Many organizations operate in an environment that is increasingly dynamic, turbulent, and unpredictable. This volume makes the case that they need to embrace improvisation as a core organizational capability, not to replace but to complement planning and forecasting. Research on organizational improvisation has evolved from a jazz and theater metaphor to a distinct body of empirical and conceptual work that tackles how improvisation unfolds in the full range of organizational contexts. These contexts often have very different goals, constraints and possibilities than improvisation in the arts. This makes it crucial to develop understanding of improvisation at all levels and in all types of organizations including but not limited to day-to-day operations of large firms and government agencies, strategic change, emergency management, product development, and start-ups. This book pulls together in one place major advances in understanding organizational improvisation. It describes major theoretical- and evidence-based advances in models of organizational improvisation, which the authors define as the deliberate and substantive convergence of the design and execution of a novel activity, that can be created at the individual, team, or organizational level. The authors provide, integrate and consolidate the existing literature on organizational improvisation and offer a comprehensive analysis of key processes. They go beyond a mechanical literature review to include illustrative mini-cases, novel concepts in contemporary work and short personal comments from researchers in the field. Grounded in rigorous academic work to date, this book speaks both to scholars interested in developing research on organizational improvisation and to managers. It discusses both promising paths for academic research and practical recommendations, especially those who deal with unpredictable environments that force them to either improvise or to face harmful or even fatal outcomes for organizational members and/or the entire organization.

This insightful Elgar Introduction comprises the first effort to provide a succinct overview of the field of organizational paradox theory, exploring contradictions and tensions in organizational settings. By conceptually mapping the field, it offers guidance through the literature on paradox, making space for new interpretations and applications of the concept. Opening with a critical analysis of research to date, the authors explore ideas related to dialectics and ambidexterity in organizations, as well as pragmatic approaches to organizational paradox. Chapters propose new ways to analyse responses to paradox, bringing together influential contributions that consider the nestedness of paradox, the relation between power and paradox, and paradoxes of positive organizational scholarships. Providing novel approaches to the discipline, this cutting-edge book is crucial for graduate students and management scholars interested in employing organizational paradox theory as a conceptual framework for their research.