26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

The competitiveness is closely related to the companies’ capacity to generate, transfer and apply technological innovation. However, established organizations face a great challenge to incorporate external technologies and innovative practices, in part due to their organizational inertia and internal pressures for operational excellence. Recent literature proposes that establishing relationship with startups is a promising way for those companies to learn, since startups act as a source of new ideas and business opportunities. In addition, companies can benefit from the interaction with the startups' ecosystem, as an environment that favors the fast absorption of new practices and technologies. On the other hand, startups can also benefit from the direct interaction with companies, since they can use the knowledge of the company's employees and its network to catalyze the growth of the nascent business. In this context, a Corporate Acceleration Program (CAP) is a formal organizational initiative to invest in and support a number of startups leading to a fast growth of ventures. This study aims at analyzing CAPs and identify the key parameters, similarities and challenges to design and manage them. The experience of three large companies in Brazil is studied through semi-structured interviews with the managers directly involved in such programs. The case-selection was based on the following criteria: companies that work with corporate acceleration, and that have a program set with initial results available. The variables analyzed include: program structure, its investments, people involved, forms of startup integration, program time and general targets. Finally, the paper discusses the similarities, challenges and initial results of these initiatives, comparing them with the literature recommendations in the light of local contingencies. Moreover, it identifies gaps and propose complementary recommendations for both theory and practice. The article brings to the discussion a form of building innovation capability in large companies that merges non-organic and organic perspectives. The corporate acceleration is non-organic when capturing opportunities from attracting and interacting with startups, and it is organic at the time that an internal program is designed to nurture the approach with startups and such a program promotes interactions between startup teams and people associated with current operations. By doing so, the study contributes to the congress by fostering questions as follows: Which concepts can be developed to manage the complexity of innovation systems?; Which novel organizational processes are required?; Which models will support the investment in corporate acceleration initiatives?; How can new business models enhance the success of SMEs and large companies?. The article is best associated with the following event themes: project and program management, technology management and competitiveness in the globalized world, technology transfer, management of technology in developing countries and new business and investment models in the digital world.