Jak akcelerátory přispívají k inovačním schopnostem podniků?

Different forms of Open Innovation (OI) can be combined or employed in parallel to contribute innovation capabilities of corporates. As an orchestrator of entrepreneurial ecosystems and emerging form of OI, coworking spaces mediate asymmetric relations between corporates and startups. Coworking spaces are also home for other forms of OI such as accelerators. The past decade has witnessed a significant increase of research interest in coworking spaces and corporate accelerators. Corporate accelerator (CA) is relatively a new phenomenon deserved to be investigated extensively from various aspects since management scholars do not have consensus on effects of accelerators on firm’s innovation performance and key mechanisms that differentiate CAs are still unclear (Kohler, 2016; Kanbach and Stubner, 2016; Monschner et al., 2019; Mahmoud-Jouini et al., 2018). Also, studies examining the interrelations between these two phenomena are very limited (Del Sarto et al., 2022). Most importantly, specific processes and actual outcomes of corporate accelerators have not been investigated sufficiently by management scholars yet (Richter et al., 2017; Wojick et al., 2020). Empirical research on the subject is scarce.

In general, this study aims to explore the effects of a CA on incumbent firm’s innovation performance. More specifically, the processes and outcomes of the Workup corporate accelerator created by one of the biggest financial institutions in eastern Europe, Iş Bankasi, will be investigated. The acceleration program was born in a coworking space named Kolektif House, designed by corporate employees in cooperation with community members and run-in collaboration with an agency which is also independent member of the coworking space. The main research question is how a large corporation exploits its’ acceleration program to support its innovation capabilities? Actors, goals, resources, processes, and outcomes of the program will be examined through longitudinal research. Also, this research attempts to empirically derive selection criteria for the program, features of startups, objectives of the corporate, characteristics of the accelerator, relations between agents and causes for success or failure. I use action-oriented longitudinal qualitative research method to explore plurality stories that can be linked in various ways (Reason and Bradbury, 2001) and a multidimensional concept involving several actors including startups, corporate employees, mentors, investors, acceleration agency and community managers. Action-oriented research is also useful to understand effects of the program on entrepreneurs and to compare the state of the startups before and after the program. A single case study consisting more than 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews, group discussions, live observations and active participation in key sessions including demo days, training, and pitching activities shall be conducted. This research aims to contribute to the corporate open innovation literature by investigating a corporate accelerator from lens of the open innovation and dynamic capabilities as theorical backgrounds.