Improvisation as a design for organizational emergence

In today’s increasingly complex, rapidly changing world, organizations are challenged to not only adapt to VUCA environments but also exploit new market niches. Even so, they continue to be regarded as machine-like and deterministic instead of living, evolving systems. In this chapter, we examine organizations in relation to the tension between determinism and emergence. Using the example of improvisational theater, we introduce different forms in which emergence is enabled in social systems. In contrast to predefined scenes enacted in classical theater, scenes in improvisational theater require other conditions, mindsets, and competences to unfold. From the perspective of those theatrical forms, we investigate managerial concepts and their potential to enable emergence. In closing, we summarize essential aspects of how improvisation can increase the adaptability and innovative capacity of organizations.