities play a role in improvisation in explicit battles over identity and strategic
missions?
Gaps in research on interactions between improvisational levels, forms and
other processes. Finally, while extant theory reveals rich interactions across levels and
of improvisation, important frontiers remain. Promising lines of work include but are
not limited to deepening understanding of improvisation’s links to distinct
institutionalization processes, organizational performance, and multi-level outcomes -including cultures or institutional fields, as sketched below.
First, more detailed observational data will improve understanding of how
actors recreate improvised content. Further work can usefully probe non-professional
settings or improvisation but non-engaged actors, in contrast to much work on
engaged professionals. When does a sequence of micro actions to accomplish work or
underlife improvisations become part of a foundational change process? How do
22
evaluation, power and interpretive processes influence each other and change over
time? More fundamentally, what if we start with the assumption that improvisational
activities come before all others, and then theorize about how they eventually
generate knots of regularity in action that we call routines or plans (Tsoukas, 2010)?
Second, exactly when and how does an initial improvisational episode or
sequence of actions affect later tendencies to improvise at all? What about capabilities
to improvise effectively versus ineffectively? Is this a matter of practising
(Antonacopoulou, 2008) and if so, how, precisely, does it unfold? How does this
process affect a transactive memory system (Vera & Crossan, 2005; Winter, 2003)?
How and when do organizations develop an “addiction” to improvisational processes?
Is it possible that current improvisational tendencies are actually remnants of
improvisational processes during organizational formation that are not yet touched by
bureaucracy or routines?
Improvisation and performance. Interactions between levels of improvisation
and other processes can impact outcomes at all levels. How do amplification
processes of improvisation create different trajectories for different types of strategic
performance – both short and long term? Does the long-term impact of an
improvisational process differ from the performance impact of a planned innovation or
a random deviation? What is theoretically new in such models compared to the
existing literature on unintended outcomes of local deviations in practice?
Multi level outcomes. Much multi-level work that explicitly flags improvisation
tackles interactions between the individual/team and the organizational level (see
Smets, above for an exception). This invites further exploration of interactions
affecting entire institutional fields and on the role of culture. Nollywood, the Nigerian
23
film industry, offers a case in point. Uzo and Mair’s (2014, p.65) qualitative study
describes actors in this industry as habile improvisers and attributes this to the sector’s
low level of professionalism and to the high the value of rapid adaptation. The authors
show how a sound technician without preparation can replace an unexpectedly absent
actor on the spot and how “stories and scripts were spontaneously and collectively
improvised as the movie production process unfolded.” The study suggests a
pervasive, cultural comfort with conceiving action as it unfolds.
Studies in contexts as geographically diverse as India (Capelli et al., 2010) and
Southern Europe (Aram & Walochik, 1997; Cunha, 2005) show that improvisational
skills can be enacted up to a point that they become institutionalized as normal
features of managerial practice. Here, too, it will be interesting to probe whether this
has developed over time, or whether initial improvisational tendencies simply have not
been over-ridden by planning and routinization norms.
Summary: Advancing process theory through research on improvisational processes
By exploring the frontiers outlined above, research can advance process theory
broadly and deepen understanding of the improvisation process itself. By definition,
the improvisation process involves dynamics and practice -- hallmarks of process
theory (Feldman & Orlikowksi, 2011; Langley et al., 2013) and process researchers
have already played a key role developing improvisation theory. Extant research
implies, however, that the improvisation construct is not a single “secret sauce” that
solves all issues of emergent organizational processes, making it vital to develop it
further and explore links to other processes.
24
Instead of seeing improvisation as an either-or process, empirical research
convincingly portrays varieties and degrees of improvisation that offer theoretical
promise. Studies underscore that while improvisation may mark most or all activity in
some ways, not all activity is equally improvisational -- and that this is likely to matter.
The degree of improvisation in a discrete action can vary in terms of novelty and in the
degree to which the design and execution of action converge in time (Crossan, 1998;
Cunha et al., 1999; Miner et al., 2001; Weick, 1998). The relative presence of
improvisation can vary over time within a stream of action. These nuances offer
windows to advance theory.
One crucial step will be to conduct even finer-grained research on subprocesses within improvisational incidents or flows of action. Weick (1998) and others
have insightfully probed this issue, but to some degree we still have theory based
heavily on expert improvisers or engaged professionals. This leaves unresolved how
improvisation by non-expert or disengaged actors unfolds. At higher levels of analysis,
many studies document intriguing interactions across levels and types of
improvisation, but we need more studies that trace the distinct roles of different
improvisational forms on both short and long term patterns.
Exploring improvisation’s frontiers can also contribute to theories of practice.
Feldman and Orlikowski (2011) flag three foundations for practice theory: empirical,
theoretical and ontological. This review has emphasized observational empirical
studies of improvisation in action. Improvisation by definition involves performance,
but its link to practice theory is still emerging in important ways.
Antonacopoulo (2008, 2009), for example, has emphasized the process of
practising, which relates to how specific practices can change when they are
25
performed (are in practise). Practising is thus also a practice itself: it entails deliberate,
habitual and spontaneous repetition – including rehearsing, reviewing, refining, and
changing different aspects of a practice and their relationships. Practising involves
imagination and pragmatism that help create space for different courses of future
action, key potential aspects of improvisation. Practising is also argued to play an
important role in a distinct process of learning in crisis (Antonacopoulou & Sheaffer,
2014). Teasing out improvisation’s links to these related processes represents an
important frontier.
Conclusion
Management theory long saw improvisation as a rare activity that usually leads to bad
outcomes. Other work has seen it as a ubiquitous activity that usually leads to good
things. The body of research described above paints a richer, more powerful picture. It
reveals improvisational processes as varied but also as understandable and impactful.
It shows that they interact with each other and other processes to sustain organizing at
all levels. Overall, it points to improvisational processes as vital to the ongoing
development of process-oriented research.
26
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