Follow the technology or follow the leader? Radical innovation and strategic leadership at a crossroads

Radical innovation and strategic leadership research share a foundational challenge of theorizing how firms make choices about an uncertain future that shape their competitiveness, survival, and long-term performance. Yet, each field has developed a distinct explanatory signature. Radical innovation research has followed the technology, tracing how the architecture and trajectories of technological discontinuities determine organizational fates. Strategic leadership research has followed the leader(s), tracing how the cognition, composition, and interactions of those at the organizational apex shape organizational choices. We argue that this productive division of labor is being jointly frustrated by four shifts in contemporary organizing: structurally , innovation is migrating from firms to ecosystems; technologically , AI is transforming both the creative process and the cognitive conditions of leadership; relationally , permeable boundaries are redistributing influence across actors; and culturally , evaluative criteria are expanding from performance to purpose. We identify the foundational assumptions these shifts unsettle and propose four research frontiers organized around where, how, with whom, and why radical innovation happens. We conclude with key reflections from three foundational scholars on the future of the field.