AMBIDEXTERITY IN CORPORATE VENTURING: SIMULTANEOUSLY USING EXISTING AND BUILDING NEW CAPABILITIES.

Abstract

While corporate venture units are typically viewed as vehicles for exploration (March,1991), we develop a model of these units as essentially ambidextrous (Duncan, 1976; Tushman & O'Reilly, 1996), i.e. as engaging in both exploration and exploitation. We use questionnaire data collected from 95 corporate venture units. We find that ambidextrous corporate venture units - those that both use existing capabilities (exploit) and build new capabilities (explore) - do indeed exhibit better strategic performance. Also, ambidextrous corporate venture units display particular patterns of relationships with 3 critical groups of actors (namely, senior executives and other business units in the parent company, and venture capitalists).