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Today’s markets are characterized by fast and radical changes, posing an essential challenge to established companies. Startups, yet, seem to be more capable in developing radical innovations to succeed in those volatile markets. Thus, established companies started to experiment with various approaches to implement startup-like structures in their organization. Internal corporate accelerators (ICAs) are a novel form of corporate venturing, aiming to foster bottom-up innovations through intrapreneurship. However, ICAs still lack empirical investigations. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of the interface between the ICA and the core organization and the respective support activities (resource access and support services) that create an innovation-supportive work environment for the intrapreneurial team. The results of this qualitative study, comprising 12 interviews with ICA teams out of two German high-tech companies, show that the resources provided by ICAs differ from the support activities of external accelerators. Further, the study shows that some resources show both supportive as well as obstructive potential for the intrapreneurial teams within the ICA.
Business coaching is believed to effectively improve survival and success chances of new technology-based firms (NTBFs). However, not much empirical evidence on the support measure's effectiveness is available. Therefore, a pragmatic two-armed Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to test the effect of tactical business coaching on NTBF survival capabilities was designed and, for the most part, carried out. However, due to a lower than expected sample size and great attrition between groups, the RCT reveals deviations from the trial design that impede a thorough data assessment. Based on the data given, a first data analysis does not reveal significant differences in survival capability between the two groups. Thus, to provide guidance for future RCTs in business contexts, lessons learned about how to deal with trickle samples and experiment constellations with third parties carrying out the intervention are drawn.
The Role of Support-Activities for the successful Implementation of Internal Corporate Accelerators
(2018)
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) units have become an increasingly important part of established companies’ development activities enabling them to also create more discontinuous innovations. As a result, companies have developed and implemented different forms of CE units, such as corporate accelerators, incubators, startup supplier programs, and corporate venture capital. Driven by the need to innovate, companies have even begun to use multiple CE units simultaneously. However, this has not been empirically investigated yet. Thus, with this study, we aim to shed some light on this by investigating the parallel use of multiple CE units in the German business landscape. We conducted an extensive desk research, combining, coding, and analyzing different sources. We found that 55 out of 165 large established companies have multiple CE units, which allowed us to characterize the parallel use and identify differences and similarities, e.g., in terms of industry, company size, and CE forms implemented. We conclude by presenting different implications for both practice and research and by pointing out directions for future research.
Nowadays established companies use Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) as a means to create discontinuous innovations. Many companies thereby even implement multiple CE units that typically involve several entrepreneurial activities. This explorative study aimed to identify the reasons why established companies implement multiple CE units concurrently. In conducting a comparative case study with eight companies from different industries, valuable insights for science and practice were gained. We provide an overview of different 11 reasons for implementing multiple CE units. This shows that the combination of CE units used by companies differs depending on the reason. It further allowed to derive general approaches of established companies to the implementation of CE units. Last, we identify the concept of co-specialization to be a central driver explaining the creation of the need to set up multiple units. We conclude by indicating implications and subjects for future research.
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.
