| With the development of economic globalization and revolution of informationtechnology, the environment that enterprises facing becomes more complex with highervolatility and unpredictability. In order to adapt to the continuous changing environment,modern enterprises should promote innovation and revolution positively to improve itscompetitiveness. Improvisation has been regarded as a kind of ability that can makeenterprises sustain its advantage in competition. Besides, improvisation plays animportant role under the condition of less resource and higher uncertain, because it canhelp enterprises solve emergent problems by using the creativity and experience of theemployees, to make sure the execution coordinate with plans.Improvisation is a new research topic in the field of management and the studyingof it is still in an immature period, so now the research literatures about is rare. Theknowledge system of improvisation is fragmented, the conceptual framework andempirical study about improvisation is scare. These are the studying topics of this paper.What is improvisation? How to distinguish the dimensions of improvisation? What isabout the relationship between improvisation and innovation performance in R&Dteams, and the relationship can be affected by different shared mental levels? This paperattempts to finds answers about these questions in team levels.This paper empirically explores the relationship between R&D teams’improvisation and innovation performance, and moderating effect of team sharedmental model on this relationship. The data collected from336team members in44R&D teams of6cities has been analyzed. And we find:①Improvisation is a processthat the teams’ members use available resources to solve problems under the pressure ofrisks in the limited time. Team shared mental model has four dimensions: reactionability of team members, ability of using available resources, ability of sufferingpressures, the creativity of team members;②Besides reaction ability of team members,other three dimensions of shared mental model all have positive effect on innovationperformance;③T eam shared mental model has a moderating effect on the relationshipbetween improvisation and innovation performance. Team shared mental modelmoderates positively the relationship between Spontaneity of team improvisation andinnovation performance, and moderates negatively the relationship between creativityof team improvisation and innovation performance. This paper develops the literature of improvisation, and has certain theoretical and practical significance. |
