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Organizations, especially those adapting to rapidly changing environments, face the challenge of being able to solve complex problems within highly constrained timeframes. Complex problem solving has been addressed by theories of bounded rationality. However, these theories focus on solving complex but structured problems, and thus, context and how it emerges and transforms is not a central issue. More recently, theories of the firm as a knowledge-creating entity have focused on how organizations solve complex unstructured problems. These theories suggest that context and contextualization are central elements in problem solving. Yet, no understanding of how context emerges and transforms emerges from these theories. The present paper focuses on the emergence and transformation of context in solving complex unstructured problems, attempts to remedy the shortcomings of the theories described above and investigates the nature of context. Concludes by explaining its role in tacit knowledge sharing.

Knowledge is a magic term with multiple connotations and interpretations. It is an issue of academic discourse as well as one with important implications for business institutions. How we define and frame knowledge carries implications for the way we try to manage knowledge in organizations and the de facto knowledge in organizations also carries implications for the knowledge existing in organizations. Within the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in the tacit dimension of knowledge, which is perhaps hardest to manage, as it cannot be formally communicated, and is often embedded in the routines and standard operating procedures of the organization. Focuses on characteristics of this strategic important knowledge and how it can be organized in networks. Should be read as a case for paying more attention to knowledge and networks and how to manage these in organizations.

Since the mid 1990s improvisation in organizations has attracted increasingly more attention from scholars of organizations, but in Management Learning, articles investigating learning and improvisation in organizations are absent, even if reviews of the literature on organizational improvisation suggest close links between the two concepts. Hence, there appears to be room for scholars to pursue empirical studies of connections between improvisation and learning in organizations, and thus, the purpose of this article is to provide inspiration for production and publication of such studies in Management Learning. First, the article presents a commonly accepted definition of improvisation. Thereafter, it looks at connections between improvisation and learning in organizations, and it describes recent empirical research investigating relationships between learning and improvisation in organizations. It then addresses challenges facing scholars of improvisation and learning in organization, and finally, it identifies interesting organizational contexts for empirical studies of improvisation and learning in organizations.

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