A Process Model of Internal Corporate Venturing in the Diversified Major Firm

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a grounded process model of the interlocking key activities of managers at different levels in the organization, which constitutes the strategic process by which new ventures take shape.

Abstract: This paper is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, which received a Certificate of Distinction for Outstanding Research in the field of Strategic Management, Academy of Management and General Electric Company, 1980. L. Jay Bourgeois, Arthur P. Brief, David B. Jemison, Leonard R. Sayles, Stephen A. Stumpf, and Steven C. Wheelwright have made useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. The constructive comments of three anonymousASQ reviewers have contributed significantly to this final version. Support from the Strategic Management Program of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business is gratefully acknowledged. My thanksalsoto Barbara Sherwood forexcellent administrative assistance. This paper reports findings of a field study of the internal corporate venturing (ICV) process in a diversified major firm. It presents a grounded process model of the interlocking key activities of managers at different levels in the organization, which constitutes the strategic process by which new ventures take shape. Successful ICV efforts are shown to depend on the availability of autonomous entrepreneurial activity on the part of operational level participants, on the ability of middle-level managers to conceptualize the strategic implications of these initiatives in more general system terms, and on the capacity of top management to allow viable entrepreneurial initiatives to change the corporate strategy.*