Résumé en anglais

This papers aims at understanding the role of sense when actors improvise during crisis. Literature about improvisation show little explanation of how individual improvisation becomes collective and coherent. The use of the concept of sense as a bridge between crisis and improvisation enable us to identify three mechanisms related to sense that contribute to organizational improvisation in crisis response –detection, mobilization, response- as well as mechanisms that take part into the collective turn of crisis response through improvisation.