scholarly journals The Effect of Corporate — Start-Up Collaborations on Corporate Entrepreneurship

Author(s):  
J. P. Coen Rigtering ◽  
M. Ayelen Behrens

AbstractIn an attempt to become more flexible and responsive, corporates increasingly collaborate with start-ups. By doing so, corporates hope to make a transition towards a more entrepreneurial organization or to rejuvenate their organizational culture and working practices. We present the results of a multiple case study in which we compare eight corporate—start-up collaborations that achieved different success rates in terms of promoting corporate renewal. Our focus is on the corporate individuals that participate in the collaboration and we combine literature on corporate entrepreneurship with institutional theory to study the conditions under which these individuals are more likely to exhort transformational agency and to contribute to renewal. Our results indicate that the effect of corporate—start-up collaborations on renewal is mediated by two individual-level mechanisms: reflexivity and intrinsic motivation. In addition, we identify several organizational contingencies that affect both the likelihood that corporate individuals adopt a reflexive orientation and are intrinsically motivated as well as the likelihood that their transformational efforts are successful.

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Boleslaw Rok ◽  
Monika Kulik

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how circular start-ups design and implement innovation into their business models to increase their positive impact. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study is based on an exploratory multiple-case study involving six circular start-ups with positive impact in Poland. Data gathering took place via in-depth interviews with start-up founders. Findings The analysis demonstrates that three factors, which are strongly interconnected, can significantly influence the development of a circular start-up. The first is the purpose-led motivation for circularity as a solution, mostly concentrated on the environmental education of different market actors. The second factor is built on the aim to increase the positive impact by addressing the most pressing social and environmental problems. It determines the impact on society as well as on the environment and the extent to which its model can be scaled up. The third factor is driven by the understanding of the purpose of the innovation, concentrated on the business model innovation regarding circularity. Practical implications This paper demonstrates the benefits for diverse stakeholders and the importance of using circular business models in start-up development. Circularity can be perceived as a main part of the new approach to improve sustainability. Originality/value Circular start-ups represent a new phenomenon in the entrepreneurial market. While the structure and logic of the circular business model in start-ups are significantly unexplored in the management literature, this model is viewed as a crucial step in the direction of increasing the positive impact of start-ups. From a theoretical and practical perspective, it is important to understand the differences and similarities in this area within different markets.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (03) ◽  
pp. 1440007 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARAH MAHDJOUR ◽  
SEBASTIAN FISCHER

This study investigates a special kind of corporate ventures, so called spin-along ventures, and their motivations to internationalise early. Insights are built from a multiple case study approach, investigating the spin-along program of Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs). Our results show that early internationalisation can avoid or reduce challenges that spin-alongs face when entering the domestic market. Four major motivations for early internationalisation could be identified: (1) avoid termination based on the parent's perceived threat of cannibalisation of existing products, (2) enable a venture's collaboration with competitors, (3) overcome restrictions of parental assets in the domestic market, and (4) address markets that offer greater chances for success than the domestic market does. Based on our findings we derive concrete implications for practitioners and academics in the field of innovation management.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junic Kim ◽  
Hwanho Choi

This research examines social media users’ value-creation processes and the drivers of a start-up company’s successful social media strategy. This research primarily aims to understand start-ups’ effective utilization of social media and value co-creation processes. Although utilizing social media has become key for many organizations, start-ups and small businesses often suffer from a lack of understanding and knowledge of the utilization of social media tools. Therefore, this article uses a case study on the relationship between a social media platform and users’ value co-creation to offer a conceptual framework for start-ups to consider in utilizing social media. Our research reveals that four core drivers of social media success include experience, satisfaction, expression, and sharing ability. Each of these drivers in turn contains conditions for understanding users’ value-creation process and the creation of drivers for successful social media strategies. The research contributes to literature by providing a detailed review of users’ value co-creation as a part of a start-up’s successful social media strategy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 810-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan L. Cohen ◽  
Christopher B. Bingham ◽  
Benjamin L. Hallen

Using a nested multiple-case study of participating ventures, directors, and mentors of eight of the original U.S. accelerators, we explore how accelerators’ program designs influence new ventures’ ability to access, interpret, and process the external information needed to survive and grow. Through our inductive process, we illuminate the bounded-rationality challenges that may plague all ventures and entrepreneurs—not just those in accelerators—and identify the particular organizational designs that accelerators use to help address these challenges, which left unabated can result in suboptimal performance or even venture failure. Our analysis revealed three key design choices made by accelerators—(1) whether to space out or concentrate consultations with mentors and customers, (2) whether to foster privacy or transparency between peer ventures participating in the same program, and (3) whether to tailor or standardize the program for each venture—and suggests a particular set of choices is associated with improved venture development. Collectively, our findings provide evidence that bounded rationality challenges new ventures differently than it does established firms. We find that entrepreneurs appear to systematically satisfice prematurely across many decisions and thus broadly benefit from increasing the amount of external information searched, often by reigniting search for problems that they already view as solved. Our study also contributes to research on organizational sponsors by revealing practices that help or hinder new venture development and to emerging research on the lean start-up methodology by suggesting that startups benefit from engaging in deep consultative learning prior to experimentation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 1677-1694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgiana-Alexandra Badoiu ◽  
Mercedes Segarra-Ciprés ◽  
Ana B. Escrig-Tena

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper insight into the organizational factors and personal motivations of intrapreneurs that may foster intrapreneurial behaviors of employees in a new technology-based firm (NTBF). Design/methodology/approach The paper takes a qualitative approach to explore organizational and individual antecedents of employees’ intrapreneurial behavior. A single case study was conducted on the basis of semi-structured interviews with the founders and top managers of the firm and with intrapreneurial employees. Findings Results show that intrapreneurial projects may arise in firms whose top managers support corporate entrepreneurship (CE) in a non-active manner. Intrapreneurial behaviors of employees can emerge despite the lack of time and limited resources available for undertaking projects. Moreover, work discretion and mutual confidence and the quality of the relationship between employees and top managers are the most valued factors for intrapreneurs. Practical implications Based on the intrapreneurial projects studied, this paper helps to contextualize intrapreneurs’ perception of organizational support and the personal motivations for leading projects within an NTBF. Originality/value Traditionally, the literature has mainly focused on the top-down implementation of entrepreneurial projects within large firms. This paper contributes to the understanding of the combination of firm- and individual-level factors that facilitate intrapreneurial behaviors of employees. It also illustrates the contextual conditions and the firms’ orientation on CE within an NTBF.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten J.G.M. van Gils ◽  
Floris P.J.T. Rutjes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between start-ups and an innovation ecosystem. Start-ups need resources available in the ecosystem to grow, but experience organizational capacity limitations during their open innovation practices. This study frames the “open innovation” interface and discloses ways to accelerate the process of connecting start-ups’ demands to ecosystem’s supplies. Design/methodology/approach A case study was used to describe the development of a conceptual ecosystem model to frame the “open innovation” interface and its subsequent implementation at nine start-up hotspots in the Dutch chemical industry. To develop the ecosystem model, the system of innovation concept was enriched with the perspective of a chemical start-up to pinpoint critical resources for growth. Findings It is suggested that the most relevant “open innovation” interface for start-ups looking to grow is an innovation biotope: a well-defined, business-oriented cross-section of an ecosystem. All stakeholders in a biotope are carefully selected based on the entrepreneurial issue at stake: they can only enter the secured marketplace if they are able to provide dedicated solutions to start-ups. The biotope enables “open innovation in a closed system” which results in acceleration of the innovation process. Originality/value This is the first study to report on the definition and implementation of an innovation biotope as the “open innovation” interface between an ecosystem and start-ups. In addition, it provides a powerful tool, the ecosystem canvas, that can help both regional and national innovation systems to visualize their ecosystem and identify blind spots.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-188
Author(s):  
Adhitya Prayoga Permana ◽  
Kurniyatul Ainiyah ◽  
Khadijah Fahmi Hayati Holle

Start-ups have a very important role in economic growth, the existence of a start-up can open up many new jobs. However, not all start-ups that are developing can become successful start-ups. This is because start-ups have a high failure rate, data shows that 75% of start-ups fail in their development. Therefore, it is important to classify the successful and failed start-ups, so that later it can be used to see the factors that most influence start-up success, and can also predict the success of a start-up. Among the many classifications in data mining, the Decision Tree, kNN, and Naïve Bayes algorithms are the algorithms that the authors chose to classify the 923 start-up data records that were previously obtained. The test results using cross-validation and T-test show that the Decision Tree Algorithm is the most appropriate algorithm for classifying in this case study. This is evidenced by the accuracy value obtained from the Decision Tree algorithm, which is greater than other algorithms, which is 79.29%, while the kNN algorithm has an accuracy value of 66.69%, and Naive Bayes is 64.21%.


Author(s):  
Dragana Popovic Renella ◽  
Vojin Senk ◽  
Fuada Stankovic

This is a study of the process of the development of high-tech start-up companies through the mechanisms of bootstrapping in two extremely different environments: the one of highly industrialized countries, such as USA and Switzerland; the other of Serbia, which is a post-communist transition country with particular difficulties. The research method is the analysis of case studies. One case study of US and two of Swiss start-ups build the base for the analysis. All three cases show common patterns: from the very beginning, these companies sell R&D services in their fields of expertise; and using the cash from these early sales, and the information feedback from cooperation with the early customers, they develop their resources and, eventually, also their own high-tech products. The essential feature of this process is the selling of R&D services and the first products in the neighborhoods. Then also two cases of high-tech start-ups from Serbia are analyzed. Both Serbian start-ups are founded in partnership with small high-tech companies from highly industrialized countries (Switzerland and Germany). The Western partners use their reputations and contacts to enable the early sales of the Serbian start-ups in the industrialized countries. This is crucial for the Serbian start-ups, because they have no domestic market for R&D services. Apart of this element, all other essential patterns of the Serbian cases are very similar to those of the Western cases.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 6884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosmina Lelia Voinea ◽  
Marcel Logger ◽  
Fawad Rauf ◽  
Nadine Roijakkers

Mechanisms that large organizations employ to facilitate corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement simply do not apply to start-ups due to distinct differences. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into how start-ups strive for sustainability in their business models by investigating internal and external drivers related to organizational processes, managerial characteristics, and stakeholder expectations. We explored key factors such as decision-making regarding CSR engagement, business values about sustainability, entrepreneurial orientation, and the relevance of the CSR theater (philanthropic orientation, disruptive innovation, or transforming the ecosystem). Multiple case studies and interview data elucidated how start-ups engage with their community and stakeholders to determine the best approach to sustainability demands, how start-ups embed sustainability practices within their business models, and how these practices match with the entrepreneurs’ personalities. On the basis of our case studies and data analysis, we propose that the decision to engage in CSR is treated as an investment decision. The business values of a start-up determine its CSR engagement. The philanthropic drive of a start-up determines its CSR initiatives, which are then in line with the field the start-up is operating in. Entrepreneurs’ willingness to adopt CSR practices is determined by their personalities and organizational expertise and experiences. CSR engagement within the business models of start-ups is based on a combination of financial and social capital, while financial benefits act as a continuous motivator for CSR engagement from inception.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Battistella ◽  
Alberto F. De Toni ◽  
Elena Pessot

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the context of open innovation offered by accelerators can affect the successful growth of start-ups. The authors explore accelerators practices and tools in sustaining start-ups and increasing survival probability in their innovation process, with the aim of addressing the following research question: how can start-ups benefit from participation in an accelerator programme from an open innovation perspective? Design/methodology/approach A review of the literature on start-up successes and failures and on major practices in the open innovation paradigm was carried out, delineating them in the context of accelerators. Given the absence of literature on accelerator practices for supporting start-ups, and aiming at a comprehensive understanding of how the open environment within the accelerator influences a start-up’s survival (or even success) by mitigating the probability of failure, the authors conducted an exploratory case study in an English accelerator. Findings The open innovation practices mediated by an accelerator and the ones that are not covered, but that can benefit a start-up’s survival, are shown. On the one hand, main effective practices, such as dyadic co-creation with accelerator network partners and crowdsourcing, are revealed to address mostly the lack of, or wrong direction in, product, marketing and relative managerial abilities, which are not usually owned by a start-up due to its “newness”. On the other hand, some causes of failures, such as the intrinsic characteristics of founder teams, do not seem to be addressed by an open approach and neither does participation in an accelerator programme. Originality/value This paper is the first to study and link the literature on accelerators, start-ups and open innovation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document