Improvisation, planning and surprises in new ventures

Many studies have examined the planning-performance relationship for new firms. Improvisation as an organizational behavior offers an additional lens for understanding the actions taken by new firms. This dissertation theorizes about whether and how the interaction between levels of improvisation and key contextual conditions influence outcomes of organizational responses to surprise. I examine whether improvisation moderates the effect of the strategic nature of the surprise, firm size, firm age, and founder experience on the outcome of organizational responses to surprise events. I also examine the direct effects of the impact of these variables on the outcome of reactions to surprise events.; Data were collected in semi-structured interviews and a brief survey to create a sample of 165 surprise events collected from over 30 computer and biotechnology companies. Reliable self-report scales were developed for measuring response outcome and the strategic importance of surprise events. In addition, a reliable scale for organizational improvisation was developed to rate the level of improvisational behavior observed in organizational responses to surprise events. The methodology developed in this study allowed me to study organizational actions at the incident level, providing a valuable alternative to many traditional measures of behavior and firm performance.; I found that improvisation did not have a consistent impact on response outcomes, and did not moderate the relationship between other variables and response outcomes. I found several main effects of my independent variables on response outcomes. The more tactical the nature of the surprise event, the younger the company, and the greater the level of founder experience the better was the response outcome. Additionally, response outcomes to surprises of a strategic nature were more favorable for younger or larger firms.; The findings suggest that improvisational behavior did not have a consistent impact in this sample of new ventures. The dissertation presents several theoretical and methodological issues that might generate this result. The study also suggests that for new firms, important or strategic surprises may be more difficult to resolve satisfactorily than tactical ones and become increasingly so as firms age, but not as they grow.