The double-edged effects of the corporate venture capital unit's structural autonomy on corporate investors' explorative and exploitative innovation

Abstract

Although most prior literature on the strategic value of corporate venture capital (CVC) investments has focused solely on its role as an explorative learning method, in reality, many corporate investors are also using CVC investments for exploitative learning to strengthen their existing business model. In this study, we focus on the operational aspects of CVC investments and discuss how the explorative and exploitative innovation performance of corporate investors is affected by the level of the structural autonomy granted to their CVC dedicated unit. Using 20 years of panel data from 77 corporate investors in U.S. high-tech industries, we find that the structural autonomy of the CVC unit exhibits a positive relationship with the corporate investor's explorative innovation performance, while it is negatively related with exploitative innovation performance.