Managing corporate venturing: multilevel studies on project autonomy, integration, knowledge relatedness, and phases in the new business development process

Developing new businesses is a critical factor for strategically renewing firms in today¿s dynamic environments. Although autonomy has frequently been addressed as a major factor in successfully managing corporate ventures, several critical contingencies remain unexplored. The results of our multilevel study show that at firm level autonomy should be combined with integration mechanisms to enhance corporate venturing. When managing new business development projects the degree of autonomy should be matched with the extent to which these projects are related to the knowledge base of the parent firm. Our findings from case and survey research show that an important distinction should be made between technological and market knowledge. These types of knowledge have different effects on project management characteristics such as project autonomy and project completion criteria. Our results demonstrate that the relation between autonomy and technological and market knowledge relatedness and their effects on project performance are different in the development and commercialization phase of the new business development process. These findings enhance corporate venturing efforts by showing how firms should manage autonomy and knowledge relatedness over the different phases of the new business development process.