Uncertainty about the future requires companies to create discontinuous innovations. Established companies, however, struggle to do so; whereas independent startups seem to better cope with this. Consequently, established companies set up entrepreneurial initiatives to make use of startups' benefits. Consequently, this led-amongst others-to great interest in socalled corporate entrepreneurship (CE) programs and to the development and characterization of several different forms. Their processes to achieve certain objectives, yet, are still rather ineffective. Thus, considerations of the actions performed in preparation for and during CE programs could be one approach to improve this but are still absent today. Furthermore, the increasing use of several CE programs in parallel seems to bear the potential for synergies and, thus, more efficient use of resources. Aiming to provide insights to both issues, this study analyzes actions of CE programs, by looking at interviews with managers of seven corporate incubators and accelerator programs of five established German tech-companies.
Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) became the new paradigm for organizations to cope with the accelerated development of innovations. Therefore, especially established organizations increasingly implement CE activities, even in combination. Scholars point out that a coordinated portfolio of CE activities could yield synergies and thus higher value for the organization and further call for more scientific examinations. This literature review aims to better the understanding of the combined and coordinated use of CE activities as well as about resulting synergies. Results show that there are only very few studies that addressed a combination and/or coordination of CE activities with respect to the creation of additional value, however, without empirical analyses. Yet, five categories of direct and indirect synergies could be derived. Discussing the results as well as the heterogenous use of terminology and concepts, this paper concludes with a research agenda for future analyses.