Organizational actors typically improvise with some goal in mind, if only for the experience it provides when improvising. Improvisation is something we do every day - when we talk to someone, when we play a game, when we drive a car. However, improvisation is neither the public organizational norm nor a widely honored management strategy, especially in structured processes. In a typical organizational context, something must happen for one to dare to improvise. This chapter first focuses on organizational improvisation triggers, and then reviews individual enablers. The chapter discusses situation-driven and agent-driven triggers. The former result from surprising situational changes and the latter from the intrinsic desires of improvisers. But triggers do not in and of themselves fully account for the presence of improvisation. Hence the importance of enablers, which are factors that affect whether improvisation occurs, or whether it has a positive impact.
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
