Improvisation Processes in Organizations

Miguel Pina e CunhaNova School of Business and EconomicsUniversidade Nova de LisboaPortugalmpc@novasbe.pt

Anne S. MinerUniversity of Wisconsin – MadisonUSAaminer@bus.wisc.edu

Elena AntonacopoulouGNOSISUniversity of Liverpool Management SchoolUKE.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 classic

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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 anti-

improvisation 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 real-

time 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-to-

face 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

efforts to hide actions “below” the formal organization. It can enable deviations from

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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 micro-

improvisational 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 re-

interpretation 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 day-

to-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 re-

creation 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 micro-

improvisation 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 re-

interpretation? 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 fast-

moving 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 under-

theorized 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 sub-

processes 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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