Improvisation as Responsible Innovation in Organizations

Improvisation might be seen as a method of responsible innovation in organizations, due to its potential to be more responsive and enable bottom-up initiative. Considering that improvising involves the ability to pivot we argue that enhancing entrepreneurial orientation of existing firms means that their entrepreneurial behaviors can be also displayed in more responsible manner. The paper aims at investigating the influence of improvisation on entrepreneurial orientation (EO). The paper of Milena Gojny-Zbierowska and Przemysław Zbierowski.

While intuitively improvisation is closely connected to EO, surprisingly, there is very little theoretical and empirical evidence on that relation. The paper closes that gap by empirically investigating the role that improvisation plays in enhancing EO. Building on empirical evidence on the role of improvising in individual entrepreneurship, we use Hmieleski and Corbett’s framework of improvisation as a three-dimensional construct (creativity and bricolage, ability to function and excel under pressure and in stress-filled environments, and spontaneity and persistence) and entrepreneurial orientation as a three-dimensional construct (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking) to investigate the impact of improvisation on individual components of EO. Using the data from 567 senior managers from medium and large organizations we find that improvisation has moderate effect on entrepreneurial orientation. Importantly, different dimensions of improvisation shape components of EO in different way: Creativity and bricolage have positive impact on innovativeness and proactiveness and ability to function and excel under stress has impact on propensity to take risk. The study has implications for the theory of responsible innovation by highlighting the potential of improvising to generate more responsive and stakeholder-involving and, in consequence, more responsible innovation.

Read the article here.