Tales of the unexpected: Discussing improvisational learning

Abstract

Improvisation has been treated largely as if it were a conceptual monolith: all improvisations are similar. We challenge this theorizing by distinguishing forms of improvisation in organizations (semi-structured, episodic, subversive, resistive) and by exploring ways in which these forms interrelate in improvisational sequences. Improvisation is not just something individuals do; it is a learned capacity that organizations can manage. We introduce the dimension of improvisational formality and informality, adding a political dimension to the study of the topic. By combining forms in process sequences, we organize the existing literature under a systematic perspective facilitating theory development via an integrative understanding of how improvisation produces learning.

The dialectics of serendipity

“…Appreciation of the unanticipated can result in the ability "to turn the unexpected into the profitable" (Sarasvathy, 2001, 6; see also Cunha, Neves, Clegg & Rego, 2014). After defining serendipity we will debate these different theoretical perspectives.…”

Organizational improvisation and the reduced usefulness of performance measurement BI functionalities

“…Other types of BI -such as data mining, predictive analytics and text analytic engines (Chaudhuri et al, 2011) -are outside the scope of this research. This research is grounded in organizational improvisation theory (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011;Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997;Crossnan et al, 2005;Cunha et al, 2015;Kanoche and Cunha, 2001).…”

“…Organizational improvisation is a polymorphous concept of which we focus on semi-structured forms, as they have the clearest links to performance measurement capabilities (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997;Cunha et al, 2015). We conceptualize strategic momentum (Miller and Friesen, 1980) and organizational flexibility (Volberda, 1996) as the creativity and spontaneity variants of semistructured organizational improvisation respectively (Crossnan et al, 2005;Cunha et al, 2015).…”

“…Organizational improvisation is a polymorphous concept of which we focus on semi-structured forms, as they have the clearest links to performance measurement capabilities (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997;Cunha et al, 2015). We conceptualize strategic momentum (Miller and Friesen, 1980) and organizational flexibility (Volberda, 1996) as the creativity and spontaneity variants of semistructured organizational improvisation respectively (Crossnan et al, 2005;Cunha et al, 2015). We derive and apply the concept of semi-structuring heuristics: managerial hierarchies learn competences for semi-structured improvisation (Cunha et al, 2015), including heuristics (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011) used when processing performance measurement information.…”

“…We conceptualize strategic momentum (Miller and Friesen, 1980) and organizational flexibility (Volberda, 1996) as the creativity and spontaneity variants of semistructured organizational improvisation respectively (Crossnan et al, 2005;Cunha et al, 2015). We derive and apply the concept of semi-structuring heuristics: managerial hierarchies learn competences for semi-structured improvisation (Cunha et al, 2015), including heuristics (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011) used when processing performance measurement information. When applying semi-structuring heuristics managers process only minimal forms of performance measurement information.…”