Introduction to special issue on corporate and startup collaborations in an age of disruption: looking beyond the dyad

ABSTRACT

Established organisations and new ventures search for knowledge in the face of disruption. The activation of corporate-startup collaborations facilitates access to new and complementary knowledge. This type of collaboration has become increasingly popular as a corporate response to technological and market disruptions. However, there is growing evidence of the multiplicity of outcomes, intrinsically related to the broad diversity of forms and collaboration models. In this special issue, we include five contributions that give an overview of the phenomenon. We explore theoretical lenses that help us understand the potential tensions emerging from asymmetrical inter-organisational collaborations and possible solutions to make those collaborations successful. We delineate the theoretical and practical contributions of the papers and summarise the research opportunities that emerge around a phenomenon that keeps evolving.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate-startup collaboration
• inter-organisational collaboration
• incumbents
• new ventures
• asymmetric relationships

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• M10
• M13
• L22
• L26
• O30
• O32

1. Background and objectives

In the face of disruption, established organisations struggle to maintain efficiency and secure long-term sustainability (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Raisch and Birkinshaw 2008). Whereas efficiency requires optimisation, long-term sustainability requires innovation and adaptability. Interestingly, some of these disruptive transformations are driven by entrepreneurial ventures that harness ‘change’ to storm and dislocate incumbents (Christensen and Bower 1996; Cozzolino and Rothaermel 2018; Slevin and Covin 1997). However, established organisations and new ventures require specific (additional) knowledge to persist in or transform an industry.

Incumbents and new ventures collaborations are asymmetrical in nature, with substantial differences in size and age, but more importantly, with divergent knowledge needs (Möllmann 2023). They explore potential (shared) futures and identify desirable solutions contributing to their survival (Ahuja and Novelli 2016; Cozzolino, Corbo, and Aversa 2021; Kim and Steensma 2017; Rothaermel 2001). Corporate-startup collaborations provide a structure and processes to address the distinct knowledge and learning challenges (Bonzom and Netessine 2016; Shankar and Shepherd 2019; Weiblen and Chesbrough 2015). These knowledge exchanges are critical in the development of both innovation ecosystems (Thomas and Autio 2020) and entrepreneurial ecosystems (Wurth, Stam, and Spigel 2021); the former heralds the general value-creating and value-capturing potential for established firms and new ventures, whereas the latter links the collaboration to the emergence of high-productive forms of entrepreneurship and subsequent economic growth and societal welfare.

Corporate-startup partnerships are promoted as a managerial best practice (Bonzom and Netessine 2016; Hogenhuis, Van Den Hende, and Hultink 2017; Schättgen, Fonseca, and Scherr 2019). However, the growing popularity of this approach does not guarantee success. Recent research has found that these collaborations may not always yield the anticipated outcomes, especially from the perspective of new ventures. Issues identified include delays in engagement, misappropriation of resources or ideas, challenges in identifying a strategic fit, and difficulties in advancing beyond the proof-of-concept stage (Andersson et al. 2021; Brigl, Schmieg, and Simon 2019; Garcia Herrera and Autio 2020; Shankar and Shepherd 2019; Shankar, Bettenmann, and Giones 2023). These challenges have attracted additional scrutiny of the phenomenon and its potential manifestations. Additionally, most research on the phenomenon has concentrated on the dyadic relationship, the corporate-startup relationship, which does not reveal the full potential of the phenomenon. Consequently, there is an interest in going beyond the corporate-startup dyad to include other actors in the collaboration, such as innovation intermediaries. This broader approach aims to explain several aspects of a more complex inter-organisational relationship, their influence on organisational learning, and the impact within the context of the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

1.1. Establishing the boundaries of the phenomenon

The theme of corporate-startup collaboration includes a broad diversity of engagement forms and potential outcomes (Brigl, Schmieg, and Simon 2019). Nevertheless, corporate’s degree of control and strategic commitment varies depending on whether the collaboration occurs in a corporate venturing, incubation, or accelerator programme setting (Shankar and Shepherd 2019; Weiblen and Chesbrough 2015). Common across these different forms is the collaboration aspect, which is defined as ‘voluntarily helping other partners to achieve common goals or one or more of their private goals’ (Castañer and Oliveira 2020, 987). How collaboration partners conceive, manage, and achieve their goals across the different engagement forms is a relevant yet under-explored issue with implications for theory, management, and policy-making.

The corporate-startup relationships represent a specific type of inter-organisational collaboration. Although both organisations may share the goal of organisational learning within the collaboration (e.g. Argote, Lee, and Park 2020), their learning objective and how they expect to learn can be quite different (see Shankar, Bettenmann, and Giones 2023). Traditionally, established firms engage in these collaborations to gain exposure to new ideas, technologies, and market opportunities, which are in line with exploratory learning activities (McGrath 2001). For new ventures, especially startups, it is seen as a different type of learning activity, much more connected to the opportunity to learn how to exploit their new business idea (Andersson et al. 2021).

Similarly, the specific goals of each partner in the corporate-startup collaboration can also be quite divergent. New ventures observe this type of collaboration as an opportunity to gain legitimacy (e.g. Fisher et al. 2017), secure supplier contracts, and accelerate their venture emergence (Shankar and Shepherd 2019). At the same time, established firms expect to explore new technologies and business models while infusing entrepreneurship into their organisations and enabling strategic renewal and, in doing so, improving their readiness to capture new growth opportunities (Agarwal, Audretsch, and Sarkar 2010; Shankar and Shepherd 2019; Smith and Shah 2013).

Furthermore, the diversity of forms in which these collaborations take shape makes it difficult to decipher what contributes to their success or, at times, leads to negative outcomes. Although traditional models, such as corporate venture capital (CVC) units, serving ‘windows’ into new technologies, have been thoroughly studied (e.g. Benson and Ziedonis 2009; Dushnitsky and Lenox 2005; Dushnitsky and Shaver 2009), many new and emerging forms remain unexplored. This oversight persists as entrepreneurial ecosystems evolve and support systems for early-phase new venture creation mature (Autio et al. 2018; Nair, Gaim, and Dimov 2020).

1.2. Towards a process view of corporate-startup collaboration

Coinciding with the global diffusion of lean startup practices (Blank 2013; Blank and Dorf 2012; Ries 2011), as well as the proliferation of start-up seed accelerators (Cohen et al. 2019; Pauwels et al. 2016) designed to accelerate learning and mitigate bounded rationality in new ventures (Cohen et al. 2019), lean labs and corporate accelerators have emerged across industries, gaining significant popularity (Heinemann 2015; Kohler 2016; Ream and Schatsky 2016). Nearly a quarter of the 500 biggest companies now host such programmes (Bonzom and Netessine 2016). This popularity has also contributed to the emergence and evolution of multiple variations of the corporate accelerator model (Kohler 2016; Shankar and Shepherd 2019), including the venture-client model (Gimmy et al. 2017), the startup supplier programme (Kurpjuweit and Wagner 2020), and the industrial consortia accelerator (Garcia-Herrera, Perkmann, and Childs 2018; Hochberg 2016; Moschner et al. 2019).

These potential corporate new venture collaborations may also encounter coopetitive tensions, reflecting the simultaneous interplay of competition and collaboration dynamics (Hoffmann et al. 2018). Such coopetitive tensions – if not well understood and, therefore, not well orchestrated in practice – might have negative consequences for the genesis and nurturing of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Despite recent studies addressing the ‘dark side’ of inter-organisational relationships (Oliveira and Lumineau 2019), there is still a significant research gap in understanding with greater detail the nuances, risks, and pitfalls of the dark side of these emerging corporate-startup relationships, as well as the broader implications for the ecosystem beyond the dyad.

A distinctive feature of this phenomenon is the temporally bracketed nature of the collaboration projects between the established organisations and the startups (see Figure 1). This setting provides a rich context to extend or validate theory on partner selection, organisational search, and collaborative innovation. A process view of this phenomenon also offers a unique opportunity to claim relevant insights that would link the formation of such collaborative behaviours with the final observed outcomes in the short and long term.

Figure 1. Process view of corporate-startup collaboration.

Overall, we argue that the corporate-startup collaboration phenomenon offers a unique opportunity to study the economic performance of asymmetric inter-organisational agents. Exploring this emerging phenomenon allows us to explore the linkages between entrepreneurial processes and innovation outcomes at the new venture, firm, and ecosystem levels – from a diversity of theoretical perspectives.

2. Introduction to the special issue articles

In Table 1, we outline the five articles of the special issue describing their empirical approach, theoretical base, and key finding. Following this, we provide an overview of each article’s contribution to the overarching goals of the special issue.

Table 1. Brief summary of the articles in the special issue.

Authors	Title	Empirical Approach	Theoretical base	Key Finding
Dizdarevic et al. (2023)	When opposites attract: a review and synthesis of corporate-startup collaboration	Literature Review covering the last 30 years of research	Paradox theory to identify tensions and coping mechanisms	Proposes coping mechanisms for each of the four tensions identified in corporate-startup collaborations
Garcia Martin et al. (2023)	Managing start-up – incumbent digital solution co-creation: a four-phase process for intermediation in innovative contexts	Case study of two innovation intermediaries	(Digital) co-creation theory	Unpacks a four-phase intermediation process to enable digital co-creation
Manent et al. (2023)	Helping start-ups and public organisations to align: Co-producing the co-creation context in a public hospital	In-depth case study, ethnography	Co-production and co-creation	Identifies the adaptation of co-creation practices in public organisations
Di Lorenzo and Sabel (2023)	Corporate Venture Capital and Startup Outcomes: The Roles of Investment Timing and Multiple Corporate Investors	Quantitative analysis of 294 ventures	Complementary assets and absorptive capacity	Identify the distinct effects of CVC investments in early or late-stage ventures
Chappert et al. (2023)	Corporation – start-up collaboration: how can the tensions stemming from asymmetries be managed?	Multiple case study in a large energy firm	Resource-dependence theory	Unpacks the effects of asymmetrical alliances on four types of corporate-startup collaboration’s tensions

The first article is a literature review that sets the stage for the other articles and provides a valuable reference point to researchers interested in pursuing research opportunities on this topic. In their work, Dizdarevic et al. (2024, this issue) establish the boundaries of the corporate-startup collaboration phenomenon. They achieve this by highlighting what is unique about this context: the unavoidable asymmetrical nature of the relationship between the established organisation and the new venture. In their contribution, they leverage paradox theory to explore how this uneven relationship materialises as tensions concerning performance (goals), learning (knowledge), belonging (identity), and organising (processes). Their research stands out because it identifies and synthesises coping mechanisms that help alleviate these tensions, suggesting valuable enablers for otherwise complex inter-organisational collaboration.

Garcia Martin et al. (2023, this issue) advances this conversation into the increasingly prevalent context of digital co-creation. This research identifies the specific tensions and mitigation actions employed by innovation intermediaries. They study two innovation intermediaries that have enabled co-creation processes between startups and incumbents. Their findings point to four distinct phases that require specific mechanisms for digital co-creation: establishing, catalysing, orchestrating, and scaling. They identify a critical juncture in the catalysing and orchestrating phases where the innovation intermediary has to support the negotiation and regulation of the digital co-creation process. Their framework contributes to deciphering the additional value of innovation intermediaries in the corporate-startup collaboration. It highlights their function to mitigate the inherent tensions at the core of digital co-creation processes.

Manent et al. (2023, this issue) extends the co-creation view into the context of public organisations. Their work expands the exploration of corporate-startup collaboration into a public organisation context, highlighting the effects of a dominant non-profit logic behind the collaboration and a mesh of active stakeholders engaged in parallel innovation support activities. Through a detailed ethnographic study of a public hospital that incubates multiple startups, they identify that the mechanism to mitigate the harmful effects of the inherent tensions is to acknowledge them and leverage the pluralistic context to use them as resources. Their findings suggest alternative options to co-produce contexts in which, during a co-creation process, the tensions can be isolated and aligned with stakeholders’ goals to contribute to the overall outcomes of the collaboration.

Di Lorenzo and Sabel (2023, this issue) brings in the perspective of CVC to explore the relationship between the timing of investment and venture performance. Through analysing 294 Norwegian ventures, they identify that, compared to receiving CVC investment in the early stages of the venture development, later-stage investments have a stronger positive effect on revenues and a negative effect on R&D intensity. Their data also shows that these effects are intensified when investments are syndicated. i.e. involving multiple investors. This finding is crucial to understand how corporate-startup collaboration can have a differential effect depending on the stage of the new venture. The activation of complementary assets through corporate investment affects the startups’ growth unequally, suggesting that investments at too early a stage can be counterproductive if the new venture hands over control over its development path.

Finally, Chappert et al. (2023, this issue) revisit the corporate-startup collaboration tensions, this time with an explicit focus on alternative management options to address these challenges as they arise across different innovation projects. Their research identifies additional tensions related to the differences in orientation and expectations (vision vs. execution) between the corporate and the startup. Interestingly, their data suggests that a combination of formal and informal mechanisms might contribute to managing such tensions. In this contribution, they elaborate on the importance of such formal mechanisms related to the structure and protocols that guide the collaboration, suggesting that there is a synergistic effect between the informal mechanisms – related to the prior experience of those engaged in the relationships – and the presence of a structure to cover most of the aspects that commonly emerge in such collaborations.

Overall, the articles in the special issue offer an in-depth understanding of the consequences of the asymmetrical inter-organisational relationship between established corporates and startups. Consolidating the prior research on the tensions and the possible alleviating mechanisms. They also extend the coverage of the phenomenon, including the private and public context and the single vs. consortium-based collaborations. We see their contributions as a solid foundation to build upon as the research stream takes a step forward to explore the existing and new gaps that have emerged as the phenomenon keeps evolving.

3. The future of corporate-startup collaboration research

The contributions of the special issue articles open several interesting avenues for further research. In relation to the overall positioning of the phenomenon in innovation and management research, we describe the opportunities to explore further the tensions and coping mechanisms inside the collaboration and their consequences, considering the diversity of effects and outcomes.

The literature review by Dizdarevic et al. (2023, this issue) introduces the paradox theory to help make sense of prior research exploring the recurring challenges in this specific type of inter-organisational collaboration. In their review, they identified the gaps and valuable theoretical perspectives to advance in our understanding of the collaboration dynamics. Their work complements recent literature reviews focused on deciphering the phenomenon (see Giglio et al. 2023) or studies that placed the phenomenon in the rather broad context of open innovation theory (see Bettenmann et al. 2021 or Decreton et al. 2021). We believe that by looking deeper and adopting specific theory lenses, there are additional opportunities to revise prior work on the topic, making the potential for future theoretical contributions more explicit. Systematic reviews can provide additional ideas to move the research stream forward – for example, a recent review focused on knowledge exchanges (Möllmann 2023) suggests incorporating strategy-as-practice lenses to unpack the effects of tasks and routines in such collaborations. There remain several opportunities to introduce suitable theory lenses that explore the unique characteristics of corporate-startup collaborations as a context to generate valuable insights for management research.

The tensions and mitigation mechanisms have received substantial attention across different articles in this special issue. Garcia Martin et al. (2023), Manent et al. (2023), and Chappert et al. (2023) have explored aspects related to (digital) co-creation, co-production, and resource dependencies between startups and established organisations. The ‘inside of the dyad’ attracted the first wave of research contributions on this topic and still receives attention. More recently, Nobary and Dehkordi (2023) explored the interconnection between innovation intelligence and co-creation process when collaborating with startups, and Bettenmann (2023) analysed how these collaborations are internally organised to fit with the organisation’s goals. In a refreshing approach, Prashantham and Madhok (2023) transposed the attention-based view to explain how managers and their priorities play an important role in executing these collaborations with startups and their eventual success. However, as also manifested in the articles included in this special issue, there is still substantial room to enhance our understanding of the interacting elements in the collaboration – that is, the particular technological opportunity that the actors are exploring (see Garcia Martin et al. 2023), how it interplays with the collaboration dynamics, and how the specific context (private/public – see Manent et al. 2023), or type of industry (see Chappert et al. 2023) introduces additional frictions or structures in the collaboration dynamics.

Finally, the consequences and long-term effects for the corporation and the startup remain an important area of study. While the motivations of startups to engage in such collaborations have received some attention (for an attempt to translate the TPB framework to this context, see Corvello et al. 2024), the long-term consequences are unclear. In this special issue, Di Lorenzo and Sabel (2023) point out that the timing of investment between a corporation and a startup can have substantially different effects depending on the stage of the new venture. Similarly, Rigtering and Behrens (2021) explore the effects of collaborations on the strategic renewal of established organisations adopting the lenses of corporate entrepreneurship. The research space exploring the consequences and outcomes of these collaborations – seriously considering the effects beyond the dyad – remains an underexplored area, at the firm (corporate, startup, innovation intermediaries) as well as at the ecosystem level (see Aumüller-Wagner and Baka 2023). Future research examining these aspects through a multi-level lens could assess how design features of such collaborations impact both firm and ecosystem-level outcomes.

The special issue’s contributions set the ground for further exploration of emerging research themes and made a fertile terrain for practice and theory contributions visible. Yet, it is now time to unpack the contingency factors, moderating effects, potential trajectories, and other aspects that could help us understand, contextualise, and predict how corporate and new venture collaborations work and could work in the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).