The Art of Continuous Change: Linking Complexity Theory and Time-Paced Evolution in Relentlessly Shifting Organizations

The research was very generously supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and was conducted while the first author was the Finmeccanica Faculty Scholar. We appreciate the many contributions made by members of the Stanford-McKinsey-Augsburg research team. We also benefitted immensely from the very helpful advice of Shona Brown, Lee Fleming, Charlie Galunic, Andy Hargadon, Jim Jucker, Bob Keeley, Neil Kane, Laura Kopczak, Garry Marchant, Anne Miner, Christine Oliver, Bob Sutton, Marcie Tyre, Mark Zbaracki, Harvard and Stanford seminar participants, and our three anonymous reviewers. This paper contrasts two theoretical models for firms' achieving fast adaptation through product innovation. The compression model assumes a well-known, rational process and relies on squeezing together or compressing the sequential steps of such a process. The experiential model assumes an uncertain process and relies on improvisation, real-time experience, and flexibility. The two models are tested using data from 72 product development projects drawn from European, Asian, and U.S. computer firms. The results indicate that using an experiential strategy of multiple design iterations, extensive testing, frequent project milestones, a powerful project leader, and a multifunctional team accelerates product development. In contrast, the compression strategy of supplier involvement, use of computer-aided design, and overlapping development steps describes fast pace only for mature industry segments. The results also show that planning and rewarding for schedule attainment are ineffective ways of accelerating pace. We conclude with linkages to punctuated equilibrium and selection models of adaptation, fast organizational processes, organic versus improvisational structures, and complexity theory.'

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/2393701

Accelerating Adaptive Processes: Product Innovation in the Global Computer Industry

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/r/u/rug14/1.%202003%20Bricolage.pdf

Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship

We define organizational improvisation as the degree to which the composition and execution of an action converge in time, and we examine the theoretical potential of this definition. We then propose that both organizational procedural memory (skill knowledge) and declarative memory (fact knowledge) moderate improvisation's impact on organizational outcomes in distinct ways. We also suggest that improvisation influences organizational memory by (1) generating experiments and (2) permitting the development of higher-level competency in improvisation. Contemporary technological changes related to the nature of organizational memory intensify the salience of these issues.

/pdf/organizational-improvisation-and-organizational-memory-2kfe2xm9e9.pdf

Organizational Improvisation and Organizational Memory

An inductive study of improvisation in new product development activities in two firms uncovered a variety of improvisational forms and the factors that shaped them. Embedded in the observations we...

/pdf/organizational-improvisation-and-learning-a-field-study-1hg7i8vuji.pdf

Organizational Improvisation and Learning: A Field Study:

Jazz is an art from that is inventive and social. It enables individual musicians to create new musical ideas in a collective context and, thereby, to achieve an inventive and integrated performance. Here we present a case study of the process through which four jazz musicians were able to coordinate an inventive performance without the benefit of a rehearsal or the use of sheet music. A videotape of the performance and participant observations provided the data for our analysis. We identify two levels of information—musical and social structures—that constrain invention and enable integration. We then adapt Poole's Multiple Sequence Model (1983) as a device for tracking cognitive and behavioral components of the jazz process in, and across, time. Our analysis highlights the crucial roles of shared information, communication, and attention in this process and identifies a basic strategy that enabled the musicians to invent and coordinate increasingly complex musical ideas. We conclude with implications of...

Jazz as a Process of Organizational Innovation

Ecological integrated model of children of war: Individual and social psychology

Weick (1983) suggests that understanding prototypical cases of organizational communication increases our understanding beyond the event itself. In Weick (1990) he further argues that the jazz orchestra is one such case. Following Weick's call, this is a study of a jazz concert performed by a zero‐history group of seasoned professionals. The performance was videotaped, and one of the musicians acted as a participant‐informant, explaining instant‐by‐instant interpretive processes through the course of the concert. The two forms of data, videotape and participant‐informant, are analyzed in light of Couch's (1986) theory of elementary forms and Miller, Hintz, and Couch's (1975) theory of the elements of sociation.

Cooperation as communicative accomplishment: A symbolic interaction analysis of an improvised Jazz Concert

In this paper we report on a longitudinal case study of an administrative unit of a large nonfederal government following the election of a new Chief Elective Official. In this case, the changing climate becomes a dominant characteristic of the emerging situation. Poole and McPhee's (1983) extension of Giddens' Structuration Theory is employed as an analytic framework, tracing through the evolution and transformation of climate themes in the case. We find new categories of, and conditions affecting, climate—theme emergence, spread, and sedimentation. More particularly, the case demonstrates the complexity of organizational climate, with several processes interacting simultaneously to generate a constantly changing climate in the course of reproducing the organization's culture and beliefs. Importantly, the case shows how these complex climate processes are related to demoralization and counterintentional results in organizational change.

A study and extended theory of the structuration of climate

Social identity is thought to be the means through which individuals understand themselves in their social context. Understanding the processes of identity formation in the context of intergroup conflict is particularly important, since social identity is critical to understanding how people act. Social identity, though, has been a difficult process to study since it is a purely internal construct. In this study, we argue that free-form drawings provide the greatest insight into how people see themselves in their social context. Data were gathered from Arab subjects in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Among the important findings is that subjects exposed to the greatest conflict tend to organize their identities in ways that include their enemy as well as themselves. This necessarily creates a situation where the conflict becomes self-perpetuating.

David T. Bastien

Papers

Jazz as a Process of Organizational Innovation

Ecological integrated model of children of war: Individual and social psychology

Cooperation as communicative accomplishment: A symbolic interaction analysis of an improvised Jazz Concert

A study and extended theory of the structuration of climate

Identity Formation in the Shadow of Conflict: Projective Drawings by Palestinian and Israeli Arab Children from the West Bank and Gaza: