Concept of Innovation Transfer from Corporate Incubators

Abstract

Due to the increase of disruptive innovations and accelerating product lifecycles, focusing on only incremental innovation is not enough to ensure long-term corporate growth. However, deadlocked internal structures and the day-to-day business prevent companies from reaching their full innovation potential. To escape the dilemma, companies are increasingly counting on corporate incubators for the development of radical innovations. Outside existing structures, project teams, external expertise or the integration of start-ups accelerates the innovation process. However, the long-term corporate strategy leads to the fact that most of the innovations from corporate incubators are reintegrated into the parent company. A successful transfer of external innovations is therefore a central challenge, which is so far described insufficiently in the literature by mainly focusing on the Not Invented Here Syndrome. To implement a successful transfer from a corporate incubator, a defined strategy considering the situational context is required. Especially the transfer object and the characteristics of the corporate incubator are decisive. The aim of the paper is therefore to display the problems of a transfer of innovations from corporate incubators to the parent company and to introduce a concept for a solution model of a situation specific transfer process.