Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

12-2020

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Entrepreneurship

Degree Program

Entrepreneurship, PhD

Committee Chair

Garrett, Robert

Committee Co-Chair (if applicable)

Fiet, James

Committee Member

Fiet, James

Committee Member

Parker, Simon

Committee Member

Dubofsky, David

Author's Keywords

corporate ventures; corporate cultural distance; entrepreneurship; international corporate strategy

Abstract

Even though corporate ventures (CVs) provide many benefits to established corporations, they continue to fail at a high rate. Whereas research supports that a corporation can gain a parenting advantage over its competitors (Campbell et al., 1995), there is no evidence to support that starting more CVs leads to more successful CVs. Parenting advantage theory postulates that if a corporation with a parenting advantage starts a venture then that venture will be more successful than if any of their competitors had started the same venture (Campbell et al., 1995). CVs are typified by dynamism and innovation, but established corporations have a duty to maximize shareholder returns while minimizing risks (Simon et al., 1999). The divergence of these two cultures can create cultural friction at the interface of the interacting corporate and venture managers. I analyzed these relationships to understand what impact cultural distance could have on CV performance. I found that an increase in corporate cultural distance is associated with a decrease in venture success. My findings suggest that even though a corporation may possess resources that could benefit its venture, that cultural distance between a parent and its venture could be inhibiting the transfer of these resources to its venture leading to lower levels of venture success.

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