Large established companies are under growing pressure to adapt. Rapid technological change, digital transformation, and new forms of competition mean that firms must constantly look for new ideas, technologies, and capabilities. One increasingly popular response has been to engage with startups. Startups are seen as agile, innovative, and close to emerging markets, which makes them attractive partners for established firms seeking to innovate and maintain their competitive advantages.
Yet this popularity hides a major problem. Although corporate engagement with startups has become widespread, many of these relationships remain disappointing for both sides. Established firms and startups differ markedly in their pace, culture, expectations, and constraints, which makes collaboration hard to organize and sustain. As a result, what looks highly promising in theory often proves far more difficult to realize in practice, and many important questions remain about how large firms can engage with startups effectively.
This dissertation examines this issue and makes three main contributions. First, it clarifies and organizes a fragmented body of research on corporate engagement with startups by identifying the main antecedents, processes, and outcomes highlighted in the existing literature. Second, it explores how established firms search for and engage with startups, while highlighting three main configurations through which firms can organize not only their engagement with startups, but also their interactions with third parties and other actors involved in these processes. Third, it highlights how the broader external environment influences both why firms engage with startups and how they do so. Taken together, the dissertation offers scholars and practitioners a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of how large corporations engage with startups and of the influence that other actors and contextual conditions can exert on these engagement processes.