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Understanding social organisations requires considerable effort because of their complex reality. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance and amateur form of management of an organisation of scavengers, with significant results for society.

This study is a qualitative in-depth case study. Data were collected through ethnographic interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis. The association of scavengers in question was identified as being strongly representative of the 23 similar associations in Curitiba. The city is the first Brazilian capital to create conditions for direct disposal of selective waste collected by waste pickers, as recommended by the National Solid Waste Policy.

Three main aspects of evidence are highlighted in the proposed model: unique features, performance management and multiplicity of practices. The findings showed a strong presence of utilitarian behaviour due to the need of the members of the organisation to generate income for survival, forcing social and environmental concerns into the background. The combination of community values, informal practices, collective learning and amateur management has had a positive effect on the social organisation’s performance.

The outcomes were identified for individuals, the community and society by contributing to social inclusion, economic growth and environmental care.

The differentiated approach lies in the convergence between performance and amateur management in social organisations, with relevant environmental, economic and social results. A model is proposed to demonstrate the complex relationship between unique features, multiplicity of practices and performance with regard to the amateur management analysed in this study.

The focus of this study was to analyze crisis management in a context of high-reliability organizations (HRO) evidenced in two cases of Brazilian air disasters. Aspects of human and technological natures were examined, addressing the complex sociotechnical system.

This in-depth case study addressed the two most serious air disasters on Brazilian territory. The first case involved a midair collision between Gol Flight 1907 and the Legacy jet. In the second case, TAM flight 3054 had difficulty braking when landing at the airport and crashed into a building. Data were collected from official disaster documents.

The results revealed that the management and operational activities aimed to maintain the necessary conditions that prioritize a high level of reliability. High reliability mainly involves concern over failure, reluctance to accept simplified interpretations, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience and detailed structure specifications.

The implications are based on alerting highly reliable organizations, emphasizing the focus on managing more reliably, resiliently and conscientiously. Changes will be required in the operations of organizations seeking to learn to manage unexpected events and respond quickly to continually improve the responsiveness of their services.

In the perspective of an intrinsic case study for crisis management in a context of HRO and disaster risk management, the originality of this study lies in its examination of the paradoxical nature of control within the systems of dangerous operations in complex organizations, as well as their contradictions in a high-reliability system.

This study aimed to contribute to the field of project management (PM) by exploring the elements of project complexity and how individuals respond to such complexity. Multiple dimensions were examined, including technical, human and political dimensions, with a significant impact on project implementation.

An in-depth case study was conducted, focusing on the implementation of a Brazilian hospital. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Bridging the research gap involved unraveling the project complexity elements and how to manage them, more specifically in the hospital context.

The findings revealed that project complexity challenges managers to deal with uncertainties, emergencies and unexpected situations. It implies coping with multiple factors of technical, human and political dimensions. Divergent interests contributed to the formation of coalitions, triggering relevant individual and group learning. Strategic improvisation had a potentially significant response from managers regarding project complexity to make adjustments and changes, focusing on project effectiveness and performance.

The challenge of managing project complexity is to deal with the balance between structure and improvisation in response to complexity. Flexibility, adaptability, self-organisation and strategic improvisation are key elements in managerial practices that address complexity, especially in hospital projects.

The differentiated approach lies in the proposed model of project complexity, with elements that make up the technical, human and political dimensions, with significant results for complex projects.

By exploring “what is strategic improvisation in organizations?” the authors respond to advances in strategic improvisation (SI) conceptualization with an emphasis on the challenges of combining unplanned but deliberate responses to relentlessly changing environments, in which strategy becomes increasingly improvised.

An integrative review was conducted with the potential to develop new theoretical approaches to research problems. This literature review resulted in an introductory SI framework.

The authors propose a SI conceptual framework combining foundation, structuration and capillarization. While foundations comprise extemporaneity, novelty and intentionality, considered as triggers for the manifestation of SI, in this study structuration refers to the combination of a minimal structure and a reassessment process in response to unexpected situations. Capillarization means interaction patterns characterized as spontaneous, dynamic and collaborative. This framework leads to the definition of SI as an impromptu deliberate action stream, combining unplanned responses with intentional actions sustaining the convergence of strategy and operation, to integrate and reconfigure resources at the strategic level.

SI in practice considers reconfiguring the internal and external forces to deal with unexpected events and impromptu deliberate responses to face rapidly changing environments. This would enable practitioners and managers to prepare for eventualities that evolve dynamically and spontaneously, and unpredictable imminent global crises.

The authors conducted the first study mapping improvisation as a strategic organizational level phenomenon. SI is recognized as operating across levels, from the tactical and functional to the strategic.

The aim of this study was to analyse strategic planning practices in complex systems by investigating the experiences of Brazilian non-profit hospitals. Growing pressures have been imposed upon hospitals to improve the quality of their services, to increase access to them by reducing costs and to improve their reliability. In order to respond to these demands, managerial approaches such as strategic planning based on business-sector practices have been adopted by non-profit hospitals. The purpose of this study was to identify the most significant results of the experience with strategic planning in two non-profit hospitals. The study is a qualitative one, and the research was based on the concepts of organizational complexity, strategic planning and managerialism in non-profit hospitals. Data were collected by non-participant observation, from documents and in interviews and were analysed using narrative analysis and document-analysis techniques. Three main factors related to strategic planning in non-profit hospitals were identified: firstly, the unsuitability of strategic planning for hospitals given that they are complex, professional organizations, something that was disregarded by managers; secondly, the significant role played by core operating professionals in strategy making; and thirdly, the representation of strategic planning as fancy management in the eyes of internal and external stakeholders, conferring legitimacy on and generating trust in the hospital. The findings indicate that strategic planning as a traditional managerialist approach applied in a hospital context was dysfunctional and failed to produce a significant contribution to organizational performance.