External Corporate Venturing: Strategic Renewal in Rapidly Changing Industries

(Hardback)

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Examines how external corporate venturing can enhance organizational renewal, and a practical guide to help management apply it within their own organizations. Keil's succinct, readable study shows how major players in the information and communication technology industries have used corporate venture capital, alliances, acquisitions or spin-offs to achieve remarkable strategic self-renewal. Based on indepth empirical research, Keil clarifies and emphasizes the role that external corporate venturing plays as a mechanism to acquire new knowledge and to advance corporate strategic capabilities. It supports the creation of new business opportunities in other ways too. It creates new entry options, it opens access to other complementary means of renewal, it helps to control critical resources, and it accelerates the growth of organizations generally. For corporate executives, scholars, researchers, and graduate students, Keil's book is a major contribution to our understanding of external corporate venturing, and a highly practical guide to help management use it in the strategic renewal of their own organizations. Keil argues that an ability to do external venturing is an important factor in the successful development and growth of any organization. He conceptualizes the process into two main elements. One is the creation of what he sees as a shared context that bridges the gap between the corporation and the community in which it resides. Bridging supports knowledge transfer and the formation of new cognitive intra-corporate frameworks. The second element is the process of executing relationships efficiently, to make possible the rapid development of venturing opportunities. With case studies and lucid explanations, Keil shows how other corporations create and use a variety of connected learning processes to build their own venturing capabilities as well.

Author Bio

THOMAS KEIL is Acting Professor of Industrial Management at the Institute of Strategy and International Business, Helsinki University of Technology.