J. Henri Burgers

Why New Business Development Projects Fail: Coping with the Differences of Technological versus Market Knowledge

Managing through projects has become important for generating new knowledge to cope with technological and market discontinuities. This paper examines how the fit between the creation of technological and market knowledge and important project management characteristics, i.e. project autonomy and completion criteria, influences the success of new business development (NBD) projects. In-depth longitudinal case research on NBD-projects commercialised during the period 1993-2003 in the consumer electronics industry highlights that project management characteristics focusing only on the creation of technological knowledge contributed to the failure of those NBD-projects that required new market knowledge as well. The findings indicate that senior management support and engaging in an alliance with partners possessing complementary market knowledge can offset this misalignment of the organisation of NBD-projects.

Celebrity capital as a strategic asset: Implications for new venture strategies

Despite an increase in businesses started by celebrities, we have limited understanding as to how celebrity entrepreneurs benefit new ventures. Drawing on a reputational capital perspective, we develop the notion of celebrity capital and show how it can be used to uniquely differentiate the venture and to overcome liabilities of newness. We discuss how celebrity capital can negatively influence the venture when negative information about the celebrity surfaces and in terms of limiting the scope of the venture. We discuss the different strategic implications of celebrity capital for ventures using celebrity entrepreneurs versus endorsers.

Corporate Venturing: Unlocking the Innovation Chain

Corporate venturing is an important avenue of growth for many large established firms, but its results remain mixed. Previous studies suggest that ventures can be best managed through a separate unit that is responsible for all phases in the venturing process. That is for incubation, validation and commercialisation. However, managerial capabilities, management processes, evaluation criteria and deliverables vary significantly for each of these phases. Our case research at Shell, Nokia and IBM shows that the success rate of venturing can be improved if firms manage each of the three phases separately through a distinct unit. This allows a venture unit to optimise its capabilities for the requirements of that specific phase. An additional observed advantage of managing the phases separately is that it creates flexibility through an open-innovation approach, in which ventures can be spun-in and -out after each phase.

The Impact of Corporate Venturing on a Firm’s Competence Modes

In this conceptual paper we investigate how corporate venturing influences an organizations competences. The impact of various types of corporate ventures on the portfolio of strategic options of a firms competence modes (Sanchez, 2004a; Sanchez & Heene, 2002) will be assessed by distinguishing two fundamentally different dimensions of corporate venturing: technology and product (Block & MacMillan, 1993). We argue that the level of product and factor market dynamism mediates the effect of corporate venturing on a firms competence modes. Corporate ventures that significantly increase the level of product or factor market dynamics will increase the flexibility in all five competence modes. These ventures have a direct effect on the lower-order competence modes and an indirect, lagged effect on higher-order competence modes through feedback loops. The developed framework and the propositions contribute to managing the ability of a firm to change its coordination, resource, and operating flexibility in order to sustain value creation.