Complex Adaptive Systems and Improvisation Theory: Toward Framing a Model to enable Continuous Change

Abstract

Classic management and systems theory seek to maintain homeostasis and thus are inadequate in describing the dynamics in managing continual change. Accordingly, some theorists posit complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory and others, the improvisation metaphor, as new ways to re-conceive the design processes and the theory we use to understand contemporary organizations and the open-processional change processes within them. Yet, we lack robust empirical data in support of this theory. This research study investigates a regional theatre company: an organization that has learned how to manage continuous change because continuous change is part of its goal and necessary to its survival. The research findings make four contributions. First, in combining the CAS with the improvisation metaphor, it delineates a theoretic framework that more accurately describes the dynamics of open-processional change in a non-equilibrium system. Second, it sets forth the ontology and underlying logics that differentiate this CAS-improvisation theoretic framework from classic management and systems theory. Third, it grounds this theoretic framework in empirical data and shows how the company members adopt its underlying logics in embracing turbulence as creative force. Fourth, it presents the company's organizational design and its members' practices as a living heuristic to illuminate how an open-processional change model works.