Navigating the Tension Between Tradition and Innovation in Cultural Industries Through Product Design and Linguistic Strategies: A Critical Review and Research Agenda

Management and organizational scholars have paid increasing attention to the role of tradition in strategy making. One trajectory of this literature has reached a consensus on the use of tradition as a resource to preserve valued rituals, support desired identities, and bolster firm performance. However there is much less agreement about how firms can leverage their traditions to pursue innovation. Addressing this question is particularly important in cultural and creative contexts where respect for tradition and an orientation toward innovation often coexist in a dialectical way and organizations often face the challenge to mediate between adherence to a long-lived legacy and pursuit of innovation. Accordingly, I aim to synthesize and integrate the existing literature into a coherent perspective that delineates viable future research directions by asking the following fundamental questions: How can cultural and creative firms manage the tension between tradition and innovation? How can they accommodate the renewal of a tradition without stifling it? How can they use tradition as a resource for innovation in the present?