Towards understanding who makes corporate venture capital investments and why

Corey C. Phelps (1) , Sandip Basu (2) , Suresh Kotha (3)

1 GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC
2 CSUN - California State University [Northridge]
3 University of Washington [Seattle]

This study examines when established firms participate in corporate venture capital (CVC). We build on the resource-based view of interfirm collaboration and emphasize the strategic flexibility of CVC relationships. We use longitudinal data on 477 firms from 1990 to 2000 to test our hypotheses. We find that firms in industries with rapid technological change, high competitive intensity and weak appropriability engage in greater CVC activity. We also show that firms that possess strong technological and marketing resources and resources developed from diverse venturing experience engage in greater CVC activity. Finally, we find that these firm resources moderate the influence of the observed industry effects in paradoxical ways.

Keywords: Corporate venture capital; Corporate entrepreneurship; Interfirm collaboration

Domains: Strategy and business policy

Corey C. Phelps, Sandip Basu, Suresh Kotha. Towards understanding who makes corporate venture capital investments and why. Journal of Business Venturing, 2011, 26 (2), pp.153-171. ⟨10.1016/j.jbusvent.2009.07.001⟩. ⟨hal-00575634⟩