Organizational Improvisation

The relatively new field of organizational improvisation is concerned with the pressures on organizations to react continually to today's ever-changing environment. Organizational improvisation has important implications for such subjects as product innovation, teamworking and organizational renewal, and this new book brings together some of the best and most thought-provoking papers published in recent years. This area is now emerging as one of the most important in organizational science, and this book provides a comprehensive collection suitable for students, researchers and practitioners alike. List of Illustrations, List of Tables, List of Contributors, Acknowledgments, 1 Introduction and overview, 2 Jazz as a process of organizational innovation, 3 Making sense of improvisation, 4 Improvisation as a mindset for organizational analysis, 5 Exploring the empty spaces of organizing: How improvisational jazz helps redescribe organizational structure, 6 Organizational improvisation: What, when, how and why, 7 Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organizations: Implications for organizational learning, 8 The aesthetic of imperfection in orchestras and organizations, 9 Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective, 10 The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-paced evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations, 11 The convergence of planning and execution: Improvisation in new product,development, 12 Once again: what, when, how and why: A prospectus for research in organizational improvisation, Index