Strategic corporate venturing in interlinked-ambidextrous units

The publication-based dissertation investigates how to leverage corporate venturing units for the continuous stra- tegic renewal of established companies. It includes four self-contained research papers, from which three are de- veloped for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals, and one for publication as an academic teaching case study. The first paper uses the methodology of a systematic literature review to integrate different research streams of organizational ambidexterity, dynamic capabilities, and corporate venturing. As a result, it provides an inte- grated framework and identifies interlinked-ambidextrous corporate venturing units as a promising research av- enue for strategic corporate venturing. The second paper applies a multiple-case study approach to differentiate contemporary corporate venturing units from a strategic renewal perspective. As a result, it can provide a novel typology and suggest a first organizational framework for strategic corporate venturing. The third paper investi- gates the identified interlinked-ambidextrous corporate venturing units deeper through additional qualitative data collection and analysis. This results in a proposed organizational model of strategic corporate venturing with spe- cific organizational antecedents alongside process activities, dynamic capabilities and organizational interlinks as possible enablers, and ambidextrous orientation as a possible mediator to develop organizationally consequential new business. The fourth paper helps to apply these findings by describing the strategic renewal challenge of the digital scale-up Freeletics and leading through the organizational set-up of a suitable strategic corporate venturing project in the teaching note. To integrate all papers within one dissertation, they are framed with an introductory and concluding section. The introduction describes the overall need and motivation for the research and intro- duces the key theoretical concepts as well as the four research papers and their publication status. The concluding section provides theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and future research opportunities across all included papers. Altogether, the dissertation enhances existing corporate venturing theory to better lev- erage the concept for strategic renewal and provides new insights into the establishing and application of dynamic capabilities and organizational ambidexterity in dedicated corporate venturing units