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p.141 Recent work in organizational theory and management points to a growing interest in improvisation as an alternative to overt strategic planning... the environmental conditions for improvisation - uncertainty, complexity (interdependent environments) and dynamism (short-lived opportunities and big threats) - are becoming the norm (Stacy, 1996). Faced with these conditions, the traditional patterns of planning and implementation will be less effective... Improvisation... is an inevitable part of the process of creation and re-creation of relationships and networks in the business markets. It is sometimes the only option in situations of environmental turbulence... management may make a conscious decision to improvise as a means of creating more flexibility of behaviour and more spontaneous decision making.
p.142 Central to the process of improvisation is learning, as improvisation requires continuous evaluation of activity and outcome and modification as needed. Learning is a process that involves the discovery, retention and exploitation of stored knowledge. In improvisation learning is likely to be continuous and circular, occurring as improvisation occurs and being immediately used as part of the process. Learning can be seen as the development of new knowledge that has the potential to influence behavior (Simon, 1969; Fyol and Lyles, 1985). Also, learning can be a result of improvisation, where there is discovery and retention of knowledge (Moorman and Miner, 1998b) and lessons drawn from an improvisation episode become a part of organizational memory (Weick, 1987)... Adaptive learning will occur when improvisation reflects the managerial assumptions about the nature of the business and is focused on issues and opportunities that are within the traditional scope of the organization’s activities (Slater and Narver, 1995).
p.142 Improvisation is a circular process of learning occurring through moving and processing information, acting on that learning and as a result learning more.
p.143 Environmental factors play a role in determining at what point there is no further utility in generating knowledge. In more complex environments this point may occur later than in less complex environments.
p.144 While there are many potential sources of information in a complex environment, if the environment is changing rapidly the value of these sources is uncertain and the interpretation of information received is equivocal (Fazlollahi and Tanniru, 1991; Weick, 1979).
p.144 While the initial course of action is likely to be wrong in some respects, the key idea about improvisation is that "the plan" is corrected as the actors implement it. We therefore propose that: ...
Proposition 4b: When the environment is dynamic,
more speedy improvisation is most likely to lead to
effective outcomes.
Proposition 4c: When the environment is equivocal,
internally coherent improvisation is most likely to lead to
effective outcomes.
...It is our contention that different types of improvisation (varying in novelty, speed and internal coherence) will emerge depending on the way the characteristics of the environment, the learning capabilities of the organization and the outcomes of previous improvisation episodes are combined.
p.146 while internally consistent improvisation is argued to be appropriate in responding to complex environments, it has also been argued that this does not generate knowledge of the type that will be useful in coping in the future with problem environments. [JLJ - hence the need for scenario development]
p.146 If improvisation does not require reinventing the wheel for learning... then it may be possible for "capable" improvisation to emerge.
p.146 It is our belief that improvisation holds hither-to-fore unexplored possibilities for managers trying to cope with uncertain, rapidly changing and/or complex environments. In such circumstances detailed planning may be:
- a waste of time and resources, as the resulting plan cannot be implemented in the changed circumstances
- dangerous in that plans geared for one environment may be unwittingly implemented in quite another or
- perilous, where detailed planning within a complex environment can increase the complexity making the future problems to be faced ever greater
...Improvisation on the other hand offers the possibility of action that responds to the immediate past and present. These are, according to research in complexity in a variety of settings, the most reliable indicators to act upon in complex environments.
p.147 Actors within an organization enter in a multitude of relationships with actors from other parts of the organization and with actors from other organizations (Johnston and Bonoma, 1981). A network perspective will enable consideration of improvisation in collections of both strong and weak ties between individual actors and organizations (Granovetter, 1973, Iaccobucci and Hopkins, 1992).
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