Exploring the Parallel Use of Multiple Corporate Entrepreneurship Units: An Empirical Investigation of the German Business Landscape

Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE) units have become an increasingly important part of established companies' development activities enabling them to also create more discontinuous innovations. As a result, companies have developed and implemented different forms of CE units, such as corporate accelerators, incubators, startup supplier programs, and corporate venture capital. Driven by the need to innovate, companies have even begun to use multiple CE units simultaneously. However, this has not been empirically investigated yet. Thus, with this study, we aim to shed some light on this by investigating the parallel use of multiple CE units in the German business landscape. We conducted an extensive desk research, combining, coding, and analyzing different sources. We found that 55 out of 165 large established companies have multiple CE units, which allowed us to characterize the parallel use and identify differences and similarities, e.g., in terms of industry, company size, and CE forms implemented. We conclude by presenting different implications for both practice and research and by pointing out directions for future research.