Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

Daniels College of Business

First Advisor

Donald D. Bergh

Second Advisor

Paul Olk

Third Advisor

Michael Nalick

Keywords

Barriers, Corporate ventures, Dynamic capabilities, Innovation performance, Relational capital, Tacit knowledge creation

Abstract

Large, established companies invest in innovation to sustain and improve their competitiveness. In addition to in-house R&D departments, they acquire startup companies and operate them under a separate organizational structure. Corporate ventures’ success depends on many factors, such as available resources, compensation schemes, and acquisition strategies, which have been explored in the extant literature. This study explores the antecedents of corporate venture innovation performance through the lens of dynamic capabilities and social capital theories. Existing research on dynamic capabilities has explored its microfoundations of managerial cognition and top management initiatives. However, the development of dynamic capabilities requires actors’ level interactions and dialogue to generate tacit knowledge. This research closes the gap in the literature of microfoundations by exploring direct social interactions that may support high level innovativeness through the mechanism of humanistic influence. In addition, social capital theory that predicts the development of intellectual capital forms the basis to create competitive advantage. However, the study follows social psychology theory to identify relational antecedents that can predict removal of social and mental barriers and build the foundation of tacit knowledge creation. This approach is significantly different than traditional social capital development based on trust, network and the development of organizational norms. A survey questionnaire is used to extract primary data from 156 engineers and scientists working at a global medical device manufacturing company's corporate venture organization. Structural Equation Modeling is used to determine the significance and loading of relational antecedents that can predict the corporate venture's innovation performance. The findings confirm the antecedents such as conscious awareness, altruistic behavior and alignment of goals are significant to predict innovativeness of corporate ventures. The study expands the theory of microfoundations of dynamic capabilities and will be a useful guide to corporate venture managers.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Burak Malkoc

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

156 pgs

Discipline

Management

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