How improvisation manifests as a deliberate dialogical practice in organizations — shifting focus from reactive crisis response to intentional, cultivated organizational capacity.
The dominant stream of organizational improvisation (OI) research conceptualizes improvisation as response to unexpected disruption — what organizations do when plans fail or crises strike. Hadida et al.'s (2015) widely-cited definition exemplifies this view: "the conception of unhindered action as it unfolds, often in response to an unexpected interruption or change of activity."
My research challenges this reactive framing. I examine improvisation not as a last resort when rational planning fails, but as a deliberate, intentional organizational practice that can be consciously chosen and developed. This shifts improvisation from exceptional circumstance to potential everyday competence.
Organizational improvisation is the emergent co-creation of meaning and action through dialogical interaction, where organizational members deliberately engage in open-ended, responsive communication without predetermined outcomes, attending simultaneously to individual expression and collective coherence.
My doctoral work identifies three distinct perspectives within OI scholarship, each with different assumptions about when, why, and where improvisation occurs:
My definition makes several key moves. It emphasizes intentionality — focusing on improvisation as deliberate practice rather than forced response. It locates improvisation in dialogue — positioning conversation itself as the primary medium where improvisation emerges. It emphasizes collective emergence — arising between people through interactive turn-taking and mutual responsiveness. And it acknowledges productive tension — each participant contributing uniquely while attending to the emerging whole.
This echoes jazz musicians' experience of playing both "with" and "against" each other (Berliner, 1994). The jazz ensemble provides the apt model: musical meaning emerges from musicians' real-time listening and responding, not from any single player's intentions.
A distinctive contribution of my research is the analysis of improvisation through different registers of organizational time. Kronos designates the linear, quantitative time of planning, budgets, and deadlines — the time that organizes organizational life into sequenced intervals. Kairos designates the qualitative, right moment of action — the attunement to situational possibility that allows actors to respond from within the unfolding encounter rather than from within a predetermined plan.
Organizational improvisation requires the capacity to hold both simultaneously — what my analysis designates as integrated temporality. The question is not whether organizations should submit to Kronos, but whether they can develop the capacity to hold it alongside Kairos when the situation demands.