The convergence of planning and execution: Improvisation in new product development

Book Section

The fields of marketing strategy in general and new product development in particular appear to assume that marketing strategy should occur by first composing a plan on the basis of a careful review of environmental and firm information and then executing that plan. In this article, we question this assumption by suggesting that there are cases when the composition and execution of an action converge in time so that, in the limit, they occur simultaneously. We define such a convergence of composition and execution as improvisation and suggest that the narrower the time gap between composing and performing (or planning and implementation), the more that act is improvisational.

Full Text

Duke Authors

Cited Authors

  • Moorman, C; Miner, AS

Published Date

  • January 1, 2003

Book Title

  • Organizational Improvisation

Start / End Page

  • 257 - 290

International Standard Book Number 10 (ISBN-10)

  • 0415261759

International Standard Book Number 13 (ISBN-13)

  • 9780415261760

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.4324/9780203361603-19

Citation Source

  • Scopus