ABSTRACT
Organizational improvisation (OI) is broadly understood as the capacity to engage in unplanned and purposeful action in response to changing circumstances in the context of organizations. Phenomenology can be broadly defined as the examination of everyday lived experiences. This chapter has two purposes: (1) identify perspectives of improvisation in organizations and (2) offer a phenomenological critique that assists in outlining a phenomenological research agenda for future research. By reviewing 77 scholarly studies, the main conceptual assumptions that drive the studies’ theorization of OI are identified. Specifically, the three identified perspectives are the: metaphor, cognitivist, and sociomaterial perspectives. Grasping the underlying theoretical drive of each perspective helps to achieve the second purpose: to subject each perspective to a phenomenological critique that can highlight the strengths and limitations of extant research in terms of understanding the lived experience of OI. Through the latter, the chapter concludes with an outline of an agenda for future research on the lived experience of improvising in organizations.
