The Difficulties of Improvising in a Crisis Situation - A Case Study

Abstract

Whereas certain crisis situations seem to favor the emergence of improvised modes of action, other situations highlight the actors' inability to improvise. So far, the literature remains unclear about what is at the origin of one or the other form of behavior. Furthermore, the studies that have dealt with the issue of improvisation in crisis situations are based on the analysis of the behavior of small groups of individuals who most often work in teams and share common referentials. But what happens when several groups of actors are involved, or when these groups have divergent methods and referentials, or different professional identities? Are the conditions for improvising, such as they occur within a small group, present in the same way when larger groups are involved? To deal with these questions, a case study of a crisis where four groups of actors were involved is presented. Even though the situation under study presents a combination of conditions that were likely to both favor and hinder improvisation, the observations of the case suggest a lack of improvisation in the management of the crisis. The analysis leads us to suggest that: (1) The emergence of improvisation depends on critical thresholds beyond which certain conditions favoring improvisation become conditions hindering improvisation; (2) the involvement of several groups with strong professional identities leads the actors to rely on their identities and to repeat the roles they have learned; and (3) the combination of an absence of interaction among the groups, and of maintenance of strong intra-group modes of interactions, hinders the process of collective sensemaking that is necessary to improvise.