Planning to improvise? The role of reasoning in the strategy process: Evidence from Malaysia

How R&D Staff's Improvisation Capability Is Formed: A Perspective of Micro-Foundations

The study examines how R&D staff improvisation capability is formed based on theory of micro-foundations, that is, how R&D individuals, experience and external knowledge gathering, and minimal structure interact and work on their improvisation capability together. The results show that: (1) R&D staff’s experience and external knowledge gathering have linear influences on their improvisation capability, respectively; (2) minimal structure has a curvilinear impact on improvisation capability; (3) minimal structure has a curvilinear moderating effect on the relationship between experience, external knowledge gathering and improvisation capability, respectively. The study suggests that managers keep minimal structure at the moderate level to promote their R&D people’s improvisation capability.

A diagnostic tool to determine a strategic improvisation Readiness Index Score (IRIS) to survive, adapt, and thrive in a crisis

Crises for business-to-business (B2B) firms are characterized by unexpected or unanticipated severe threats that are highly uncertain where strategic response times are low in which executives are victim of overwhelming time pressures to action fast strategic responses to these events—as the threats bring to question the viability and survivability of the firm. Consequently, crises provoke a profound impact on executives' sensemaking, as they attempt strategically navigate these events. We bridge thinking around crisis management with theories of strategic decision-making and conclude that strategic improvisation is a vital mechanism that enables effective management interventions to be executed as a means of surviving, adapting, or potentially thriving under challenging circumstances. We derive a theoretically grounded framework of five strategic imperatives underlying our 10C Strategic Imperative Framework for improvisation readiness. First, we develop the Improvisation Readiness Index Score (IRIS) as a means for executives to diagnose their organization's improvisation readiness according to the requisite strategic imperatives. Second, we present a three-step guide for executives to consider for managing through crisis with improvisation and the strategic imperatives at its heart. Third, we illustrate the strategy improvisation challenges. This allows executives to close the strategic improvisation gaps between their ‘actual’ and ‘preferred’ readiness.

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Bridges thinking around crisis management with theories of strategic decision-making.

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Concludes that strategic improvisation enables effective management interventions under challenging circumstances.

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Derives a theoretically grounded framework of five strategic imperatives that underlie improvisation readiness.

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Develops the Improvisation Readiness Index Score (IRIS) as a means to diagnose improvisation readiness according to the requisite strategic imperatives.

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Presents a three-step guide for executives to consider for managing through crises with improvisation and the strategic imperatives at its heart.

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Using a set of case vignettes, this article illustrates the strategy improvisation challenges.

Entrepreneurial orientation and new venture resource acquisition: why context matters

Resource acquisition is vital for new venture survival and growth. However, surprisingly little is known about how the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of the new venture affects its resource acquisition. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we articulate a theory and treatment of EO that address this oversight and remedy for the routine absence of context among studies of EO. Accounting for the simultaneous effect of environmental dynamism and an opportunistic orientation (OO), a tendency among Chinese new ventures to imitate technology and profit through market information asymmetry, as important contextual variables reflecting the Chinese business context, we provide insights on the contingency effects of contextual variables. Results from a quantitative study of 361 Chinese new ventures show that EO positively influences resource acquisition. However, this relationship is context sensitive. In a low dynamic environment, OO negatively moderates this relationship. However, in a highly dynamic environment, OO exhibits no effect on the relationship between EO and new venture resource acquisition. Our results contribute to a resource-based theory of EO and reveal its context sensitivity. Our study is a step in moving the scholarship of EO forward and away from the performance debate towards greater predictive accuracy of EO and its systems of effects.