Commentary on Front and backstages of the diminished routinization of innovations, An entrepreneurial perspective on the firm‐environment relationship , and Cross‐boundary disruptors

Abstract

The papers by Bartunek, Trullen, Immediato, and Schneider (Front and backstages of the diminished routinization of innovations: what innovation research makes public and organizational research finds behind the scenes), Smith and Cao (An entrepreneurial perspective on the firm‐environment relationship), and Burgelman and Grove (Cross‐boundary disruptors: powerful interindustry entrepreneurial change agents) address the topic of change. The specific foci of these papers are quite different. While commonalities among the papers are certainly identifiable, highlighting the value of these writings is perhaps better achieved by focusing on their unique contributions to the change literature rather than by seeking to identify points of theoretical overlap within the broad domain of change. With this belief in mind, this commentary reviews several of the principal contributions of the three papers to the change literature. Promising research directions pertaining to the topic of change that build directly on observations made in the papers are then discussed. Copyright © 2008 Strategic Management Society.