 The process of framing innovation activities: How strategic leaders erode their ideas for radical innovationsRenate Kratochvil Research Policy, 2025, vol. 54, issue 1 Abstract: Understanding what impedes and facilitates radical innovation is crucial. This study introduces a process perspective on managerial cognition into the strategic leadership literature to elucidate the dynamics that contribute to idea erosion during the development of radical innovation. Employing a framing perspective and utilizing longitudinal data from a single case, this study presents a process model of strategic leaders' framing-induced idea erosion. At the heart of this process are two dynamics. First is a dynamic consisting of the anticipation of innovation that fails to account for the necessary iterative process, leading to a growing mismatch between expectations and activities. Second is a dynamic consisting of cognitive processes, where strategic leaders frame this mismatch as a failure, this intensifying over time. This study shows that strategic leaders tend to favor incremental over radical innovation, not due to a shortage of ideas but because they frame their activities as failures. Keywords: Strategic leaders; Cognition; Framing; Anticipation; Radical innovation; Idea; Process (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:54:y:2025:i:1:s0048733324001562 DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2024.105107 Access Statistics for this article Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.