Premium
Creating growth with externalization of R&D results—the spin‐along approach
Author(s) -
Rohrbeck René,
Döhler Mario,
Arnold Heinrich
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
global business and organizational excellence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.227
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1932-2062
pISSN - 1932-2054
DOI - 10.1002/joe.20267
Subject(s) - corporate venture capital , restructuring , multinational corporation , business , outsourcing , industrial organization , marketing , venture capital , finance
After a long period of restructuring and outsourcing, companies are increasingly looking for new growth opportunities. Growth with existing products or by expansion in new markets is limited. Therefore, companies are searching for ways to expand their activities in new businesses. A frequently used tool of multinational enterprises is corporate venturing. Within corporate venturing, a further differentiation can be made between internal venturing and external venturing. Internal venturing promotes business ideas generated within the organization, whereas external venturing integrates business ideas developed outside the company. This article presents a special case of corporate venturing: the spin‐along approach of Deutsche Telekom Laboratories. It can be seen as a combination of internal and external venturing. In the spin‐along approach, employees of the corporate research and development (R&D) department are encouraged to take their technology or business idea external by founding a separate company. Successful companies might later be bought and integrated back into Deutsche Telekom. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.