Organizational Improvisation in New Product Development and Introduction

几十年来，管理理论家一直强调计划行动的价值。 相比之下，组织行动的涌现理论强调组织中无计划行动的存在，甚至是潜在的好处。 本研究将组织即兴定义为无计划但有意识的组织行为，并探讨其在新产品开发和推出活动中的存在及其对组织绩效的影响。本研究立足于组织学习的框架，力求超越敦促管理灵活性的流行告诫。相反，它试图提供系统的洞察力的弱点和潜力的即兴作为一种工具，以加快新产品的行动，增加这些行动的短期财务效益，并允许长期的组织学习。 本研究发展了关于各种前因因素对组织即兴程度的作用以及一些调节因素对组织即兴是否转化为上述绩效结果的作用的理论。 分析将涉及仔细收集20个新产品开发行动阶段的观察、自我报告和访谈数据（例如，在四家公司的产品开发项目中，为新产品创意提供资金的行动或建造和设计商业上相关的原型的行动）。 本研究还提供了一个具体的学习子过程的实证分析。 这种类型的工作是根本的，以产生一个坚实的经验文献组织学习。

For many decades, management theorists have stressed the value of planned action. In contrast, emergent theories of organizational action have stressed the presence and even potential benefit of unplanned action in organizations. This research defines organizational improvisation as unplanned but deliberate organizational action, and explores its presence and impact on organizational performance during new product development and introduction activities. Grounded in a framework of organizational learning, the study seeks to go beyond popular admonitions urging managerial flexibility. Instead, it seeks to provide systematic insight into the weaknesses and potential of improvisation as a tool for escalating the speed of new product actions, increasing the short-term financial effectiveness of these actions, and permitting long-term organizational learning. The research develops theory regarding the role of various antecedent factors on the degree of organizational improvisation and the role of a number of moderating factors on whether organizational improvisation translates into the above noted performance outcomes. Analysis will involve careful collection of observational, self-report, and interview data on twenty new product development action phases (e.g., actions to fund the new product idea or actions to build and design a commercially relevant prototype) within product-development projects in four firms. The study also provides an empirical analysis of specific learning subprocesses. This type of work is fundamental to generate a solid empirical literature on organizational learning.