---
title: "Elaine Romanelli"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Elaine Romanelli"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["Michael L. Tushman","punctuated equilibrium (organizations)","reorientation","executive succession"]
seek_code_commit: "290e6f6"
---


American organizational theorist and management scholar, co-author on every paper in the vault's organizational-punctuated-equilibrium cluster alongside [[entity-michael-tushman|Michael Tushman]] — the 1985 *Research in Organizational Behavior* theoretical chapter, the 1986 *California Management Review* article (with Newman) carrying the "3x more likely" frame-breaking-change figure, the 1992 *Organization Science* paper (with Virany), and the 1994 *Academy of Management Journal* empirical test where she is listed as first author. Load-bearing for two of the vault's real source corrections in this cluster: a misattributed abstract and a blended-quote paraphrase, both caught by reading the primaries directly rather than trusting a search-reproduced citation.

## References
- [[claim-tushman-romanelli-1985-reorientation-exogenous-trigger]] — the theoretical chapter locating the trigger for reorientation in exogenous jolts and executive succession.
- [[claim-vault-reorientation-quote-blends-two-tushman-romanelli-constructs]] — a correction: the vault's recorded 1985 "reorientation" quote conflated two distinct constructs.
- [[claim-punctuated-equilibrium-trigger-findings-belong-to-romanelli-tushman-1994]] — a correction: findings the vault attributed to 1985 were verbatim the 1994 paper's abstract, where she is first author.
- [[claim-gersick-1991-attributes-3x-figure-to-tushman-newman-romanelli-1986]] — confirms Gersick's page-cited attribution of the "3x" figure to the 1986 paper.
- [[claim-tushman-newman-romanelli-1986-3x-figure-unverified-against-primary]] — the 1986 primary itself remains unread by the vault; the figure is still one hop from direct confirmation.