Open innovation strategy : a framework for corporate-startup collaboration

Abstract

Recent years have seen important changes in the way corporates compete and the dynamism of this competition. Companies are facing increasing pressure to innovate and generate value for customers in over-satisfied societies demanding more complex business propositions and faster response. These changes lead to greater horizontal and vertical uncertainty, that corporations have to manage while sustaining investment in core assets to ensure short term performance. Open innovation strategies, levering on the internal and external entrepreneurial drive, have been proposed to increase the resilience of corporates while opening the opportunity for nascent ventures to grow in new markets. The design of these programs is an area of active research. This thesis proposes a specific open innovation program. The design implements an integral strategy combining inside-out and outside-in transitions to lower costs and enhance efficiency. The design is sequential and staged, resulting in a flexible, modular program architecture with multiple, specifically designed components (accelerator, innovation center, incubator and CVC) enabling the management of a wide range of deal flows.