Forms, Metaphors, and Themes: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Organizational Improvisation

Abstract

O the past decade organizational improvisation has attracted increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. Improvisation in organizations has been shown to impact learning within an organization (Crossan & Sorrenti, 1997; Barrett, 1998; King & Ranft, 2001; Miner, Bassoff & Moorman, 2001; Vendelo, 2009), innovation and new product development teams (Moorman & Miner, 1998a; Kamoche & Cunha, 2001; Akgun et al., 2007; Kyriakopoulos, 2011), crosscultural dynamics (Cunha & Cunha, 2001), organizational change (Weick, 1993a; Orlikowski, 1996; Cunha & Cunha, 2003), organizational memory (Moorman & Miner, 1998b), and project management (Leybourne & Sadler-Smith, 2006; Leybourne, 2009). More recently, improvisation has been offered as a potential part of the solution to the breakdown of the strategic planning model (Cunha, Clegg & Kamoche, 2012), suggesting a potential acceptance into the wider landscape of mainstream management theory. According to an early review of the field (Cunha, Cunha & Kamoche, 1999), several constructs can be associated with improvisation, but three stand out as being most commonly addressed in the literature, namely: creativity, adaptation and innovation. Creativity, because it shares with improvisation a focus on novelty, but differs as it can result from a plan and can be delayed until it can be performed with optimal resources. Adaptation and improvisation share a focus on changing courses of action, but, like creativity, adaptation can be conceived before its implementation. Finally, innovation and improvisation share a focus on relative novelty but, like both creativity and adaptation, innovation can be planned and only initiated when all the necessary resources are available. Hence, with this in mind it is appropriate that a special issue on organizational improvisation is published in Creativity and Innovation Management.