The Organization Science Jazz Festival: Improvisation as a Metaphor for Organizing—Overture (original) (raw)
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Organization Science, Vol. 9, No. 5, Special Issue: Jazz Improvisation and Organizing (Sep. - Oct., 1998)
Organization Science, 1998
After discussing the nature of improvisation and the unique challenges and dangers implicit in the learning task that jazz improvisers create for themselves, the author broadly outlines seven characteristics that allow jazz bands to improvise coherently and maximize social innovation in a coordinated fashion. He also draws on his own experience as a jazz pianist. Finally, implications for organizational design and managing for learning are suggested.
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abstract This paper calls for research on organizational improvisation to go beyond the currently dominant jazz metaphor in theory development. We recognize the important contribution that jazz improvisation has made and will no doubt continue to make in understanding the nature and complexity of organizational improvisation. This article therefore presents some key lessons from the jazz metaphor and then proceeds to identify the possible dangers of building scientific inquiry upon a single metaphor. We then present three alternative models – Indian music, music therapy and role theory. We explore their nature and seek to identify ways in which the insights they generate complement those from jazz. This leads us to a better understanding of the challenges of building a theory of organizational improvisation.
Organisational Improvisation as a Metaphor of Jazz Improvisations in Contemporary Art Organisations
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The article discusses the concept of organisational improvisation and reveals why it is important for contemporary organisations. Organisational improvisation is more and more acknowledged as a relevant field of management research; however, heads of most organisations still believe that detailed plans accompanied by various bureaucratic procedures are important, and that improvisation is a sign of failure, is risky and is to be avoided. The article discusses the three levels of improvisation (individual, interpersonal and organisational) pointing out its possibilities and advantages. Peculiarities of organisational improvisation are provided along with the results of a case study of public institution Jazz Academy. In this way, this article is the first study of organisational improvisation in Lithuania. The aim of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of organisational improvisation.
Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Organizational Paradox: Investigating Social Structures and Human Expression, Part B, 2021
Organizational scholars have long been interested in how jazz musicians manage tensions between structure and freedom, plans and action, and familiarity and novelty. Although improvisation has been conceptualized as a way of managing such paradoxes, the process of improvisation itself contains paradoxes. In this essay, we return to jazz improvisation to identify a new paradox of interest to organizational scholars: the paradox of intentionality. To improvise creatively, jazz musicians report that they must “try not to try,” or risk undermining the very spontaneity that is prized in jazz. Jazz improvisers must therefore control their ability to relinquish deliberate control of their actions. To accomplish this, they engage in three interdependent practices. Jazz musicians intentionally surrender their sense of active control (“letting go”) while creating a passive externalized role for this sense of active control (using a “third ear”). Letting go allows new and unexpected ideas to e...
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Fragmentation of power and responsibility due to a constantly growing networked landscape of governmental bodies is one of the characteristics that lead to a complex environment for civil servants. This paper explores jazz improvisation as a possible coping mechanism for this complexity and has synthesised five cohesive preconditions for civil servants. The correlation beyond the metaphor of jazz improvisation is in the highly trained abilities of both musicians and civil servants, who operate in dynamic environments, to demand constant and swift assessments on public responsibility, leadership, control and to the end, achieve a qualitative performance. The individual qualities, interrelationships, repetitive nature and strong leadership found in jazz improvisation are of added value, generating the flexibility to anticipate and react on current and changing conditions that these complex governance networks demand. It also showed the possible interpretation of options to express creativity through the medium of established works and rules in compositions and arrangements. The lessons drawn from jazz improvisation create opportunities and challenges for further research on the possibilities and effectiveness of renewed skills for civil servants.
Studies on Entrepreneurship, Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics, 2019
This paper illustrates the core principle of COINs (collaborative innovation network) of rotating leadership by the example of Jazz musicians, who take turns grooving together. These musicians are exemplars of team members seamlessly transferring the leadership role from one to the other, leading to a “flow” experience of superb quality for their audience. As we show, so-called honest signals from Jazz can play a key role for organizational development to create an “organizational groove.”