TY - JOUR
T1 - Alleviating concerns of misappropriation in corporate venture capital
T2 - Creating credible commitments and calculative trust
AU - Sears, Joshua B.
AU - McLeod, Michael S.
AU - Evert, Robert E.
AU - Payne, G. Tyge
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Gary Dushnitsky for his invaluable guidance and feedback in developing this article. The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - Ventures are often hesitant to accept corporate venture capital due to concerns of intellectual property misappropriation. This is likely to be especially true with startup stage ventures operating in weak intellectual property rights regimes. Drawing on transaction costs economics and game theory, we examine how corporate investors might alleviate concerns of misappropriation by establishing credible commitments to their corporate venture capital program, which discourages opportunistic behavior. We submit that corporate investors can demonstrate credible commitments through prior investment quantity and prior investment continuity, therefore increasing the chances of forming a corporate venture capital–venture investment relationship. Our findings—using data from 11,136 ventures, 300 corporate venture capital investors, and 1782 investments across 18 years—demonstrate that ventures are more likely to pair with corporate venture capital investors that have made a credible commitment to their corporate venture capital program. Also, we find evidence that both quantity and continuity possess an enhanced effect on alleviating fears of misappropriation when a startup venture operates in the same industry as a potential corporate venture capital partner; this is because the corporate venture capital investor possesses both the absorptive capacity to understand the venture’s intellectual property and complementary capabilities to beat them to market.
AB - Ventures are often hesitant to accept corporate venture capital due to concerns of intellectual property misappropriation. This is likely to be especially true with startup stage ventures operating in weak intellectual property rights regimes. Drawing on transaction costs economics and game theory, we examine how corporate investors might alleviate concerns of misappropriation by establishing credible commitments to their corporate venture capital program, which discourages opportunistic behavior. We submit that corporate investors can demonstrate credible commitments through prior investment quantity and prior investment continuity, therefore increasing the chances of forming a corporate venture capital–venture investment relationship. Our findings—using data from 11,136 ventures, 300 corporate venture capital investors, and 1782 investments across 18 years—demonstrate that ventures are more likely to pair with corporate venture capital investors that have made a credible commitment to their corporate venture capital program. Also, we find evidence that both quantity and continuity possess an enhanced effect on alleviating fears of misappropriation when a startup venture operates in the same industry as a potential corporate venture capital partner; this is because the corporate venture capital investor possesses both the absorptive capacity to understand the venture’s intellectual property and complementary capabilities to beat them to market.
KW - calculative trust
KW - corporate venture capital
KW - credible commitments
KW - transaction costs economics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85086275431&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1476127020926174
DO - 10.1177/1476127020926174
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086275431
VL - 20
SP - 318
EP - 340
JO - Strategic Organization
JF - Strategic Organization
SN - 1476-1270
IS - 2
ER -