Corporate Entrepreneurship-E-

Groups

Groups will consist of four people (+/- 1 depending on the number of students that register for the course) and will be randomly created.

Structure/run of the course

Week 1: Introduction to the course and introduction to the topic of corporate venturing

In week one we will set the scene for this course. We will provide:

• An overview of the course and the assignments
• An overview of the topic of corporate venturing and
• Information on the notion of “innovation theatre”
• Methodological session: How to conduct a literature review

Obligatory preparation material:

Blank, S. (2019) Why Companies Do “Innovation Theater” Instead of Actual Innovation. Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2019/10/why-companies-do-innovation-theater-instead-of-actual-innovation

Background material:

Burgelman, R.A. (1983) Corporate entrepreneurship and strategic management: insights from a process study. Manag Sci 29(12):1349–1364.

Covin J.G., Miles M (1999) Corporate entrepreneurship and the pursuit of competitive advantage. Corp Entrep Growth 23:47–63

Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative science quarterly, 128-152.

Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic management journal, 18(7), 509-533.

Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization, and extension. Academy of management review, 27(2), 185-203.

Week 2: How to select the appropriate corporate venturing activity

In week two we will provide:

• An overview on various corporate venturing activities
• Guest lecture on corporate venturing
• Methodological session: How to conduct expert interviews

Obligatory preparation material:

Gutmann, T. (2019) Harmonizing corporate venturing modes: an integrative review and research agenda. Management Review Quarterly 69:121–157

Watch Interview with Tendayi Viki from Strategyzer

Week 3: How to design and implement internal corporate venturing activity

In week three we will provide:

• An overview of the specific challenges related to internal corporate venturing activities
• Their implications for the structure and organization of corporates
• Insights/input on how to conduct a trend analysis
• Feedback on identification challenges for literature review

Obligatory preparation material:

Burgelman, R.A. (1983) A process model of internal corporate venturing in the diversified major firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(2): 223-244

Listen to the following podcast: https://www.futuresquared.xyz/podcast/episode-257-alex-osterwalder-on-taking-a-portfolio-approach-to-disruptive-innovation-by-future2-innovation

Week 4: Lecture: How to design and implement external corporate venturing activities

In week four, we will provide:

• An overview of the specifics of external corporate venturing activities
• Their implications for the structure and organization of corporates
• Insights on open innovation and crowdsourcing
• Examples of large German corporates and their external venturing activities

Obligatory preparational material:

Csaszar, F. A., & Eggers, J. P. (2013). Organizational decision making: An information aggregation view. Management Science, 59(10), 2257-2277.

West, J., & Bogers, M. (2014). Leveraging external sources of innovation: a review of research on open innovation. Journal of product innovation management, 31(4), 814-831.

Background reading:

Reitzig, M. (2011). ls Your Company Choosing the Best lnnovation Ideas?. MIT Sloan Management Review.

Afuah, A., & Tucci, C. L. (2012). Crowdsourcing as a solution to distant search. Academy of Management review, 37(3), 355-375.

Felin, T., & Zenger, T. R. (2014). Closed or open innovation? Problem solving and the governance choice. Research policy, 43(5), 914-925.

Boudreau, K., & Lakhani, K. (2009). How to manage outside innovation. MIT Sloan management review, 50(4), 69.

King, A., & Lakhani, K. R. (2013). Using open innovation to identify the best ideas. MIT Sloan management review, 55(1), 41.

Week 5: Guest lecturers: Practitioner testimonials of corporate venturing activities and innovation theater

In week five, we will provide:

• Numerous guest speakers on the topic, reflecting on positive as well as negative cases

Week 6: Feedback on group assignment

In week 6, we will do individual group coaching on the group assignment

Week 7: Deadline handing in report

Group report on corporate entrepreneurship activities and innovation theatre (50% of grading)

Setting: Established companies are investing heavily in corporate venturing activities (incubators, accelerators, innovation outposts, hackathons, innovation labs, corporate venture capital) to foster entrepreneurial transformation. However, there is increasing disappointment with this kind of efforts. In general, the feeling is that this kind of initiatives are resulting in what Steve Blank (2019) recently coined as innovation theater. In this group assignment, students will conduct an in-depth investigation for one particular type of corporate venturing activity. The final report should reflect on those activities, the positive and the negative implications. The report should consist of the following parts:

(i) Literature review on the focal corporate venturing activity
(i.e., what is the definition of the activity, how do scholars categorize different types, when do companies use this particular activity, what are the core challenges). For the literature review, the team should use minimum of 5 and maximum of 10 papers (excluding part of individual assignment).

(ii) Trend analysis of the corporate venturing activity
(i.e., what is the development of this/these specific activities over time, e.g. who is using it and how does use of evolve over time)

(iii) Qualitative analysis based on 5 expert interviews
(i.e., analyze why innovation theater happens in this particular context and how it can be avoided)

(iv) Recommendations on how to successfully apply this particular venturing activity

Quality of the group assignment

We apply the following quality criteria for evaluating the report:

• Clarity
• Use of academic references (i.e., in what quality are the academic references used?)
• Use of secondary information sources (e.g., databases, newspapers, web-sites, etc.)
• Use of primary information sources (e.g., interviews)
• Depth of the analysis (i.e., how much did the team find out?)
• Relevance of the analysis (i.e., how important are the findings for corporates?)
• Concrete outcomes and suggestion (i.e., can the report be used?)

Formal Criteria:

• Max 20 pages (i.e. approximately 5 pages for each section), excluding individual assignment part, appendix and references
• 12-point font, Times New Roman, 1.5 space.
• APA style referencing.

Individual literature analysis in corporate entrepreneurship topic (50% of grading):

Each team member does one individual part of the literature analysis as a contribution to the overall teamwork. After a first scan of the literature on the particular corporate venturing activity, the group needs to identify 5 important topics/challenges that are related to the corporate venturing activity (e.g. leadership, intellectual property, strategic alignment, …). Each individual will subsequently conduct a deep dive literature analysis of one particular topic by collecting additional literature (max 5 additional papers).

The individual assignment follows the quality criteria outlined in class.

We apply the following quality criteria for evaluating the paper:

• Clarity
• Use of academic references (i.e., in what quantity and quality are the academic references used?)
• Ability to perform a literature analysis
• Concrete outcome of the analysis

Formal Criteria:

• Max 5 pages, which are integrated in the group report (clearly indicate which person is responsible for which part)
• 12-point font, Times New Roman, 1.5 space.
• APA style referencing.