ABSTRACT
Improvisation understood through a social practice theory perspective opens up the scope to better appreciate the dynamics that underpin not only its core characteristics – extemporaneity, intentionality, and novelty – but the ways such dynamics propel actions that transform tensions into extensions thus revealing the importance of practising. This chapter presents empirical findings of the dynamics of strategizing practice and extends the strategy as practice and process debate by bringing attention to the role of practising. Practising adds to our appreciation of novelty the importance of “leaps of faith”. Beyond the design and execution or degree of change lie the ongoing refinements in course of acting. Practising arrests the ongoing reconfiguration of strategy practice and process by explicating how the dynamics that underpin intentions reveal the various aspects of practice that coales. These aspects captured through the 12Ps framework, reveal that beyond enacting improvisation there is also the ongoing practising that forms the space between design and execution and the referents it invites. This analysis contributes to the distinctions drawn previously between practising and improvising and amplifies the importance of leaps of faith in the ongoing movements that shape organizing practising like strategizing beyond agility, bricolage, spontaneity, creativity, innovation, or emergence which provide the scope for extensions in the possibilities explored. A focus on practising allows us to reveal that improvisational referents are not only previous designs referred to but a commitment to ongoing learning to connect and reconnect different aspects that make strategy practice viable at different moments in time.
