Toward an integrated framework of corporate venturing for organizational ambidexterity as a dynamic capability

Abstract

In times of changing business environments, firms must constantly renew their competitive advantage by establishing dynamic capabilities. While often attempting to employ this in corporate venturing activities, they face the challenge of simultaneously exploring new and exploiting existing business opportunities. Examining possible approaches to mastering this feat of ‘organizational ambidexterity’ reveals an extensive but scattered picture. To better integrate this effort by assessing how corporate venturing is linked with organizational ambidexterity in the literature and identifying possible organizational setups, this systematic literature review builds on a sample of 172 studies. Based on different dimensions of dynamic capabilities, the analysis indicates that corporate venturing may take a solely explorative or an exploitative role, or balance both, to directly enable organizational ambidexterity, following a ‘trade-off’, respectively ‘paradox’, school of thought. As a result, this paper identifies four different setups of corporate venturing in an integrated framework, based on the ability and approach to enabling organizational ambidexterity. Here, the synthesis in the proposed framework of the studies examined allows differentiating between not directly ambidextrous separated or integrated corporate venturing and directly ambidextrous contextual or interlinked corporate venturing. As a novel contribution to the fields of strategic management, organizational change and corporate entrepreneurship, this integrated perspective suggests an often overlooked, potentially more strategic role for corporate venturing in the strategic renewal of a firm’s competitive advantage, thus building the basis for further empirical research on strategic corporate venturing approaches for organizational ambidexterity and their application in practice.

Reviewing the relationship between organizational performance, dynamic capabilities and strategic behavior

“…In recent years, a new approach has emerged from strategy theory that allows organizations to revise their tactics towards a comprehensive chance of success (Zea-Fernández et al 2020 ; Michaelis et al 2021 ). This novel approach, known as Dynamic Capabilities (DC) theory, focuses on an organization’s ability to create, renew, modify, integrate and reconfigure its mix of resources in a rapidly changing environment to achieve high returns, sustainability and long-term competitiveness (Teece et al 1997 ; Londoño-Patiño and Acevedo-Álvarez 2018 ; Weiss and Kanbach 2021 ). There are three key aspects that motivate the use of DC theory: first, that companies with a high level of dynamic capabilities are intensely entrepreneurial; second, that these are formed by innovation and collaboration with other organizations; third, that the knowledge asset is the most difficult to replicate (Teece 2011 ; Villafuerte-Godínez and Leiva 2015 ).…”

Multidimensional Aspect of Corporate Entrepreneurship in Family Business and SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review

“…A few scholars have performed literature reviews focusing on CE; for example, the review of (Nadkarni and Prügl 2021) focused on a particular segment, the digital transformation industry, and (Weiss and Kanbach 2021) explored an integrated framework of corporate venturing for organizational ambidexterity as a dynamic capability. Other scholars (Mehta 2020) examined the effect of different leadership styles on CE and its components, and (Burger and Blažková 2020) identified internal determinants promoting CE in established organizations.…”

Team Flexibility in Organizational Change Context: Antecedents and Consequences

“…The first potential antecedent is organizational ambidexterity, which scholars define as a dynamic capability to configure organizational resources by balancing existing as well as new assets and opportunities. 19 , 20 Drawing on the theory of dynamic capability, 21 organizational ambidexterity is central to the adaptive process of organizational change and may be one of the key predictors of team flexibility. In this paper, we use a balanced approach to conceptualize organizational ambidexterity—balance dimension of ambidexterity.…”