Knowledge that Transforms

Change presents major opportunities and challenges for executives and the organizations they lead. Significant gaps remain between what we know and what we need to know about change, especially with regard to the role of change within strategic entrepreneurship. This brief article is intended to lay out ideas that can guide and inform investigation of the link between change and strategic entrepreneurship.

In the canonical work of economics, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he explained that nations grow wealthy through changes in the division of labor. Using Smith's insight, entrepreneurship can be defined as the study of human actions that lead to changes in the division of labor. This definition gives theoretical and empirical meaning to studies examining new venture formation and economic growth, and can be used by scholars for intellectual profit, as illustrated by Baumol and Strom, Casson and Wadeson, and Agarwal, Audretsch, and Sarkar.

While a growing body of research supports the notion that interorganizational networks play an important role in shaping the competitive context and influencing a variety of outcomes for growing and established firms alike, concerns about the boundaries and limitations of the theory are rising. This commentary addresses the contributions of the aforementioned articles while underscoring the various theoretical challenges that await those seeking to apply network theory to the nascent field of strategic entrepreneurship.

Based on comparative case studies of Apple Computer's strategic actions in the music and cellular telephony industries, we develop the concept of cross‐boundary disruptor as a new type of entrepreneurial actor in interindustry strategic dynamics. We document how the confluence of forces that drove the convergence of the music and computing industries gave rise to Apple becoming a defining example of a cross‐boundary disruptor to the music industry, and examine Apple's chances to do the same in the cellular telephony industry. Using our preliminary conceptual framework, we further examine what kind of company could become a cross‐boundary disruptor in the U.S. health care industry to help overcome its long‐standing stasis. We summarize our case study‐based findings into a preliminary substantive theory of the cross‐boundary disruption phenomenon, and discuss several implications for further strategic entrepreneurship research and strategic leadership practice.