Corporate Accelerators Research Articles

The Antecedents, Consequences and Key Determinants of Corporate Accelerators’ Success: A Systematic Literature Review

Over the past decade, accelerators have demonstrated their pivotal contribution to the economic and entrepreneurial ecosystem growth. In recent years, a large number of businesses and organizations use corporate accelerators to internalize opportunities provided by startups and idea generators outside the organization. Although this phenomenon has received much attention, especially in Iran, there are still many unclear points regarding the structure, processes, and acceleration programs. In this article, we did a systematic review of 49 articles out of 486 articles published in different journals in the last 5 years. Then, through the PRISMA method, the reviewed data was converted into a structured format in Excel software. At the end, we examined the findings of this study by presenting a conceptual framework detailing the antecedents and consequences of corporate accelerators. Also, in this research, we found that the five main success factors of corporate accelerators are the acceleration program, the creation of a large and committed external communication network, mentoring, the determination of accurate evaluation criteria and the competitive process in selecting startups.

How do large corporations engage with startups? The rise of corporate service providers

ABSTRACT Due to the emergence of the digital economy, traditional corporate entrepreneurship (CE) forms (i.e. corporate incubators, corporate venture capital, and corporate accelerators) have become too heavy and resource-consuming. As such, large corporations need to adopt a lightweight and flexible approach to access startups’ knowledge. Many of them have started outsourcing the CE service, demanding it from specialised service providers. In this study, we document the rise of this new form of CE, i.e. corporate service providers. Building from 25 interviews with managers of Plug and Play and GELLIFY, we analyze how these two types of service providers work concretely. Moreover, we discuss how they differ from traditional CE forms. Drawing on additional 17 interviews with large corporations and startups that have interacted through these service providers, we discuss how corporate service providers differ from previous traditional CE forms in facilitating the adoption of lightweight initiatives among large corporations to access startups’ knowledge. Accordingly, we provide theoretical contributions to the CE literature.

Corporate Accelerators: A Systematic Literature Review and Agenda for Future Research

Corporate Accelerators: A Systematic Literature Review and Agenda for Future Research

Engaging with startups through corporate accelerators: the case of H‐FARM's White Label Accelerator

Corporate accelerators have emerged in recent years as an innovation mechanism that builds bridges between corporations and startups. Through inbound Open Innovation (OI) activities, established firms open their innovation processes to startups to acquire their knowledge. Previous research has focused either on independent accelerators or on corporate accelerator programs that an established firm operates internally. The literature on how accelerators orchestrate different OI practices is sparse, yet large corporations are forging ahead with corporate accelerators. Furthermore, new corporate accelerator models have emerged, rendering the corporate accelerator phenomenon more heterogenous. In this paper, adopting an OI lens, we explore the White Label Accelerator (WLA), a recent model in which an independent accelerator manages the program on behalf of a single corporate organization. Through an in‐depth case study of Technogym Wellness Accelerator, a pioneer and most important WLA in Italy set up by H‐Farm on behalf of Technogym, a large fitness and wellness company, we investigate how such accelerators function as an OI tool. We found four key dimensions that enable successful outcomes. In particular, the importance of entrepreneurial alertness as a key driver for the effective exploitation of intellectual property represents a significant finding. Our research contributes to OI and entrepreneurial finance literature and provides insightful managerial implications to corporate accelerator stakeholders and startups' managers.

A life cycle perspective of startup accelerators

AbstractAccelerators are broadly seen as platforms that government, non-profit, and for-profit organizations use to fast-track the development of entrepreneurial and SME business capabilities. Typically, this occurs as competitive, time-constrained, cohort-centered, authentic learning experiences supported by mentoring and access to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, management development programs, and financial resources. Interest in how the ventures in the development programs evolve and contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem is increasing (Cantner et al. in Small Business Economics, 57, 407–423, 2021), but how the accelerators evolve has yet to be adequately researched. To better understand how accelerators evolve, we adapt Churchill and Lewis (Harvard Business Review, 61(3), 30–50, 1983) conceptual framework of the stages of small business development. This study investigated the life cycle of Australian accelerators from 2013 to 2020. The accelerators ranged from short-term “pop-up” programs to permanent programs. We found through a series of four selected exemplar case studies that these accelerators exhibited a similar four-stage life cycle to their participants, including (1) gestation, (2) survival, (3) viability, and (4) decline or renewal. We also found that external support was a critical issue that determined viability. Our findings support the development of accelerator management to be more agile, resilient, and entrepreneurial, which can confront those adopting a more standardized franchise model. In addition, we adapt Kohler (Business Horizons, 59(3), 347–357, 2016) work on corporate accelerators into an inclusive framework for all forms of accelerators, including considering their geographic context or Place, the actors involved with the accelerator or its People, the accelerator’s value Proposition to participants, the accelerator’s Processes and most fundamentally, its Purpose that will contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem practice and literature. This research provides practical considerations on positioning, suitable business models, and maximized operations.

“Do as we say and you'll be successful”: Mundane power in corporate entrepreneurship

AbstractCorporate entrepreneurship is infused with power. Prior research has begun to shed light on the role of power in innovation contexts. Yet, we know much less about the day‐to‐day enactment of mundane power in corporate entrepreneurship, which, despite its partial subtlety, is no less consequential regarding decisions on pursuing or abandoning innovative ideas. This paper extends the literature on corporate entrepreneurship and power by exploring the discursive practices through which managers and employees of a corporate accelerator disciplined venture founders in the pursuit of innovative ideas. Based on a Foucauldian discourse analysis of ethnographic data, we show how a clash of entrepreneurship discourses invokes the day‐to‐day performance of three discursive practices—observing, exercising, and punishing—through which the accelerator's staff ensured that venture founders would adopt a dominant entrepreneurship discourse, with important implications for decisions on pursuing innovative ideas or not. These findings deepen our understanding of enacting mundane power in corporate entrepreneurship as well as the enablers and outcomes of such power enactment. We also outline the practical implications for emerging corporate innovation settings such as accelerators.

Corporate accelerators: design and startup performance

Corporate accelerators (CAs) have emerged as a key component of entrepreneurship ecosystems, offering startups corporate guidance, industry connections, and resources for accelerated venture creation. Although their proliferation is evident, we still know little about the value they produce for startups across different contexts. This study investigates the organizational setup and program design of 15 CAs in Germany using a unique and hand-collected dataset of 223 alumni startups. Our findings reveal a tradeoff: Specialized and integrated programs positively impact startups’ speed to market and growth, while specialization and rising corporate control may hinder follow-up venture capital financing. This research contributes to our understanding of CAs and the startup acceleration process and provides insights for corporate and accelerator managers and startups alike. Startups can use these findings to identify the most suitable CA for their needs. Program managers and designers gain insights into the strategic orientation and organizational setup that positively impact startup acceleration.

Goliath Dates David: Navigating Institutional Complexity and Arbitrage in Corporate Accelerators

Goliath Dates David: Navigating Institutional Complexity and Arbitrage in Corporate Accelerators

Just the Two of Us? Investigating the Impact of Single vs Consortium Corporate Accelerators

Just the Two of Us? Investigating the Impact of Single vs Consortium Corporate Accelerators

It's all about opportunities: sourcing and selection of new ventures to accelerate innovation

One‐fifth of the global companies complement their R&D activities with the use of corporate accelerators. Corporate accelerators are claimed to foster innovativeness by engaging with startups. However, we know little about how they work. The few previous studies about corporate accelerators have mainly focused on the design of corporate accelerators or the description of the phenomenon itself, but we have limited insights into the underlying mechanisms of corporate acceleration. This in‐depth qualitative case study of a large German corporation in the automotive sector opens up how the sourcing and selection of new ventures accelerates corporate innovation. The unique access to internal data revealed the mechanisms that accelerate innovation by enhancing the corporate's entrepreneurial behavior. The study thereby contributes to understanding modes of corporate entrepreneurship and their function in the broader open innovation context, opening the black box of corporate acceleration, as well as giving valuable insights to R&D and innovation managers on the sourcing and selection process of startups.

How Do European Corporate Accelerators Select the Startups They Support?

Les accélérateurs corporatifs sont une importante source de soutien pour les startups, en particulier en Europe. L’un de leurs défis majeurs est de sélectionner des startups appropriées pour accomplir leurs objectifs. Nous étudions en profondeur leurs processus de sélection à travers 34 entretiens provenant de sept accélérateurs en France et en Allemagne. Notre analyse identifie deux approches de sélection distinctes. En mobilisant la théorie de l’agence, nos propositions expliquent pourquoi certaines approches de sélection favorisent soit le co-développement d’innovations, le retour financier, ou la diffusion de plateformes technologiques. Ainsi, nous contribuons au développement des littératures en accompagnement entrepreneurial et finance entrepreneuriale.

Relationship-building in the post-acceleration phase of corporate accelerators: empirical evidence from Germany

Corporate accelerators have become a relevant intermediary that connects startups and corporations. Their strategic goal is to establish close relationships between startups and corporations that add value for both parties in the long term. While in principle startups go through an acceleration phase successfully, they may struggle to build meaningful relationships with the accelerator’s corporate parent thereafter. In research, the post-acceleration phase and its challenges for corporations and startups has not been adequately addressed to date. Therefore, the goal of this article is to shed light on how corporations and startups collaborate after startups leave an accelerator programme, and which factors hinder successful relationship-building. Grounding on 21 corporate accelerator cases containing data from 99 semi-structured interviews with corporate accelerator managers and startup alumni of accelerator programmes, we present different forms of post-programme collaboration and outline obstacles of post-programme relationship-building. Our results emphasise a key role of business units in successful relationship-building and indicate legitimacy problems of accelerators within its corporate organisation. We also provide guidance for corporations, accelerators, and startups on how to increase the success of post-programme collaboration by demonstrating manifold challenges of post-programme collaboration and showing ways how to overcome them.

Корпоративный акселератор как стратегический инструмент развития трансфера технологий для предприятий легкой промышленности и моды

Abstract. A corporate accelerator allows a company to realize its strategic priority in the field of technology transfer, find the best solution to existing problems, reduce costs or increase the efficiency of business processes. Access to labor, infrastructure, financial resources of an economic entity allows pilot projects to provide all the conditions for the formation of the company’s technological sovereignty. The purpose of this scientific work is to identify the theoretical foundations of the corporate accelerator tool, as well as review and analyze the best strategic domestic and foreign practices. The scientific article analyzes different types of accelerators and their strategic goals. Corporate venture accelerators are aimed at developing projects as independent business areas. Enterprise technology accelerators have the strategic goal of creating product and service providers. Internal accelerators activate the results of intellectual activity within the company. Process accelerators allow you to increase the internal efficiency of processes and facilitate interaction with external actors. Accelerators based on the venture client model allow you to quickly implement pilot projects with the customer. The strategic goals and expected results of the acceleration program must exactly match the development strategy of the company in whose interests the acceleration program is being carried out. The strategic goal-setting of acceleration programs can be very different and depends on the strategy. The analysis made it possible to formulate the key strategic principles for the use of this tool in the light industry and the fashion industry. The author formulated that the acceleration program should be determined by the specific interests and strategic priorities of the light industry and fashion industry companies. Such interests may be entering a new sales market, technological re-equipment, digitalization of processes, and so on. The company’s financial priorities should imply the sufficiency of resources to ensure the development of an innovative direction through the use of a technology transfer mechanism. To increase economic and social efficiency, the labor resources of an industry company should be involved in the launch, implementation and improvement of such programs. A strategic target map of accelerators is proposed depending on their types. The results of this work will allow professionals in the field of creative economy to independently develop technological priorities for the development of their innovation ecosystem in the long term. This study uses the following methodological tools: study, analysis, synthesis, formalization, strategic benchmarking. The strategic principles for the creation and operation of a corporate accelerator in the fashion industry are based on the theory and methodology of strategizing by Academician V. L. Kvint. Further research may be devoted to the analysis of social and economic efficiency in the context of corporate acceleration.

Start-Up Accelerators and Their Impact on Sustainability: Literature Analysis and Case Studies from the Energy Sector

Start-up accelerators are units supporting entrepreneurs (substantively, financially, legally, and organizationally) in establishing and running young and innovative companies such as start-ups. The commencing energy crisis has led to the need for energy savings, as well as the need to change energy policies and implement energy transformation, creating a wide field for start-ups and start-up accelerators. Making full use of potentially innovative solutions developed by start-ups is, in turn, essential for energy giants and related accelerators in the market. This has created the need for specific research in this direction. Therefore, in this paper we review the literature for 2011–2021 with respect to the role of accelerators supporting start-ups. A survey based on the Scopus database resulted in the identification of 76 papers on accelerators. Particular attention was paid to aspects of sustainable development (economic, social, and environmental). The analysis indicated that 75 works dealt with the economic aspects, 35 focused on social aspects, and only 5 focused on environmental aspects. Due to the perceived gap related to the small number of works dealing with environmental aspects, a decision was made to analyse the energy sector and the methods of operation of accelerators in this sector. Three models found in the market that were used by energy companies to cooperate with start-ups were characterized, along with their goals, in an attempt to enable an improved understanding as to which acceleration model best fits a manager’s organization. The models were supported by case studies—a model of commercial cooperation between a corporation and an external accelerator, a model of creating a corporate accelerator within an internal structure, and a hybrid model.

Stimulating Open Innovation Culture Emergence through Corporate-Startup Collaborations

An open innovation (OI) culture is crucial for successful inter-organizational innovation. While it is clear that an OI culture emerges in actual corporate-startup collaborations (CSCs), little is known about how these collaborations stimulate OI culture emergence in large organizations. To close this gap, we conducted 52 semi-structured interviews within a corporate accelerator. Our findings show that CSCs confront involved corporate employees from strategic and operative levels with different perspectives, working modes and actions. These demands pull their attention into different directions, resulting in tensions that create an adaptive space for OI culture emergence. Five practices help employees to navigate in this space and to integrate different demands, constituting visible signs of OI culture emergence. We contribute to OI research on culture and exemplify the complex cross-level nature of OI. We encourage corporates to engage employees broadly in CSCs, empowering them in realizing identified practices to convey openness into the organization.

Looking back to Speed Forward: Origins, Evolution, Path Forward for Corporate Accelerator Research

Looking back to Speed Forward: Origins, Evolution, Path Forward for Corporate Accelerator Research

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Track: Corporate, Consortia & Moonshot Acceleration: Novel Approaches to Speed Up Entrepreneurial Innovation

In many industries, entrepreneurial ventures are the source of disruptive innovation and industrial change. A burgeoning approach by which incumbent firms can react to or potentially tap into entrepreneurial ventures’ innovative potential is through Corporate Accelerator Programs (CAP). Yet, many CAPs fail, and extant research provides limited understanding of how incumbents can effectively harness innovation through these novel corporate-start-up engagements that go beyond traditional approaches like acquisitions and alliances. Following last year’s successful AoM Annual Meeting Symposium, this new panel session will highlight the ongoing state of research on different types of accelerators (with a focus on corporate-backed ones), the current tools deployed for validation and scaling as well as their shortcomings to address the great disruption challenges across industries. We will extend our understanding of different acceleration modalities, including consortia, deep tech and moonshot acceleration, and suggest ways for developing new and existing theories using the CAP context. Our panel of leading scholars and practitioners will share their views on how innovation and entrepreneurship theory relate to CAPs, how CAPs are distinct from conventional approaches to firm innovation and industrial change, and how academic research can contribute to a better design and management of CAPs. This distinctive Panel will be of great interest to the TIM and ENT Divisions.

Experimental Spaces As Temporary Entrepreneurial Work Environments For Incubating Wildcard Ideas

Companies often establish structured innovation programs such as innovation labs and corporate accelerators to harness employee creativity and enable them to experiment with new ideas to challenge established practices, actions or business models. What is yet to be understood is how individuals lacking such structured innovation programs in organizations pursue their ideas. This study explores inductively how individuals initiate and develop novel ideas outside the core corporate structures through the lens of experimental spaces. Experimental spaces as temporary entrepreneurial work settings provide distinct means for individuals to interact and experiment with new ideas and approaches. Using the concept of boundary work and drawing on an embedded multiple case study of six wildcard ventures that originate outside the core corporate structures, this paper unpacks the individual entrepreneurial efforts and their connections to supportive actors contributing to the emergence of experimental spaces. The findings reveal two distinct entrepreneurial venture paths, internal networked ventures and peripheral entrepreneurial ventures, that emerge through the establishment of supportive conditions along the venturing process, including different iterative product development, market engagement, and working style and methods.

Open Innovation Strategy in Indonesia ICT Industries

The research objective is establishing the relationship between business model, open innovation, and a firm’s performance in context-based corporate accelerator program held by Indonesia ICT industries. The crucial relationships between startup and industry collaboration are: co-creation; IP-sharing; reducing R&D costs; the need for risk sharing; and the primary driver of companies’ sustainability growth. Co-creation becomes the most reliable driver in the issue of the importance of collaboration, and it leads to an independent factor that should be firstly developed and continuously improved. The IP-sharing and risk-sharing factors are both reliable drivers but medium dependent. The startups and industries must have a proper contractual agreement once they decide to share the IP and risk. The integrity factor will be necessary for mutual benefit. Reducing R&D costs and the main driver of the company’s sustainability growth are the dependent variables or outcomes of the collaboration between startups and leading industries.

Success Factors of Corporate Accelerators

Abstract Corporate accelerators have become an important form of corporate-start-up collaboration. According to [1] mm1 (consultancy for Connected Business), two-thirds of all DAX 30 companies in Germany engaged with start-ups via an accelerator in the year 2020. Despite the clear importance of this phenomenon, there is still a lack of understanding of the concrete factors that determine their success. Corporate accelerators can be designed in different ways but business executives are still in the dark about the consequences of these design decisions on the performance. The aim of present study is to determine success factors of a selected set of corporate accelerators based on qualitative data. A database of 109 corporate accelerators was collected from which all Germany based programs (28) were analysed in greater detail regarding their performance and program design. Hereby, the study tests the statistical relevance of 14 potential success factors identified via literature review conducted on the matter. The results show that especially five factors have a significant positive correlation to a corporate accelerators success: The existence of corporate partners. A demanding selection process that contains selection days for shortlisted start-ups. A larger amount of start-ups per batch. The obligation for start-ups to be physically present in the facilities for the time of the program (Pre Covid19). The incorporation of metrics to track the progress of participating start-ups. JEL classification numbers: O31. Keywords: Acceleration programs, Corporate acceleration, Corporate entrepreneurship, start-ups, Corporate incubators.