Markku Maula

Explorative and Exploitative Learning from External Corporate Ventures

This study examines the antecedents of explorative and exploitative learning of technological knowledge from external corporate ventures. We compare different forms of external corporate venturing, namely corporate venture capital investments, alliances, joint ventures, and acquisitions, as alternative avenues for interorganizational learning. Furthermore, we test the effects of multiple relational characteristics on the type of learning outcomes. Our empirical analysis is based on citations in patents filed by a sample of 110 largest U.S. public information and communications technology companies during the years 1992–2000. We find that corporate venturing mode and technological relatedness have significant effects on the likelihood of explorative learning.

Allocation of attention to portfolio companies and the performance of venture capital firms

This article proposes that the attention allocated by venture capitalists to portfolio companies impacts their performance. The article develops arguments for optimal portfolio size and for the moderating roles of syndication frequency and role. The hypotheses receive support from analyses employing longitudinal data of the leading U.S. venture capital firms. Our results indicate the value of venture capitalist involvement and give guidance for its optimal allocation and syndication.

Attracting cross-border venture capital: the role of a local investor

Examining an increasingly prevalent but under-researched phenomenon, cross-border venture capital investments, it is observed that local venture capitalists typically invest first, followed by foreign venture capitalists in later rounds. A model is developed that explains the role of a domestic venture capital investor in attracting foreign investors and which also accounts for the impact of various circumstances on the importance of this role. In our model based on analysis of nine cross-border venture capital-backed companies, local venture capitalists have several important roles in increasing the ventures cross-border investment readiness including advice to operational management and contributing contacts and local market knowledge. The importance of these roles is mitigated if the entrepreneurial team is highly experienced or if the home market is not important for the venture. The prominence of the local investor has signalling value. Finally, the local investors international social capital facilitates the formation of cross-border syndicates. Overall, the model developed in the paper contributes to a better understanding of cross-border venture capital and in particular to the division of labour between domestic and foreign venture capitalists in international venture capital syndicates. The paper also contributes to the emerging literature on international social capital.

Cross-Border Venture Capital and New Venture Internationalization: An Isomorphism Perspective

Abstract Many of the fastest growing global ventures are backed by cross-border venture capitalists. However, the role of foreign investors in internationalization has not been examined in prior research. To address this gap, we carried out a multiple case study to produce a grounded theory of the effects of foreign investors in new venture internationalization. Our findings suggest that foreign venture capitalists located in a ventures target market of internationalization can be valuable for the venture by legitimizing the unknown new venture in that market. However, foreign investors tend to drive portfolio companies towards their home markets, and the benefits may turn into disadvantages if the target market differs from the home markets of the foreign investors.

Interorganizational Commitment in Syndicated Cross-Border Venture Capital Investments

Cross–border venture capital has become increasingly common in recent years. Little is known, however, about the antecedents of venture capitalists’ commitment to portfolio firms in international settings. We used a multiple case study to build a grounded model of interorganizational commitment in cross–border syndication networks. The model proposes that changes in a ventures prospects influence investors’ commitment levels. This relationship is amplified by the remoteness of the investor and is mitigated by the investors embeddedness in local syndication networks and the relative investment size. The model contributes to the literature on cross–border venture capital and interorganizational commitment in international settings.

Prerequisites for the creation of social capital and subsequent knowledge acquisition in corporate venture capital

Past research has largely treated inter-organizational social capital as an exogenously determined asset. In this paper, the authors build and test a model on the effects of the initial conditions for the creation and leveraging of social capital in corporate venture capital v - v portfolio firm dyads. Using contemporary survey data from US portfolio firms, it is shown that complementarities and financial incentives constitute important initial conditions for the creation of social interaction and subsequent knowledge acquisition. While extending the understanding of social capital formation, the findings also have important practical implications for technology-based new firms planning their growth and financing strategies.

Top Management’s Attention to Discontinuous Technological Change: Corporate Venture Capital as an Alert Mechanism

Technological discontinuities pose serious challenges to top managers’ attention. These discontinuities, which often occur at the fringes of an industry, are usually driven by innovative and often venture capital-backed start-ups creating new products and transforming existing industries in ways that are difficult for incumbent managers to understand against the backdrop of their existing cognitive schemata. However, failing to appreciate and embrace successful technological discontinuities might endanger incumbents’ very existence. Extending the attention-based view, we explore whether and how interorganizational relationships guide top managers’ attention either to or away from technological discontinuities. We propose that homophilous relationships e.g., alliances with industry peers should exhibit a negative relationship with incumbents’ timely attention to technological discontinuities, whereas heterophilous relationships e.g., with venture capitalists as a result of coinvestments should exhibit a positive relationship. Furthermore, we hypothesize that the status of the partners strengthens the effect of homophilous and heterophilous relationships with the timely attention of top managers to technological discontinuities. Based on a longitudinal study of the incumbents in four information and communications technology industry sectors, we find that heterophilous ties through corporate venture capital CVC, coinvesting with high-status venture capital firms, exhibit a strong positive relationship with timely attention. CVC, when it connects senior management to high-status venture capitalists through coinvestments, has a special role in directing top managers’ attention to technological discontinuities and ensuing business opportunities. Implications for the understanding of the role of interorganizational ties as structural determinants of top managers’ attention are discussed.

Unique Resources of Corporate Venture Capitalists as a Key to Entry Into Rigid Venture Capital Syndication Networks

We investigate how corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) can rapidly attain central positions in venture capital syndication networks. Using data of CVC investments by U.S. corporations between 1996 and 2005, we complement prior research, which suggests that centrally positioned VCs predominantly invest together with other centrally positioned VCs. While we find clear support for the social network theory arguments that prior central positions in syndication networks significantly explain future network positions of CVCs, we also find a negative interaction effect between past centrality and corporate resources. This finding implies that resources of CVCs can substitute for their lack of prior centrality and allow them to gain rapidly central positions in rigid VC syndication networks.

CEO Entrepreneurial Orientation, Entrenchment, and Firm Value Creation

We investigate how CEO entrepreneurial orientation affects firm value creation and how this relationship is moderated by three sources of CEO entrenchment. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of S...

How Corporate Venture Capitalists Add Value to Entrepreneurial Young Firms

The present study develops a multi-theoretic framework of the mechanisms of value creation in interorganizational relationships and of the key factors influencing those mechanisms. The integrative use of several theories in building the model is justified by numerous studies suggesting that a multi-theoretic approach is required to understand the complexity of interorganizational relationships (Gulati, 1998; Osborn & Hagedoorn, 1997; Park et al., 2002). We believe that the relationships between start-up companies and their corporate investors, with each party holding a diversity of strategic and financial objectives, are not less complex than other potential interorganizational relationships. They may therefore also require ideas from several theories to be properly understood. In this study, we build the models applying primarily the resource-based and the knowledge-based views, as well as social capital theory. Ideas from other theoretical approaches are used to complement these theories.