Improvisation-performance link and the moderating effects: A case of Malaysia technology-based companies

This research aims to examine the relationship between organisational improvisation and firm performance as well as to identify the effect of environmental turbulence on improvisation performance relationship.Given the lack of studies on these relationships in the previous literature, there is significant contribution to the theories as well as for managerial practices. 128 responses from top management of technology-based companies in Malaysia were used as a sample in this study. The finding of the direct association between organisational improvisation and firm performance implies that improvisation provide the enhancement of firm performance as a whole.In testing moderating effects on the improvisation–performance link, the strength and type of relationship between improvisation and firm performance did change when moderated by environmental turbulence.The research findings identified both technological and competitive turbulence moderate the relationship between organisational improvisation and firm performance. Technological turbulence shows a negative moderating effect; meanwhile the competitive turbulence demonstrates a positive moderating effect on the improvisation–performance link

A Strategic Improvisation Model: A Case Study Of Healthcare Information Systems Design

Pressured by the speed of technological advances, the need for change and improvisation has hit the healthcare industry. Now society demands that healthcare providers offer better patient care through the creative use of information technologies. In turn, healthcare management asserts pressure on IS/IT practitioners to expand the boundaries for innovative IS design strategies. Research on healthcare information systems (HIS) improvisation remains relatively underdeveloped. To fill this gap, from the perspective of a case study, we use both organizational improvisation and bricolage theoretical lenses to examine how strategic improvisation might give rise to superior HIS design. Theoretically, we proposed an inductively-derived conceptual model of improvisation that explains how strategic improvisation contributes to the formation of superior HIS that offer value added and quality patient-centric healthcare delivery. Professionally, this study contributes three key insights for IS improvisation in the healthcare industry with application to wider information systems development

Seeking out the spaces between: Using improvisation for collaborative composition and interactive technology

Copyright © 2010 ISASTThis article presents findings from experiments into piano performance live electronics undertaken by the author since early 2007. The use of improvisation has infused every step of the process---both as a methodology to obtain meaningful results using interactive technology and as a way to generate and characterize a collaborative musical space with composers. The technology used has included pre-built MIDI interfaces such as the PianoBar, actuators such as miniature DC motors and sensor interfaces including iCube and the Wii controller. Collaborators have included researchers at the Centre for Digital Music (QMUL), Richard Barrett, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Atau Tanaka. In seeking to create responsive “performance environments” at the piano, I explore live, performative control of electronics to create better connections for both performer (providing the same level of interpretive freedom as with a “pure” instrumental performance) and audience (communicating clearly to them). I have been lucky to witness first-hand many live interactive performances and to work with various empathetic composers/performers in flexible working environments. Collaborating with experienced technologists and musicians, I have witnessed time and again what, for me, is a fundamental truth in interactive instrumental performance: As a living, spontaneous form it must be nurtured and informed by the performer’s physicality and imagination as much as by the creativity or knowledge of the composer and/or technologist. Specifically in the case of sensors, their dependence on the detail of each person’s body and reactions is so refined as to necessitate, I would argue, an entirely collaborative approach and therefore one that involves at least directed improvisation and, more likely, fairly extensive improvised exploration. The fundamentally personal and intimate nature of sensor readings---the amount of tension created by each performer, the shape of the ancillary gestures or the level of emotional involvement (especially relevant when using galvanic skin response or EEG)---makes creating pieces with sensors extremely difficult for a composer to do in isolation. Improvisation therefore provides a way for performer and composer to generate a common musical and gestural language. Related to these issues is the fact that the technical or notational parameters in interactive music are not yet (and may never be) standardized, thereby creating a very real and practical need for improvisation to figure at least somewhere in the process.This study is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Mitigating risk in computerized bureaucracy

This paper presents an important aspect of the pragmatic dimensions of mitigating the risks that stem from computerized bureaucracy, and thereby, preserving the organizational integrity of a firm. A case study is used to provide valuable insights into the mechanics of such mitigation. The case refers to the problematic implementation and use of a computerized reservation system in a large budget hotel in London, United Kingdom. Following the empirical findings, Ciborra’s notions of bricolage, improvisation and tinkering are examined as practical and useful ways of addressing the downsides of computerized bureaucracy

A gesturally controlled improvisation system for piano

This paper was presented at the Live Interfaces conference 2012. Copyright @ 2012 The Authors.This paper presents a gesturally controlled, live-improvisation system, developed for an experimental pianist and used during a performance at the 2011 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. We describe the gesture-recognition architecture used to recognize the pianist’s real-time gestures, the audio infrastructure developed specifically for this piece and the core lessons learned over the process of developing this performance system

The golden circle: A way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service

This paper analyses the way in which the London Ambulance Service recovered from the events of October 1992, when it implemented a computer-aided despatch system (LASCAD) that remained in service for less than two weeks. It examines the enactment of a programme of long-term organizational change, focusing on the implementation of an alternative computer system in 1996. The analysis in this paper is informed by actor-network theory, both by an early statement of this approach developed by Callon in the sociology of translation, and also by concepts and ideas from Latour’s more recent restatement of his own position. The paper examines how alternative interests emerged and were stabilized over time, in a way of arguing and acting among key players in the change programme, christened the Golden Circle. The story traces four years in the history of the London Ambulance Service, from the aftermath of October 1992 through the birth of the Golden Circle to the achievement of National Health Service (NHS) trust status. LASCAD was the beginning of the story, this is the middle, an end lies in the future, when the remaining elements of the change programme are enacted beyond the Golden Circle

Kinect-ed Piano

We describe a gesturally-controlled improvisation system for an experimental pianist, developed over several laboratory sessions and used during a performance [1] at the 2011 Conference on New Inter- faces for Musical Expression (NIME). We discuss the architecture and performative advantages and limitations of our gesturally-controlled improvisation system, and reflect on the lessons learned throughout its development. KEYWORDS: piano; improvisation; gesture recognition; machine learning