Gary Dushnitsky

London Business School · Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship

Research Summary The literature on startup accelerators uncovers multiple factors associated with accelerators’ advantages. Yet, we have a limited understanding of the relative magnitude of these factors. We ask: Are accelerators akin to breweries, where quality is mainly a function of the institution of origin (i.e., brewery for beer, accelerator...

Research Summary As the study of entrepreneurship advances, our appreciation for the role of theory in the development of the field has grown. In this paper, we build on our collective experiences to offer a peek into the inner workings of entrepreneurship theorizing, using specific examples to highlight ways of developing theoretical insights for...

Established firms are instrumental in funding entrepreneurial ventures, a practice known as corporate venture capital (CVC). Yet, our knowledge of the reasons firms engage in CVC is calibrated mainly on data from the United States and Europe. Such a restricted focus limits our understanding of CVC practices and objectives. Accordingly, we adopt an...

As the study of entrepreneurship continues to advance, recognition of the role of theory in the development of the field grows. In this paper, we build on our collective experiences to offer a peak into the inner working of theorizing and highlight how specifically to develop theoretical insights for advancing entrepreneurship scholarship. Four pri...

The past decade witnessed a surge in the availability of low-code tools, where software-based solutions can be developed with limited or no need for writing code. One of the most salient examples is Shopify, which enables a layperson to become a fully-functioning online retailer without ever resorting to writing code. We ask: how do low-code tools...

Research summary The platform literature offers keen insights on the pricing and non‐pricing strategies that transaction platforms undertake. We supplement this work by studying how platforms mix together their strategic choices and the association with platforms' performance. To that end, we focus on crowdfunding platforms; a prominent setting of...

Research Summary This article invites scholars to reconsider how the evolution of entrepreneurial phenomena affects the underlying theories employed in our field. We highlight three themes affected by changes to the entrepreneurial journey nowadays in a way that can challenge some foundational research in each area. To that end, we engage in a dual...

Firms’ survival and growth critically depend on their ability to innovate. In addition to internal R&D, firms are increasingly pursuing (open) 10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_391 through engagement with external partners. Corporate venturing emerges as an integral part of this strategy as firms harness innovative entrepreneurial ventures. Due to the uniq...

Equity financing in entrepreneurship primarily includes venture capital, corporate venture capital, angel investment, crowdfunding, and accelerators. We take stock of venture financing research to date with two main objectives: (a) to integrate, organize, and assess the large and disparate literature on venture financing; and (b) to identify key co...

This study investigates a recent phenomenon in the market for technology: online marketplaces for technological inventions, which support the listing, search, and exchange of technological inventions by sellers and buyers. Focusing on three salient theoretical factors that affect markets for technology-search costs, ambiguity about the underlying k...

Firms’ survival and growth critically depend on their ability to innovate. In addition to internal R&D, firms are increasingly pursuing (open) innovation through engagement with external partners. Corporate venturing emerges as an integral part of this strategy as firms harness innovative entrepreneurial ventures. Due to the unique nature of the ph...

While the crowdfunding phenomenon has attracted considerable practitioner and scholarly attention, existing research predominantly reflects a U.S.-centric perspective. This article examines crowdfunding platform creation in 15 European countries. Despite the omnipresent reach of the internet, national boundaries shape the evolution of the European...

Entrepreneurial ventures are a key source of innovation. Nowadays, ventures are backed by a wide array of investors whose complementary asset profiles differ significantly. We therefore assert that entrepreneurial ventures can no longer be studied as a homogeneous group. Rather, we harness the inherent dichotomy in the profiles of independent VCs a...

Gary Dushnitsky explores the realities of crowdfunding – from its four common forms to the continuing importance of friends, family and followers – with Dan Marom, co-author of The Crowdfunding Revolution

Gary Dushnitsky's latest research seeks to uncover the reality behind the much talked about emergence of crowdfunding as a means of funding everything from the Statue of Liberty to rock albums.

This article reviews the academic literature on corporate venture capital (CVC), that is, minority equity investments by established corporations in privately held entrepreneurial ventures. The article is organized as follow. It starts with a detailed definition of corporate venture capital, its historical background, and an extensive review of inv...

The pharmaceutical industry is the testing ground for a major shift in how entrepreneurial companies understand and utilise different sources of venture capital. Gary Dushnitsky ventures inside the lab.

Working Paper. Please do not quote or cite without authors ’ permission. © 2002 G. Dushnitsky & M. LenoxCorporate Venture Capital and Incumbent Firm Innovation Rates In this paper, we focus on the potential innovation benefits to corporate venture capital, i.e. equity investments in entrepreneurial ventures by incumbent firms. In particular, we ask...

Gary Dushnitsky and Thomas Klueter, ‘Is there an eBay for ideas? Insights from online knowledge marketplaces’, European Management Review 8, no. 1, 2011.

How can established companies harness the innovative power of entrepreneurial ventures? Corporate venture capital is increasingly the answer as more and more corporations use it as a key component of their innovation strategy. Gary Dushnitsky examines its resurgence.

The market for knowledge has grown dramatically over the past decades. Extant work underscores the factors shaping market efficacy: (a) the cost of searching for innovative knowledge; (b) asymmetric-information between inventors and investors; and (c) the inherent difficulty in maintaining ownership over knowledge. Recently, market transactions hav...

Corporate venture capital (CVC) investments serve as interfirm relationships that enable established firms to tap into emerging technology markets. Nevertheless, firms may also leverage their strategic alliances to this end. Does alliance formation reinforce or attenuate a firm's tendency to invest in entrepreneurial ventures? We introduce a resour...

How do potentially optimistic entrepreneurs attract prospective investors? We investigate an entrepreneur's decision to pursue either disclosure - where investors inspect the invention - or a contingent payment scheme (CPS) offer (e.g., salary deferral, royalty-based license) - where an invention's value is inferred from the entrepreneur's willingn...

Optimism is a well-documented entrepreneurial characteristic. To date, the literature has mostly focused on the (erroneous) actions of the individual optimistic entrepreneur, yet, less attention was given to the effect this characteristic has on the interaction between entrepreneurial ventures and prospective resources providers. The following ques...

The market for knowledge has grown dramatically over the past decades. Extant work underscores the factors shaping market efficacy: (a) the cost of searching for innovative knowledge; (b) asymmetric-information between inventors and investors; and (c) the inherent difficulty in maintaining ownership over knowledge. Recently, market transactions hav...

By highlighting conditions under which viable interorganizational relationships do not materialize, we explore the limitations of interorganizational knowledge acquisition. In the empirical context of corporate venture capital (CVC), we analyze a sample of 1,646 start-up-stage ventures that received funding during the 1990s. Under a regime of weak...

This article reviews the academic literature on corporate venture capital, that is, minority equity investments by established corporations in privatelyheld entrepreneurial ventures. It starts with a detailed definition of the phenomenon. An historical background of Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) is presented, followed by an extensive review of CV...

By highlighting conditions under which viable interorganizational relationships do not materialize, we explore the limitations of interorganizational knowledge acquisition. In the empirical context of corporate venture capital (CVC), we analyze a sample of 1,646 start-up-stage ventures that received funding during the 1990s. Under a regime of weak...

This paper investigates the effect of compensation of corporate personnel on their investment in new technologies. We focus on a specific corporate activity, namely corporate venture capital (CVC), describing minority equity investment by established-firms in entrepreneurial ventures. The setting offers an opportunity to compare corporate investors...

Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been invested by established companies in entrepreneurial ventures—what is often referred to as corporate venture capital. Yet, there is little systematic evidence that corporate venture capital investment creates value to investing firms. Scholars have suggested that established firms face underlying...

We explore the conditions under which firms are likely to pursue equity investment in new ventures as a way to source innovative ideas. We find that firms invest more in new ventures—commonly referred to as ‘corporate venture capital’—in industries with weak intellectual property protection and, to some extent, in industries with high technological...

In this paper, we focus on the potential innovative benefits to corporate venture capital (CVC), i.e. equity investments in entrepreneurial ventures by incumbent firms. We propose that corporate venture capital programs may be instrumental in harvesting innovations from entrepreneurial ventures and thus an important part of a firm's overall innovat...