Renewing creative work for business innovation: Architectural practice in the trading zone

How do organizations in creative industries renew creative work for businessinnovation? What challenges do they experience in the process? Drawing on aneight-month ethnography in an architectural practice, this article suggests thatrenewal of creative work takes place in two main trading zones: a creative businesstrading zone of managers and architects trading with the conception of architec-tural practice as a business, and a creative process trading zone of architects andprocess facilitators trading with the process of architectural design. We show howresolving challenges within and moving across trading zones enables managers andarchitects to renew the architectural design process and establish renewal as a busi-ness innovation. The study advances the understanding of innovation in creativeindustries by proposing trading zones as arenas for negotiating art-business ten-sions and‘tools’for renewing creative work, to make way for business innovationwhile preserving the autonomy of the creative professionals