The Routledge Companion to Improvisation in Organizations

2 Eight paradoxical tensions of organizational improvisation¹

Miguel Pina e Cunha, Medhanie Gaim, and Stewart Clegg

DOI: 10.4324/9781003171768-4

Introduction

Managers in turbulent environments need to make good decisions and to do so quickly (Pavlou & El Sawy, 2011). Good decisions and quick decisions are often inimical. Turbulent environments change relentlessly and unpredictably, confronting managers and other organizational members with surprising turns to which they need to respond (Cunha et al., 2006). Often, there is insufficient time to accumulate sufficient data for a well-considered decision or things may be changing so rapidly that the available data provides a poor basis for decision. Faced with these circumstances, managers must ...