How Do Whales Become Sharks? A Process Model To Develop Corporate Entrepreneurial Capabilities

Abstract

The question of how firms continuously acquire, develop, and renew their capabilities is at the core of strategic management. Given the current pace of technological disruption, this question is even more compelling in both theory and practice. Based on an inductive longitudinal study of multiple cases, this paper develops a process model to theorize about corporate entrepreneurial capability building in established firms through engagement with industry-led consortium accelerators. The process model comprises four capability-building phases: i) attracting, ii) strategic fit sensing, iii) shaping streams, and iv) internalizing. In so doing, we advance a novel mechanism-based explanation of how corporate R&D/innovation units of established firms develop entrepreneurial and experimentation capabilities through a four-phases process engagement with industry-led accelerators and new ventures. This process model is inductively generated through four, theoretically sampled cases of established firms - in the maritime, logistics, dredging and energy sectors-, which have co-sustained an industry-led accelerator in leading European Port maritime complex. This paper contributes to the corporate entrepreneurship and venturing, organizational learning and dynamic capabilities streams by solving the puzzle of how new corporate lean entrepreneurial capabilities are acquired and initiated through the symbiotic interaction between corporations and new ventures in industry-led consortium accelerators.