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Towards asymmetric partnership management against the background of corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature
Abstract and Figures
The disruptive force of digitalisation and the acceleration of the innovation markets are radically changing the way in which large and established organisations innovate and how they bring new solutions to existing and new markets. Large corporate firms have started to rethink their innovation strategy by enabling partnerships with new and smaller innovation partners such as highly-skilled and technology-driven startups. To leverage the full innovation market potential, large firms seek opportunities and mechanisms to effectively manage these asymmetric partnerships and to ultimately generate new strategic competitive advantages. Based on the corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature, this dissertation offers broad and deep insights on the still under-researched phenomenon of Asymmetric Partnership Management. By including the perspectives of both partners, this manuscript highlights the necessity for large corporate firms to reconsider their collaborative innovation behaviour in terms of the individual needs of startup entrepreneurs. The results of the empirical studies demonstrate that large firms are willing to learn from the startup community and proactively pave the way for asymmetric partnerships by testing and maintaining new structures, processes, and activities. Large corporate firms invest in a startup-oriented partnership capability to increase the effectiveness of their Asymmetric Partnership Management and to ultimately become an innovation partner of choice. However, startup entrepreneurs are more willing to enter asymmetric partnerships when they perceive large corporate firms to be trustworthy based on different partner selection criteria. The findings of this dissertation contribute to entrepreneurship, innovation, partnership, and trust research and have practical implications for the future orientation and design of innovation and partner management of large firms. In addition to innovation managers, startup entrepreneurs can benefit from these insights and learn to improve their collaborative behaviour and to proactively realise the full potential of innovation-oriented partnerships.
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... According to this understanding, temporal aspects have become a focal point in studying how EO can pervade organizations vertically (i.e. firm-, team-and individual-level) and horizontally (e.g. from business unit to business unit or from employee to employee) over time (Covin and Slevin, 1991;Wales et al., 2011;Allmendinger, 2019;Covin et al., 2020). ...
In order to pursuit opportunities for growth and competitive advantage, firms reconfigure resources for becoming more entrepreneurial-oriented, i.e. more innovative, risk-taking and proactive in decision-making. As an important part of corporate strategy, firms incorporate external resources, e.g. through business acquisitions. Therefore, we study the emergence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) within an organization by investigating if major business acquisitions alter an acquiring firm’s EO. We measure the acquiring firm’s EO by computer-aided text analysis (CATA) before, during and after an acquisition as historic events by screening letter to shareholders of US-Fortune 1000 companies. Our results from a sample of 202 firms show that companies closing major acquisitions have a significantly higher level of innovativeness while being more risk-averse in different phases of the acquisition process. Additionally, the relatedness (i.e. operating in the same industrial sector) between the acquiring firm and the target firm positively moderates the relationship between closing a major acquisition deal and innovativeness growth. For practitioners, our findings indicate that firms can spur their innovativeness by acquiring companies that operate in the same industrial sector, thus reconfiguring resources in a more productive way and in the same line of business.
... A pesar de que ambos conceptos tienen fuertes elementos comunes, éstos han sido tratados por la literatura en forma independiente. Son pocos los trabajos que explícitamente partan o analicen las relaciones entre ellos (Allmendinger, 2019). ...
The acceleration of the technological progress forces corporations to review their innovation strategies, looking for a greater flexibility and faster knowledge acquisition to sustain their competitive advantages. In this context, collaboration with startups seems a plausible and effective way to pursuing open innovation strategies. Results show that collaborations between large firms and startups are a very recent though growing phenomenon but with a clear spatial concentration around the largest economies of the region. Its main motive refers to agile and flexible innovation, assuming multiple forms and activities. Interestingly, this phenomenon is neither restricted to certain technological industries nor to foreign-owned corporations. In addition, in-depth insights from case studies reveal some tensions and challenges at the corporate level to accommodate these collaborations with startups within the existing repertory of established routines and processes, as well as the importance of matching and aligning expectations between the corporation and the startups in terms of results and commitments. The cases showed the relevance of conceiving these collaborations as an entrepreneurial project itself within the organization and with a strong alignment with the parent company's strategy. Several future research avenues are derived from these results, aiming at nurturing this still emerging research field in Latin America.
Collaboration between corporations and start-ups can dramatically accelerate respective actor’s innovation process. Previous research on this phenomenon has mostly considered the large company’s point of view on start-up collaboration. There is therefore a research gap related to start-ups’ objectives, processes and outcomes from corporate collaboration, as well as to the relation between these three categories of variables. The purpose of this study is to identify the critical factors for start-ups in collaborating with corporations. The paper synthesizes and discusses the findings from 12 qualitative case studies of corporate-start-up collaboration in Sweden, including different collaboration models and different industrial sectors. It contributes to fill the current knowledge gap in research focused on critical factors for start-ups in collaborating with large companies for innovation. The study identified three important dimensions: antecedents, outcomes, and collaboration characteristics. For each dimension the main variables and relations among variables are identified. This framework can be useful primarily for start-ups and could guide them in their decisions related to partnering with large firms. The framework is, however, also useful for other stakeholders involved in corporate-start-up collaboration initiatives, such as large firms, intermediaries like external accelerators, and the government. This is one of the first studies that explicitly addresses the phenomenon of collaboration between start-ups and large companies from a start-up’s point of view. The study is not limited to a specific collaboration model such as for example ‘accelerators’, but includes different models used by large firms. Further, it identifies the factors that could guide start-ups in analyzing opportunities offered by partnering with larger companies, and therefore could be important parts of their collaboration strategy.
Open innovation describes a model of innovation that has gathered increasing consensus both in the literature and among practitioners. Studies on open innovation have shown how organizations can benefit from interaction with other subjects to foster their innovation activities. Somewhat surprisingly, although such interactions entail complex negotiations, very few studies have organically analyzed the role of negotiation from an open innovation perspective, although many of them emphasize its importance in successful collaborations. This article aims to analyze the state of the art on the peculiarities and the critical aspects of negotiation for organizations that adopt the open innovation model. Thus, this article presents a systematic literature review that organizes and discusses the main contributions of 70 relevant manuscripts. Such studies have been classified according to three classes (preparation, bargaining, and other) and eleven subclasses. The article has implications for both practitioners and academics. Indeed, the review allows practitioners to identify the literature that is relevant to their own topics of interest, while the conclusions herein provide academics with recommendations for further research on specific aspects of negotiation and open innovation.
Organizational culture ranks among the highly relevant factors for fostering corporate entrepreneurship and has attracted increasing research interest in recent years. Despite a growing body of scholarly work, to date there is limited understanding of which specific cultural mechanisms create an organizational environment where entrepreneurial activities flourish. The current state of knowledge is characterized by diverse, and partly conflicting, theoretical predictions and empirical findings. Furthermore, the complex and contested nature of organizational culture makes it difficult to derive useful propositions for managerial actions that will serve practitioners and theorists alike. To address these issues and encourage future work, this study uses a systematic review and develops an analytical framework, thereby considering eight general dimensions of organizational culture across different levels. As the theorization on these dimensions is unsuited to addressing practical realities, this article is built upon a realist account so as to shed light on the specific mechanisms through which the general cultural dimensions operate. This approach allows for more a fine-grained understanding of how organizational culture fosters corporate entrepreneurship and enables future research avenues to be identified.
Coopetition (collaboration between competitors) among young firms (i.e. start-ups) and larger, more established firms (i.e. corporates) may be beneficial for both partners as each party typically has something to offer that is missing in the other. Start-ups often develop innovative ideas, are flexible and agile, willing to take risks, and aspire to achieve high growth, but they tend to lack the required resources, capabilities, and knowledge due to their newness and smallness. Corporates have resources, routines, and experience that enable them to work efficiently but lack a certain innovation capability. Research has suggested that coopetition represents an opportunity for start-ups facing restrictions in resources, while corporates benefit from start-ups’ innovative ideas. However, it is yet unknown whether start-ups and corporates engage in coopetition with each other and, if so, how and why they do this. This study seeks to fill this void by exploring the motives of coopeting start-ups and corporates, how they manage their coopetitive relationship, and what implications occur including potential benefits and risks. We present a multiple case study based on qualitative data collected through 70 interviews with Austrian-based start-ups and corporates representing 35 coopetitive partnerships. Discussing the findings based on our data, we propose relationships concerning coopetition and its role to enlarge resource- and technology-bases as well as its role in the development of dynamic capabilities.
Marketing theory and practice have focused persistently on exchange between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, most of the research and too many of the marketing strategies treat buyer-seller exchanges as discrete events, not as ongoing relationships. The authors describe a framework for developing buyer-seller relationships that affords a vantage point for formulating marketing strategy and for stimulating new research directions.
Commitment is an essential part of successful long-term relationships. Whereas commitments by both parties in an exchange can provide the foundation for development of relational social norms, disproportionate commitments can lead to opportunism by the less committed partner. The authors study the effect of the credibility and proportionality of commitment inputs in an exchange upon the development of relational social norms, opportunism, and long-term commitment intentions. They also investigate longitudinal effects of the credibility of long-term commitment intentions, relational social norms, and opportunism in one time period on commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods. Data gathered from a behavioral simulation suggest that (1) the credibility of commitment inputs in exchange is positively related to the development of relational social norms, (2) and is positively related to long-term commitment intentions in the same time period, (3) relational social norms may be undermined by opportunistic conduct, and (4) the presence of relational social norms in one time period is positively related to commitment inputs and long-term commitment intentions in later periods.
Entrepreneurship as a scientific field has grown significantly, irrespective of the measures used. In this article we raise the question: How can we understand the evolution and success of entrepreneurship as a scholarly field? In particular, we focus on the social structure of entrepreneurship scholars to explain (1) how they are becoming integrated into larger scholarly communities and (2) how they differ from the way scholars integrate within the field of innovation studies. Based on a unique database and responses from 870 entrepreneurship scholars, we demonstrate that entrepreneurship can be regarded as a phenomenon-driven field bound together by a shared communication system and social interaction rather than strong theoretical influences, i.e., a social scholarly community. We identify two broader social communities; one embedded in entrepreneurship conferences that includes a rather eclectic group of entrepreneurship scholars, and another related to entrepreneurship journals and entrepreneurship economics, characterized by a stronger domain orientation. In contrast, scholars in innovation studies tend to be more theory-driven and are bound together by their disciplinary and theoretical background, i.e., an intellectual scholarly community.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the experience of hub:raum, the accelerator program of Deutsche Telekom, to deduce potential success factors. In today’s fast-paced world, large companies strive to keep up with the disruptive changes in their markets brought by innovative startups. In face of these challenges, the paradigm of open innovation encourages firms to use internal ideas and external sources of knowledge to advance their innovation output (Chesbrough, 2003). Yet, in practice, this is much easier said than done, particularly when large firms engage in partnerships with startups.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on interviews and academic collaboration with hub:raum.
Findings
From the five years of experience since the foundation of hub:raum, one of the first German corporate accelerators, the authors have seen five key success factors: transparent and aligned goals, an independent team of startup advocates, a large and committed external network, top-management backing, long-term objectives and performance indicators.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is based on the case study of hub:raum. There are several limitations to this approach. Hub:raum has a clear industry focus in the information and communications technology industry and also acting international has a strong German and European focus.
Practical implications
Based on the identified five success factors, executives working with or designing accelerator programs can significantly increase the chances of success of these kind of programs. Constantly working on the right alignment of these factors with the overall objective of the incubator program is the key task of the management.
Social implications
Designing and running corporate accelerator programs more successfully will also help to enable more startups to join forces with corporates, creating more jobs and developing successful product innovation.
Originality/value
The paper is based on working for five years closely with the hub:raum management, a series of interviews and longitudinal study of this specific accelerator program.