Improvisation – An emergence theory perspective

Abstract

The paper addresses the occurrence of improvisation and intuition within dynamic business environments from an emergence theory perspective. As argued, the dynamics of the so-called red queen principle forces competition towards the verge of the manageable, making improvised and intuitive action and decision-making not a shortcoming but a necessity in a successful business context. Particularly, the paper discusses how we may interpret the highly rationalistic acts and outcomes of planning and plans in such chaotic and uncertain contexts. We draw upon a longitudinal study of large industrial project deliveries incorporating more than 25 such deliveries.

Keywords:

• projects
• management
• improvisation
• emergence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The title of Dawkins’ book, ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, relates to the old idea of ‘God's will in nature’: If you find a watch lying on a path in the woods, you do not conclude that it has in some odd way materialised by chance, it is far too complicated an object for that. Instead you conclude that a watchmaker has consciously made the watch, that there was an intention behind it and that chance is at most only involved in the fact that someone happened to drop it. As you know, in modern contexts, the argument is normally that the probability of life having occurred by chance is as great or less than the probability of a Boeing 747 spontaneously materialising after a tornado has been through a junkyard. Dawkins wants to show that the watchmaker, when it comes to the origin of life, is actually blind.

2. In fact, he does not express himself exactly in these terms, but this is the usual conventional meaning ascribed to him.

3. And, you might conjecture, the demise of Marxism may now have started this Marxist process again.

4. On method – our illustration comes from an extensive ethnographic study of project deliveries in cooperation with a major international producer of turn-key power plants. The research group collected the empirical material in the period 1999–2003, and in total the empirical database contained documentation of more than 25 project deliveries. The projects were studied by placing a researcher on-site for the duration of the project, making day-to-day observations of the project teams and supplementing their ethnographic diaries with both semi-structured interviews with key informants, limited surveys in some cases, and material such as plans, work orders and internal reports. Complementary interviews and participant observations were conducted by one of the authors to verify the data retrieved by the assigned research assistants and to pursue particular questions such as the role of project planning, re-scheduling and exceptional management.

The situations discussed here were culled directly from this larger database, particularly drawing upon events in the so-called Ibel project in order to exemplify certain events. Although the events of Ibel were specific, similar conditions and similar but contextual events could be observed from the other projects a well. One of the authors has, as noted, participated personally in these specific projects including Ibel. The Ibel project contains approximately of 500 pages of project diaries by our research assistant doubling as the site manager's project assistant, more than 100 formal project documents.

The data were initially processed and analysed by one of the authors (by reading weekly research reports/diaries) in close time proximity in relation to their collection, making it possible to pursue follow-up inquiries performed by the research assistant on-site. Thereafter, data were coded according a rough thematic structure such as ‘Planning’, ‘Concrete works' ‘Management' and ‘Subcontractors’. These themes were similar for all investigated projects. From here the material was coded and organised according to particular research questions such as ‘Improvisation’ and ‘Re-scheduling’ by the individual researcher. As support to the coding and handling of such substantial material the research group used qualitative data managing software such as QSRNudist and later NVivo.

5. Here, there are similarities with the processing industries and in particular cellulose plants where the recovery boiler must always be in operation to avoid a major breakdown, or paper machines where every disturbance in the continuous operation of the machines is expensive. It is only during very well-planned and special circumstances that you can shut down production for maintenance and service. This also applies to furnaces.

6. This phenomenon is not uncommon in, for instance, the manufacturing industry. Despite expensive and advanced production planning systems for optimal production these are abandoned surprisingly often by production planners and replaced with a theoretically suboptimal system – the Whiteboard and coloured pen system. However, the latter often seems to work better in practice. (It should be noted, however, that there has been some technical progress even in this area, since in the past you had to make do with blackboard and chalk.)

7. The nature of uncertainties is more diverse and of greater magnitude than if the plant would be built in Finland or in Germany for instance. Had that been the case the uncertainties most certainly would have been more ‘ordered’ than here.

8. Wayne Shorter is considered one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, having significantly developed the jazz scene and its expressions over the last 60 years. See further Ratliff (2008).

9. Newton's three laws of motion comprised a collective theory, which seemed to explain all known observations. The laws could also predict the results of experiments and observations that had not been made to such an extent that it seemed as if the final and definitive control mechanism in the universe had been found. Greek philosophy had finally been given its most powerful tool to implement its programme, reductio in absurdum. It seemed as if all the problems of physics would be solved for a long time ahead by applying Newton's laws, from the course of planets to molecules, in fact in other disciplines too, like business and it would only be a matter of time before the book of physics could be closed for ever. However, this was not the case in all areas. The theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and above all thermodynamics could not be incorporated into classical dynamics. In ballistics, which since the days of stone-throwing and later firearms had developed calculation models based on practice incorporated the scientific progress made through Newton to increasingly more accurate and deadlier tables.

10. In Finnish military history from the Second World War the Commander of the Artillery, General Nenonen, holds a special place because of his mathematical talents, which enabled him to develop this rational art of preparation within the Artillery. In particular in the Coastal Artillery, with its fixed positions, practically every conceivable target within reach of the Artillery was calculated in advance.

11. The authors do not regard this insight as being particularly deep, since every word must have a perceived contradiction or negation, in order to have meaning.

12. Since the authors lack any deeper knowledge of the theory of music, we refrain from developing this theme [sic] further and are just happy to refer all other musical amateurs to Hofstadter's (1979) interesting and inspiring description of how you compose – or construct – a fugue.

13. The fact that the plan can be regarded as an instrument of power is in our view neither a good nor a bad thing; it is simply a technically pragmatic statement. At the same time, it is worth noting that within an organisation it is possible to highlight this to a greater or lesser extent. A feature of the inefficiency of socialistic totalitarian states, with their subsequent economic downfall, was obviously that this power aspect, so central to political dictatorships, was emphasised to the detriment of pragmatic choices. Power demands obedience and obedience entails being forced to follow set plans. This in turn reduces, as pure truism, the freedom to improvise and be innovative.