Influence of Improv on work group innovation: a masters thesis

[Burgert Kirsten]

Hi everyone

Attached is my thesis on the influence of improv on the climate for work group innovation. Hope you have time to read through the whole thing. And please share your thoughts when you did. If you're not interested in all the academic bla bla give chapters 3 and 4 a skip, its only research methodology and stats. Well for some of you that part might also be interesting.

Cheers

[Marvin Stottlemire]

Thanks so much for sharing your thesis. I will read and re-read it, and I really like the exhaustive bibliography.

[Burgert Kirsten]

No, I'm not studying at the moment. I might do a PHD in the future. But for now I want to get more practical experience in the field.

[Burgert Kirsten]

Hi, thanks for posting it on your site. I went on your site however and the link doesn't take me to my paper but to Vera and Crossan's. My paper is available on the University of Stellenbosch library site, but it is unfortunately not open access.

[Burgert Kirsten]

Hi Remy
Thank you so much for your feedback. It is very encouraging.

[Burgert Kirsten]

Hi Remy

Thank you for your comment. I agree with you 100%. It takes more than a half-day to really change people’s behaviour. I would have preferred to do it over a longer time with follow-up sessions, but it was not possible for various reasons. I was surprised myself when the results were so positive. In my recommendations for future research I do recommend that future research endeavours conduct the research over a longer time for a more extensive programme.

Regards

[Sven Veine]

Burgert! Big congrats for having done your master thesis! I'm looking so much forward to reading it.

All the best,
Sven

[Gijs van Bilsen]

Hi Burgert,

Thanks for putting your thesis online. If everything goes according to plan it will be a big help for my own thesis.

After reading it I did have some questions.

1. I'm curious about the whoe process around the thesis. Why did you decide to do your thesis on improv? Were there any outside partners (university, businesses) involved. How did you get the teams to stage your internvention?

2. I'm wondering how the use of allready existing improv exercises influenced your research.

3. You chose a lot of improv games that focus on explaining the benefits of innovation rationally, Do you feel this is important? Escpecially in the light of your conclusion that support for innovation was not positively influenced by improv.

4. Are you happy with the result of your Master's assignment?

I'm looking forward to your answers.

[Burgert Kirsten]

Hi Gijs
Thank you so much for your interest and your questions. You’re welcome to ask more. I find it very stimulating to think about my research again through someone else’s point of view.

1. I'm curious about the whoe process around the thesis. Why did you decide to do your thesis on improv? Were there any outside partners (university, businesses) involved. How did you get the teams to stage your internvention?

Why did I do a thesis on Improv: After doing improv for a couple of years and then starting to read more about it I made the connection between improv and my field of study (organisational psychology). I wanted to do my masters and I knew I had to pick a topic for my research that I’m passionate about. Well I’m passionate about Improv and I believe in its experiential learning power. That’s it in a nutshell.

Outside partners: Yes, I did it through the Organisational Psychology department of the University of Stellenbosch. I had a supervisor who helped me a lot with the writing and research methodology. She was however not familiar with improv, so it took some time for us to get on the same page

How did I get the teams to stage the intervention: A friend of mine who’s dad is the director of a department of a insurance company was very interested in the topic of using improv as a training tool. He read an article in a journal about improv in business written by Robert Poynton of On your feet. So it wasn’t hard to convince him to do my research in his department. I guess I was very lucky in this regard because you really need someone who believes in what you’re doing to let you do research in his company. A very good research proposal with a solid literature review will help a lot in this regard.

2. I'm wondering how the use of allready existing improv exercises influenced your research.
I’m not sure if I understand this question. But what I can say is that the point of my research was to see if the already existing exercises that improv actors use to develop their improvisational skills, can also be used to teach any team of people who needs to work together and be innovative, the same skills. Working together and being innovative are basic improv skills.

3. You chose a lot of improv games that focus on explaining the benefits of innovation rationally, Do you feel this is important? Escpecially in the light of your conclusion that support for innovation was not positively influenced by improv.
I believe that it is important for people to realize the importance of innovation and that it is possible to develop the capacity to be innovative as a team. It helps to get the buy in of the participants in the intervention. However I don’t think it is good only to explain the benefits of innovation through the intervention. It is much more important that they learn skills that can help them to be more innovative as a team. I’ll have to look at the exercises that I used again, I didn’t think I used to many that only explained the benefits. Regarding my finding that support for innovation was not influenced by improv. I believe that the main reason for this finding is the fact that the manager of the team didn’t partake in the workshop and not because the exercises couldn’t bring this across. Support for innovation in a company is something that comes from management.

4. Are you happy with the result of your Master's assignment?
Yes, I’m happy. There were a lot of limitations to the research, butt in spite of these limitations, the results still showed a positive influence of improv on the team’s innovative climate. Just think of the change that can take place if these limitations were eliminated.

Hope this answers your questions.