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By exploring “what is strategic improvisation in organizations?” the authors respond to advances in strategic improvisation (SI) conceptualization with an emphasis on the challenges of combining unplanned but deliberate responses to relentlessly changing environments, in which strategy becomes increasingly improvised.

An integrative review was conducted with the potential to develop new theoretical approaches to research problems. This literature review resulted in an introductory SI framework.

The authors propose a SI conceptual framework combining foundation, structuration and capillarization. While foundations comprise extemporaneity, novelty and intentionality, considered as triggers for the manifestation of SI, in this study structuration refers to the combination of a minimal structure and a reassessment process in response to unexpected situations. Capillarization means interaction patterns characterized as spontaneous, dynamic and collaborative. This framework leads to the definition of SI as an impromptu deliberate action stream, combining unplanned responses with intentional actions sustaining the convergence of strategy and operation, to integrate and reconfigure resources at the strategic level.

SI in practice considers reconfiguring the internal and external forces to deal with unexpected events and impromptu deliberate responses to face rapidly changing environments. This would enable practitioners and managers to prepare for eventualities that evolve dynamically and spontaneously, and unpredictable imminent global crises.

The authors conducted the first study mapping improvisation as a strategic organizational level phenomenon. SI is recognized as operating across levels, from the tactical and functional to the strategic.

The purpose of the paper is to test whether retail stores’ creativity predicts several indicators of performance through stores’ potency.

A sample of 45 stores (n = 317 employees) of a Brazilian retail chain was included, and a group/store level of analysis was adopted. Performance was measured through objective measures. To reduce the risks of common method variance, group creativity and group potency were measured with data from different store members.

The findings show that store creativity predicts indicators of store performance through store potency.

The study was carried out within a single organization, and the stores’ sample is small. Other causalities are plausible, and future studies should adopt a longitudinal design to test reciprocal effects between the variables of the study.

Cultivating creativity (via the selection of creative individuals and nurturing contextual conditions that encourage creativity) may have at least indirect effects on store performance.

While the few empirical studies relating group creativity (still an under-researched topic) and performance have mostly used subjective performance measures, this study uses objective measures.

The focus of this study was to analyze crisis management in a context of high-reliability organizations (HRO) evidenced in two cases of Brazilian air disasters. Aspects of human and technological natures were examined, addressing the complex sociotechnical system.

This in-depth case study addressed the two most serious air disasters on Brazilian territory. The first case involved a midair collision between Gol Flight 1907 and the Legacy jet. In the second case, TAM flight 3054 had difficulty braking when landing at the airport and crashed into a building. Data were collected from official disaster documents.

The results revealed that the management and operational activities aimed to maintain the necessary conditions that prioritize a high level of reliability. High reliability mainly involves concern over failure, reluctance to accept simplified interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience and detailed structure specifications.

The implications are based on alerting highly reliable organizations, emphasizing the focus on managing more reliably, resiliently and conscientiously. Changes will be required in the operations of organizations seeking to learn to manage unexpected events and respond quickly to continually improve the responsiveness of their services.

In the perspective of an intrinsic case study for crisis management in a context of HRO and disaster risk management, the originality of this study lies in its examination of the paradoxical nature of control within the systems of dangerous operations in complex organizations, as well as their contradictions in a high-reliability system.

The purpose of the study is to explore inductively the unique paradoxical tensions central to family business (FB) and to analyze how FB's members face these tensions and their implications in the personal and professional realms.

A multiple-case study with 11 parent–offspring dyads from Portuguese FBs was conducted putting the focus on the micro-level interactions.

The slopes of roles and relationality in FBs produces three persistent sets of tensions around cognition, emotion and action. These tensions exist in a paradoxical state, containing potentiality for synergy or trade-off.

Our study is the first to empirically demonstrate that paradoxical tensions between parent and offspring are interrelated, by emphasizing the uniqueness of FB as a paradoxical setting and offering insights to negotiating of these singular paradoxes.

The literature on knowledge management and organizational improvisation have emerged as important perspectives for organizing, while existing almost in parallel. Both have significant implications for, inter alia, innovation and creativity, adaptability, and management in turbulent times. Previous research has considered the role of improvisation in innovation. We build on this literature to examine the specific role of improvisation in knowledge creation. Our assessment of organizational improvisation indicates that it constitutes an important potential source of knowledge, thus opening up a new avenue for exploring the strategic as well as political significance of embedded, situated knowledge. We argue that the rapprochement of the two literatures brings about the notion of “improvisational knowledge”. We develop the significance of this form of knowledge, focusing in particular on the challenges of appreciating and appropriating it as opposed to seeking to codify it. We offer propositions and identify some avenues for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to ask why poor performance management practices persist in Portugal, in the middle of claims to increase productivity.

An inductive micro-practice analysis is used to understand barriers to management practice that do not require massive institutional changes.

The practice of performance management in Portugal typically displays three weaknesses: (1) insufficient planning (2) process and integrity issues, and (3) a non-meritocratic logic.

The paper discusses the important topic of persistence of bad practices, showing how institutionalized patterns might be difficult to eradicate even they are suboptimal.

The authors identity key issues in the functioning of performance management, therefore helping managers in developing remedies to improve the quality of their practice.

The paper explains the persistence of bad management practice whose continuity hinders not only organizations’ effectiveness but also that of their members.

This paper shows how the perceptions of people regarding five dimensions of workplace spirituality (team’s sense of community, alignment with organizational values, sense of contribution to society, enjoyment at work, and opportunities for inner life) predict affective, normative, and continuance commitment, as well as self‐reported individual performance. One sample in Portugal and another in Brazil were collected. The findings show that employees’ perceptions of workplace spirituality predict significant variance of commitment and individual performance in both samples. The empirical evidence suggests that workplace spirituality is a pertinent construct for researchers and an important concern to be taken into account by managers.

We suggest that, in some specific settings, individuals may distinguish and be sensitive not only to the distributive, procedural, social, and informational dimensions of justice, but also subdivide the distributive justice dimension into two facets‐reward and task distributive justice. Results of three studies with Portuguese public university teachers reveal that a five‐factor model of justice (distribution of tasks, distribution of rewards, procedural, interpersonal, informational) is adequate, although factor analyses are not categorical in distinguishing interpersonal and informational justice. Results also show that individuals who work with high autonomy and outside close supervisory control in performing their jobs may be very sensitive to the way they feel treated by their superiors, even accepting as normal that the superiors make decisions with no participation, a finding that may be due to the feminine, affiliative, and high power distance cultural context.

There is a growing desire for more scientific and technical knowledge regarding Africa. This is because Africa has the potential and opportunity to generate impactful research. However, this potential is not optimized because of several constraints, including the lack of systematic reviews and models of knowledge management and paradoxical trends in Africa. The purpose of this paper is to review studies on knowledge management and associated paradoxes in Africa and a paradox-conscious African knowledge management model. The autochthonous African model that the authors propose has implications for global knowledge management.

The authors review studies on knowledge management and paradoxes on Africa.

The authors propose a model and identify 12 paradoxes broadly categorized as industrial, political and social.

The paradoxical tensions characteristic of Africa may be considered integral to business and policy rather than local expressions to be solved through international “best practice.”

The model this paper propose enables theoretical and empirical studies of knowledge management sensitive to the paradoxical tensions associated with autochthonous management knowledge and autochthonous knowledge management.