Article on search mechanisms published by CVC

Our qualitative study of five corporate venture capital (CVC) units reveals that CVC is organized along one of two distinct pathways—order-taker or free-bird. Our two-pathway model deconstructs the heterogeneity within CVC designs and provides detailed insights into the processual nature of CVC search mechanisms. We find evidence that the locus of problem formulation influences the chosen search behavior. While order-takers respond to predefined corporate-led problem formulation, free-birds allow the venture market to guide search behavior. Differences in search processes can thus be attributed to the pursuit of distinct problem-solution pairs. Implications for CVC and organizational search literature are discussed.
Organizations search for new knowledge and technologies using corporate venture capital (CVC) units. Despite growing evidence of heterogeneity in CVC designs, managers continue to have limited insights for designing and running such CVC units. In contrast to previous recommendations to use structural attributes and/