BALANCING ORGANIZATIONAL...
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BALANCING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES A case study on how an innovation hub enables startups to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities Tobias Enlund, Christoffer Lorentsson Department of Business Administration Master's Program in Management Master's Thesis in Business Administration III, 30 Credits, Term 2020 Supervisor: Medhanie Gaim
Transcript of BALANCING ORGANIZATIONAL...
BALANCING
ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES
A case study on how an innovation hub enables startups to balance
exploration and exploitation capabilities
Tobias Enlund, Christoffer Lorentsson
Department of Business Administration
Master's Program in Management
Master's Thesis in Business Administration III, 30 Credits, Term 2020
Supervisor: Medhanie Gaim
Abstract
The world is changing. With more complex products and services available, shortened
life cycles, and shifts in customers behavior due to the increased availability of
information, companies needs to explore new capabilities and organizational practices to
effectively preserve a competitive advantage through new innovations. A competitive
advantage is said to be difficult to create and sustain in today’s markets. Many startups
and corporates, are therefore, changing their innovation processes from a traditional linear
process to more of an open process. Many scholars have studied this phenomenon from
a corporate perspective, leaving a gap in existing literature on how startups are
contributing with their innovative and entrepreneurial mindset to the context of open
innovation. It is visible that startups are possessing an extensive amount of exploration
capabilities, while lacking capabilities related to exploitation. Finding a balance between
exploration and exploitation capabilities is an issue for startups due to its limitations of
resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to distinguish how an innovation hub
enables startups with balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities. For this study,
the innovation hub of our choosing is Ignite. Based on the literature review and the
identified research gaps, the following research question has been formulated to
investigate the phenomenon of balancing organizational capabilities from a startup
perspective:
RQ: How can an innovation hub help startups find a balance between exploration and
exploitation capabilities?
To properly answer the research question, the chosen research approach was selected as
a qualitative research method. The empirical findings were gathered from 11 semi-
structured interviews, where nine interviews have been with managers from startups
active in Ignite and two interviews with team members from Ignite. In addition to the
empirical findings, we developed a proposed framework that explains the whole process
of startups being active in Ignite from pre-intervention, addressing challenges related to
startups and the reasons why they should engage in being active in an innovation hub, to
post-intervention, addressing the possible outcomes received by being active in Ignite.
To conclude, this thesis contributes with an understanding on how startups may use a
third party, such as Ignite, to get help with the balancing act of exploration and
exploitation capabilities. The findings show that the third party is helping the startups
with balancing their organizational capabilities in an indirect way. This is done through
Ignite’s accurate matchmaking process and their deep understanding about which
capabilities the big corporations are looking for, which Ignite gathers from a needs
analysis together with the big corporation. From this thesis, startups as well as big
corporations, will understand the importance of involving a third party for the purpose of
creating and sustaining a competitive advantage by balancing their exploration and
exploitation capabilities.
Key Words: Collaborations, Exploitation, Exploration, Innovation Hub, Open
Innovation, Organizational Capabilities, Partnerships, Startups, Strategic Decision-
Making, Strategic Entrepreneurship
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Acknowledgement
We would like to begin by thanking the members of Ignite who have been participating
in interviews and provided us with the material needed to develop an understanding about
the concept of Ignite. We would also with gratitude thank all the interviewees who
participated and shared their valuable knowledge and experiences about the startup world.
The respondents' insights have been sincerely inspiring and beneficial for our study.
A special thanks also goes to our supervisor Medhanie Gaim for providing us with
guidance throughout the entire project. We are grateful for all the information he has
provided and also allowing us to get the opportunity to be part of a more extensive
research project that Umeå University has with Ignite.
Umeå University, May 25, 2020
Tobias Enlund Christoffer Lorentsson
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background ....................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Problem formulation ......................................................................................... 3
1.3 Research Gap .................................................................................................... 4
1.4 Research question ............................................................................................. 5
1.5 Research Purposes ............................................................................................ 5
1.6 Delimitations .................................................................................................... 6
2 Literature review .................................................................................................... 7
2.1 Closed innovation ............................................................................................. 7
2.2 Open innovation ............................................................................................... 8
2.2.1 Open innovation from a startup perspective ............................................................ 9
2.2.2 Open innovation from a big corporation perspective ............................................. 10
2.3 Strategic entrepreneurship .............................................................................. 11
2.4 Organizational capabilities ............................................................................. 12
2.4.1 Exploration and exploitation capabilities ............................................................... 13
2.4.2 Balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities .............................................. 15
2.4.3 Building organizational capabilities ....................................................................... 17
2.4.4 Strategic decision-making ...................................................................................... 18
2.5 Innovation hub ................................................................................................ 19
2.6 Partnerships .................................................................................................... 20
2.6.1 Knowledge sharing ................................................................................................. 22
2.6.2 Trust ....................................................................................................................... 22
3 Overview of the literature review........................................................................ 24
4 Selected case .......................................................................................................... 26
5 Research methodology ......................................................................................... 29
5.1 Research Philosophy....................................................................................... 29
5.1.1 Ontological assumption .......................................................................................... 29
5.1.2 Epistemological assumption ................................................................................... 30
5.1.3 Axiological assumption .......................................................................................... 30
5.1.4 Literature search ..................................................................................................... 31
5.1.5 Research Approach ................................................................................................ 32
5.1.6 Research Design ..................................................................................................... 32
5.1.7 Summary of our methodological position .............................................................. 34
5.2 Practical Methodology .................................................................................... 34
5.2.1 Data collection ....................................................................................................... 35
5.2.2 Sampling technique ................................................................................................ 36
5.2.3 Interview guides ..................................................................................................... 38
5.2.4 The interview process ............................................................................................ 39
5.2.5 Data analysis .......................................................................................................... 40
5.3 Quality criteria ................................................................................................ 42
5.3.1 Transferability ........................................................................................................ 43
5.3.2 Credibility .............................................................................................................. 43
5.3.3 Ethical considerations ............................................................................................ 43
6 Empirical Findings ............................................................................................... 46
6.1 Contextual information ................................................................................... 46
6.2 Innovations ..................................................................................................... 47
6.3 Innovation activities ....................................................................................... 48
6.3.1 Outside-in ............................................................................................................... 49
6.3.2 Inside-out ................................................................................................................ 50
6.3.3 Organizational environment ................................................................................... 51
6.4 Organizational capabilities ............................................................................. 51
6.4.1 Exploration capabilities .......................................................................................... 53
6.4.2 Exploitation capabilities ......................................................................................... 54
6.4.3 How Ignite enables startups to find new capabilities ............................................. 55
6.4.4 The challenge of balancing organizational capabilities ......................................... 57
6.4.5 Partnerships ............................................................................................................ 59
6.4.6 Potential challenges among the partnerships ......................................................... 63
6.4.7 Minimizing the risks .............................................................................................. 64
7 Discussion .............................................................................................................. 67
7.1 Pre-intervention .............................................................................................. 67
7.1.1 Organizational environment ................................................................................... 67
7.1.2 Startups organizational capabilities ........................................................................ 68
7.1.3 Potential challenges among partnerships ............................................................... 70
7.2 Intervention ..................................................................................................... 71
7.2.1 Open innovation through Ignite ............................................................................. 71
7.2.2 Ignite as an enabler of balancing organizational capabilities ................................. 72
7.2.3 Minimizing the challenges before entering a partnership ...................................... 74
7.3 Post-intervention ............................................................................................. 75
7.3.1 Partnerships ............................................................................................................ 75
7.4 Proposed framework ....................................................................................... 76
8 Implications and concluding remarks ................................................................ 79
8.1 Research findings ........................................................................................... 79
8.2 Theoretical contributions ................................................................................ 80
8.3 Managerial implications ................................................................................. 80
8.3.1 Implications for startup managers .......................................................................... 81
8.3.2 Implications for Ignite ............................................................................................ 81
8.4 Societal implications....................................................................................... 82
8.5 Limitations and Future research ..................................................................... 83
8.6 Concluding remarks ........................................................................................ 83
Reference list ................................................................................................................. 84
Appendix 1: Interview Guide in English – Startups ................................................. 92
Appendix 2: Interview guide in English - Ignite ........................................................ 94
Appendix 3: Intervjuguide på svenska – Startups .................................................... 96
Appendix 4: Intervjuguide på svenska - Ignite .......................................................... 99
List of Figures
Figure 1. Core process of open innovation in R&D. (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p.
502). .................................................................................................................................. 9
Figure 2. Inputs-processes-outputs model of strategic entrepreneurship (Hitt et al., 2011,
p. 60). .............................................................................................................................. 12
Figure 3. The four dimensions of a core capability (Leonard-Barton, 1992, p. 114). .... 13
Figure 4. General approaches of dealing with competing demands. (Gaim & Wåhlin,
2016, p. 36). .................................................................................................................... 16
Figure 5. Different types of partnerships. (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54). ....................... 21
Figure 6. Literature review summary. ............................................................................ 25
Figure 7. The Ignite Process. .......................................................................................... 26
Figure 8. Ignite’s needs analysis model.......................................................................... 27
Figure 9. Summary of methodological standpoints. ....................................................... 34
Figure 10. Coupled process used by startups active in Ignite. ....................................... 72
Figure 11. Proposed framework. .................................................................................... 77
List of Tables
Table 1. Characteristics of exploitation and exploration capabilities (O'Reilly &
Tushman, 2004, p. 79). ................................................................................................... 14
Table 2. List of search words.......................................................................................... 31
Table 3. Sources of data. ................................................................................................ 35
Table 4. Overview of respondents. ................................................................................. 37
Table 5. Phases of thematic analysis. (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 87) ............................ 42
Table 6. Summary of the four ethical challenges (Bell & Bryman, 2007, p. 67) ........... 45
Table 7. Overview of the interviewed startups. .............................................................. 46
Table 8. How startups are currently working with exploration and exploitation. .......... 53
Table 9. Partnerships through Ignite............................................................................... 62
List of Abbreviations
AI - Artificial Intelligence
API - Application Program Interface
CEO - Chief Executive Officer
CSO - Chief Science Officer
COO - Chief Operating Officer
COVID-19 - The official name for the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2
IoT - Internet of Things
MNC - Multinational Corporation
m.L - Machine Learning
R&D - Research & Development
SME - Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
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1 Introduction
Chapter one is an introduction to this master’s thesis. It presents the background,
problematization, research gap, purpose, research question, delimitations, and expected
outcomes of this master’s thesis. The research question is based on the research gap that
was identified through a literature review on relevant scientific articles. The literature
review is the second chapter of this thesis.
1.1 Background
The world is changing. With diminishing life cycles, more complex products and
services, as well as a shift in customers behavior in market demand, companies needs to
explore new capabilities and managerial practices in order to effectively preserve
competitive advantage by developing new innovations (Dess & Picken, 2000, p. 18;
Magadley & Birdi, 2009, p. 315; Rauter et al., 2018, p. 226).
An invention is the process of transforming an intellectual thought into a tangible new
product or process (Trott, 2017, p. 15), while an innovation is when an invention is
implemented and taken to market (Chesbrough, 2003, p. 1). Tidd et al. (2005, p. 66)
defined an innovation as the “process of turning opportunities into new ideas and of
putting these into widely used practice”, while Schreyögg & Kliesch‐Eberl defined it as
“the creation of any sort of novelty which, focusing on capabilities, means the creation
of novel problem-solving patterns”. Crossan and Apaydin (2010, p. 1155) defined
innovation in a more complex way as “production or adoption, assimilation, and
exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and
enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of
production; and establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an
outcome. It is both a process and an outcome”. The innovation process has shifted from
a closed process to a more open process, where companies involve a set of actors allocated
up and down the supply chain (Trott, 2017, p. 382). Chesbrough introduced the concept
of open innovation in 2003, by stating that valuable ideas may come from either inside or
outside of the company and can also be commercialized from the same perspective
(Chesbrough, 2003, p. 43).
In the last decades, lots of influential innovations have been created by firms that operate
in a different way in comparison to large corporations, namely startups (Mocker et al.,
2015, p. 5; Spender et al., 2017, p. 4; Ojaghi et al., 2019, p. 1063). The phrase startup is
often recognized as a team of youngsters performing in the high-technology industry in
which they disrupt the current market (Mercandetti et al., 2017, p. 24). However,
according to Ries (2011, p. 27-28) the industry sector and the size of the company should
not belong to the definition of startups, but rather having the focus on innovation as the
main objective. A startup brings new ideas to the market and transforms them into
economically sustainable enterprises in which forming relationships with partners from
outside the firm is key for its success (Spender et al., 2017, p. 4). Thus, startups are
continuously seeking new ways to redefine, turning unknowns into knowns (Mercandetti
et al., 2017, p. 25). Nevertheless, even though startups are considered to be the heart of
innovation (Mocker et al., 2015, p. 5), challenges related to the commercialization stage
is said to be visible (Usman & Vanhaverbeke, 2017, p. 173). These challenges are focused
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around its shortage in resources, in particular within operational expertise, market access,
distribution infrastructure, technical know-how, and funds supporting their development
processes (Michelino et al., 2017, p. 112-115). Forming a relationship with external actors
is therefore of high importance for startups in order to successfully implement their
product or service to the market (Spender et al., 2017, p. 4). With the intention of forming
a relationship with an external partner, startups need to carefully evaluate which partner
to collaborate with. Freytag’s (2019b) study highlighted that a collaboration can only be
successful over the long term if both firms' interests are considered. The author further
explained that it is important that both parties have a clear understanding of what the other
hopes to achieve from a collaboration.
One way of forming a collaboration with external partners is via an innovation hub. It
serves as a mechanism for companies to interact on a deeper level with the external
environment (Giaccone & Longo, 2016, p. 100). Giaccone & Longo (2016, p. 102)
defined an innovation hub as being a center of research and development of ideas that are
seen as being innovative and acts as a catalyst to transform these ideas into
commercializable products or services. It supports businesses to exchange knowledge
with other members within the innovation hub with one common goal, to nurture
innovation in an early stage (Longo et al., 2013, p. 145). An innovation hub acts as a base
for open collaboration, putting emphasis on the similarities towards the concept of open
innovation (Longo et al., 2013, p. 145). Looking at open innovation, retrieving knowledge
from the other party is essential for a successful collaboration. Managers are relying on
two strategic orientations in organizational learning when they are involved in innovation
associated activities. These strategic orientations are exploration and exploitation (Wang
& Dass, 2017, p. 128).
To gain knowledge, investments on either exploration or exploitation capabilities are
essential (Camison et al., 2018, p. 1559). Exploration capabilities assists the process of
radical innovations (Camison et al., 2018, p. 1562), while exploitation capabilities are
focused on existing knowledge within the firm associated with refinement, productivity
(Lannon & Walsh, 2020, p. 10), and the implementation of incremental innovations
(Greve, 2007, p. 947). Radical innovations are associated with new technologies, while
incremental innovations are correlated with improvements on existing technologies
(Greve, 2007, p. 947). To remain competitive, it is in the heart of every organization to
find a balance between these two capabilities (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1653; Greve,
2007, p. 946; Ireland & Webb, 2007, p. 58).
Strategic entrepreneurship refers to a wide range of important entrepreneurial innovations
or activities that are adopted in a firm that is seeking to get a competitive advantage,
which can lead to both radical and incremental innovations (Mazzei, 2018, p. 657). Schuh
et al. (2017, p. 1) stated that firms need to implement radical and incremental innovations
successfully because both of these innovations are equally important. Firms should
therefore not spend more time and resources on one of exploration or exploitation activity
at the expense of the other. Firms should instead try to find a balance between these
capabilities. The reason why the balance is important is that without it, a firm risks losing
their current position in the marketplace due to the fact that exploration deals with a firm's
long term success whereas exploitation is needed for the success in the short run (Auh &
Menguc, 2005, p. 1653). Seen in the literature, startups are said to be more in-line with
having their focus on exploration while big corporations tend to focus on exploitation
(Freytag, 2019a, p. 26; Ojaghi et al., 2019, p. 1065). Having a favorable capability such
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as seen above, may be related to the concept of daedalian risk in which one alternative is
favorable over the other, which can be costly and even lead to negative outcomes for the
companies (Gaim, 2018, p. 498).
1.2 Problem formulation
Attention has been drawn to the importance of collaborations between startups and
corporations (Diestre & Rajagopalan, 2012, p. 1115; Freytag, 2019a, p. 32; Mocker et al.,
2015, p. 7; Prashantham & Kumar, 2019, p. 408; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015, p. 67).
Weiblen & Chesbrough (2015, p. 66) argues that both parties are scarce with the
capabilities the other one possesses. For startups, the capabilities imply organizational
agility, effective idea generation, risk taking abilities, and a passion for rapid growth,
whereas big corporations’ capabilities are focused around efficiency such as having
resources and developed routines. In other words, even though startups often possess the
most promising ideas, the way how to commercialize their inventions is interrupted by
limited resources (Mercandetti et al., 2017, p. 25; Lee et al., 2010, p. 299), leading to a
need for collaborations with bigger corporations. Thus, the importance of forming
relationships with external actors is crucial (Spender et al., 2017, p. 4). However, one
could argue that existing literature lack sufficient explanation of how to successfully
implement these collaborations from a startup perspective. Even though startups are seen
as creators of innovations, Rogers (2004, p. 143) argues that one cannot simply measure
innovations by quantity but should rather focus on the quality of innovations. The author
further states that in spite of startups having more innovations per se, the average value
of these innovations may be lower than innovations created by larger corporations.
Sinha (2015, p. 313) mentions that it is becoming more and more crucial for startups to
find a balance between their exploration and exploitation activities because of the
increasingly dynamic environment startups are operating in. Sinha (2015, p. 317) further
argued that the phenomenon of ambidexterity is as important for startups as it is for big
corporations. Ambidexterity is explained by Wooldridge & Cowden (2020, p. 10) as
realizing that having their internal strategy is not enough, but rather that it is a balance
between having its own strategy and find ways to cooperate and understand that strategies
outside of the firm are equally, if not more important for a company’s overall strategy.
Startups are more in-line with exploration activities than they are with exploitation
activities (Freytag, 2019a, p. 26; Ojaghi et al., 2019, p. 1065). Big corporations on the
other hand usually possess more exploitation capabilities rather than exploration
capabilities (Freytag, 2019a, p. 26). Gaim & Wåhlin (2016, p. 35) mentions that decisions
are made by favoring one alternative over the other. This may be explained by a decision
maker’s emotional attitudes, in which alternatives are based on the likes or dislikes from
previous experience (Wooldridge & Cowden, 2020, p. 8-9). Taking this perspective, we
assume that a managers’ emotional attitude plays a role in whether or not they find
collaboration through an innovation hub as something positive or negative. For this thesis,
we assume that as startups mostly possess exploration capabilities, their decisions are
made in favor of these capabilities, and vice versa for corporations. Gaim & Wåhlin
(2016, p. 35) further argues that decisions are similar to the concept of dilemmas, in which
a dilemma occurs when a company needs to choose between two equally important
elements, in our case, exploration and exploitation. As stated by Longo et al. (2013, p.
145), an innovation hub acts as a platform to support startups and big corporations with
the exchange of knowledge and to foster innovation. Thus, the focus of this thesis will be
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on how an innovation hub can help startups to solve the problem with finding a balance
between exploration and exploitation activities.
1.3 Research Gap
The importance of having a collaboration between big corporations and startups is
something that previous research has addressed (Diestre & Rajagopalan, 2012, p. 1115;
Freytag, 2019a, p. 32; Mocker et al., 2015, p. 7; Prashantham & Kumar, 2019, p. 408;
Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015, p. 66). Existing research has, however, mostly focused on
the consequences from these collaborations from a corporate perspective (Brunswicker
& Chesbrough, 2018, p. 35; Prashantham & Kumar, 2019; Simon et al., 2019, p. 164;
Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015), leaving a gap in which one addresses the benefits and
challenges from a startup perspective. In order to have a successful collaboration, both
parts in a collaboration are in need of a clear understanding of how startups and big
corporations differ from each other (Freytag, 2019a, p. 26). As mentioned by Simon et
al. (2019, p. 167), collaborations between startups and big corporations do not come
without risks, the most visible one being the power difference in which decisions are
made. By using a startup perspective, we will gain knowledge on how these
collaborations should be arranged in order for startups to feel that collaborating with
corporations is something positive. Visible when entering the website of Ignite, which is
this thesis’ selected case, is that their main focus is to increase the pace of innovation and
economic growth between corporations and startups. Therefore, we can assume that the
corporations that choose to be part of Ignite are willing to have a collaboration with
startups. However, the underlying assumptions on how these collaborations should be
organized is something that will be understood by having a startup perspective due to the
limitation of literature focusing on startups point of view (Brunswicker & Chesbrough,
2018, p. 35; Prashantham & Kumar, 2019; Simon et al., 2019, p. 164; Weiblen &
Chesbrough, 2015).
An abundance of existing literature on open innovation has had an SME perspective
(Brunwicker & Vanhaverbeke, 2015, p. 1241; Gassmann et al., 2010, p. 215; Lee et al.,
2010; Nieto & Santamaria, 2010; Vrgovic et al., 2012) instead of a startup perspective.
Startups are different from SMEs because startups are always bound by the liability of
newness (Usman, & Vanhaverbeke, 2017, p.173). Startups are also small firms, however,
they do not have a clear structure and have most of the time a shortage of tangible and
intangible resources (Ojaghi et al., 2019, p. 1065; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015).
Startups can, however, overcome the liability of smallness by implementing open
innovation in their business models (Gassmann et al., 2010, p. 216). This can be done by
joining an innovation hub. Although extensive literature addresses the topic of innovation
hubs as directly linked to open innovation, the understanding of the hub’s effectiveness
in the value co-creation process as well as the policies to coordinate them is relatively
unknown (Longo & Giaccone, 2017, p. 882). This leaves a gap in current literature about
the importance of understanding innovation hubs on a deeper level.
According to Usman & Vanhaverbeke (2017, p. 184), there is a need to investigate the
role of managers in startups when organizing and managing open innovation. Hence, it is
of great importance to find the link between startup’s managerial decisions and open
innovation processes (Spender et al., 2017, p. 5). Here, we believe that the concept of
strategic decision-making will provide a further understanding of the link between
startups managerial decisions and their innovation processes. Ceci & Iubatti (2012, p.
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575) mentioned that the structure of how to organize and manage open innovation
collaborations needs further studies from a startup perspective. Even though Brunswicker
& Chesbrough (2018, p. 44) had a perspective on big corporations, they mentioned that
more research is needed on how firms can handle the flow of knowledge received by
other participants and how to implement the knowledge within the organization.
Chesbrough (2012, p. 25) highlighted some certain conditions that managers need to be
aware of in order to successfully implement an open innovation strategy, one being the
importance of workforce mobility. Even though moving people between different
projects and organizations is of great importance, we argue that there is a need to
investigate other factors that managers need to be aware of for a successful
implementation of open innovation. This study is focusing on the reasons for
collaboration rather than what happens post-match-up, in which a gap is identified in what
the main reasons are to find the right partner to collaborate with.
Further, we believe that another reason for collaborations between startups and big
corporations is to find a partner that can help to balance exploration and exploitation
activities. Sinha (2015, p. 320) argued that the concept of balancing exploration and
exploitation capabilities has been studied by several authors, but the phenomenon of how
to balance these capabilities from a startup perspective in the growth stage needs further
studies. By using startups that are involved in an innovation hub, we are going to explore
if it enables them to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities by being active in
an innovation hub. As mentioned above, the effectiveness of an innovation hub as well
as the link between startup’s managerial decisions and open innovation processes needs
further studies.
As we have identified multiple gaps in current literature, we believe that these can be
linked together by investigating how an innovation hub can help a startup to find a
collaboration in which they may manage to balance exploration and exploitation activities
to get a competitive advantage. Sinha (2015, p. 320) mentions that such a study will be
beneficial for startup managers’ in a way that it will help startups to manage the dual
challenges of survival and growth ambitions. Even though this study has the perspective
of startups, it will help to clarify the differences of startups and corporations and most
importantly, define what startups believe is key for a successful collaboration with a
bigger firm.
1.4 Research question
Based on the research gap in the previous chapter that was identified through a literature
review, the study at hand aims to answer the following research question in line with our
research purpose:
• How can an innovation hub help startups find a balance between exploration and
exploitation capabilities?
1.5 Research Purposes
Finding a balance between exploration and exploitation capabilities is an issue for startups
with limited resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to distinguish how an
innovation hub enables startups with balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities.
For this study, the innovation hub of our choosing is Ignite. Ignite is an innovation hub
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that acts as a platform for startups to engage in collaborations with big corporations. Their
mission is to increase the pace of innovation and economic growth between big
corporations and startups. By having Ignite as our selected case, it will help us to
determine the reason(s) for collaboration, and how startups may use Ignite to find
collaborations, and how these collaborations enable startups with the balance of
exploration and exploitation capabilities.
To respond to our previously stated research question in an appropriate manner, a
qualitative research design will be conducted through semi-structured interviews with
startup managers. By using managers from startups as our interviewees, we seek to shed
light upon the phenomena of balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities while
engaging in an innovation hub. This will also bring awareness of how startups organize
and manage collaborations with big corporations through an innovation hub. The findings
will create knowledge that is useful for startup managers, specifically what there is to
gain from these collaborations with bigger firms. Semi-structured interviews will also be
conducted with two team members from Ignite as they are the starting point for
establishing tighter bonds between startups and big corporations. The acquired empirical
material from both startup managers and members of Ignite will enable us to develop an
extended framework from the existing literature. The existing frameworks are presented
in our conducted literature review. At first, we will portray the theories around open
innovation, both from a startup perspective and corporate perspective, in order to
understand collaborations that an innovation hub is trying to establish.
Secondly, strategic entrepreneurship theory will support us to understand how startups
explore opportunities with the aim to develop novel innovations, which according to Hitt
et al. (2011, p. 60-63) is a way to gain a competitive advantage. Thirdly, organizational
capabilities, including the concept of exploration and exploitation. These capabilities are
said to be important concepts within the theory of strategic entrepreneurship in order for
a firm to create and sustain a competitive advantage. Then, strategic decision-making
literature is addressed as the base to grasp the concept of ambidexterity, which stresses
the importance of balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities. Fifth, literature
about innovation hubs is included in order to create a deeper understanding of innovation
hubs and how they empower collaborations between startups and big corporations. This
is followed by literature about partnerships in which the framework from Minshall et al.
(2010, p. 54) will act as a base to understand how different partnerships are constructed.
As these partnerships demands both parties to share knowledge, knowledge sharing is
presented to understand how knowledge is transferred in a collaboration and what types
of risk and challenges that may exist when collaborating with big corporations.
1.6 Delimitations
The focus of this thesis, especially in the theoretical point of departure is on startups and
not on SMEs. The difference between startups and SMEs is that startups main objective
should always be on innovation and is often bound by the liability of newness (Usman,
& Vanhaverbeke, 2017, p.173), while a SME can be an old firm that does not have their
main objective on innovation processes. As most of existing literature address the topic
of open innovation from a corporate perspective, this thesis will emphasize the concept
from a startup perspective meaning that less research is provided about the topic at hand.
In order to understand the concept of open innovation and the importance of innovation
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hubs, the literature review includes literature from a corporate perspective as well as the
limited amount of literature from a startup perspective.
2 Literature review
Our literature review will assess the existing literature on closed and open innovation
from both a startup and a big corporation perspective followed by the concept of strategic
entrepreneurship. Further, organizational capabilities are explained and how startups
can build and balance their organizational capabilities. Afterwards, strategic decision-
making is presented as how it is connected to open innovation and the importance of
strategic decision-making when deciding to enter an innovation hub. Subsequently, the
explanation of the innovation hub concept is explained together with literature about
organizational sponsors. Lastly, different types of partnerships are presented to get an
overview of which partnership is most integrated in the partnering firm. In this section,
an overview of different challenges when collaborating with a big corporation is also
explained.
2.1 Closed innovation
Innovation is seen as one of the most important factors for economic and social expansion
(Rogers, 2004, p. 141) and it allows firms to creatively compete and improve in an ever
changing and competitive environment (Mazzei, 2018, p. 659). In order to understand the
concept of open innovation, it is vital to explain the concept of closed innovation, which
is seen as the traditional innovation process. When firms have a closed innovation
process, innovations are invented internally by their research and development (R&D)
departments and later commercialized through the firm’s own channels (Inauen &
Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p. 496-497). It is from the science and technology base of the firm
that research projects are launched, and where the projects later progress through the
development process where just a few of projects are being selected for further work
(Chesbrough, 2012, p. 22). Chesbrough (2003, p. 1) explained closed innovation as a
vertical integrated model, where Inauen & Schenker-Wicki (2011, p. 496-497) stated that
no external knowledge or technology integration exists. The whole innovation process is
financed internally, all the way from the idea generation process to the commercialization
stage (Chesbrough, 2003, p. 1).
Closed innovation began to reach its limit approximately a decade ago (Inauen &
Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p. 496-497). This because of the increased mobility of knowledge
and highly qualified workers, rapid change in consumption behavior, and production
functions. These are some of the factors why R&D within firms were experiencing a shift
toward participating open innovation instead of closed innovation (Inauen & Schenker-
Wicki, 2011, p. 496-497). Even though numerous firms have started to use open
innovation approaches, there are still some firms and projects that require closed
innovation methods (Boscherini et al., 2012, p. 229). A closed innovation approach is
required in some innovation projects because the outcome is vital to these firms’
competitive advantage (Christensen et al., 2005, p. 1535). This can occur where there are
no collaboration partners who hold capabilities required for the exploration and
exploitation of the technology or where there is a high risk of knowledge spillover from
the invention (Almirall & Casadesus-Masanell, 2010, p. 28). For instance, when
8
complexity of the new invention is high, a closed innovation process can provide a better
development opportunity (Almirall & Casadesus-Masanell, 2010, p. 33).
2.2 Open innovation
Chesbrough introduced open innovation in 2003, where he stated that the process of
innovation has shifted from a closed system, internal to the firm, to a more diffused open
system where a range of actors are allocated up and down the supply chain (Chesbrough,
2003, p. 93). Enkel et al. (2009, p. 312) implied that organizations should not only put
emphasis on open innovation activities, they should invest simultaneously in open and
closed activities. Thus, to invent products and services at a faster pace than their
competitors. Enkel et al. (2009, p. 312) also pointed out that organizations should at the
same time protect their intellectual property rights and encourage the development of core
competencies. West et al. (2014, p. 805) explained open innovation by stating that it is
more of an open system rather than a traditional vertically integrated model. Chesbrough
(2012, p. 20) defined open innovation as "the use of purposive inflows and outflows of
knowledge to accelerate internal innovation and expand the markets for external use of
innovation". In other words, the process of open innovation enables collaborations
between a range of different actors, such as startups, big corporations, universities and
organizational sponsors (Usama & Vanhaverbeke, 2017).
Moreover, an increased amount of companies is technology concentrated and
characterized by globalization (Gassmann, 2006, p. 224). Therefore, it seems suitable for
companies to reinvent their business model towards processes that require open
innovation systems. The use of open innovation enables knowledge to come from internal
and external sources, as not all smart people are inside a firm (Chesbrough, 2012, p. 23).
This also applies for projects, in which they may be launched either from internally or
externally (Chesbrough, 2012, p. 23). Thus, there are three core processes of open
innovation, inside-out, outside-in, and coupled processes, which can be seen in figure 1.
Chesbrough (2012, p. 21) explained that firms practicing inside-out open innovation
allows unused and underexploited ideas to be used by other firms. Outside-in open
innovation on the other hand implies organizations to open up their innovation processes
to bring in ideas, external inputs and contributions (Chesbrough, 2012, p. 21). The third
core process, coupled process, is when both the inside-out and the outside-in process is
combined (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p. 502). Firms that are practicing the coupled
process, work together with supplementary partners or are somehow involved in other
firms, which can result in joint ventures and alliances (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2011,
p. 502)
Rauter et al. (2018, p. 226) addresses the need for collaboration between firms due to the
everchanging complexity of services and products. If not dealt with carefully, the authors
argue that companies will find it hard to remain competitive on the market. Chesbrough
& Brunswicker (2014, p. 24) argued that open innovation is not an easy process to
implement because of the organizational and cultural barriers that can be difficult to
overcome. This implies, to move from closed innovation to open innovation, firms have
to make organizational changes on several levels of the firm to succeed with the
integration of open innovation (Chesbrough & Brunswicker, 2014, p. 24).
9
Figure 1. Core process of open innovation in R&D. (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p.
502).
2.2.1 Open innovation from a startup perspective
In order to understand open innovation from a startup perspective it is important to
understand how a startup is defined. Even though we mentioned in the introduction that
the industry sector and the size of the company should not belong to the definition of
startups, they are, however, often defined as being small firms with few personnel and
financial resources (Michelino et al., 2017, p. 115). The liability of smallness, can
however, be overcomed by implementing open innovation in the startup’s business
models (Gassmann et al., 2010, p. 216). Michelino et al. (2017, p.115) further argued that
startups often lack the needed resources to commercialize a new product, service, or
technology. A startups main focus should, however, be on innovation as the main
objective (Ries, 2011, p. 27-28). As mentioned by Ojaghi et al. (2019, p. 1064) “Startups
are newborn and naturally suffer from a variety of weaknesses, especially the shortage
of resources. They need external support and appropriate environmental conditions for
their survival and growth”, which is addressed by numerous authors (Michelino et al.,
2017, p. 115; Spender et al., 2017, p. 4; Usman, & Vanhaverbeke, 2017, p. 172). Further,
Brunwicker & Vanhaverbeke (2015, p. 1241) mentioned that open innovation is often
studied from an MNC perspective, even though startups are seen as the engine to
innovation (Michelino et al., 2017, p. 112; Mocker et al., 2015, p. 5). As mentioned above,
startups rely on external partners due to lack of certain resources and it has been explained
that there are, however, fields to be further studied in the open innovation literature,
especially in the startup context.
Limited research has been made on the partnership of startups and larger corporations,
however, Simon et al. (2019, p. 167) grasped upon the topic in which they found some
implications for these collaborations. Firstly, the authors imply that these collaborations
may endanger the continuance of startups as the corporation has more power. Secondly,
finding the appropriate person within big corporations could lead to great
misunderstanding of what they want to achieve with the collaboration. Lastly, the
negotiation power from startups may not be seen as valuable as it is seen from the
corporation perspective.
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As previously mentioned, something that is highly stressed when looking at startups is
the limitation of resources. Lee et al. (2010, p. 299) mentioned that startups especially
lack sufficient resources in the commercialization stage. By involving themselves in a
collaboration with a corporation, a startup may overcome these obstacles as resources
will be provided by the bigger corporation (Simon et al., 2019, p.167). For instance,
startups can get access to customers, production capacity and technologies through a
collaboration with big corporations (Freytag, 2019a, p. 30). This allows the startup to
focus on creating a competitive product or service instead of putting emphasis on the
commercialization aspects, which is provided by the collaborating firm. Startups hold
certain specific knowledge about their invention, however, due to the limitation in
resources they often find themselves unable to advance these products or services into an
innovation (Simon et al., 2019, p.167).
A clear example of how a startup can support innovation and growth was demonstrated
by Freytag (2019a, p. 27-32). The example is the development of Siemens’ extremely
successful Digital Factory business, which is a global leader in digitalization. The Digital
Factory began in 2006 when Siemens acquired UGS, which was a big corporation with a
revenue over a billion US dollar. This acquisition had many benefits for the automotive
manufacturer business because UGS had developed a software platform, which controlled
digital management of a product’s life cycle. Further, in 2014 the Digital Factory made a
collaborating agreement with a startup called Polaroin. Polaroin had invented a software
platform that supported workflows for the development of hardware and software
products. The collaborating agreement was done through a minority venture capital
investment in Polaroin. The Digital Factory hypothesized that the solution Polaroin had
invented could be attractive for Siemens customers as an extension to Digital Factory’s
own software platform. They also thought from the beginning that Polarion’s software
might prove to be valuable for further innovative growth in Digital Factory’s existing
business. Therefore, in 2016 the Digital Factory acquired all of Polaroin’s business.
Freytag (2019a, p. 29) explained that Polaroin is now a major part of Siemens
digitalization strategy. This explains the importance of collaborations from both the
startup perspective as well as from a big corporation perspective.
2.2.2 Open innovation from a big corporation perspective
As have been mentioned earlier, open innovation has mostly been studied through the
lens of corporations (Brunswicker & Chesbrough, 2018, p. 35; Prashantham & Kumar,
2019; Simon et al., 2019, p. 164; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). Open innovation is a
common concept within big corporations. Chesbrough & Brunswicker (2014, p. 23)
found out through their survey that 78 percent of big corporations reported that they are
practicing open innovation and not a single firm answered that they were about to
relinquish from open innovation. Big corporations benefit from practicing open
innovation with startups because startups have resources that corporations lack, such as a
willingness to innovate and being flexible (Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015, p. 66). At the
same time big corporations possess resources that startups have an absence of. These
resources are access to valuable resources and assets, brand reputation, fixed
organizational routines, and scale (Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015, p. 66). Big corporations
are also more likely to acquire freely revealed information than they are to give
information for free to other organizations (Chesbrough & Brunswicker, 2014, p. 16).
Freytag (2019a, p. 30) mentioned that big corporations are strategically interested in
11
collaborations with startups because they can become familiar with markets,
technologies, business models, and to have the possibility to test hypotheses for growth
strategies.
Big corporations are practicing the outside-in open innovation more than the inside-out
open innovation (Brunswicker & Chesbrough, 2018, p. 35). Brunswicker & Chesbrough
(2018, p. 35) further argued this is because big corporations rather obtain ingoing
knowledge flows because they are afraid of intellectual property leakage for outgoing
knowledge. The results from Chesbrough & Brunswicker (2014, p. 16) survey also
showed that informal networking, university grants, and customer co-creation were the
three most important outside-in practices for big corporations. The most important inside-
out practices for big corporations were selling market-ready products, joint ventures and
standardization. In regard to open innovation, authors argue that there are two types of
organizational capabilities, namely exploration and exploitation capabilities (Camison et
al., 2018, p. 1559; Greve, 2007, p. 945), which will be discussed further in section 2.4.
2.3 Strategic entrepreneurship
Strategic entrepreneurship is a theory that explains how firms can create and sustain a
competitive advantage by exploring and exploiting new opportunities in the firm’s
environment (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 57). Strategic entrepreneurship involves advantage-
seeking and opportunity-seeking behavior that contributes to value for organizations,
individuals and/or societies (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 57). Hitt et al. (2001, p. 481) defined
strategic entrepreneurship as “the integration of entrepreneurial (i.e., opportunity seeking
behaviour) and strategic (i.e., advantage seeking) perspectives in developing and taking
actions designed to create wealth”. It also concerns the actions a company undertakes in
exploiting new innovations, which comes from the company’s commitment to
continuously explore opportunities, such as new products, new organizational forms, new
processes, to name a few (Ireland & Webb, 2007, p. 52). Further, strategic
entrepreneurship also implies taking entrepreneurial actions with a strategic management
orientation, which examines the firm’s effort to create sustainable competitive advantages
as a factor of the firm’s ability to generate wealth (Ireland et al., 2003, p. 964). Effective
strategic entrepreneurship supports a firm to position themselves to be capable of
responding to the types of environmental changes a firm can face in today's markets.
Additionally, it helps the firm to create comparatively sustainable competitive advantages
(Ireland & Webb, 2007, p. 50).
Luke et al. (2011, p. 319) stated that when firms are practicing strategic entrepreneurship,
they bring something new to the market, relying on a combination of opportunity
identification, innovation, and growth. A proposed framework with four key aspects was
additionally presented by Luke et al. (2011, p. 319). The framework consists of
entrepreneurial activity as the first aspect, which should be applied in the strategic context
of a business, which is seen as the second aspect. The first and second aspect should then
create expertise within the firm's core resources and skills. Lastly, effective strategic
entrepreneurship should help to achieve an advantage from applying and transferring the
acquired knowledge from the developed skills and resources to new products, services,
or markets. Both the central entrepreneurial elements and the four strategic aspects can
together be seen as the base for strategic entrepreneurship (Luke et al, 2011, p. 320). Luke
et al. (2011, p. 320) further stated that strategic entrepreneurship can range from
incremental to radical innovations, with deliberate to new approaches.
12
Furthermore, Hitt et al. (2011, p. 60) presented a multilevel input-process-output model,
which is created to improve the understanding of the strategic entrepreneurship
constructs. The strategic entrepreneurship model presented in figure 2 has three
dimensions; resource or factor inputs, resource orchestration processes, and outputs.
Figure 2. Inputs-processes-outputs model of strategic entrepreneurship (Hitt et al., 2011,
p. 60).
Moreover, environmental factors affect the firm’s potential to exploit opportunities that
can lead to competitive advantages (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 60). External environmental
factors may also affect the performance and the long-term survival of the firm. Hitt et al.
(2011, p. 64) argues that competitive advantage is a result for a firm who controls valuable
and rare resources. Resource orchestration is defined by Hitt et al. (2011, p. 64) as “the
actions leaders take to facilitate effort to effectively manage the firm’s resources”.
Structuring, building, leveraging, value creation and appropriation are the four major
resource orchestration actions within strategic entrepreneurship. Acquiring resources is
the most important subprocess of structuring for a startup because young firms and
startups often operate at a resource disadvantage. It is also important for firms to develop
resources internally. Existing research indicates that it is more important to reduce
weaknesses than it is to increase the firm’s strengths to achieve a positive performance
(Hitt et al., 2011, p. 65). Accumulating resources, such as knowledge, reputation, and
skills allow firms to create rare resources portfolios (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 65).
The best possible outcome for a firm that is practicing strategic entrepreneurship is to
achieve competitive success or to form a new venture firm. In order to achieve some of
these major outcomes, firms are likely to first achieve several critical provisional
outcomes, namely developing innovations with value-creating potential or creating new
technologies (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 66). Thus, managing resources is an activity that is
critical to achieve competitive advantage.
2.4 Organizational capabilities
How organizations collect new capabilities is something that has been considered as a
central problem on organizational evolution (Greve, 2007, p. 945). The concept of
organizational capabilities has been conceptualized in many ways. Leonard-Barton
13
(1992, p. 114) outlined a knowledge-based view with four different dimensions that can
differentiate companies strategically. The dimensions of a core capability are visualized
in figure 3. The first dimension, employee knowledge and skills are mostly associated
with the organization’s core capabilities. This is also the capability that is most relevant
to new product development. The second dimension, knowledge embedded in technical
systems, is a result from quality training. The third, being managerial systems, are guiding
control processes and knowledge creation. The last dimension, values and norms, are seen
as being connected with the mentioned processes and the incorporated knowledge above
(Leonard-Barton, 1992, p. 113).
Figure 3. The four dimensions of a core capability (Leonard-Barton, 1992, p. 114).
2.4.1 Exploration and exploitation capabilities
Organizational capabilities can also be outlined with the concept of exploration and
exploitation. Both exploration and exploitation are crucial elements for innovation
(Rosing et al., 2011, p. 958). Exploration is defined as being the more uncertain of the
two, in which search for new knowledge, creating products or services with unknown
demand, and the usage of unknown technology, is present (Greve, 2007, p. 945).
Exploration capabilities can also be translated to innovation capabilities and Francis &
Bessant (2005, p. 172) defined innovation capability as “the underlying capacity to gain
advantage by implementing more and better ideas than rivals”. Whereas, Assink (2006,
p. 219) defines innovation capability as “the internal driving energy to generate and
explore radical, new ideas and concepts, to experiment with solutions for potential
opportunity patterns detected in the market’s white space and to develop them into
marketable and effective innovations”. A study by Wang & Dass (2017, p. 127) found
out that managers who are focusing more on exploration activities are more likely to
strengthen their innovation capabilities.
Furthermore, exploration activities are also seen to challenge existing ideas by being
entrepreneurial and innovative in their ways of working (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1653).
14
Thus, innovative managers are prepared to take risks and have a higher chance to explore
new opportunities in the market. The willingness to take these risks is of higher
importance if the company operates in a new market where an established market
structure is missing and where a company has to meet new needs instead of fulfilling
those needs met by traditional marketing offerings (Wang & Dass, 2017, p. 132). Be that
as it may, March (1991, p. 85) stated that the outcome of exploration activities is said to
be complicated to evaluate in the short run due to the fact that the return on these activities
are hard to grasp in the nearest future but rather in the long term. Thus, the return of using
these activities is said to be uncertain, distant, and often negative (Auh & Menguc, 2005,
p. 1653).
Further, looking at exploitation capabilities, one could argue that it is the complete
opposite to exploration in which these activities have more assured benefits. This may be
due to the fact that exploitation capabilities are focused around existing technologies,
knowledge and products that the company already possess, rather than on new, unknown
resources (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1653; Camison et al., 2018, p. 1559; Greve, 2007, p.
945-946). By having an orientation towards exploitation, managers are often allowed to
discover opportunities by using the resources available inside the firm and therefore, its
focus is more on the innovation implementation process (Wang & Dass, 2017, p. 128).
Auh & Menguc (2005, p. 1654) explained that through exploitation capabilities, a firm
may improve its efficiency. The central aspect of exploitation is the possibility of a firm
to secure its position in the market by looking at the competitors and its own usage of
existing resources. This means that the firm is committing sufficient resources in relation
to its competitors in order to assure their own competitiveness (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p.
1653). Hence, emphasizing on operational efficiency to make use of the firm’s resources
in a better way instead of trying to develop new resources. The authors also stated that
the outcome from exploitation activities are usually immediate, predictable and positive.
Table 1. Characteristics of exploitation and exploration capabilities (O'Reilly &
Tushman, 2004, p. 79).
15
Practicing exploration activities can be as important in the implementation phase as
having an exploitation orientation. This is because implementation of a radical new idea
may require new strategies that need to be explored (Rosing et al., 2011, p. 965). Both
exploitation and exploration are important for the implementation and for creativity, even
if the latter one is more closely linked to exploration and the implementation of a new
idea is more closely linked to exploitation (Rosing et al., 2011, p. 965). Table 1
demonstrates the characteristics of both exploration and exploitation capabilities. As
visible in table 1, exploitation and exploration require two different cultures, strategies,
processes, and structures. As can be seen in figure 2, one of the goals with strategic
entrepreneurship is to develop a competitive advantage for social, organizational, and
individual benefits. A firm need, however, exploration and exploitation capabilities to be
able to create a competitive advantage because firms can only engage in effective
strategic entrepreneurship practices by separating exploration and exploitation activities.
When separating these capabilities, firms have to support them with distinct operational,
structural and cultural mechanisms (Ireland & Webb, 2007, p. 52). It is, however,
important to find a balance between exploration and exploitation capabilities to reach an
effective strategic entrepreneurship (Ireland & Webb, 2007, p. 58).
2.4.2 Balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities
As both exploitation and exploration capabilities require organizational resources, Greve
(2007, p. 946) argues that it is in the heart of every organization to make an effective
tradeoff between them. Even though this may seem easy in theory, many organizations
struggle with finding a balance between following routines and coming up with new
product innovations. This may be explained by whether a company’s focus lies on radical
or incremental innovations. According to Camison et al. (2018, p. 1560) there is a strong
link between exploration capabilities and radical innovations, and vice versa. The
difference between radical and incremental innovations can be defined by looking at the
amount of change it generates for the company. Radical innovations require a firm to
change their structure, activities, and their agenda, whereas incremental only provides
some small changes for the firm (Camison et al., 2018, p. 1560; & Greve, 2007, p. 946).
A radical innovation can transform an industry's dynamics and create whole new benefits
to the market and to the company that developed the innovation (O’Connor, 2008, p. 313).
Established companies that see innovation as an important source of competitive
advantage often see radical innovations as an attractive objective (O’Connor, 2008, p.
314). O’Connor (2008, p. 315) further argued that a radical innovation is different to an
incremental innovation, because a radical innovation is often characterized with high
levels of uncertainty on multiple dimensions, which an incremental innovation is not
characterized by. A radical innovation requires the company to move into unchartered
territory, where existing knowledge assets, experience, and loyal customers are not seen
as an advantage (O’Connor, 2008, p. 316).
Piao (2014, p. 210) stresses that the concepts of exploitation and exploration are crucial
elements for a manager to put into account when developing their overall strategy as they
can be seen as fundamental when developing already known alternatives as well as to
obtain new ones. The author also implies that having too much focus on exploitation
capabilities may affect an organization’s longevity negatively because everything needed
in order to stay competitive is not usually present within one organization (Piao, 2014, p.
211). Having its focus on exploitation activities are also said to discourage the
organization’s employees from pursuing new learnings and development inside the
16
organization (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1653). The authors also stated that as exploitation
activities deal with short-term solutions, it is also possible that the organization
potentially overlooks long-term opportunities that can be valuable for the firm later on.
On the contrary, by only focusing on exploration capabilities at the cost of exploitation
activities can lead to extend the firm’s longevity up to a certain point, to later decrease if
not dealt with carefully (Piao, 2014, p. 211). This is due to the lack of efficiency and
organizational stability if only focusing on the exploration capabilities within a firm.
Thus, the author stresses the importance of having a balance between efficiency, which
is linked to exploitation capabilities, and the innovation aspects, linked to a firm’s
exploration capabilities. If an organization is only focusing on one activity, the firm may
risk losing its current position in the market (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1654). This was
further mentioned in their study in which they addressed that ignoring one of these
activities can influence the firm’s performance negatively.
At the beginning of the startup phase, startups have to put most of their attention on
operational effectiveness and exploitation and in the long-term be more in-line with
exploration activities (Freytag, 2019a, p. 26; Ojaghi et al., 2019, p. 1065). Freytag (2019a,
p. 26) explained that big corporations are usually operating with exploitation activities.
Both exploration and exploitation capabilities can, however, according to Lannon &
Walsh (2020, p. 23) be managed simultaneously when they occur as a duality. Janssens
& Steyaert (1999, p. 122) argued that it is not a simple strategy to deal with dualities,
instead it becomes a complex organizing principle. Dualities are different from paradoxes
and dilemmas because they need to be balanced and are seen as contradictory yet
complementary components (Janssens & Steyaert, 1999, p. 122). Gaim & Wåhlin (2016,
p. 33) states that competing demands are something that exists within a contemporary
organization that are beyond the control of the management. As an organization is trying
to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities, we believe that this complex
phenomenon can be seen as a competing demand in which an organization has to take a
stand to what capabilities that are necessary for sustainable competing advantage and
growth. Figure 4 demonstrated by Gaim & Wåhlin (2016, p. 36) explains how a firm
should in general deal with competing demands. By categorizing four different options;
choosing, splitting, accommodating, or synthesizing, the authors argue that an
organization is said to have different choices that they have to address carefully.
Figure 4. General approaches of dealing with competing demands. (Gaim & Wåhlin,
2016, p. 36).
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In order for a manager to understand the importance of maintaining a balance between
exploration and exploitation, two distinctions can be made (Greve, 2007, p. 948). First,
depending on which industry one is operating within it requires a different set of
knowledge. Operating within areas in which technology is key, requires more exploration
capabilities rather than exploitation as the industry is ever-changing. Second, as exploring
innovations require a firm to possess new knowledge it is seen as a riskier option (Greve,
2007, p. 949).
2.4.3 Building organizational capabilities
Greve (2007, p. 945) mentioned that developing new capabilities has for a long time been
seen as a big problem for corporations. According to Schriber & Löwstedt (2015, p. 54),
developing these capabilities is said to be necessary for every firm because it is strongly
related to the firm’s performance. Schreyögg & Kliesch-Eberl (2007, p. 915) noted that
“capability development comes close to a chain of reactions triggered by an initial event,
thereby establishing a capability trajectory. Capability development takes time and the
specific way in which time has been taken (i.e., the intensity, frequency, and the duration
of social interactions) is relevant for the gestalt of a capability”. Schriber & Löwstedt
(2015, p. 54) explained that earlier research shows that the development of capabilities
can be seen as a gradual process as routines are adopted in the organizational context.
Capabilities will normally develop over time from complex situations and from partly
unexpressed experiences (Schreyögg & Kliesch-Eberl, 2007, p. 928). Firms, however,
often lack an understanding of their own capabilities (Schreyögg & Kliesch-Eberl, 2007,
p. 928). Firms that are trying to be innovative need organizational learning as a capability
because competences and capabilities are often complicated to replicate (Börjesson &
Elmquist, 2011, p. 173). This makes learning an important element when firms are trying
to develop organizational capabilities. Börjesson & Elmquist (2011, p. 173) explained
that organizations may learn from efficient internal knowledge sharing, from experience,
and through collaborations with external firms. Ellonen et al. (2011, p. 475) explained
that managers should be aware of what kind of capabilities and resources the firm
possesses and pay attention to the structural changes the firm is doing in their internal
processes. These structural changes may have an influence on capabilities that the firm
needs for innovation and can in fact also foster the development of such capabilities
(Ellonen et al., 2011, p. 475).
Assink (2006, p. 220) argued that firms can face internal and external barriers that may
interrupt the development of the right capabilities that would support the firm’s
innovation activities. Assink (2006, pp. 220-226) highlighted five barriers that can have
a negative effect on the development of a firm’s innovation capability. Firstly, the
adoption barrier, which can emerge if a firm does not want to leave previously successful
concepts or ways of working. Even if the previous innovation has been successful, losing
the innovative edge can lead to the risk of being overtaken by innovative companies that
have introduced a disruptive innovation that disrupts the market (Assink, 2006, p. 220).
Secondly, mindset barriers which may occur if a firm has the inability to unlearn. Assink
(2006, p. 221) defined unlearning as “the process by which people and firms eliminate
old logic (test the validity of their beliefs and discard the present way of doing something)
and substitute it with something fundamentally new”. This also includes having a lack of
distinctive competencies (Assink, 2006, p. 222). Thirdly, the risk barrier, which can arise
if a firm lacks internal skills and motivation for innovation (Assink, 2006, p. 223).
Fourthly, the nascent barrier, which can occur when there is a lack of creativity or market
18
sensing and foresight (Assink, 2006, p. 225). Finally, the infrastructure barrier, which can
emerge if there is a lack of mandatory infrastructure or adequate follow-through (Assink,
2006, p. 226). Developing innovation capabilities can be a way to overcome these
barriers. Steiber & Alänge (2013, p. 253) explained that one of Google’s strengths when
developing their innovation capability or innovativeness was to have focus on strategies
towards human resources, specifically on training and hiring employees to foster an
innovative behavior in the company. Another strength is the innovation-oriented culture
that Google possesses, which enables the company to have employees that are constantly
ready for change (Steiber & Alänge, 2013, p. 253). The organizational explanation to
Google’s innovativeness can be described as an open and dynamic corporate system for
innovation, where innovations take place in the employees’ daily tasks (Steiber & Alänge,
2013, p. 261).
2.4.4 Strategic decision-making
As mentioned earlier, the process of open innovation is considered as being part of a
company’s strategy. Strategic decision-making involves concepts that are related to a
firm’s resources and goals (Shepherd & Rudd, 2013, p. 340). The process of strategic
decision-making can be characterized as a set of rational, political, comprehensive, or as
a series of activities that implies a collection of information, selection of different
alternatives or development of alternatives (Shepherd & Rudd, 2013, p. 340). Strategic
decision-making is based on taking a view of where the organization has been, where it
is now, and how it can survive in a dynamic environment (Steptoe‐Warren et al., 2011,
p. 246). Further, depending on which environment the organization is operating within,
whether it is seen as stable or unstable, a firm may see strategic decision-making
differently (Wooldridge & Cowden, 2020, p. 4). Working in a stable environment, the
concept of comprehensiveness in which a firm in depth integrates strategic decisions in
their overall strategy is preferable, while an unstable environment is seeing strategic
decision making as something that should be treated as incremental in which small
changes in the overall strategy seems reasonable. As comprehensive decisions require
more time and information but are seen as having a more accurate and positive outcome
for a firm’s overall strategy, these processes are related to better-quality decisions. When
time is crucial, incremental processes are seen as more effective as they require less
planning and more action (Wooldridge & Cowden, 2020, p. 4). Thus, highlighting the
problem of managers feeling that they are stuck between a rock and a hard place as better-
quality decisions require more time which is something that an organization occasionally
does not have while having to make a decision.
Another concept highly related to strategic decision-making is the perception of cognitive
biases. This demonstrates how decision makers, which mostly is seen from a managerial
point of view, are affected by historical decisions made in the past (Wooldridge &
Cowden, 2020, p. 8). Generally, these biases appear as a result associated with the
decision maker’s emotional attitudes, as alternatives are chosen or forsaken based on the
manager's likes or dislikes. This phenomenon is addressed as heuristics and is important
when understanding why for example sponsors, vendors, and alliances etc., are chosen
over others (Wooldridge & Cowden, 2020, p. 8-9).
In addition, for a firm to remain competitive, it is crucial for managers to acknowledge
their existing strategy as well as new strategies used by other ventures concurrently
(Wooldridge & Cowden, 2020, p. 10). This is defined as ambidextrous, which is having
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the ability to iterate amongst lots of alternatives and realize that all decisions are not made
internally but rather from a collaboration with external sources (Laureiro-Martinez et al.,
2015, p. 320). Rosing et al. (2011, p. 957) explained it as “Ambidexterity literally means
the ability to use both hands with equal ease. In management science ambidexterity has
been linked to the balance of explorative and exploitative organizational strategies, that
is, the ability to engage in exploration and exploitation equally well”. Thus, linking it to
the importance of open innovation for an organization’s strategic decision-making.
Laureiro-Martinez et al. (2015, p. 320) further distinguish the use of exploration and
exploitation capabilities through a lens of ambidexterity. They argue that ambidexterity
is best accomplished by looking at individuals’ ability to make decisions between
exploration and exploitation processes, highlighting the strategic decision-making
process as key to achieve a proper balance.
Moreover, this highlights the importance that if an organization wants to see themselves
as being ambidextrous, they need senior teams and managers that emphasize its
importance (Laureiro-Martinez et al., 2015, p. 320-321). Rosing et al. (2011, p. 957)
highlighted the importance of a combined leadership style that can promote innovation
effectively. Namely, a combination of several leadership behaviors flexibly applied to
changing requirements within the innovation process. The leadership style that a manager
possesses needs to match the pace and the complexity of innovation (Rosing et al., 2011,
p. 957). Ambidextrous leadership is defined as “the ability to foster both explorative and
exploitative behaviors in followers by increasing or reducing variance in their behavior
and flexibly switching between those behaviors” (Rosing et al., 2011, p. 957). In other
words, ambidextrous leaders should be able to support their team members to be
ambidextrous.
2.5 Innovation hub
“No longer are innovations developed from within the confines of an organization;
instead, they evolve from the joint action of a network of actors” (Huotari et al., 2016, p.
2964). An example of a network that brings organizations together is an innovation hub
(Longo et al., 2013, p. 145). Giaccone & Longo (2016, p. 102) explained an innovation
hub as being a center of research and development of ideas that are seen as being
innovative and acts as a catalyst to transform these ideas into commercializable products
or services. O’Hare et al. (2008, p. 973) explained an innovation hub as a separate
organization, which should be founded through corporate funds and is possessing three
specific competencies, in particular incubation, idea acceleration, and idea generation. It
acts as a platform that connects people, teams, companies, and communities together to
convert unique ideas into commercializable solutions (Giaccone & Longo, 2016, p. 98).
The idea with an innovation hub is not only to entail increased innovation for
organizations. Baark & Sharif (2006, p. 195) explained that by using knowledge that has
been produced elsewhere, a firm may be able to boost value into their own production.
Hence, opening up a firm’s business model to the outside can be seen as open innovation,
which is highly connected to an innovation hub (Longo et al., 2013, p. 145). This is due
to the fact that for a firm to get the most out of an innovation hub, they need to transform
its processes, structures and culture into a more open point of view in which collaboration
is necessary with external parties such as suppliers, partners and customers (Giaccone &
Longo, 2016, p. 114).
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The essence of an innovation hub was demonstrated by Baark & Sharif (2006, p. 195-
196). The authors explained that a wide range of network linkages promoting flow of
technology and knowledge should be present. Organizations and people within an
innovation hub should also have their focus on innovative activities. Thus, innovation
hubs want to recognize an increase in R&D spending from the participants, both from
private and public organizations. As the focal point within an innovation hub should be
on activities supporting innovation, it is necessary that the culture of each organization
supports innovation. If an organization successfully implements an innovation culture,
the organizations can have the possibility to improve their technological and innovative
capabilities as well as take advantage of the opportunity to effectively utilize technologies
and innovations produced in another organization.
Furthermore, an innovation hub aims to develop an innovation-facilitating network with
a range of members with different sizes and from different industries (Dhanasai & Parkhe,
2006, p. 661). The value that comes from the innovation hub should be provided in the
network, which consists of the innovation hub’s members and the extended network
(Dhanasai & Parkhe, 2006, p. 660). The innovation hub has an objective to manage the
network activities in order to produce opportunities that can be the output from the
network. This means that the network design and network management are important
aspects for an innovation hub's success. Successful network management requires the
innovation hub’s team to manage the network’s members (members size and diversity),
network structure (members autonomy and density), and network position (members
status and centrality) (Dhanasai & Parkhe, 2006, p. 661). They also stated that good
orchestration of the network requires to have the ability to manage the mobility of
knowledge, appropriateness of innovation, and network stability.
Flynn (1993, p. 129) defined organizational sponsors as an incentive that “involve
intervention by government agencies, business firms, and universities to create an
environment conducive to the birth and survival of organizations.” Organizational
sponsors are relevant for this thesis because Ignite is led by several different incubators
and accelerators located in Sweden (Ignite, n.d.). Organizational sponsors are an incentive
that involves multiple actors in order to create new business opportunities (Cohen et al.,
2018, p. 35). However, organizational sponsors differ from innovation hubs in several
aspects. Instead of only having its focus on the facilitation of innovations, an incubator
offers startups with information and resources, which includes office space, legal
services, and introduction to local businesses (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 5). Startups enter an
incubator on an ongoing basis and often exit because of disbanding or outgrowing the
space (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 6). The similarities between these programs and innovation
hubs is that they aim to entail increased innovation exactly as these organizational
sponsors, such as accelerators and incubators are trying to.
2.6 Partnerships
Partnerships are an important source of innovation both in startups and in big corporations
(Minshall et al., 2010, p. 53). There are, however, challenges startups are facing when
trying to manage a partnership with a big corporation. The challenges increase, for
instance when a startup is commercially inexperienced in trying to exploit a unique
technology, and when the corporation in the partnership is an established firm that has a
complex organization with operations all over the world (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54).
Nonetheless, they further argued that a partnership between a big corporation and a
21
startup can be the difference of survival for a startup. It does not always have to be big
corporations that startups are collaborating with, the use of external relationships with
any firm can be considered as an important development factor for a startup (Lechner et
al., 2006, p. 515).
Additional challenges startups may face when collaborating with external partners can be
the following. The first being the difficulty to find an appropriate employee that has
power to make decisions from the corporation that the startup would like to get a
collaboration with (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54). Some bigger corporations have, however,
a clear contact person or department for startups that they can get in touch with, but this
can be a very time-consuming task for the startups. This can be the case because bigger
corporations can be very complex, resource-constrained and commercially inexperienced
outside their organization (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54). Another challenge is that big
corporations’ organizational structures are seen as being very complex. This means that
the first negotiation meeting can be with the R&D department of the firm, which may
have the same environment as the startup, but while transferring the responsibility from
the R&D department to the legal and procurement departments, the flow of the
negotiation can take a turn. This is because these legal and procurement departments often
have a completely different cultural environment in comparison to the startup.
Another constraint when partnering up with a corporation is the speed of negotiations.
The reason for this is that big corporations often have a hard time to have the same
efficiency as a startup due to the corporation's size, complexity, and several layers of
management. The last two challenges Minshall et al. (2010, p. 56) recognized were the
power imbalance and that bigger corporations often have a difficulty to understand how
startups operate. The authors also mentioned that a big corporation could mistreat its
position by extending the negotiation period in order to prevent the startup from
discussing with the big corporation’s competitors. Minshall et al. (2010, p. 59) also
explained that a partnership can impact a startup’s strategy in three ways. First,
partnerships can allow access to additional resources to address a clearly defined
opportunity. Second, bigger corporations can also open up new opportunity areas. Third,
bigger corporations could also limit future opportunity areas.
Figure 5. Different types of partnerships. (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54).
Figure 5 developed by Minshall et al. (2010, p. 54) presents different types of partnerships
along a sequence of increasing integration. As may be seen from the figure, a shift
towards mergers & acquisition affects how integrated the partnering companies are with
each other. We think that the biggest change in terms of integration is when the
22
collaboration moves from non-equity to partial acquisition in which one of the actors has
acquired some parts of the other company, but still controlling less than 50 %.
2.6.1 Knowledge sharing
When partnering with a big corporation, some challenges may occur. Knowledge
leakages and external knowledge sharing through open innovation often pose a strategic
dilemma for firms when conducting innovation activities (Ritala et al., 2015, p. 22).
Mooradian et al. (2006, p. 524) defined knowledge sharing as “the provision or receipt
of task information, knowhow and feedback regarding a product or procedure”.
Knowledge leakages, however, is not a preferred or an expected outcome from a
partnership (Ritala et al., 2015, p. 24). Knowledge leakages can be defined as a “loss of
technological knowledge intended to stay within a firm's boundaries and may cause a
weakened state in which a focal firm loses its competitive advantage and industry
position” (Frishammar et al., 2015, p. 75).
Startups can be a crucial source of innovation for big corporations seeking to improve
their innovation capabilities (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 53). Likewise, startups lacking
commercial experience but possess a unique technology can potentially benefit from
collaborating with capability and resource-rich companies (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 53).
Big corporations that are indeed attractive to startups are corporations that can provide
access to expensive or inaccessible resources simultaneously as having a strong
reputation (Allmendinger & Berger, 2020, p. 5). External knowledge sharing is therefore
often occurring between startups and big corporations. Firms benefit from both
knowledge specialization and integration through collaborations where resources and
knowledge are exchanged (Ritala et al., 2015, p. 22). Ritala et al. (2015, p. 29) further
argues that in an open innovation context where firms share knowledge to external
partners, firms encounter the risk of damaging knowledge leakages.
Moreover, Easterby-Smith et al. (2008, p. 685) also stated that when trying to protect
leakages from happening, the most devices that are used to prevent knowledge leakages
may also affect the knowledge transfer between firms in a negative way. Ritala et al.
(2015, p. 29) argues, however, that external knowledge sharing is positively related to
innovation performance. Employees who intentionally or accidentally leak important
knowledge can minimize the contrary positive innovation benefits from the planned
collaboration (Ritala et al., 2015, p. 29). Mooradian et al. (2006, p. 524) mentions that
trust can influence knowledge sharing in a positive way. Knowledge sharing has to be
managed carefully in partnerships, otherwise knowledge leakages can occur especially in
industries where knowledge is seen as a competitive advantage (Ritala et al., 2015, p. 24).
2.6.2 Trust
Liu (2020, p. 26) found out that trust pursuit is a crucial and ever-changing entrepreneurial
action in the context of collaborations. Firms can use trust to manage the uncertainty of
trust and distrust along with protecting asymmetric power (Liu, 2020, p. 26). Asymmetric
partnerships refer to partnerships between unequal actors (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 53).
Lewicki et al. (1998, p. 438) explained that trust has a critical role for effective
collaborations. Lewicki et al. (1998, p. 439) further defined trust as the “confident
positive expectations regarding another’s conduct”, while they defined distrust as the
“confident negative expectations regarding another’s conduct”. Liu (2020, p. 26)
23
explained that firms should change their strategic intents from resource exchange to trust
pursuit, with the reason to build long-term relationships. In the early process stage when
a startup is selecting a corporation as a partner, the startup may only assess perceived
trustworthiness, which can be seen as a characteristic of other organizations and their
representatives instead of an attribute of the future alliance relationship, which is seen as
trust (Allmendinger & Berger, 2020, p. 6). They further argued that choosing a partner is
a vital moment for startups and it relies on the perceived trustworthiness of the startup
and on the attributes the big corporation is signaling. Allmendinger & Berger (2020, p.
24) concluded that big corporations should signal a high level of openness and readiness
to work on the grounds of conciseness instead of having detailed contractual designs. This
increases the startups’ willingness to partner with a big corporation (Allmendinger &
Berger, 2020, p. 24).
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3 Overview of the literature review
Figure 6 explains how the literature review sections are related to each other. First of all,
the concept of closed and open innovation was mentioned. We believe that open
innovation can be seen as being the central aspect of the thesis, as being part of an
innovation hub spur companies to open up their processes in order to hopefully, with
other companies, develop new solutions. For a startup to develop a new solution and to
create and sustain a competitive advantage, the concept of strategic entrepreneurship is
important. As startups generally lack resources, the connection between open innovation
and strategic entrepreneurship can be drawn. For a firm to create and sustain a competitive
advantage, the use of open innovation can be seen as a crucial element to its success,
highlighting its relevance of having a strategic entrepreneurial orientation. This leads us
to the next category, organizational capabilities, where exploration and exploitation are
the two concepts a firm may possess. Exploration is needed in order to explore new
opportunities and exploitation is needed to make the best out of existing technologies and
capabilities. In order to get a competitive advantage, these capabilities are needed to be
balanced. Mentioned in the literature, startups usually possess exploration capabilities
due to its innovativeness, whereas big corporations normally tend to possess capabilities
related to exploitation in which efficiency is seen as a key outcome.
A startup usually lacks resources and capabilities related to efficiency. Therefore, it is
necessary for a startup to build these capabilities by using external help. This can be done
by, for example, making a strategic decision to participate in an innovation hub. As the
aim of this thesis is to develop knowledge on how startups may balance exploration and
exploitation capabilities by being part of an innovation hub, we chose Ignite to be our
selected case. Ignite is owned by several incubators and accelerators all-around of
Sweden, which makes the relevance of including literature about organizational sponsors
visible. An in-depth explanation of how Ignite is organized is mentioned in the next
chapter. By joining an innovation hub, startups may get the opportunity to collaborate
with big corporations in order to develop new, or improved products or services that are
beneficial for both parties. As the literature states, it is vital for startups to find these
collaborations in order to survive in the marketplace. Knowledge will be shared in a
collaboration, and trust is therefore important from both parties in order to minimize the
risks and challenges that can occur. To sum up, all of the above-mentioned concepts are
related to the purpose of this thesis, where we are going to investigate how an innovation
hub can help startups to find a balance between exploration and exploitation capabilities.
The existing literature highlights the importance of collaborating with other firms to
develop capabilities. We are, however, trying to bring awareness how an innovation hub
can help startups to find the balance between the above-mentioned capabilities.
25
Figure 6. Literature review summary.
26
4 Selected case
This study’s focus is on startups that are a part of an innovation hub. As innovation hubs
differ amongst each other, we chose Ignite as our selected case because it is an innovation
hub that is active in all of Sweden. Ignite’s goal is to increase innovation and economic
growth in both startups and big corporations by finding the proper match between a
startup and a bigger corporation (Ignite, n.d.). Since the creation of Ignite, they have
managed to successfully implement 101 commercial collaborations. As stated on their
webpage, 410 different startups have been engaged at Ignite match-up meetings
throughout 39 different events, trying to victoriously find one out of 132 corporates that
have been involved in the match-up events.
Ignite is matching relevant startups with big corporations. It is free of charge for startups
to participate in the Ignite program. The terms are that the startup is registered in Sweden,
is younger than six years, and that the startup’s solution is scalable (Ignite 2019, October
23). Ignite’s process from the first contact with a big corporation and a startup until the
evaluation can be seen in figure 7.
Figure 7. The Ignite Process.
The matchmaking in itself is a needs-based process, and it is based on potential business
benefits (Ignite 2019, October 23). The model of the needs analysis that Ignite is using as
a manual when finding the big corporation’s needs can be found in figure 8. Together
with the big corporation, Ignite is doing a needs analysis in order to create an
understanding in which area that the corporation wants to improve to further develop a 3-
year period plan (Ignite 2019, October 23). Ignite is together with the big corporation
working with the needs analysis to find 7-8 different areas where they need to drive
innovation work (Ignite, Program Manager). Ignite is starting to look for startups in their
database after they have identified the different areas that the big corporation wishes to
develop innovations within.
27
Figure 8. Ignite’s needs analysis model.
The Program Manager further explained that the process would be much harder if Ignite
would have a needs analysis with the different startups as well as with the big corporation.
Instead, Ignite has a database with all the startups that have signed up to Ignite. The
startups can, however, have to wait in the system for a long time without getting matched
with a corporation. A startup occurs in the process first when Ignite has succeeded in
finding a good match with a big corporation (Ignite, Program Manager). The Operation
Manager at Uminova explained that it is often that 1+1 becomes 3 when a startup gets a
meeting with a big corporation through Ignite. This is because both the startup and the
big corporation possess something unique and together, they then develop a new product
or service. The fundamental of Ignite is that a match-up should come from a problem that
the big corporation is willing to satisfy by the use of a startup. This means that the big
corporations should also be well aware that it will cost them money to solve the problem
together with a startup. The Program Manager of Ignite explained that a startup normally
has a solution that is approximately 80% done, and in order to develop a fully
commercializable product or service the startup are in need of the big corporations’
capabilities. The Program Manager further stated that startups normally hope to achieve
a strategic partnership with a big corporation when signing up to Ignite. Also, developing
a mutual sales channel that enables them to access new markets is another thing the
startup addressed as being important. The Program Manager said that the third thing a
startup is looking for is often connected to gain new customers.
The different matchmaking events are often organized together with the local incubator.
Ignite is financed by Vinnova, which is an incubator program where 27 incubators are
included (Ignite, Program Manager). These incubators are either financed by the city or
the local university or a combination of these (Ignite, Program Manager). An incubator
is supporting local innovative companies and it is usually difficult for them to keep and
support their startups with customer acquisitions (Ignite, Program Manager). This is
because an incubator has to maintain the relationship with many large companies to be
able to open the doors for their startups. Ignite is therefore an innovation hub meant for
customer acquisitions (Ignite, Program Manager). The Operation Manager at Uminova
explained that when Ignite was founded, Uminova saw an opportunity to engage their
startups with attractive big corporations through Ignite. This is when the first event in
Umeå was held, which is called Ignite North. The Operation Manager at Uminova
explained that the Ignite event in the future will be held on the same day as Uminova’s
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match-up days in order to make a day that is as effective as possible for all the involved
parties.
Ignite is relevant to our thesis in several ways. First, by using Ignite as our selected case,
we develop an understanding of what startups being involved in Ignite are looking for in
a collaboration occurring during the match-up events from Ignite. Secondly, it is relevant
to investigate what an innovation hub does in order to provide startups with big
corporations that are willing to collaborate with them. By including the whole process of
the concept of a third party, such as Ignite, enables us to understand how an innovation
hub minimizes the challenges associated with a collaboration between a startup and a big
corporation. Lastly, Ignite allows us to understand how big corporations help startups
with balancing their organizational capabilities, which may be argued are accessible to
the startups thanks to Ignite, addressing the need of gaining a deeper understanding on
the involvement of a third party in the creation of balancing exploration and exploitation
capabilities.
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5 Research methodology
The used research methodology is explained in this chapter. Firstly, we discuss the
research philosophy and argue for which ontological, epistemological, and axiological
standpoints that have been taken. The three different assumptions are explained, and
certain stances are argued for. Then, the chosen research approach and design is
explained. Lastly, the practical methodology is explained, where the chosen data
collection, sampling technique, interview guide, data analysis, and ethical considerations
are clarified. We discuss the different aspects of the methodology and argue with relevant
literature for our selected methods throughout the research methodological chapter.
5.1 Research Philosophy
Research philosophy refers to the assumptions and beliefs about how knowledge is
developed within a specific field (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 124). These assumptions are
acquired from the ontological, epistemological and methodological standpoints. The
chosen standpoints are further argued for below.
5.1.1 Ontological assumption
The ontological assumption refers to the nature of reality (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 127).
Long et al. (2000, p. 190) defined ontology by stating that it “refers to assumptions held
about the nature of social reality”. In other words, ontology is about the attention
concerning the existence of social phenomena (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 5). The nature
of reality can be seen according to Long et al. (2000, p. 190) as either objectivism or
subjectivism. The nature of reality can and shall be treated as objective if entities are seen
as external to social actors (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 32). When social entities can and
shall be seen as subjective, social constructs should be developed with interactions on an
individual basis (Long et al., 2000, p. 190) or in other words created through actions from
social actors (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 32). Fleetwood (2005, p. 197) argued that there
are four modes of reality, namely social, material, ideal, and artefactual. This thesis
studies individuals in socially real structures, namely an innovation hub and startups.
Here the entities are social because they are reliant on human activities for their existence
(Fleetwood, 2005, p. 201). This study’s findings are based on interviews and the reviewed
literature. The interviews are conducted with individuals from organizations, such as
startups and an innovation hub. Due to this, the existing of several individual realities is
present because of numerous interviews. The interviewees act in response to their
surroundings, namely their startup or Ignite. Lastly, several understandings of reality can
occur depending on which actor is the entity in focus.
In this study, we have chosen to adopt a constructivist viewpoint as our philosophical
standpoint, which assumes that reality is influenced through the interaction and action of
social actors and is in continuous state of modification. The constructivist view relates to
subjectivism and assumes reality to be fluid, socially constructed and dependent on the
actors that develop reality (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 37). On the opposite side is
positivism, which is mostly linked to objectivism where reality is considered to exist
independently of social actors (Gray, 2004, p. 17). In this study, our view of reality is
socially constructed, where we are dependent on managers of startups and members of
Ignite. Therefore, one may argue that our chosen standpoint is constructivist because the
reality is fluid and dependent on the above-mentioned actors.
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5.1.2 Epistemological assumption
Epistemology is influenced by the chosen ontological standpoint (Fleetwood, 2005, p.
197) and refers to the assumption about knowledge (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 127). Long
et al. (2000, p. 190) defined epistemology as “the basis of knowledge and in what manner
knowledge can be transmitted to others”. Knowledge can be either objective, which is
associated with a positivist assumption or subjective, which is associated with an
interpretivist assumption (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 127). Objective knowledge is
theoretically accessible to everyone, while subjective knowledge is dependent on
individual experiences (Long et al., 2000, p. 190). When a study is highly objective, the
aim is to discover the truth about the social world (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 128). The
positivist approach focuses more on working in the ways of natural scientists, where
reality is determined by exact processes of scientific investigation (Gray, 2017, p. 39).
However, a subjective viewpoint is under constant reconstruction, and therefore scholars
take the context into account to understand the study objects (Saunders et al., 2016, p.
130). The social reality should be based on arguments when adopting interpretivism. This
is because the social world needs a different logic to what is applied to the physical
sciences, thus allowing us to understand the differences of humans in their roles as social
actors (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 17). This thesis’ epistemological standpoint is of the
interpretivist approach because this thesis is more of an exploratory study, where we are
trying to find perspectives of managers in startups as well as perspectives from the
innovation hub. Saunders et al. (2009, p. 116) also stated that an interpretivist approach
is ideal to have in the study of business and management research, because of the
uniqueness and complexity in business related context.
5.1.3 Axiological assumption
Axiological assumptions apply to the role of ethics and values during the research process
(Saunders et al., 2016, p. 127) and values will guide the researcher’s analysis of the
created knowledge and the collected data (Carter & Little, 2007, p. 1322). Therefore, the
axiological assumption should answer what the roles of values and ethics are in the
research. There are two axiological standpoints, namely positivism and interpretivism. A
positivism assumption is considered to be independent from the research objects, whereas
a researcher that has an interpretivism assumption is considered to be engaged in the
research subject (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 48). Semi-structured interviews have been
conducted in order to collect the data needed for the analysis of this thesis. The chosen
axiological standpoint for this thesis is of interpretivism reasoning. This is because the
presence from us as researchers in the interviews has not been completely removed. The
presence from the researchers in the interviews could be removed if the interviews would
have been conducted through, for example, an email conversation. However, this has not
been the case, because we believe that direct contact with the interviewees will strengthen
our findings.
The researchers’ values are required to be articulated beforehand to produce credible
results from the study because the researchers’ values are always a part of the conducted
study (Heron, 1996, p. 286). We are aware of the influence our preconditions and values
have on the thesis. We are, therefore, outlining them in this subchapter to render our
research as transparent. The researchers have a special interest in the topic and there is a
close connection to an ongoing research project held in Umeå University, where the aim
is to study the whole concept of Ignite. One of the aspects why Ignite was chosen as the
31
case study is because Ignite is part of the research project that researchers at Umeå
University is currently trying to understand.
5.1.4 Literature search
A literature search was conducted before our research gap was identified. The research
question was later developed after the research gap was identified. Our literature search
makes up a base of relevant literature that was needed for us to understand a particular
phenomenon and to identify the gap that we are trying to fill (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p.
100). There are two different types of literature sources that are mostly used to develop a
literature review, namely primary and secondary literature sources (Saunders et al., 2016,
p. 83). Primary literature sources are items created by different levels of government,
business and industry, and academics in both electronic and print formats. These primary
sources are, however, not controlled by commercial publishers (Saunders et al., 2016, p.
83). The literature sources that have been mostly used in our literature review are
secondary sources. Secondary sources are literature sources who are formally published,
such as books and journals (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 83). Several databases have been
used to find the relevant literature that was needed for us to produce a literature review.
The databases that have been used the most are Umeå Library database, DiVa, Google
Scholar, Web of Science, Emerald Insight, and EBSCO. Various numbers of different
search words have been used in order to find the most relevant scientific literature about
theories such as open innovation, knowledge sharing, strategic decision-making, strategic
entrepreneurship, and innovation hubs. The different search words that have been used
can be viewed below in table 2.
Regarding the choice of literature, we incorporated a range of different perspectives and
streams presented in the most cited and well-known articles that were found. The aim
with the literature review was to include current research as well as insights into
traditional points of view, which have enriched our understanding and perspectives on
open innovation and other relevant literature.
Table 2. List of search words.
Key
Words Closed Innovation, Innovation, Strategic Decision-Making, Organizational Capabilities, Building capabilities, Research Methodology, Data Analysis, Thematic Analysis, Interview Guides, Inductive, Ethical Considerations,
Open innovation, Outside-in, Inside-Out, Coupled process, Collaborations, Big corporations, Knowledge Sharing, Strategic Entrepreneurship, Exploration, Exploitation, Ambidexterity, Balancing Capabilities, Resources, Innovation Hub, Service Ecosystems, SMEs, Partnerships, Networking
Startups, Startup perspective, Corporate sponsors, Cooperation, Paradoxes
Year
Limit 1990 - 2020 2000 - 2020 2010 - 2020
Language English English English
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5.1.5 Research Approach
Our research approach is inductive. There are, however, two other types of research
approaches that can be used, namely deductive and abductive (Saunders et al., 2016, p.
168). The research approach is what establishes the logic of the research that is conducted
and explains the connection between the theory and the research (Bryman & Bell, 2015,
p. 27; Saunders et al., 2016, p. 144). This thesis’ research approach is inductive because
the aim is to develop further understanding how an innovation hub enables startups with
balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities.
Our research starts with collecting data to explore the phenomenon of innovation hubs.
In inductive research, data collection is mostly used to explore a phenomenon, identify
themes and patterns to create a conceptual framework (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 145),
which is our aim with this thesis. The inductive approach can be referred to as a movement
from specific to general (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 7) because the researchers draw
generalizable inferences from observations (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 25). A deductive
research approach, however, refers to moving from general to specific (Collis & Hussey,
2014, p. 7) and relies mainly on testing a priori hypotheses (Woo et al., 2017, p. 255).
Woo et al. (2017, p. 259-262) recommended a few best-practice observations for
inductive research. First, start off with a clear purpose. Secondly, researchers have to
exploit the collected data to maximize the benefits in all possible ways. There are
according to Woo et al. (2017, p. 260) three major mechanisms that the value of data for
inductive study may be maximized by operating in openness, namely collection, analysis,
and sharing of data. The needed data to our analysis will be collected through semi-
structured interviews and the task is to make sense of the collected data through a
comprehensive analysis of the findings from the interviews. The analysis from this thesis
will contribute to a conceptual framework, which will be a guidance for both managers
of startups and for Ignite. Finally, the researcher should be transparent in reporting the
findings.
5.1.6 Research Design
The steps explained below are the steps needed to consider in order to being able to
answer our research question (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 163). According to Saunders et al.
(2016, p. 164), there are two primary methodological choices, namely qualitative or
quantitative research. The aim with this thesis is to make sense of subjective and socially
constructed meanings expressed about how an innovation hub enables startups to find a
balance between exploration and exploitation activities. Therefore, the methodological
choice of this thesis is qualitative. Qualitative research is often associated with an
interpretive philosophy (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 168), which is our epistemological
standpoint. A qualitative research’s purpose is also to indicate words (Bryman & Bell,
2015, p. 38) and non-numerical data (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 165), and the analysis
should rely on text data rather than numerical data (Carter & Little, 2007, p. 1316).
Quantitative on the other hand is associated with a positivism philosophy and quantitative
data collection techniques (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 166), which would not be correlated
with our purpose and research question.
The nature of the research should according to Saunders et al. (2016, p. 164) either have
an exploratory research or an explanatory research purpose. The researcher chooses the
nature of the thesis by determining how the research question is formulated. This will
33
then guide the researcher into either an exploratory, explanatory, or a combination of the
two (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 174). The most common ways to ask a research question in
an exploratory research is to start the question with a “how” or a “what” (Saunders et al.,
2016, p. 174), in order to have the ability to clarify a phenomena or a problem (Saunders
et al., 2016, p. 175). As this study aims to answer the following research question: “How
can an innovation hub help startups find a balance between exploration and exploitation
capabilities?”, our thesis has an exploratory research purpose. Thus, in order for us to get
the most out of this study, the use of open questions are necessary (Carter & Little, 2007,
p. 1322) as it allows us to identify and explore situations and gain insight into a specific
issue (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 4).
This thesis will be conducted through exploratory research as explained above, and the
base for the research strategy can be experiment, survey, archival and documentary
research, case study, ethnography, action research, grounded theory, narrative inquiry
(Saunders et al., 2016, p. 178). This study performs a case study to answer the research
question. A case study is different from the other research designs, because a case study
has its focus on a specific situation and emphasizes an intensive examination of the setting
(Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 68). According to Collis & Hussey (2014, p. 68), a case study
is a methodology which is used to explore the single phenomenon (the actual case) in its
natural habitat by using a mixture of different methods to gather in-depth knowledge. A
case may take many forms such as, a particular business, process, person, group of
workers, to name a few. This study will focus on the process on how Ignite manages
collaboration between startups and big corporations to understand how it may help
startups to find a balance of exploration and exploitation capabilities. Further, the author
argues that it is possible to conduct a case study on a single case. By using an exploratory
approach, one assures that the issue at hand is not examined through one lens, but rather
by multiple lenses as it allows several aspects of the phenomenon to be discovered and
understood (Baxter & Jack, 2008, p. 544).
Scholars have criticized the use of case study as a research due to the misunderstandings
about the ability to conduct reliable, generalizable, and theoretical contribution to the
current knowledge (Saunders et al., 2016, p.185). However, as this study has its focus
from the perspective of startups and how to balance exploration and exploitation
capabilities within an innovation hub, we believe that the contribution from this thesis
can be transferred to other innovation hubs as well as startups operating within them.
Further, Yin (1984, p. 29) suggests that in order to receive higher accuracy from a case
study, there are five key ingredients one needs to consider. First, it is important that the
type of research question includes some terms such as “who, what, where, how, or why”
as it provides important insights on how the researchers have clarified the nature of the
study they will pursue. As our research question is; how can an innovation hub help
startups find a balance between exploration and exploitation capabilities, we believe that
the initial stage is clear and precise. The second component is related to the study’s
proposition.
The third component, unit of analysis, relates to the fundamental problem of defining
what the case is about. This involves the identification of which units that should be
analyzed (Yin, 1984, p. 31). For this study, the primary target is startups and what type
of capabilities they are characterized by. However, one may argue that there is a deeper
level of unit of analysis within this thesis, namely the innovation hub itself. The startups
that are being analyzed are all part of Ignite, which we believe can be addressed as being
34
units on an organizational level and the innovation hub itself as being the platform that
connects these startups with the corporations. By combining these aspects, the case study
will distinguish how an innovation hub enables startups with balancing exploration and
exploitation capabilities.
The fourth component, linking data to propositions, highlights the relevance of existing
research as being the driver to why an extension of research is needed (Yin, 1984, p. 33).
For this study, the developed literature review summary (see figure 6) takes a position
related to existing literature in which the study is built upon. Thus, we believe that our
study relates to previous research and the defined gaps of existing literature acts as the
base for analysis, with the aim to develop knowledge by insights gained from the
interviewees. Lastly, the fifth component addresses the criteria for interpreting a study’s
findings (Yin, 1984, p. 35). The author argues that the findings should be designed in a
manner that enables a high degree of reliability and validity. How we choose to deal with
these criterias is mentioned in section 5.3, in which we refer to transferability, credibility,
and ethical considerations.
5.1.7 Summary of our methodological position
Figure 9 provides a summary of our chosen methodological standpoints that have been
chosen for this thesis.
Figure 9. Summary of methodological standpoints.
5.2 Practical Methodology
The practical methodology of this study will be discussed in this section of the thesis. We
will first discuss the data collection tools that are being adopted. Then, the sampling
technique and the interview guide that is included to help us conduct semi structured
interviews. The interview guides can be found in the appendices. The selection process
of our respondents will also be further explained below. The end of the research
methodology chapter is further focused on the quality criteria and ethical considerations.
35
5.2.1 Data collection
The access to data is of highly importance for us to answer the research question. There
are different forms of data that can be collected, namely primary and secondary data. The
chosen data collection technique in this study is to conduct interviews. Interviews are the
most common data collection technique in a qualitative study (Collins & Hussey, 2014,
p. 130; Saunders et al., 2016, p. 165). This means that primary data is collected from the
conducted interviews. Interviews are a suitable data collection technique because they are
an approach to detect what participants are doing (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 133). The
data from a primary source can come from interviewing managers, stakeholders, or
employees. For this thesis, the respondents are managers of startups and members of
Ignite. The benefits from collecting primary data is regarding the collection purpose.
The other option is to collect secondary data, where data is collected from existing sources
(Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 59). Secondary data can be seen as an alternative and a source
from universities and organizations (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 313). While primary data
can be collected through for example, interviews, secondary data takes form from e.g.
documentaries, multiple sources or surveys (Saunders et al., 2009, p. 258-259). We have
reviewed the interviewed startups websites to get the available information about the
startups. In addition, we also gathered data from already conducted interviews available
online with these startups to complement with their websites. The collected secondary
data have, however, been seen as alternative to the primary data that was gathered through
the use of 11 interviews. Further explanation on the different data sources used in the
thesis is provided in table 3.
Table 3. Sources of data.
Primary data
Data collection method Quantity
Interviews with startups 9
Interviews with Ignite 2
Secondary data
Data collection method Quantity
Startups websites 9
Ignite’s website 3
Previous Interviews with startup managers 4
Figures about Ignite’s process 2
There are three ways of structuring when conducting interviews, namely structured, semi-
structured and unstructured interviews (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 479; Saunders et al.,
2009, p. 320). We chose to structure our interviews as being semi-structured. This choice
was made by reviewing the three different ways of structuring interviews. The choice of
the structure type was also influenced by the research question the thesis is trying to
answer as well as the research design and the selected research strategy (Saunders et al.,
2009, p. 320). Semi structured interviews allowed us also to get a wide range of different
responses. Bryman & Bell (2015, p. 124) argues that semi structured interviews allows
36
interviewees to advance their viewpoint on different topics in a flexible and open
approach.
The majority of our interviews have been online based interviews. This is due to the
COVID-19 that is affecting companies all around the world. The plan was to first conduct
interviews face-to-face, which would have allowed us to gather a more in-depth data
collection and comprehensive understanding. The online interviews, however, allowed
us to get both verbal and non-verbal reactions, which is as close as we can get to face-to-
face offline interviews. These decisions were made jointly with each company due to the
risk of getting infected by having a social gathering. If face-to-face interviews would have
been conducted with each company, traveling would have been necessary since the
startups are located all-around Sweden, which also would have been a risk and it has been
dissuaded from the policy makers in Sweden. There are, however, some benefits by using
online interviews. The most visible one has been that it has allowed us to interview
companies all-around of Sweden, from Umeå all the way down to Lund, which perhaps
would not have been possible if we had chosen to conduct the interviews face-to-face.
5.2.2 Sampling technique
The sampling technique refers to how the researcher classifies, designate and obtain the
data sources that are relevant to the study (Mason, 2002, p. 120). In this study it is about
choosing sources that can help fulfill the purpose of this thesis. This thesis is a qualitative
study and the purpose is not to draw shallow undifferentiated conclusions, instead it is to
bring in-depth understandings of how the innovation hub can help startups with balancing
exploration and exploitation capabilities. Due to that, the use of sampling is useful
(Mason, 2002, p. 121; Saunders et al., 2016, p. 297), which is a subgroup of the whole
population (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 131). The population refers to the complete number
of people that contemplates for the statistical purpose (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 131).
We have used a sample due to different constraints, such as time and budget (Saunders et
al., 2016, p. 297). A sample is a subgroup of the whole population (Collis & Hussey,
2014, p. 131) and we have used a sample of different startups that are active within Ignite
and an overview of the study’s respondents can be found in table 4. The respondents from
Ignite are also included in table 4.
37
Table 4. Overview of respondents.
Date Company Type of
interview Language
Time of interview
(h:m:s)
25/03/2020 GygHub Telephone English 0:46:27
26/03/2020 Ignite (Program Manager) Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:41:43
26/03/2020 Bumbee Labs Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:37:04
27/03/2020 Zlingit Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:45:46
27/03/2020 Ekkono Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:31:10
30/03/2020 Easy to Trust Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:44:20
31/03/2020 Sigr Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:43:41
31/03/2020 Stylaero Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:31:11
01/04/2020 Gemit Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:31:40
14/04/2020 Ignite - (Operation Manager at Uminova)
Online (Teams) Swedish 0:41:30
14/04/2020 Mimbly Online (Zoom) Swedish 0:33:27
A sampling frame has been conducted because we do not have the opportunity to
interview all of the active startups within Ignite and not either all of the employees within
Ignite. Mason (2002, p. 140) explained that a sampling frame is where a smaller sample
can be selected from. In order to do a sample, a list of different startups that have been
and are active within Ignite was conducted from the information that was available on
Ignite’s website, social media and startups that have been presented to us. A sample frame
was also made for the interviews conducted with the employees at Ignite. This sample
frame was conducted through a list found from Ignite’s website, where a list of the whole
Ignite team was visible. We have been careful with the selection because there are always
possible negative consequences with a sample from a sampling frame. Mason (2002, p.
140-141) argued that one possible negative consequence can be to get a homogeneous
sample (Mason, 2002, p. 140-141), which we have tried to avoid by using companies
located in different areas of Sweden.
There are different types of sample techniques that can be made in qualitative research to
gather a nonrandom sample (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 132; Saunders et al., 2016, p.
295). However, some criterias are needed to be fulfilled in order for us to get information
out from the interviews. The interviewees needed to be active in Ignite and possess
general knowledge and experience since they were required to provide relevant
information to us in order for us to be able to answer our research question. Due to this,
a purposive sampling technique was used. Also, a purposive sampling technique is often
applied for small samples, such as case studies (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 301).
The interviews gathered were either from a startup or from the team of Ignite. We
conducted interviews with startups that had been involved in Ignite for a longer time, as
well as startups that were relatively new to the concept of Ignite. Doing so, we hoped to
gather startups that were seen to be on different levels in the integration process with
38
Ignite and the collaborations that were created during the match-ups. This meant that the
companies had different experiences and views on how Ignite enables them to work with
big corporations. A few startups had been active in Ignite since its creation, while others
had either one or two years of experience of Ignite, or just been to some events. The age
of the startups was also something that varied, and also the number of employees each
startup had. By taking all of them into account, we believe that the findings from the
interviews are not seen as being homogenous.
5.2.3 Interview guides
Interview guides are needed for the semi-structured interviews to have as a foundation
for the themes and potentially some key questions that are covered during the interviews
(Saunders et al., 2016, p. 391). The use of different questions can vary from interview to
interview, where we can have the possibility to omit some questions in certain interviews.
The order of questions can according to Saunders et al. (2016, p. 391) also vary,
depending on the flow of the interview. However, it is crucial to present the questions in
a logical way because it is favorable to go from broad questions down to more limited
questions (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 488; Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 136). Also, additional
questions might be required in order to explore our research question and objectives given
the nature of events within particular startups and team members from Ignite. The
literature review and the research question were seen as the base for our interview guides
to correlate the purpose of this thesis.
Two different interview guides were conducted in this thesis because interviews were
held both with team members of Ignite and with managers of startups that are active in
Ignite. Both of the interview guides were based on open questions and consisted of four
different themes. This allowed us to have effective and structured interviews. The
interview guides with themes that consisted of open questions also allowed us to explore
and gather extensive information from the interviews (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 20),
which is appropriate since the study holds an exploratory approach. Saunders et al. (2016,
p. 408) argued that open questions also give the interviewee the opportunity to elaborate
their answers and thoughts, which is beneficial to avoid biased answers.
As mentioned above, two interview guides were designed, one for startups and the other
one for team members of Ignite. Both were needed to gather the necessary data, but also
to connect and illustrate Ignite and the startups relationship with Ignite. To have two
interview guides also allowed us to understand the differences in how Ignite operates as
an innovation hub. One interview was conducted in English, while the rest were held in
Swedish. Due to this, the interview guides were needed both in a Swedish and in an
English version.
As stated earlier, the interviews consisted mainly of open questions, however, sub-
questions and examples were also included for the majority of the questions. These were
included to give us the chance to quickly have sub-questions to ask if needed. It also gave
us the opportunity to explain the questions if the respondents could not answer or did not
understand the question itself. We structured our interview guide to the startups in four
themes. First theme, individual relationships to the research topic. Here, the aim was to
recognize the interviewees knowledge in relation to the research topic as well as to point
out the person's personality. Second theme, company details. The aim of the second theme
was to get proof of existing innovation activities and a collection of additional insights
39
regarding the field of the organizational culture and the purpose of the startup. Also, to
see how the startup was active in Ignite and other organizational sponsors. Third theme,
exploration and exploitation had the aim to recognize the startup’s organizational
capabilities and what the startup was trying to achieve by collaborating with big
corporations. The last theme, innovation hub had the aim to further elaborate why the
startup was active in Ignite and the expectations they have on Ignite in general. Once four
of the interviews were conducted, we noticed that we had to change the order of the
exploration and exploitation theme with the innovation hub theme. This because the flow
of the interviews was more appropriate when included questions about Ignite in the
middle of the interviews. The interview guide for startups can be found in appendix 1 and
3.
The second interview guide, which was solely constructed for team members of Ignite
was developed to gain more understanding in detail of how Ignite operates. By
interviewing members from Ignite allowed us to recognize the specifics in how they are
working to find a perfect match between startups and corporations. It also allowed us to
understand which capabilities that were seen to be most necessary for allowing a
successful collaboration. The structure of the interview guide was similar to the ones for
startups in which we divided the questions in four different themes. The first theme,
individual relationship to the research topic addressed exactly the same as in the first
interview guide. This because the aim of the theme was consistent with the first guide; to
recognize the interviewees knowledge in relation to the research topic as well as to point
out the person's personality. The second theme, Ignite as an organization, had the aim to
further elaborate the essence of Ignite and get an answer directly from Ignite about why
a startup should be involved in Ignite. The third theme, match-ups and events, had the
aim to understand how the matchmaking between startups and corporations happens. This
also included the basis of the match-ups, and how the events have been working in detail.
The final theme, exploration and exploitation was included to gain insights about how
necessary information is gathered before the match-up events. This also allowed us to
discover capability trends seen in startups from Ignite’s perspective and the most common
things a startup wants to get help with from being part of Ignite. The interview guide that
has been acting as the base for our interviews with the team members from Ignite can be
found in appendix 2 and 4.
5.2.4 The interview process
Eleven interviews were conducted, where nine was with startups and two with members
from the Ignite team. All of the interviewed startups had some sort of connection to Ignite.
A few had been active for a longer time frame, while others had just been on a few events.
The interviews were conducted within a timeframe of three weeks, while the majority of
the interviews were conducted within one week. This helped us to focus solely on the
interviews instead of being disrupted by doing other things related to the thesis. The
interviews were held both in English as well as in Swedish. We decided that the
respondents that had Swedish as their mother tongue should be interviewed in Swedish.
We believed that by having interviews in the respondents’ mother tongue would improve
the communication, and thus, the outcome of the respondents’ answers as no language
barrier would affect the answers. Therefore, one interview was held in English and the
rest in Swedish.
40
Saunders et al. (2009, p. 195) argued that a researcher should avoid the scheduling of an
interview at unreasonable times, which has been followed because all of our interviews
have been conducted at reasonable times and none have been conducted on a weekend.
Qualitative interviews can be conducted electronically via the internet (Saunders et al.,
2009, p. 348-349), which has been the case for all of our interviews. This provided us the
advantages of low cost, easy access to respondents and the speed of the data collection
(Saunders et al., 2009, p. 349). We used different softwares with different respondents,
which can be seen in table 4. The time spent for each interview varied depending on the
flow of information provided. To make the interviewees aware of our thesis purpose as
well as to make the interviews more efficient, we sent out an introduction of the different
topics before each interview, which can be found in the first paragraph of each interview
guide (An introduction to our thesis topic). Doing so, the respondents got the chance to
familiarize themselves with the topic and the themes before the interview. We believed
that this led to more concise and detailed answers from the respondents.
Saunders et al. (2009, p. 341) explained that in order to record the interviews, it is
important that we as researchers ask them for permission to do so. This was something
that all of the respondents were positive to. We also highlighted that we were aware of
the privacy and confidentiality considerations and that we would act in an appropriate
manner with the recorded material from each interview. There are a few benefits by
having audio-recording. It gave us the opportunity to listen to the interviews again and
again (Daymon & Holloway, 2002, p. 179). We believe that trust is also an important
aspect when conducting interviews, which is why we asked each respondent about
anonymity. All of the respondents stated that it was okay to refer to them by name.
However, we chose to exclude their names and instead only focused the respondents’
position and the names of the startups as it allowed us to compare the findings and focus
on the different startups rather than the individuals themselves.
5.2.5 Data analysis
The data analysis, which consists of interpreting and analyzing the gathered data is one
of the larger parts when conducting a research project (Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 11).
The data analysis method to this research project is chosen from reflections on our
objectivities, the research question, our philosophical assumptions, and the research
strategy (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 571). A thematic analysis has been made in this thesis’
data analysis, which is also often seen as a common approach to analyzing qualitative
data (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 599; Saunders et al., 2016, p. 579). The difference between
analyses of qualitative data and quantitative data is that there are no clear rules in the
analysis of qualitative data (Bryman & Bell, 2011, p. 571). A thematic analysis is a
method for analyzing, identifying, and reporting patterns or themes within data (Braun &
Clarke, 2006, p. 79). The researchers using a thematic analysis should organize the data
minimally and describe the data set with rich details (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79).
First, we studied the findings individually to ensure and confirm that the findings were
coherent and not biased. As our interview guides were divided into different themes, we
chose to first group the findings into different codes to make it easier to categorize them
into greater themes. A theme seizes something essential about the data with a connection
to the research question, and at the same time represents a level of patterned meaning or
response within the data set (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 82). Categorizing and grouping
findings are common ways of analyzing data (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 165). The first
phase is a time-consuming phase, which implies the transcription of verbal data.
41
However, this step made us familiar with the conducted verbal data and at the same time
gave us the opportunity to look for patterns and meanings (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 87).
Secondly, the production of initial codes was developed based on the purposeful and
relevant ideas already indicated in the first phase. Thirdly, searching for themes was done
through different codes generated from the entire data set. Here we saw the importance
of using visual representation through tables and mind-maps in order to have the
possibility to sort out codes to different themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 89).
The fourth phase, renewing and adjusting (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86), enabled us to
check if the themes in the excel file worked in relation to the codes in the transcribed text.
Here we also checked off each theme with the respondents' answers to see if the answers
differed or if they were related to each other. The fifth phase started when we reached
satisfaction of the thematic maps. Here, themes were sorted in order to understand what
each theme consisted of. Thus, making sense of the data in the themes to identify what
we believed was interesting in the themes and why it was interesting.
The last phase in the six-step guide of the thematic analysis (see table 5) allowed us to
move back and forth to the existing literature in order to develop a scholarly report of the
analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86). The aim from the comparison of the existing
literature, which can be found in our literature review, was to be able to develop a
framework on how an innovation hub can help startups with balancing exploration and
exploitation capabilities. Using a thematic analysis method gave us the advantages and
flexibility needed to answer the research question. The table below from Braun & Clarke
(2006, p. 87) explains the above mentioned six-step guide concerned with the process of
the thematic analysis. These steps, however, should not be seen as strict rules and not
either be followed in a linear way for us as researchers throughout the analysis. Braun &
Clarke (2006, p. 86) also explained that the guide should allow the researcher to move
back and forth between the different stages when needed. A summary of how we
conducted the thematic analysis is provided in the same table under “our process”.
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Table 5. Phases of thematic analysis. (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 87)
# Phase Description of the process Our process
1. Familiarizing yourself with your data
Transcribing data (if necessary), reading and re-reading the data, noting down initial ideas.
All of the interviews were conducted within a timeframe of a few weeks. To make sure that we remembered the interviews, we transcribed them directly after each interview. This enabled us to also ensure and confirm that the findings were coherent and not biased.
2. Generating initial codes
Coding interesting features of the data in a systematic fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant to each code.
Transcribing directly enabled us to highlight potential initial ideas after each interview. We generated initial codes by highlighting the text, after all interviews were conducted.
3. Searching for themes
Collecting codes into potential themes, gathering all data relevant to each potential theme.
Next step was to build an excel document where all potential themes were collected in order to make the answers more understandable.
4. Reviewing themes
Checking if the themes work in relation to the coded extracts (Level 1) and the entire data set (Level 2), generating a thematic ‘map’ of the analysis.
Here we checked if the themes in the excel file worked in relation to the codes in the transcribed text, at the same time as we checked off each theme with the respondents' answers to make each aspect more visible.
5. Defining and naming themes
Ongoing analysis to refine the specifics of each theme, and the overall story the analysis tells, generating clear definitions and names for each theme.
Looked at the excel file and compared it to the transcribed data to gain a deeper understanding of the most relevant themes.
6. Producing the report
The final opportunity for analysis. Selection of vivid, compelling extract examples, final analysis of selected extracts, relating back of the analysis to the research question and literature, producing a scholarly report of the analysis.
At this point we started to compare our empirical findings with the existing literature to see if there were connections that could be drawn or what were excluded in the literature.
5.3 Quality criteria
As this study is conducted using a qualitative research approach, there are not the same
strict rules for the data analysis as there is when conducting quantitative research
(Rasmussen et al., 2006, p. 116). Using a qualitative research approach required us to be
involved in the process of collecting data as well as to translate the information gathered.
Due to this, we played an important role in the assessment of this study’s trustworthiness.
To assure that this study is seen as trustworthy, we chose to include the following
categories; transferability, credibility, and ethical considerations (Rasmussen et al., 2006,
p. 116-119, & Guba, 1981, p. 75-87).
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5.3.1 Transferability
For a study like this, in which the main objective is focused around exploration and
exploitation, the context and its interpretation of the gathered data is key. For this reason,
this study does not aim to receive results that could be seen as generalizable, but rather
have a focus of Ignite and the startups participating in this innovation hub. Even though
one could argue that there are similarities between Ignite and other innovation hubs,
which might be true, our perspectives collected from the findings are based solely that it
should help Ignite as well as startups operating within to gain a deeper understanding of
the problems at hand. Moreover, as Guba (1981, p. 86) stated, the absence of
generalizability has to be reimbursed by collecting more data in order to contribute with
necessary information needed to draw meaningful interpretations and conclusions to the
study. Thus, by using multiple sources of literature and interviewees will help us to
provide information that is seen as transferable.
5.3.2 Credibility
As stated, a qualitative research approach requires the researchers to be involved in the
data collection and translate it to make it more understandable. Due to this, credibility is
seen as a major threat for qualitative research (Guba, 1981, p. 81; Rasmussen et al., 2006,
p. 117). Rasmussen et al. (2006, p. 117) highlights the importance of assuring that the
process of collecting and translating data should be as transparent and as open as possible
so that both readers and people from which the data was obtained can follow the decisions
and steps designed in the creation of the study. Further, the authors argue that for a study
to be trustworthy, the first thing to be evaluated is the relation between the problem
defined in the research and its frame of reference. Briefly, we as researchers must see if
the problem to be examined is clearly defined and whether or not it relates to the frame
of reference with relevant theories that seems relevant for a suitable examination of the
issue at hand (Rasmussen et al., 2006, p. 117). For this study, we believe that the problem
of balancing exploration and exploitation and the main reasons why startups should
engage in an innovation hub is clearly defined and the problem is understood. Further,
we believe that by using theories and figures from (Inauen & Schenker-Wicki, 2011, p.
502; Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54; Hitt et al., 2011, p. 60; O'Reilly & Tushman, 2004, p.
79, & Gaim & Wåhlin, 2016, p. 36) the frame of reference is in-line and suitable for an
examination of the issues related to the research problem of the thesis.
5.3.3 Ethical considerations
When conducting a research study, there are some ethical issues we as researchers of this
study need to recognize (Saunders et al., 2016, p. 255). The concept of research ethics
refers to aspects of the study as well as how the findings and the results are described
(Collis & Hussey, 2014, p. 30). At first, we needed to be aware of the importance of not
causing any harm or intruding on privacy, which for this study was mainly related to
when we conducted the interviews. This meant that once the right candidates for being
part of the study had showed their consent, they still maintained their rights, meaning that
they had the right to be excluded from the research if they changed their minds or if they
find that the research could harm them or their privacy in any manner (Saunders et al.,
2016, p. 255). By allowing the interviewees confidentiality and anonymity if needed, we
believe that the potential problem of making the interviewees feel that we were causing
them harm or intrude on their privacy was resolved.
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Further, Bell & Bryman (2007, p. 67) identified four main ethical challenges when
conducting a research, namely: conflicts of interest and affiliation bias, power relations,
harm, wrongdoing and risk, and confidentiality and anonymity. For this study, we chose
to not consider the first category, conflicts of interest and affiliation bias, as it is said to
mostly occur when research is related to funding in which conflicts occur between
researchers and the one funding the research. As this is purely for academic purposes, we
did not see this as a problem when conducting our interviews.
The second category, power relations, addresses that it is important to note that it often
is an imbalance of power between the researchers and their participants (Bell & Bryman,
2007, p. 68). What this does is that it normally favors the research subject rather than the
ones being the research candidates, focusing on their research subject rather than
contributing to help the candidates to gain understanding. As this study is focusing on
startups, and how being part of an innovation hub may help them to understand the
benefits, we see this category being of highest importance. Hence, as mentioned before,
we chose to exclude interviews with big corporations being part of Ignite as they are not
our target group and also because of the fact that it would make our findings not as
applicable for startups. Thus, we believe that we make the participants of this study
understand how Ignite enables startups with the balance of their exploration and
exploitation capabilities from a startup perspective.
Thirdly, harm, wrongdoing and risk, relates to the importance of treating participants as
being part of the study and not as being a means to an end (Bell & Bryman, 2007, p. 68-
69). As the goal with this study was to bring awareness to startups, as well as to Ignite,
we believe that by using interviewees connected with Ignite, it would make them equally
important, not endangering their importance of the study, and involved in general for the
purpose of contributing an understanding to both parties.
Lastly, confidentiality and anonymity, relates to what was mentioned above by Saunders
et al. (2016), in which we as researchers need to bear in mind that we must not cause any
harm to the participants of this study, whether this was related to their attitude towards
anonymity or confidentiality. Thus, the need to make them feel protected was key to get
information needed to complete the study.
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Table 6. Summary of the four ethical challenges (Bell & Bryman, 2007, p. 67)
# Criteria Description Our process
1. Conflicts of interest and affiliation bias
Affiliation interest - How issues are defined, and findings presented
We chose to not consider this category, as it is said to mostly occur when research is related to funding, which this thesis is not.
2. Power relations Protect research participants from exploitation and potential harm
By excluding big corporations, we believe that the findings will be applicable for startups being part of Ignite.
3. Harm, wrongdoing and risk
Relates to the importance of treating participants as being part of the study and not as being a means to an end.
We have asked permission from each respondent about which partnerships that can be used in this thesis. Some partnerships have therefore been excluded from this thesis to protect the participants potential to be harmed. Also, some customer names have been excluded.
4. Confidentiality and anonymity
Protect confidentiality and anonymity of research participants in order to avoid harmful effects such as victimization.
We asked all of the respondents if they wanted to be anonymous and have made sure that we have protected information supplied about other parties.
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6 Empirical Findings
This section aims to present the empirical findings based on the conducted interviews
from startups being active in Ignite. An introduction is presented that consists of
contextual information about the interviews, which allows the reader to get familiarized
with the different startups participating in this study. As the thesis follows the thematic
analysis by Braun & Clerk (2006), we present the gathered data through different themes.
After the contextual information about the different startups, the aim is to present the
findings according to our previously elaborated literature review to answer our research
question. This provides a basis for a structured thematic analysis in the following
chapter.
6.1 Contextual information
The table below explains the size of the startups in terms of employees. Further, the table
also includes the age of the startups, how long they have been active in Ignite, and if their
participation has led to any successful collaborations. This thesis’ empirical analysis
follows a thematic analysis, which is explained in section 5.2.5. Therefore, the empirical
findings are presented through different themes. The respondents will not be explained
individually further than in table 7. Instead the interviewees will be examined to a broader
extent by comparing the answers of the different themes.
Table 7. Overview of the interviewed startups.
Respondent Current
position Industry
Age
(years) Team
Involved in
Ignite Partnerships
from Ignite
GygHub CEO Clean Technology
5 4 2 Years 1
Bumbee Labs CSO Information Technology
10 10 4 Years 4
Zlingit CEO Information Technology
4 5 Limited 0
Ekkono CEO m.L & Ai Technology
3.5 23 4 Years 1+
Easy to Trust CEO Clean Technology
3 8 1 Year 3
Sigr CEO E-commerce 3 6 Limited 0
Stylaero CEO Data Science 5 5 2 Years 2
Gemit CEO Data Science 5 4 2,5 Years 3
Mimbly COO Clean Technology
2.5 4 1 Year 1
Important to note is how the different startups defined their collaboration with bigger
firms. Instead of calling them clients, partners, or collaborators, the majority of the
startups mentioned these as being customers to the startup. Thus, to make it easier for the
reader, we believe that an explanation of this is necessary. When talking about the
47
consumer as being the customer, the phrase end-user is used instead of customer in order
to be able to separate clients and consumers in a concise manner.
6.2 Innovations
Majority of the respondents explained that innovation in their startups is defined with
incremental innovations, while most of the products or services that the startups offer can
be seen as radical in nature. The CSO from Bumbee Labs explained innovation and how
it affects their startups in their daily routines as “Innovation is something we live and
learn every day. We may not classify it as innovation. We do not have a defined innovation
department, but it is part of our business, so, I would say that for us it is a very agile
behavior. We are constantly working with small changes, which can be anything from
choices about how our data should be used to choices concerning the data we are using
in our algorithms. So, innovation is definitely a work procedure that runs through our
organization”. The CEO from Zlingit explained innovation in a consistent manner “I
think innovation is just a better solution or a smoother solution and it can be anything
from workflow to a technical product. It is about optimizing an existing process flow. [...].
It is about optimizing and improving in all situations where it is possible to improve and
optimize. Zlingit is an innovative company and we are trying to push something new that
nobody really knows. So, we are in a huge barrier when we work with such an innovative
solution”.
The CEO from Gemit stated that “Innovation is when you enter new areas, or not new
areas, but you solve the customer's problems in a new way.” Stylaero’s CEO explained
that they have a radical innovation from an academic discovery as the base product in
their startup that they are now looking to commercialize. A similar view was stated by
Mimbly as their product also was created within an academic environment. “Our product
is very innovative. We believe that the industry that we are operating within is lacking
radical innovations. Our innovation enables the customer to save 70 percent water while
using a washing machine. If a large company in our industry would manage to save as
much as 1 percent water, it would mean that their entire production department would
get a large bonus check.” The COO continued by saying that Mimbly is trying to make
big changes in the industry to make it worth it for the customers to buy the product that
Mimbly is developing. “If we only make an incremental improvement then it is not really
innovation. It's just an incremental improvement, it should be a bit radical. This is
because innovation permeates our whole company” (Mimbly, COO).
Gyghub’s CEO stated that “Oftentimes what happens is that there is always uncertainty
and there is always ambiguity in everything you do”. This shows that startups are often
seeing innovation as incremental in their daily working tasks, while the products or
services that they offer can be seen as radical in nature. It is to reach the customers and
make the customers understand the radical innovation that is seen as the challenge when
innovating new products. Here the startups are working with innovations to create better
processes, communicate in more innovative ways, and help the customers in new and
more profitable ways. Easy to Trust’s CEO explained that “we are innovative, and we
have created an innovation, a solution that will make it possible for others to be better at
what they do. For me, innovation is finding new solutions and it can be products, services,
processes, administrative, production, but finding a solution that hopefully makes more
money or solves environmental issues”. The CEO from Sigr further explained that
startups today also have to be innovative in their communication to its customers and end-
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users to make them understand the features of the products the startup is offering. Further,
Zlingit’s CEO explained that their challenge is to make their product consumable. “So, it
is definitely the most important thing for innovative companies to know how to achieve
this in a simple way so that everyone understands what the product is about” (Zlingit,
CEO). Most of the startups today have inventions that they want to commercialize, but
there are a lot of challenges on the way. The challenges that startups are facing in terms
of risks and how to overcome them will be further explained in section 6.4.6 and 6.4.7.
As the interviewees explained, innovations can be new products, services, and processes
to name a few. Most of the startups are explaining how they are trying to improve their
products. Sigr, for instance, explained that they have started to design their products in a
new way, which can be seen as a process innovation. Before this innovation, Sigr had to
manufacture their prototypes before they could do testing. Today with 3D designing and
with their new avatar, Sigr can design and test their products directly in the software after
the design, which enables Sigr to develop products in a faster phase. “We believe it is
important to be able to quickly reject any ideas our designers have. Before, we had to
sew the clothes and test them to see if they were good. Now we can wear these garments
if we want. To sort out things is at least as important in innovation” (Sigr, CEO). With
help of the avatar, Sigr does not need to send prototypes around the world, they do not
even have to manufacture the prototypes. This process innovation also reduced their
environmental impact from prototyping to almost zero.
6.3 Innovation activities
Typical for all of the interviewees was the importance of open innovation. During the
interviews, all of the startups highlighted the importance of external environments in
some manner. The most common way to practice open innovation was said to engage
their customers in their innovation activities. For example, Gyghub is involving their
customers very deeply in the product development stage, where the customers take part
in the testing and feature discussions. Gemit is practicing open innovation through
research institutes and customers. The CEO of Gemit explained that “They provide
expertise that we do not currently possess. By using this, we can get to a whole other
level. This is a strategy that we continuously have, to search for projects from research
institutes and from customers”. Another way of practicing open innovation with the
startups customers is to solve the customers problem they are facing. Zlingit for example,
has workshops for their customers that helps the customer to understand the need for
Zlingit’s product and how they can integrate the product in their company.
As mentioned in the literature review, open innovation may be seen from two different
perspectives: inside-out and outside-in. Visible from the interviews was that the
respondents addressed the importance of having both an inside-out and an outside-in
approach. Zlingit’s CEO explained it as “It is a combination of a push and pull factor,
that you work from the inside-out and outside-in. If it is a company we are working with
that has a function that we are very interested in, then we check how interested other
companies are in it. Of course, if the other companies want something like that, then we
will of course develop it. Would be stupid not to do.” In other words, Zlingit is practicing
both inside-out and outside-in in a way where they may get an idea from one company
through, for example a workshop. Afterwards they explore the interest of a similar idea
towards other companies. If the other companies are interested in it, then they develop it
and help them to integrate the solution in their operations. Further, seven out of nine
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respondents felt that their startup’s outside-in approach was visible in their ways of
working, as the need for external help was seen as vital in order to develop a
commercialized product to the end user. Ekkono for example mentioned that “We are
very dependent on other technology companies; we do not do Cloud for example. The
whole part with Cloud, communication, updates and stuff, we collaborate with Amazon
Web services and we do not want to sell consulting time, but then we work with IT
consultants and communicators instead. So, we are in need of complementary skills that
we gain through partnerships, not suppliers but partnerships.”
6.3.1 Outside-in
As explained above, almost every startup had some sort of outside-in activities when
developing their product or service. The most common way to engage an external part in
the innovation process is through customers. Having good contact with the startup’s
customers allows the startup to receive feedback on their products or services. The
majority of the respondents thought about an innovation as something that is
incrementally improved. This means that the startups are receiving feedback from
customers that enables the startup to incrementally innovate better products. It is said that
the startups are also obtaining new ideas from customers, which could lead to more
radical new products instead of just incremental changes. The following quotes show this
emphasis on the fact that outside-in innovation activities often takes place through the
customers of the startups’:
“Even in our own product development we involve our customers very deeply and they
are part of our feature discussions and our testing and so on.” (Gyghub, CEO)
“If it is a company we work with that has a function that we are very interested in, then
we check how interested other companies are in it. Of course, if the other companies want
something like that, then we will of course develop it. Would be stupid not to do.” (Zlingit,
CEO)
“We are constantly trying to improve our products, and one way is through the feedback
we are receiving from our end-user” (Sigr, CEO)
“It is a strategy that we have to constantly seek projects with research institutes and with
customers.” (Gemit, CEO)
There are also other methods startups are using when practicing an outside-in approach
and it is not only ideas and feedback that startups want to gain from using external parties.
Several startups have limited capabilities and resources and are therefore trying to get
help with this by looking for external help. Easy to Trust’s CEO explained it as “We see
that with our solution we have the possibility to take information from other companies'
solutions. [...]. Since we are operating in all parts of the business area, it requires a lot
from us if we are going to develop solutions to all areas by ourselves.” Competences can
be missing when a startup is developing a solution to a specific problem, therefore
external competences and networking can be the fact of survival for the startup. This was
explained by Zlingit’s CEO as “We can also discuss solutions with other startup
companies if there is something I feel like we do not have control over, then perhaps they
understand what I do not understand. Therefore, networking is super important” -
(Zlingit, CEO). Mimbly’s COO also explained that they are dependent on ideas from
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external sources by stating, “We are getting ideas from external organizations. The ideas
can be everything from price to features. As we have the production in-house, we can
therefore test these ideas and see if the outcome is better than our current solution.”. The
COO further explained that these external ideas mostly come from their partnering
companies, addressing the importance of relationships.
Some startups are trying to achieve a competitive advantage through collaborations with
research institutes. For example, when we asked how Gemit is being more innovative
than their competitors, their CEO answered and explained it as “We solve this partly by
participating in research institutes [...]. They provide expertise that we do not currently
possess. By using this, we can get to a whole other level. This is a strategy that we
continuously have, to search for projects from research institutes and from customers”.
Stylaero has also some types of collaborations with research institutes. The CEO of
Stylaero said that “The direct connection is that three of the owners are employed by the
university. Then we have developed two prototypes that students have made. We have
continuous exchanges with students to see if we can find new ideas and solutions to move
forward. We also have our office at a place which is an environment that is university-
based, so we have a pretty strong connection to the university.”
6.3.2 Inside-out
The interviewed startups had a stronger connection towards the outside-in approach that
they had to the inside-out approach. We can, however, see that some of the interviewed
startups are practicing open innovation from the inside-out approach. It is common that
the startups are helping their customers to understand their products or services. This can
be done, for example, through a workshop with the startup’s customers, which the CEO
of Zlingit explained that they are doing to improve the customers’ knowledge in the
products that they are offering. The CEO further explained that by having these kinds of
workshops, the customers can also make Zlingit aware of new solutions for their products.
These ideas are then developed in-house by Zlingit, to later on being asked to similar
customers if they also find the developed new idea interesting.
Besides offering workshops to their customers, the majority of the interviewees revealed
that as their products or services are very complex in terms of technology, support on
how to use the technology correctly is an important step for future collaboration. Doing
so, it also allows the startups to bring awareness to the corporations to why they should
use their product or service instead of their existing solution. As mentioned by the CSO
of Bumbee Labs, “We support our customers in the integration process so that they will
understand how our data is used. Traditionally there is very little competence within this
area, so we are trying to teach the market how they can use our technology and why they
should use it. We call it an onboarding process that is seen as necessary for our
customers”, implicating that new technology is not always easy to grasp, even for big
corporations. This was further elaborated by the CEO of Easy to Trust who called this a
“development journey” that they are doing together with their customers to bring
awareness of the need for this type of product or service. It was also visible from the
interviewees that the big corporations sometimes used a product or service that a startup
possessed to enable their existing product or service to be improved. This is something
that we also believe could be categorized as an inside-out approach.
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6.3.3 Organizational environment
Seeing how the interviewed startups defined their organizational environment, it is safe
to say that all of them had one thing in common, the presence of flexibility and
entrepreneurial spirit. The Operations Manager at Uminova explained that startups are
much faster than big companies in everything they do. “Startups reorganize themselves
much faster, they are positive towards trying new things and are closer to their customers
in terms of relationships. Their internal processes are effective and rather than having a
long internal process, they are with the customers to try it at once.” (Uminova,
Operations Manager). The CEO of GygHub defined their environment as “It’s a very
agile thing, I doubt that any startup in this phase makes decisions on their own, you need
more points of view” whereas another startup further stated that “our innovative culture
is penetrated in everything we do. This by having our focus on entrepreneurship and
flexibility in all of our daily tasks” (Bumbee Labs, CSO). The reason why Ekkono saw
themselves as being flexible was mentioned by the fact that “We cannot be both a proven
technology and being disruptive. Somewhere you have to choose what you believe in. [...]
You have to accept that it is quite uncertain and flexible and if you need safety then
perhaps you are at the wrong place”. A similar view was mentioned by the CEO of Sigr,
in which they addressed the need of having people that are capable of taking their own
responsibility and thinking outside of the box, “It is what you deliver that counts in the
end, how you get there is up to you. Personally, I believe this is awesome, but some people
panic only from the idea. It is all about personal leadership” (Sigr, CEO). Thus,
highlighting the importance of having a strong willingness to contribute from each team
member.
Another important aspect of being flexible was mentioned by East to Trust as they made
a connection of being flexible and having an entrepreneurial spirit. They mentioned that
by thinking outside the box and listening to what the market and the customers are saying,
one needs to be flexible in order to be one step ahead of the competition. This also
includes having less routines, which the CEO of Gemit explained as riding a rollercoaster,
or as the COO at Mimbly described it: “the culture is quite Hawaii with lots of flexible
working tasks. One has to do what it takes to succeed. It is not that many processes which
one could hope for, but since everything is running very fast it is very hard for our startup
to have that”. The CEO of Easy to Trust also mentioned that “It’s not always structured,
and everything is not in order all the time, even if that is what we should deliver to other
companies”.
6.4 Organizational capabilities
Looking at competences that startups possess, the interviews made it possible to see
certain trends in which capabilities that most of our interviewees believed that their
company both possessed and also what was missing to make their product or service
commercializable. The Operations Manager at Uminova mentioned a trend in which
capabilities the startups that are members in Ignite and Uminova mostly possessed. The
most visible ones were said to be related to AI, machine learning, and how to handle and
interpret lots of data. A broader theme within these capabilities was also to have a
sustainability focus. Furthermore, included for all startups was the strength of having
people with knowledge about sales. In addition to sales, the majority of the interviewed
startups also expressed that being tech savvy was one of their most important capabilities.
Depending on which industry the startup was working within, this could be related to
52
knowledge about machine learning, AI, IOT, to name a few. As seven out of nine
interviewees from startups had the position CEO, a competence related to that position
was also visible when asking about their daily tasks. Ekkono’s CEO explained it as, “The
C in CEO, I use to describe as being the caretaker. You have responsibilities that no one
else has, and it is very hard to point out everything you do in order to make the startup
grow. Looking at my role, I would say that it is very oriented towards sales and how to
manage to finance and capitalize the company”
Homogenous to all interviewees was also the recognition of having complementary
competences in-house. What this means is that the interviewed startups felt that the
competences inside the firm complemented each other and that these competences made
it possible for the startup to manage their product or service. However, even though the
majority of the interviewees taught their competences made it possible to deliver a
successful product or service, none of them excluded help from external partners. Being
asked why, the time aspect and the efficient use of resources was seen as key. Mimbly’s
COO stated that “We complement each other very well, but we use consultants to help us
all the time. It is always something that we do not know how to do and that we need help
with. In some cases, it is something that needs to be done once, then we hire a consultant
to do it instead of hiring new personnel to acquire that specific knowledge. Doing so is
more efficient in time as well as in resources”. This was further elaborated by the CEO
of Gemit when being asked if they looked for competence outside their firm, “Yes we do.
We feel like we do not have the time, to for example design stands for fairs, then instead
we acquire that competence from other firms that specialize within these aspects”.
Another interesting aspect to why startups chooses to delegate some of their work was
the money aspect. “We are still very young and that is important to keep in the eqvation.
If we had more money it would have been simpler to develop all parts of the product by
ourselves. We do as much as we can by ourselves and if it is doable within a reasonable
time frame we do it, otherwise we take help of all sorts of people to make it doable”
(Zlingit, CEO). Moreover, the use of external help was also seen as a being part of a
company’s strategic decision. For Ekkono, the usage of external help was seen as vital in
order to be able to develop the expected outcome: “We are in big need of complementary
competences that we get through partnerships, not by suppliers, but by partnerships”.
Thus, Ekkono can focus on their key strengths and exclude parts needed that they gain
from their partners in order to deliver superior value to their customers.
To make it easier for the reader to follow the next subchapters (exploration and
exploitation capabilities), a summarized table was created to familiarize the reader about
the most occuring exploration and exploitation capabilities mentioned by the
interviewees. Table 8 summarizes the most important findings gathered from the
interviews on how the startups were working on their exploration and exploitation
capabilities. Some categories such as fairs and conferences were said in both aspects, thus
we recommend the reader to view the subsections 6.4.1 and 6.4.2 to understand table 8
further.
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Table 8. How startups are currently working with exploration and exploitation.
Exploration Exploitation
Collaborations Collaborations
Fairs & conferences Fairs & conferences
Break down problem Feedback from incubators
Universities Feedback from customers
Incubators Clear goal
Clear structure
6.4.1 Exploration capabilities
Most of the interviewed startups mentioned that they are working with incremental
innovations on a daily basis. This was mostly mentioned when working with bigger
corporations, in which startups are focusing on the corporations’ product and taking their
technology to improve an already existing product from the bigger company. However,
when being asked whether or not the startups saw their innovation as being incremental
or radical, most of the interviewed startups believed that their solution could be seen as
something entirely new to the market, meaning that they saw their product or service as
being radical in nature. To get new ideas, the startups’ mentioned several things on how
they manage to explore new ideas and market segments for their existing products or
services. One way was through the academic world. For example, Stylero’s CEO
mentioned that “Innovation is something that we get for free from the university. [...] The
difficult part for us is to find a way to commercialize our product.” Zlingit’s CEO also
emphasized the difficulty to commercialize their product by explaining that “The most
difficult part for us as an innovative company is knowing how to reach out to our
customers and to make them understand our product.”
Ekkono’s CEO explained that if a startup is doing something that no one has done before,
something disruptive, that means that the startup has to shape the whole market by
themselves. However, if the startup develops something incremental instead, then they
can share the responsibilities with competitors, and then it will be easier to commercialize
the product because then an increased number of actors understand the product. Easy to
Trust’s CEO explained that the goal is to create a research company that is at the forefront
of moving academic research into the sensor industry and applying it practically. The
CEO further explained that they have a connection to the university world through
students, whereas two of their employees are students at a university. Similarly, Sigr also
mentioned a connection to the university. This was, however, more to find resources in
terms of good, creative, part-time workers that can provide new insights to the company.
Sigr further addressed the importance of being active with conversations during the
match-up events organized by Uminova Innovation and Ignite because students are
present at these mingle events.
Furthermore, another way of exploring new opportunities was to attend fairs and
conferences. Doing so, the startups’ explained that they could learn from other companies
and organizations operating in the same industry. Sigr for example, are exploring ideas
for new sustainable solutions through textile fairs. This enables them to get information
about new raw materials and designs that could be used for their products. This was also
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the case for Stylaero, who last year went to a fair in Hannover to network with other
startups and competitors. Mimbly’s COO also explained that they are attending fairs and
other events to explore other products and solutions in order to get ideas for their own
products. Most of the interviewees addressed events, such as fairs and conferences as
being an important tool for the creation of new, improved ideas, to help them with the
development of their product or service. However, Ekkono saw their participation in a
slightly different manner when joining a technology conference last year as their goal was
related to exploiting their current business rather than trying to find new, unexplored
ideas. This will be further explained in section 6.4.2.
The ideas gained from these fairs and conferences later on needs to be tested before being
fully developed. Mentioned by most of the respondents was the lack of having own
resources to test these ideas without further knowledge. Thus, highlighting the importance
of a collaboration with customers to gain understanding if these new ideas is worth further
development. Zlingit’s CEO emphasized this by stating “It is mostly to our customers to
test and try, either to companies that are working to the end user or to the end user itself
to see if it is a good idea that is worth further development.” GygHub is working in a
similar manner. The CEO of GygHub stated that “the features that we decide to take are
discussed with the customer and we ball these ideas back and forth to see if it actually
makes any difference to their life. Because it is very easy for us to assume that we know
it all and go and build things that nobody uses. That is not positive as we in that case
invest our limited resources on something that does not make life easier for our customer
and does not bring revenue.” Thus, insights from outside of the company is an important
tool in creating new ideas for startups.
Another way to explore new ideas was mentioned by Mimbly. Mimbly’s COO stated that
in developing new ideas, they look at the problem first and break it down into smaller
pieces. For them, their solution is focused around two aspects, water supply and
microplastics. The COO of Mimbly stated that “We tried to develop a big sewage plant
in the beginning, but later on we saw that washing machines are using lots of water and
the textile that is being washed is emitting lots of microplastics.” Thus, combining these
two aspects allowed the company to come up with a product that could be argued is
radical in this specific industry.
6.4.2 Exploitation capabilities
As explained above, it can be difficult for startups to commercialize a product that no one
really understands. Therefore, getting help from bigger corporations in the
implementation phase was seen as essential. When it comes to the commercialization
phase, Ekkono’s CEO said in an interview with Wiklund (2019) that a startup has to take
the bull by the horns directly when entering the commercialization phase.
Exploitation capabilities can also be developed by having a clear structure inside the
startup. Easy to Trust’s CEO explained that it is important to have structure, even though
a startup generally not seen as being a structured organization. The CEO continued by
saying that they are starting to get a structure because the CEO thinks that everyone in
the startups should have their own areas that they are responsible for. “It is becoming
more and more important to me that other individuals in our startup are getting their
areas, which create opportunities that we then share with each other. This in turn can
create a group of individuals where we feel that, here I know a person who can help me,
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is it okay for me to bring the task to you? Then I usually say yes, because I have that
confidence for everyone who works here (Easy to Trust, CEO). Zlingit’s CEO also
explained that having a structure is important, even though they are not working as
structurally as they would like to. Bumbee Labs’ CSO also emphasized this by stating “I
think we are efficient, but unfortunately I also think that we do not work as structured as
we would like. Usually what happens is that an interesting customer shows up and then
you stop doing what you are doing and focus on the new customer instead”.
Zlingit’s CEO also explained that feedback is important if a startup strives to work as
efficiently as possible. The CEO further explained that Zlingit has its office at Uminova
Innovation, which is an incubator and that Uminova Innovation usually has business
reviews with Zlingit, where they together with Zlingit goes through what has happened
every six months. Other interviewed startups are also getting support from a local
incubator. To distinguish the difference between Ignite and an incubator, the Operations
Manager at Uminova defined it as “an incubator gives business support on a different
level, mostly within the regional context. You have your place and belong to a community
where there is a network of investors, expert competence in house, or consultants that
you work with to develop business ideas that belong to the incubator. For me, Ignite is
an add on that allows startups to reach national and international corporations. Those
connections are not visible in an incubator in the same manner. Perhaps they have a few,
but not at all at the same level.” Gemit is a member of the incubator Things, and the CEO
explained that Ignite and the incubator complement each other very well. The CEO
further explained that Ignite is more customer oriented while Things is helping them on
a more day to day basis. “An incubator is more focused on inside the firm, while Ignite is
more focused on external parts, such as finding customers and collaborations” (Gemit,
CEO).
Feedback can also be received from existing partnerships. Thus, efficiency can also be
received through collaborations with bigger corporations that have the resources and
capabilities that the startup is lacking. However, Bumbee Labs’ CSO believed that it is
important for a startup to define where they are and what they want to achieve from a
collaboration. This is especially important when collaborating with bigger corporations
in the commercialization phase because it is easy to get stuck in the bigger corporation’s
agenda. The CSO further explained that some startups are just happy that they have a
collaboration with a big corporation. By defining what the startup wants to achieve from
the collaboration enables both of the companies in the collaboration to be more efficient,
explained Bumbee Labs’ CSO. The use of fairs and conferences presented in 6.4.1 was
said not only to be a way to explore new ideas for a startup, but also to exploit current
market segments. Here Ekkono went to the Web Summit 2019 in Lisbon, which is a
technology conference. They used this conference as a way to exploit their current
business idea. Ekkono’s CEO explained in an interview with Wiklund (2019) that they
became a company that many visitors talked about at the conference, which consisted of
representatives from industrial companies and startup investors.
6.4.3 How Ignite enables startups to find new capabilities
There are several ways startups are currently working with exploration and exploitation
activities. Collaborations were said to be a common way of exploring as well as exploiting
opportunities. It can therefore be argued that Ignite is helping startups to build
organizational capabilities. Ignite is helping startups with exploration by being creative
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in the matchmaking process. This can be seen by for example viewing how the
partnership between Gemit and Flir Systems began. Gemit’s CEO stated that “I would
never have met Flir Systems without Ignite''. Ignite’s Program Manager explained that
Flir Systems is a world-leading thermal camera brand and a supplier of solutions in IR
technology. When Ignite got in contact with Flir Systems, Ignite realized that Flir Systems
had a hardware that potential customers needed to have a lot of knowledge about before
starting to analyze the heat images that Flir Systems are taking. Ignite’s Program Manager
explained that not even a regular mechanical engineer had that kind of competence, which
meant that very few companies could actually use a hardware like that. This is where
Ignite came in the picture. Ignite identified Gemit as a suitable partner for Flir Systems
based on the company's goal, which is finding solutions that can help their customers
analyze large amounts of information (Ignite 2019, October 23). Ignite started to look for
startups that could have the competences to translate Flir Systems’ hardware through a
software which could make the data more understandable. Gemit was in Iginte’s startup
database and Gemit had created such visualizations for sensors that measured water flows
in an earlier project. Ignite’s Program Manager explained the matching as “So we checked
that this could be interesting if these two companies could try and see if Gemit could
translate heat analyze images instead of water flows and then deliver the same types of
insights to those who handle the heat cameras”.
It is argued that Ignite also enables startups to explore new ideas and new customer
segments to work with. Mimbly explained that they are still exploring which customer
segment that they should be working towards. Because of Ignite, however, a segment that
they had never thought about before was identified. Mimbly’s product is not yet fully
developed for the commercialization stage and was even in an earlier stage when they
signed up to Ignite a year ago. “The product was not finished, but we had a concept that
we had come a long way with. We were still exploring which customer segments we
should work towards. The ones we got through Ignite were in an area we didn't know
about'' (Mimbly, COO). The COO of Mimbly explained that, before these meetings, they
believed that their product would be used by different real estate companies and hotels.
However, Ignite had started to work with a company called Coor Service Management,
which is a cleaning company that cleans corporate offices, schools, and premises. Coor
Service Management is washing a lot of floor mops that releases a lot of microplastics
when they are being washed. Here, Ignite identified Mimbly through their startup
information bank and saw a possible partnership between these two companies, because
Coor Service Management could save a lot of water and electricity with Mimbly’s
innovative solution integrated in their washing machines.
It is not only exploration activities that Ignite is helping startups with. Exploitation
capabilities were also said to be improved by being active in Ignite. The work that Ignite
does enables startups to get in contact with relevant corporations. Together with the
corporations, the startups can develop their product and then deliver it to the end user.
The Program Manager of Ignite explained that most of the startups’ products or services
are usually 80% developed when signing up to Ignite. However, to get the product or
service 100% developed, the startups’ needs help from big corporations in order to
implement their product to the market. Further, Uminova’s Operation Manager explained
that all companies have to use their resources in a better way than they did in the past.
The majority of the interviewed startups mentioned that they are active in Ignite because
it is an effective way to reach potential customers and collaborators. Stylaero’s CEO
explained that the events organized by Ignite are very effective and that the startups are
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actually meeting the people within the big corporation that have authority to make a
decision. Therefore, both the startups and the big corporations are using their resources
in a more effective and efficient way when being active in Ignite. The startups also have
a chance to network with other startups on some of the events organized by Ignite and the
local incubator. For example, Zlingit’s CEO explained that they are participating in the
events mostly because they can network with others during these occasions. Similarly,
Stylaero’s CEO also highlighted the benefits of having the possibility to network with
other startups at these events. Sigr’s CEO explained that another benefit of being present
at the events organized in Umeå, is that Sigr also has the possibility to network with
students. The CEO explained that networking with students is important because all
students are potential new employees for a startup. Ekkono’s CEO also stated that they
signed up to Ignite because they saw an opportunity to meet and network with interesting
companies.
As explained earlier, startups can improve their exploitation, as well as exploration
capabilities through customers. However, the majority of the startups explained that there
are three things that are important from the big corporations if the meeting is going to
proceed to a collaboration between both companies. First of all was the importance of
having a defined problem or a project that can be solved by the usage of startups.
Secondly, the people from the big organization should have the authority to make
decisions. Thirdly, the big corporation should also be open minded and flexible at the
meetings, as well as throughout the whole collaboration. Thus, emphasizing an
understanding about the startup’s environment. However, for some of the startups that
saw themselves as being a bit further in their product or service development, other things
were deemed as being more important. As for example, the CEO of Bumbee Labs
mentioned that: “For our part now, it's just about scaling and building a business. I can
right from the start at a meeting ask if the other company has a budget for the project
that they want us to be involved in. We sometimes do not even take the meeting if there is
no budget. There is no idea to interfere with companies that have no budget because it is
very time consuming with these big companies [...], which is the same even if the big
corporation has a good reputation and a nice name.” The CSO further explained that
“There must be a project and a proper budget and that the company needs to have
mandates. If that’s the case, then we can do a business of it. Those prerequisites are the
basics for us.”
6.4.4 The challenge of balancing organizational capabilities
Something that was visible when being asked how the interviewed startups balance their
exploration and exploitation capabilities was the lack of having a formal structure. The
interviewees mentioned that, as a startup you are very dependent on big corporations,
which makes it hard to define how they work with the balancing of exploration and
exploitation. The respondents rather stated that they work as a firefighter in which they
have to extinguish where the fire is burning the most and solve that specific issue. This
means that you encounter problems as they come along, rather than planning what to do
beforehand. The CSO of Bumbee Labs stated that “this firefighter approach is not
sustainable in the long run. I think that we are quite effective, but unfortunately I also
believe that we are not working as structured as we would have wanted, because often a
new customer that is interesting pops up and then you let go of what you are currently
working on because of a limited time frame a startup has.” The CEO of GygHub
explained how they are working to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities as
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being a trade-off between a number of paths. The CEO further stated that “Sometimes
these tasks or decisions are very clear because I have done this before in my past, so, I
know how to do it, and sometimes what comes to me is blocked in terms of capabilities,
such as exploration or exploitation. Then my biases towards exploration occurs because
I want to quickly convince myself whether this is possible and if the path is worth spending
more time on. If I get that validation, then of course, I can focus more on my exploitation
capabilities if I already have the skills, if not, I can tap into my network to see if I can
solve those. This is a very simplistic model on how I view my world.”
GygHub’s CEO believed that startups are generally leaning more towards exploration
activities because they want to make sure that the idea that they are working on is actually
going to work. “I don’t want to find out that the path I took four months ago is wrong
and realizing that it was completely the wrong decision. This is a conflict that I feel
between exploration and exploitation because I have a bias towards exploration because
I want to reduce this anxiety and ambiguity.” Ekkono’s CEO explained that many tech-
startups are focusing on either exploration or exploitation activities. The CEO believed
that having the focus only on one of these activities is not sufficient in the long run. “A
startup cannot just develop a technology; the startup also has to see that it solves a
problem.” (Ekkono, CEO). Sigr also highlighted that a startup cannot innovate all the
time. A startup also needs a structure, which is why Sigr seeks to have 50% structure and
50% agile work, which were said to be a challenge when being a small company.
Ekkono’s CEO stated that either you have an ambidextrous organization or not, because
no one can be good at everything. To solve this, Ekkono believes that by being perceptive
and curious when communicating between the different parts of the organization is key.
“It is hard to just have five people in a room and think that they are going to solve a
problem that no one else has solved before. But it is rather that you create crossfuntional
features within the organization where everyone is working together to achieve certain
goals.” (Ekkono, CEO).
The emphasis of having a team who collaborates with each other, was also mentioned by
Sigr and Easy to Trust. Sigr further highlighted the importance of personal leadership
from all team members within the startup. “It does not matter how you reach a goal, the
important thing is that you reach it.” (Sigr, CEO). Easy to Trust’s CEO said that “We
are just a few in our team, but the bigger we get, the better we can become in creating
routines and being more efficient and innovative, which are two different things. As of
today, it has been that everyone is doing everything, which can be a bit inefficient
sometimes.” To solve this issue, the CEO of Easy to Trust believes that it requires a bigger
team for them to be more efficient. Thus, having more employees would make it easier
for Easy to Trust to define clear roles, which would enable them to have different areas
of expertise, and make the startup more structured. Having clear roles within the startup
helps everyone in the startup to understand what their tasks are.
The importance of Ignite in understanding how to help startups balance exploration and
exploitation capabilities were said as being vital by all interviewees. Mentioned by all
interviewees, was that without the presence of Ignite, the collaborations gathered through
Ignite would not have been possible to find on their own. Also, without an organization
like Ignite, the matchmaking between a big corporation and a startup was said to take
months before any arrangement was made. For example, Easy to Trust’s CEO explained
that the process of having the first meeting to actually having a collaboration is much
more effective and shorter when being active in Ignite. This was supported by the
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Program Manager at Ignite who said, “Through us, startups gain access to people at a
larger company who are otherwise difficult to reach, and that is invaluable to them”
(Ignite’s Program Manager to Ignite 2019, October 23). The Operation Manager at
Uminova explained that the meetings a startup gets through Ignite is meetings that they
probably would not have obtained without signing up to Ignite. This saves the startups a
lot of time because they are getting meetings with a manager at a big corporation that has
authority to make decisions. The Operation Manager believes that it is almost impossible
for a startup to get meetings like this without putting in lots of effort to make it happen.
Ignite is, however, creating a shortcut for the startups to meet companies willing to
collaborate.
The Operating Manager at Uminova explained that “We at Ignite are working a lot now
to try to make a difference, how can we create innovations that can actually have an
impact on the future, how can these technical ideas find a new market, a new customer,
a new service that makes the world better in the future.” The Operation Manager further
explained that “Then I would also say that the meetings can open up the eyes of the
startups to a new business area for their innovation or technology that they might not
have thought of before. [...]. So, what we’re working on is to try to get the startup a pilot
project or get a collaboration with a big corporation.” Easy to Trust’s CEO further
explained that Ignite also enables possible earnings for their startup, which in turn enables
Easy to Trust to focus on other things, such as engaging and hiring more employees. This
was also mentioned by the majority of the startups, as being one of the key ingredients to
why a collaboration with a bigger firm was deemed as positive. Therefore, we believe
that Ignite is indirectly helping startups to get a better balance between exploration and
exploitation capabilities by using the collaborated company to their advantage in the
commercialization stage.
Furthermore, when being asked what the startups’ thought about Ignite, the skills in
matching appropriate companies was seen as the main advantage. Furthermore, the CEO
of Gemit explained that there are other advantages as well. Ignite has, for example, helped
Gemit to develop a multiple discriminant analysis, which is an analysis that is made to
evaluate potential investments when several variables have to be taken into account.
Some of the startups also addressed the need to become more knowledgeable within sales,
which is something that Ignite also has given startups the opportunity to learn more about,
by providing them with sales courses. This was said to be a good element in order to
understand how to deal with the big corporations during the match-up events. Further, the
customers that the startups achieve from being active in Ignite was also said to lead to
better financial benefits for the startups as well as lead to new innovations. The big
corporations also have capabilities and resources that startups sometimes do not possess,
which may enable the startups to reach new end-users. These examples may be seen as
advantages on how startups receive help to become more efficient in their ways of
working, balancing their exploration and exploitation capabilities.
6.4.5 Partnerships
When big corporations and startups collaborate, not only do the companies themselves
receive a boost, it can also help to increase the pace of innovation and economic growth
in Sweden (Ignite 2019, October 23). Startups are often seeking to get external
partnerships with bigger corporations. Mimbly’s COO explained that there are a lot of
advantages with working with a big corporation. “The big corporations have money and
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resources. If we succeed with a bigger company, then they could by themselves finance
our startup for a big part of the future”. The type of partnership differs depending on
which industry a startup belongs to. For example, the e-commerce startup Sigr, has a
partnership with a clothing factory in China. Both of these companies are quite integrated
with each other's business operations. The CEO of Sigr explained that one of Sigr’s co-
founders bought a factory in China to make the production processes much shorter. Sigr
is quite a small company compared to the big players in their industry. To produce clothes
in the same factory as some of the big players, would in fact lead to very long production
processes for Sigr. This is because the bigger companies order a lot more clothes at once
than the small companies are doing in the industry that Sigr is operating within. Sigr’s
CEO explained it as “Before we had started Sigr, we questioned ourselves what happens
if Sigr knocks on the door to a large factory and says that we want to produce 400 jerseys.
Then surely, they would ask if we had forgotten a zero. If you are only going to make 400
jerseys instead of 4000, then you will be put last on the production log.” Therefore, it is
better for Sigr to be more integrated in a partnership with a factory, rather than having an
informal agreement with them, as explained by the CEO. This example shows that
partnerships may vary a lot. Some partnerships are seen as more valuable if the startup is
not that integrated in the partnering company. This can be the case if the risk is too high
of getting too dependent when partnering with a big corporation. When we asked about
the challenge when being in partnerships with big corporations, Stylaero’s CEO stated
that “Of course, I think that the risk is that you become dependent on them very fast for
your sustentation”. The different risks and challenges that may occur when partnering
with bigger corporations are further elaborated in section 6.4.6.
When being asked about what kind of partnerships the startups were searching through
Ignite, a few of them explained that they are only searching for customers who can deliver
financial benefits as a result. They believed that doing so, these customer partnerships
could enable the startup to reach a new customer segment. Bumbee Labs’ CSO explained
that “Most of our collaborations today is about finding a customer, because we have
already come a long way in product development”. Easy to Trust’s CEO explained why
they wanted to participate in Ignite in the first place as “My goal was to find customers. I
wanted to sell my product. That was my goal. What has become is that we have got a
partnership that enables us to find even more customer opportunities.”
Another partnership that enables the startup to reach a new customer segment is the
partnership between Gemit and Flir Systems. It is a partnership where the startup is very
technically integrated in the big corporation. Gemit’s CEO explained that “Technically,
we are very integrated. Organizationally, we are not integrated at all, we have phone
calls once a month”. The two companies entered a development cooperation only a few
months after the match-up meeting at Ignite (Ignite 2019, October 23). Ignite’s Program
Manager explained that “Gemit could never have done this without the super expertise in
heat analysis from Flir Systems [...] and Flir Systems could never have done it, because
they would have had to develop a whole new analyzing software from scratch, which
would had been a huge investment for Flir Systems.” When the development process was
done, the solution became a new product that Flir Systems is now selling through their
sales channels. The product is based on a decision-support system for industrial data
paired with thermal cameras, which makes it possible to visualize large amounts of data
(Ignite 2019, October 23). Explained by Ignite’s Program Manager was that Gemit is
earning money from this partnership through a license on the solution. Gemit has now
doubled its revenue because of the partnership with Flir Systems (Ignite 2019, October
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23). There are very clear agreements between the companies and both Gemit and Flir
Systems have a mutual respect for each other’s capabilities. These are the main reasons
why the partnership is effective, explains Gemit’s CEO. The main goal for Gemit with
the partnership together with Flir Systems and also with other big corporations, is to move
from a startup organization to an established company with many employees (Ignite 2019,
October 23).
Furthermore, the partnership between Mimbly and Coor Service Management, we also
believe has an interesting view on the success of collaboration with a big corporation.
This is because Mimbly also found a new customer segment through Ignite. The
innovation manager at Coor Service Management said to Ignite (2019, May 7) that “We
really like what Mimbly is trying to achieve with its solutions. Its product fits well with
what we do as a company and with our sustainability ambition. Our cleaning operations
wash a lot of materials daily. If we can filter and recycle the water, instead of using fresh
water in our laundry machines, we will improve our operations from an environmental
perspective”. Mimbly’s COO explained that the partnership is still in an early stage while
stating “We are still doing the pilot project with them, but we have a distribution
agreement already. We have come further than a pilot, but it is not super concrete what
it means in money or how many products the contract means. We have a commitment
from both companies, which means that we will work together evenly.” The COO further
explained that they have been working closely with a team at Coor Service Management
and the individuals involved have been committed to the partnership. The COO also
stated that the people from Coor Service Management have been flexible and open
minded, which Mimbly believes has been important because things can go wrong all the
time in a partnership with a big corporation.
Bumbee Labs is a startup that are in need of having partnerships with bigger firms in
order to reach their targeted customers. “Yes, we are collaborating a lot with bigger
corporations. There are 350 million existing access points in the world from which data
can be retrieved, which is Wifi access points. The need for that data is huge so to be
scalable and sell it all over the world, we need sales partners” (Bumbee Labs, CSO).
The CSO explained that the companies Bumbee Labs are having partnerships with are
telecom corporations, Wifi-system corporations and airport operators. These partnerships
can be explained as a revenue share, as these corporations are selling their service and
then put a margin on it, which creates a win-win situation for both firms. Afterwards are
the corporations using the data from Bumbee Labs’ service for their presentation system
(Bumbee Labs, CSO). Exactly how this works may be seen by giving an example of a
partnership Bumbee Labs has with a company called Bluecom. This partnership aims to
offer a service to customer segments operating within event organizers, shopping malls,
sports arenas, and hotels opportunities for unmatched statistics for customer behavior and
visitor flows (Bumbee Labs, 2019). These two companies complement each other's
competences, which makes it possible for both of the companies to develop a unique
solution (Bumbee Labs, 2019).
The CSO of Bumbee Labs further explained to Bumbee Labs (2019) in an interview that
"I think this collaboration is very exciting. Bluecom is a quality partner that we want to
work with, the kind of supplier that has the same view as us about the technical
possibilities and who can communicate it to its customers.” Bumbee Labs agreed to a
different type partnership last year than the example mentioned above. This partnership
was with Tre and was explained by Bumbee Labs’ CSO to Björklund (2019) as “With
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Tre’s IoT solution, we get a more efficient and flexible mobile solution that will improve
our work. It also feels very safe to have Tre as a partner when we are now expanding on
the international market”. This partnership allows Bumbee Labs not to be dependent on
fixed network connections, because all data is controlled via Tre’s IoT Control Center.
Bumbee Labs’ CSO explained that many of their other partnerships are occurring because
it is an advanced system, but also because their customers want to get access to Bumbee
Labs type of data. The customers are therefore partnering up with Bumbee Labs are doing
so in order to be able to use Bumbee Labs’ API in their platforms.
Table 9. Partnerships through Ignite.
Startup Big corporation Integrated Potential Outcome From
Ignite
Gemit Flir Systems Shared resources
New business opportunity X
Mimbly Coor Service Management
Shared resources
New business opportunity X
Sigr Factory Shared Resources
Be first in the production line
Easy to Trust
Corporation - Sell their product and find more customer opportunities
X
Bumbee Labs
Telecom corporations
Contract services
Sales partners - Revenue share
Ekkono Customers Contract services
Supplier to the big corporation /
Sigr Distributors Informal agreements
Increased brand awareness and to sell more clothes to the end-user
Furthermore, Ekkono’s CEO explained their participation in Ignite as “If we consider
what we are searching from Ignite, then I would not say that we are searching for
collaborations with the companies there. I am a supplier and they are a customer. It is
usually a very good way to relate startups to big corporations. It is not feasible that I
become a customer of really big corporations, instead they would become a customer of
Ekkono. This is how it goes if you have a customer or supplier relationship: the customer
says what they need and then I deliver what they ask for.” Ekkono’s CEO also explained
in an interview with Wiklund (2019) that “As a start-up company, it is easy to be flattered
to get into partnerships with large companies, but for us, the highest priority is to build
a commercial business and prove that there is a business value in our product.” When
being asked if they had any specific partnerships, the CEO explained then that they have
partnerships with a few big corporations in order to be able to deliver what their customers
are demanding. They further explained that “These big corporations have the advantage
of having a well-elaborated partnership. These partnerships are clearly regulated, and
everything is about clarity” (CEO, Ekkono). Table 9 explains the different partnerships
that the interviewed startups highlighted throughout the interviews. As can be seen, three
out of seven partnerships were mentioned as being created through Ignite. Ekkono
explained that some of their partnerships are created through Ignite, while some are found
by the startup itself. Not all startups wanted to share the corporation's names, and
therefore, some of the partnering names are rather explained with their characteristics
instead of company names. Also, some of the interviewed startups did not want to exactly
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address the amount of successful collaboration achieved through Ignite due to
confidentiality with the partnering company. Thus, table 7 and 9 may be seen as
misguided as it does not provide the exact amount of partnerships attained through Ignite.
6.4.6 Potential challenges among the partnerships
The interviewed startups explained different challenges and risks when having
partnerships with big corporations. Something that re-occurred in the interviews, was the
riskiness of getting too dependent on the big corporation. Gemit’s CEO said for example
that “A risk is to become a subcontractor for the bigger corporation, because then you
as a startup can become too dependent on them”. Sylaero’s CEO also emphasized that
by stating “Of course. I think that the risk is that you become dependent on them very
quickly for your maintenance.” Another risk was explained by Gemit in which they
mentioned that big corporations can possibly withdraw their involvement in the
partnership, because they have the power to do so. Mimbly’s COO also emphasized the
risk that corporations may withdraw their involvement in the partnership. “The risk is
that you commit yourself to a company that does not have the ambition to finish the
project. It takes a lot of commitment to do a pilot project and it takes a lot of time. The
risk is that you do a lot of work for the project and then suddenly it turns out that the
partnering company was not interested in finishing the project. Instead, the partnership
might have been more of a marketing strategy from the big corporation. [...]. This has
happened to us with other companies before. You think that you have come a long way,
but then it turns out that there are five more managers above who do not want to do the
project. That risk is always there when collaborating with bigger companies”.
Additionally, Zlingit explained that it was costly for them before a partnership had even
commenced. Zlingit’s CEO explained their experience with big corporations as, “We got
into a problem once, we had to fill in a lot of documents that were needed from the
corporation, in order for them to know that we existed. [...]. This cost us a lot of money
to produce and took us about a working week to produce. It is extremely inefficient from
our side. The corporation had their own internal processes that we needed to go through,
which a small firm does not have. [...]. The company here in Sweden was pretty chill
about this, but when the headquarter heard about it, they stepped in and said that Zlingit
has to fix certain things before the collaboration can start. It is probably a problem that
you can encounter”.
Something that was occurring in the literature about partnerships was the risk of
knowledge leakages. Even though this was deemed as a potential risk in the literature, the
interviewees did not mention this aspect as being something of greater value in
comparison to other potential risks of partnering with bigger corporations. Bumbee Labs’
CSO explained that startups are sometimes keen to get a partnership with a big
corporation, which can have negative effects if it is not handled properly. “I think that
there are many startups who are in a position where they need to get into a partnership
with a large fine company. Through these so-called startup pitches, the startups give
away a lot of fine knowledge, and this I think is not healthily. I think it is important to
dare to say no to some of the big corporations” (Bumbee Labs, CEO). Further, another
disadvantage mentioned when working with a big corporation was the length of processes
when doing business. As these processes are longer for a corporation, this may be seen
as a risk for startups in many ways. Ekkono’s CEO explained that “Big companies means
long processes, and it may well be that they say that they cannot continue the partnership
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after a while. This is because the big company may have the resources and the strength
to do it themselves. There are unethical people everywhere. It could also be so that you
lose such a customer, which means that you lose much of your revenue and are more
exposed to financial risks. There are lots of potential risks”. The COO of Mimbly also
emphasized this by stating that “A short process for a big company can be six months to
a year, while a short process for us as a startup is like two days”.
Other startups also noted that big corporations can have very drawn-out processes. Easy
to Trust’s CEO indicated that such drawn-out processes can be a risk, because startups
need money to survive due to their limitations in resources. This may cause a problem for
startups if they are getting the money first after the collaboration is done. The CEO further
explained that sometimes big corporations have a difficulty to finance the startup’s
projects by stating that “they feel that it feels like a heavy burden, although it is very little
in relation to their budget in comparison to what startups need.” GygHub’s CEO further
explained that these long processes can occur when there are corporations that do not
have experience on how to work with startups. “When there is someone that hasn’t been
exposed to the startups way of living, they see life as a very linear process.” (GygHub,
CEO). Sigr’s CEO further stated that it is difficult for an innovative startup to collaborate
with companies that have a traditional way of doing business. “Everyone that has a non-
innovative environment cannot collaborate with us. This is certainly something that
applies to all startups that want to be different. Namely, the mixture between the agile
and the innovative does not work. Therefore, it is very hard to cooperate with people that
see innovation in a different way than us.” (Sigr, CEO).
6.4.7 Minimizing the risks
As can be seen throughout the empirical findings, there are challenges and risks with
having an asymmetric partnership. An important question was seen as being the question
of who owns the rights to the innovation that is being developed. It is important to sign
agreements before a partnership starts in order for both parties to understand who owns
the rights of the new innovation (Ignite 2019, October 23). Zlingit’s CEO explained that
it is very important that there is a contract between the companies before the collaboration
begins in order to minimize these kinds of risks. Gemit’s CEO also said to Ignite (2019,
October 23) that Gemit has really good agreements, which regulate the rights to potential
innovations and that it is important for Gemit to feel secure when they are providing new
products or services with their unique solutions that are being developed.
Another aspect that was mentioned during the interviews was the importance of trust
between the startup and the big corporation. GygHub’s CEO explained how trust is
important when a startup is trying to get a partnership with a big corporation that has the
capabilities that the startup needs as, “Just because an organization has a capability
doesn’t mean that they want to give it to you, or lend it to you. It depends on the type of
relationship that you build with that organization. First of all, with the person that you
talk to in that organization, but also to the surrounding and the influence with that
organization. If they trust you, and trust your intention, people actually want to help. But
it is not something that you as a startup can demand, you need to earn it.” The COO at
Mimbly also stressed the importance of trust between the collaborating companies. The
COO further stated that there are also other important factors that a startup should be
aware of in order to minimize the risks. The first factor being that a startup’s portfolio of
customers should be slightly different in terms of size. Secondly, the partnering
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companies should be located at different places. Third, companies in a startup’s portfolio
should operate in different industries.
As explained above, a big corporation oftentimes have long processes in comparison to
startups. The Chief Innovation Officer at Coor explained to Coor (2019) that a certain
corporate culture is required in order to achieve successful partnerships with startups.
Firstly, a big corporation has to be quick-footed, because the startups do not have time
for long processes. Secondly, a big corporation has to be able to guide and identify what
problems the startup should focus on at the same time as having pretty low demands
(Coor, 2019). The COO at Mimbly also emphasized this by explaining “The most
important factor is that the company we’re working with can handle startups or a small
company.” The COO further explained that the partnership between Mimbly and Coor
Service Management has been successful because Coor Service Management have had
individuals that have been dedicated to the partnership already from the first meeting at
Ignite. Coor Service Management have also had a lot of patience and been willing to
finance some things that we have worked on. The COO also stated that “The things that
are required for a collaboration to be a successful match is that we together spot the
problem statement in an early stage and that the other company is well aware of that it
will be a bit rough at times. So, for the collaboration to succeed, the big company needs
to be flexible and understand that we are a small company with limited resources.”
Organizations like Ignite were also said to help minimize the risks between startups and
big corporations. Ignite is first of all shortening the process when they are finding a big
corporation that a startup could start to collaborate with. This means that less resources
are needed from the startup to find the right company and the right people within the
company if the startup is active in Ignite. Sigr’s CEO said “I got contact with three
organizations during the event. To find the right people to meet in these companies would
have taken me a few weeks if it would not have been for Ignite.” GygHub’s CEO also
explained that “The real contribution that Ignite brings are two parts. One is bringing
people in which there is a relevance for what you are doing, but also bringing people that
have the intention to engage with startups. So, that is a big saving in terms of time and
efforts in the prospecting journey for a startup.” As explained above, trust is also
important and can be the basis for successful collaboration between a startup and a big
corporation. Ignite’s Program Manager explained to Ignite (2019, October 23) that Ignite
is an organization that builds trust between the parties involved in the match-up. “It's
about being confidential at every stage and all parties sign agreements on how everything
should go. And since we first started Ignite as a pilot project, we have built up trust by
constantly delivering quality” (Ignite 2019, October 23).
Easy to Trust’s CEO explained that there is also a possibility for biases from a big
corporation's side if they have had a failed collaboration with startups in the past.
However, this was not seen as a problem with the corporations being active in Ignite. The
CEO believed that this was because the big corporations already know beforehand that
the startups that they will meet is of relevance due to Ignite's reputation of accurate
matchmaking. Easy to Trust’s CEO said that “Ignite is someone who can go in vouch for
the companies, because they have already done a selection process in some way that
should explain that this is something that Ignite believes in. Then it can be good enough
for both parties to be able to further work on the idea, and both companies can possibly
take a further step forward.” Another important aspect was mentioned by Mimbly’s
COO, in which they addressed the importance of having Ignite present at the negotiation
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meeting with Coor Service Management. Doing so, it allowed the negotiation process to
move forward and not be stuck in the middle, highlighting the efficiency that Ignite
enables to a collaboration.
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7 Discussion
In this chapter, we will state and interpret the connection of our empirical findings with
the previously elaborated literature review. We will also characterize the major aspects
and influences in regard to how Ignite is helping startups with balancing exploration and
exploitation capabilities. Inspired by the framework developed by Hitt et al. (2011, p. 60)
we have chosen to discuss our findings in terms of a startup’s pre-intervention conditions,
the intervention (through the innovation hub), and the post-intervention outcomes that
comes with it.
The first subchapter, pre-intervention, is related to challenges startups are facing before
entering Ignite, and the reasons to why they choose to engage in an innovation hub like
Ignite. The second subchapter, intervention, is associated with how Ignite helps in the
process to commercialize the startups’ products or services together with big
corporations. The third subchapter, post-intervention, is related to what the outcome is
and why the whole process of being part of Ignite matter. The final subchapter, proposed
framework, explains the whole process of how Ignite enables startups to balance
exploration and exploitation capabilities.
7.1 Pre-intervention
This subchapter, pre-intervention, explains the challenges startups are facing before
entering Ignite, and the reasons why different startups choose to engage in an innovation
hub.
7.1.1 Organizational environment
All of the interviewed startups explained that they see their startup’s environment as being
flexible and entrepreneurial. Therefore, we believe that this can be related to the concept
of strategic entrepreneurship. This is because when startups are practicing strategic
entrepreneurship, they bring something new to the market (Luke et al., 2011, p. 319),
which can be related to that the majority of the respondents sees their core products or
services as being a radical innovation in nature. Ireland et al. (2003, p. 968) explained
that the entrepreneurial mindset that startups usually possess can be viewed as a growth-
oriented perspective, which occurs through the startup’s team members, in which they
promote creativity, flexibility, steady innovation, and renewal. Four of the startups also
explained that they see their startup environment as being agile, which according to Luke
et al. (2011, p. 319) is said to help them to achieve an advantage from applying and
transferring the acquired knowledge from the developed skills and resources to new
products, services, or markets.
Throughout the interviews, the personal skills that they had acquired from previous
experiences was said to be an important resource that permeates their startups. Hitt et al.
(2011, p. 60-63) also mentioned that human capital within the firm is an important factor
for the survival of startups in the early stage. As mentioned by the CEO at Gyghub, his
previous experience working with sales and business development in large corporations,
allowed the startup to transfer the CEO’s knowledge into the development stage of their
products. The majority of the teams of each startup was seen to be quite limited in terms
of employees (see table 7). Interestingly was, however, the fact that all of the startups
believed that they possessed complementary competences which enabled them to produce
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their product or services. Even though this was the case, all of them mentioned the
importance of getting human capital from external sources. Thus, Ojaghi et al’s (2019, p.
1064) statement in which they address that startups naturally suffer from a variety of
weaknesses, the shortage of resources as the main one, was seen as being somewhat true,
but not as vigorous as one may have thought. As explained, the shortage of resources was
seen as something that hindered the startups to be fully commercialized rather than being
something that was needed for the development of the product. Hitt et al. (2011, p. 60)
argued that external environment factors affect the performance and the long-term
survival of the firm, which was confirmed by our empirical findings. This was said to be
an important element to why the interviewed startups choose to engage in Ignite activities
because it allowed them to get access to companies that would be almost impossible to
attain without the help of Ignite.
The statement in which startups rely on external partners due to the lack of having their
own resources, as mentioned by Mocker et al. (2015, p. 5), was not seen as completely
true from the interviewees. Rather than rely on external partners such as corporations, the
interviewees mentioned that they rather are a means towards the goal of getting a
competitive advantage. As the majority of the startups already had their product or service
developed, it is rather that these external partners are seen as customers rather than being
a partner that supplies the startups with resources needed to develop the product. Further,
rather than being reliant on corporations, the time aspect was said to be a vital part in the
decision of whether or not startups search competences elsewhere, outside of their own
expertise. As the COO of Mimbly mentioned, they use external competences by hiring
consultants as it is more efficient than doing everything by themselves. We believe this
as being one of the main reasons to why some of the startups search for complementary
competencies, as no one can be good at every aspect of running a successful business.
7.1.2 Startups organizational capabilities
The interviewed startups were especially characterized with having exploration activities.
This can be seen by drawing a connection to table 1 created by O'Reilly & Tushman
(2004, p. 79). By looking at the category, strategic intent, listed in table 1, it is visible that
the interviewed startups were more in-line with having a focus on innovation and growth,
rather than a strategy towards decreased costs and increased profit. The second category
from table 1, critical task, one may argue was somewhat more divided as the interviewees
expressed both exploration and exploitation activities. We believe this is because the
startups already possess a radical innovation and are instead focusing on efficiency and
on incremental innovations to satisfy their customers. It was clear that the high-tech
startups mostly possessed exploration capabilities because of their radical innovation,
which Camison et al. (2018, p. 1560) also made a strong link towards. Visible from the
interviewees was that these startups rather searched for a customer in which they could
take their product or service and together with the collaborating company improve their
product so it would fit their end-user’s needs. Hence, we believe they rather put emphasis
on exploitation capabilities in order to make their product or service commercializable.
Greve (2007, p. 949) stated that firms operating within the high-tech industry are in-line
with having exploration capabilities due to the ever-changing environment. As eight out
of nine interviewees was said to work within the tech-industry, we believe that this
statement is true. Furthermore, this was also explained by Sigr as they were the only
startup not working in the tech-industry, and emphasized that their way of working was
more in-line with exploitation and the importance of being efficient.
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Concluded from the interviews was that even though the startups wanted to focus on
exploitation activities, it was deemed as being hard to satisfy due to the insufficient
resources enabling them to exploit current products or services without external help.
Thus, reaching out to Ignite in order to find customers was seen as being of great
importance to why startups are signing up to Ignite. All of the other characteristics were
indeed on the exploration side of the table, as the startups expressed things such as
flexibility and loose structure being present within their organization. Considering
exploitation capabilities, some startups mentioned that having milestones and goals is
important in order to work as efficiently as possible. Even though the interviewees
stressed the importance of working efficiently, this was highlighted as a problem when
being categorized as an innovative company, because being efficient and innovative do
not match up. This idea is also seen in the literature, in which Auh & Menguc (2005, p.
1655) explained that being efficient is related to exploitation activities rather than to
exploration activities. By reaching out to Ignite, the startups were hoping to find big
corporations that had the resources needed to improve their efficiency.
Further, explained by Easy to Trust was that the efficiency and the balance in the
organization is developed as a gradual process when the team is getting bigger in terms
of employees. Schriber & Löwstedt (2015, p. 54) also argued that the development of
capabilities can be seen as a slow process as routines are being adopted in the
organizational context. This was further implicitly seen from Bumbee Labs, because they
were the only startup that was older than five years and they were seen as having an
appropriate balance between their exploration and exploitation activities. Easy to Trust
highlighted that the bigger the startup becomes, the more important it is to have a structure
and that the structure then leads to a better balance between the two capabilities. This
imposed that increased number of employees leads to clearer and more defined roles
within the startup.
Further, the five barriers that may interrupt the development of innovation capabilities
mentioned by Assink (2006, p. 220-226) was not highlighted by any of the interviewees.
Especially the first one, the adoption barrier, which is said to emerge if a firm does not
want to leave previously successful concepts or ways of working. This barrier was not
visible within any of the interviewed startups. We believe that the answer for this is due
to the fact that all of the startups addressed the importance of being flexible and having
an entrepreneurial environment within their organization. The success story mentioned
about Google and how their organizational structure manages to keep them innovative,
in terms of having an open and dynamic corporate system for innovation, one could argue
was in some aspects visible throughout the interviews as well. As eight out of nine
startups were operating in the technology sector, we believe a distinction can be made, in
which the human resources of these types of organizations are an important tool for
survival. As Steiber & Alänge (2013, p. 261) put emphasis on the human aspects of the
employees working at Google, this concept was also mentioned as important from the
interviewed startups. From the interviews, this meant mostly that certain personality traits
were encouraged to the employees working at these organizations. For example, Ekkono
and Sigr mentioned that it is important to have employees that do not get stressed when
the outcome is unknown, but rather strives for excellence and gets encouraged during
these situations, addressing the importance of personal leadership.
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7.1.3 Potential challenges among partnerships
The interviewed startups highlighted different risks and challenges in having asymmetric
partnerships. The first challenge was said to occur even before the partnership had begun.
This was said to be because of the complex organizational structure that big corporations
have, which leads to the difficulty and long processes of finding a manager that has
authority to make operative decisions. Something that the interviewees mentioned as
being key to why signing up to Ignite, was the accurate matchmaking process. This
included finding the appropriate manager with authority to make decisions on site, as well
as the easiness to find corporations interested in a collaboration. Therefore, the argument
of Minshall et al. (2010, p. 54), in which they explained that a startup may face challenges
in finding an appropriate manager from the corporation, is not seen as true when looking
at collaboration occurring by the hands of Ignite.
The second challenge mentioned was that big corporations usually have much longer
processes in comparison to startups. Startups are seen as flexible and effective
organizations, while corporations usually have an organization with several layers of
management, different sized organization, and much more complex than an
organizational structure of a startup (Minshall et al., 2010, p. 56). This challenge was
highlighted by the majority of the startups while some also explained that long processes
could be seen as a big risk in terms of survival. This is because of the chance of becoming
resource constrained when first receiving the money after a project is finished. This was
stated by Zlingit as they explained that when big corporations have such long processes,
it can lead to increased spendings before the partnership has even begun.
The respondents explained that the risk can increase if the corporation does not speak the
same language as the startup. This was also highlighted by Chesbrough & Brunswicker
(2014, p. 24), when explaining that organizational and cultural barriers can impact a
partnership negatively. Even though cultural barriers are seen as a challenge, the
interviewees mentioned that the corporations visible at the Ignite events were open
minded and understood that startups' ways of working differed in comparison to what
they perhaps are used to. This was explicitly highlighted by the collaboration between
Mimbly and Coor Service Management, putting emphasis on the importance of Ignite’s
demand on how corporates need to behave when collaborating with startups.
Another challenge mentioned throughout the interviews as well as by Minshall et al.
(2010, p. 56) was the risk of getting stuck in negotiations when different departments are
involved in the negotiation process. Mimbly explained that such risks can be eliminated
if the contact with the big corporation is made with only one team instead of having
contact with different departments. Further, they also explained that the presence of Ignite
during the negotiation meetings was something that enabled them to find a proper
collaboration and not being stuck in the middle of the negotiation.
Furthermore, Ritala et al. (2015, p. 29) explained that knowledge leakages can happen
when companies share knowledge with each other. The majority of the startups were not
afraid of knowledge leakages when having a partnership with a big corporation. Bumbee
Labs explained that knowledge leakages may occur when pitching an idea to investors or
potential collaborators. On the other hand, Bumbee Labs said that it has not happened for
them and that the meetings through Ignite disables knowledge leakages because the
meetings are not designed as a startup pitch where startups usually leak important
information in order to find investors. Another risk that was mentioned during the
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interviews was to become too dependent on the big corporation. This is contradictory to
Liu (2020, p. 26), who explained that startups should change their strategic intents from
resource exchange to trust pursuit, with the reason to develop long-term relationships. It
was explained during the interviews that long-term relationships are appreciated, but the
risk of having a long-term relationship with a corporation was said to become very reliant
on that corporation. This in turn can have a negative effect on the startup if the big
corporation choses to change its supplier to another company. Long-term relationships
can have financial benefits for the startup, but there is a need to be careful and build up
trust with each other in order to minimize the risk of potential setbacks, as mentioned by
the majority of the interviewees. In addition to this, startups can through Ignite build up
their portfolio by receiving more customers, which would decrease the risk of getting too
dependent on one corporation. As the majority of the startups mentioned that the main
reason to why they participate in Ignite is to meet new customers, we believe that by
participating in all of the relevant events, a startup may find new customers and thus,
decrease their chances of becoming too reliant on only one big actor.
7.2 Intervention
This subchapter is associated with how Ignite helps in the process to commercialize the
startups’ products or services together with big corporations.
7.2.1 Open innovation through Ignite
The interviewed startups are practicing open innovation in different ways and on different
levels. Rauter et al. (2018, p. 226) explained that the need for collaborations between
companies due to the everchanging complexity of services and products, is important
because companies will find it hard to remain competitive on the market without such
collaborations. This can be related to the complex products and services that the
interviewed startups possessed, because it was predominantly seen that a radical
innovation was the startups’ core product or service. The team members of Ignite also
explained that the startups need help in developing the final 20 percent of their products
before entering a commercial phase, addressing the use of outside-in approach of open
innovation. Ries (2011, p. 27-28) explained that a startup's main focus should be on
innovation activities, which is somehow accurate because the majority of the interviewed
startups need to incrementally innovate its already radical innovation so it would be fully
developed for the commercialization phase. For this reason, it is not necessary for the
startups to have its main focus on radical innovation activities. Instead it was visible that
help in the commercialization stage was needed for the startups. This was also explained
by Lee et al. (2010, p. 299) who said that startups often lack sufficient resources in the
commercialization stage.
It is important to note that even though the startups mentioned that the main reason why
they were part of Ignite was to gain new customers, it was seen as not being possible
without the help of external resources. This is because most of the products or services
were said as being not fully commercialized before signing up to Ignite. Thus, we believe
that even though the interviewed startups expressed the customer aspect as the most
important part to why they collaborate with big corporations, the need for external
resources is how they achieve competitive advantage, putting more emphasis on the
resources than perhaps most of the startups were aware of. The collaborations created
through Ignite were said to allow the startups to focus on creating a competitive product
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or service instead of putting all of their emphasis on the commercialization aspects, which
the big corporations could help them with. This is done by getting access to production
capacity, technologies, and customers through a partnership with a big corporation, which
was highlighted by the interviewed startups as well as by Freytag (2019a, p. 30). The
inventions that the different startups possess are usually complex, and therefore are the
startups unable to advance them into an innovation without any help, which Simon et al.
(2019, p. 167) also explained.
Moreover, the inside-out process exemplified by Inauen & Schenker-Wicki (2011, p.
502) were also said to be related to the interviewed startups innovation activities. This is
because the startups are usually signing up to Ignite to get customers. These customers
can then make tech licenses on the startups’ technologies. Through Ignite, we therefore
believe that the innovation hub enables startups to use open innovation together with big
corporations where both inside-out and outside-in are visible. The usage of both may
therefore be translated as having a coupled process, which can be seen in figure 10. The
open innovation process in the figure is seen from a startup perspective being active in
Ignite.
Figure 10. Coupled process used by startups active in Ignite.
It is explained by Giaccone & Longo (2016, p. 98) that an innovation hub is a platform
that connects individuals, teams, companies, and communities together to convert unique
ideas into commercializable solutions. An innovation hub is seen as a center of research
and development of ideas that are seen as being innovative and acts as a catalyst to
transform these ideas into commercializable products or services. This is something that
can be related to Ignite, because Ignite is an organization that brings big corporations,
startups, and organizations from the public sector together to convert their ideas into
commercializable solutions. In addition, Dhanasai & Parkhe (2006, p. 661) also explained
that an innovation hub should aim to develop an innovation-facilitating network with
actors that are willing to commit themselves to the collaborations. Spender et al. (2017,
p. 4) emphasized that startups carefully need to evaluate which partner to collaborate with
before entering a partnership. Understood by the team members of Ignite, their selection
process of corporations is through validation with the help of their needs analysis model
explained in figure 8. This requires the corporations to have a specified problem before
entering the match-up process. Therefore, Ignite ensures that the network is of different
sized organizations who all foster innovations.
7.2.2 Ignite as an enabler of balancing organizational capabilities
The empirical findings show that Ignite is an effective organization because of the
accurate matchmaking and always bringing individuals with authority to make decisions
to the meetings with the startups. Ignite’s matchmaking process was said to enable the
startups to focus on its core business instead of having to chase corporations by
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themselves. Due to this, we believe that Ignite helps startups with developing their
exploitation capabilities. Wang & Dass (2017, p. 128) explained that exploitation
capabilities are important in the commercialization phase, and it was visible from the
interviewees that they believed that Ignite was helping them to find corporations enabling
them to commercialize their products or services. This was because the startups
oftentimes had their product or service almost fully developed but needed extended
resources from external partners to commercialize their invention. Thus, one of the main
reasons to being part of Ignite was mentioned by the startups as finding suitable customers
that find their invention interesting and were willing to exploit this opportunity and do a
paid pilot project with them to reach a new competitive product or service. If the
collaboration is successful, and they together have created a fully developed and
commercializable product or service, then the next step in a collaboration is to find
customers through the collaborating partner that is willing to sell the product via their
sales channel. Thus, by doing so, startups are being able to exploit their invention to end-
users visible for the big corporation they are collaborating with, which would not have
been possible for the startup to exploit themselves. This point of view, was for example,
highlighted by the collaboration between Gemit and Flir Systems.
As mentioned by Giaccone & Longo (2016, p. 114), the transformation to a more open
culture between the involved actors is an important aspect if an innovation hub should be
seen as successful, which also was mentioned being the case from the interviewees
involved in Ignite. The startups stressed the importance of understanding what the
corporations wanted to achieve by a collaboration as being a vital part, which they
believed that Ignite enabled by only introducing corporations that had gone through the
needs-process together with Ignite. These requirements that Ignite has on the big
corporations was said to be one of the main sources to why Ignite is seen as an efficient
way of communicating with big corporations. Ignite demands the corporations to have a
defined problem before the match-up meetings with startups. This was said to enable the
startups to understand what the big corporations actually want to achieve from the
collaborations. It is visible that Ignite is taking both the startups’ and corporations’
interest into account when matching them together, which also Freytag’s (2019b) study
pointed out as a key to a successful collaboration.
The interviewed startups were seen to mostly possess exploration capabilities, in which
they addressed their participation in Ignite as being a mean towards searching for
exploitation capabilities through big corporations being active in Ignite. Nonetheless,
even though the main focus of Ignite is to find a collaboration to improve their
exploitation capabilities, an indirect link towards exploration was found from the
interviewees. For example, the two team members of Ignite explained that it often
happens that 1+1 equals 3. In other words, a new product or service is created which we
believe is related to the exploration category rather than exploitation as an entirely new
product or service is being created. GygHub was one startup that mentioned that gaining
insights from external parties is an important tool for exploring new ideas. The creative
matchmaking that Ignite is providing may also lead to new business segments. This was
the case for Mimbly when being matched with Coor Service Management. It was a
business segment that Mimbly had overlooked before Ignite came up with the idea of a
collaboration between them, addressing the knowledge possessed by the people working
at Ignite. Thus, the study provided by Minshall et al. (2010, p. 59) in which they
highlighted that partnerships may open up new business opportunities for the involved
74
actors may be argued as being true, given the example provided by the partnership
between Mimbly and Coor Service Management.
Both exploration and exploitation can according to Lannon & Walsh (2020, p. 23) be
managed simultaneously. Even though the authors mentioned the possibility of balancing
exploration and exploitation, the use of a third party, such as Ignite, was not mentioned
in the literature. The above-mentioned examples of how Ignite is helping startups with
both exploration and exploitation is how the startups take help from a third party to enable
them to balance these capabilities. Even though it is by the use of big corporations that
startups may find a balance between exploration and exploitation, we believe it is safe to
say that Ignite is indirectly involved in the process. This is because it is Ignite that enables
startups to find suitable corporations to collaborate with through the use of Ignites match-
making events. Thus, putting emphasis on the existence of the innovation hub and the
characteristics that Ignite stands for, especially the accurate matchmaking process and its
efficiency.
7.2.3 Minimizing the challenges before entering a partnership
Initially, Lewicki et al. (1998, p. 438) explained that trust has an important role for
effective partnerships. It can be seen from our empirical findings that Ignite is helping to
create trust between firms participating in Ignite. This was highlighted by several
respondents, especially by GygHub as they explained that the trust that Ignite is building
is crucial in order to establish a good relationship with a big corporation. We believe that
Ignite creates trust between startups and corporates mostly because of its reputation. The
matchmaking done by Ignite is very accurate and the meetings were said to always be
relevant, which was mentioned in the empirical findings from several respondents.
The matchmaking that Ignite does minimizes also the risk of having a meeting with a
manager from the corporation that is not appropriate and does not have authority to make
decisions, which could lead to misunderstandings of what the startup wants to achieve
with a collaboration (Simon et al., 2019, p. 167). Allmendinger & Berger (2020, p. 6)
argued that young startups might only assess perceived trustworthiness from a potential
partner. This could, however, be argued that Ignite enables the startups with, as the
presence of trust is there from the very first meeting with the big corporations. This is
because the big corporations know that the startups would not be attending the meeting
if they would not have been trustworthy and have an interesting product or service.
Allmendinger & Berger (2020, p. 24) further explained that big corporations should signal
a high level of openness and readiness to work on the grounds of conciseness instead of
having detailed contractual designs. This should increase the startups’ willingness to
collaborate. In addition, the interviewed startups also explained that the big corporation
should have an open mindset and be willing to be more flexible. Even though the
corporates should be flexible in order for a partnership to be successful, some startups
also pointed out the corporates importance of having a defined problem when entering
the first meeting. Besides this, Chesbrough & Brunswicker (2014, p. 24) argues that in
order for a corporation to successfully use the concept of Ignite to their advantage, it is
crucial that they make organizational changes on multiple levels of the firm to be more
respondent to open innovation processes. As addressed by the Program Manager at Ignite,
this was something that Ignite considered as being key when selecting which corporations
would get the chance to be part of Ignite, since speed and presence of authority to make
75
decisions were seen as vital when working with startups. This was also underlined by the
interviewed startups, since they do not possess the required resources to change their
organizational structure to a traditional organizational structure. Further, the startups
seemed to be pleased with how the corporations acted during the match-ups, as the
effectiveness and having accurate decision makers present was mentioned by the majority
of the startups. Thus, displaying the accurate selection process of corporations from the
perspective of Ignite. Due to this, we believe that it is the big corporations’ responsibility
to change their traditional mindset to be more flexible, in order to make the asymmetric
partnership more likely to begin and succeed in the long term.
7.3 Post-intervention
The third subchapter, post-intervention, is related to what the outcome is and why the
whole process of being part of Ignite matter. The subsection in this subchapter has been
divided into three different partnership types, named as A, B, or why not C.
7.3.1 Partnerships
Some of the interviewed startups explained partnerships with big corporations in a similar
manner as Minshall et al. (2010, p. 54), by stating that partnerships between big
corporations and startups can be the difference of survival for a startup. The interviewed
startups were, however, more in line with Spender et al. (2017, p. 4), in which they saw
forming relationships with partners as key for success rather than means for survival.
Mimbly, for example, explained that a partnership with a big corporation may gain
financial benefits for the startup in the future. Other benefits were also explained by the
startups. One being the possibility to explore new innovations together with the big
corporation. Five out of nine startups explained that they saw the opportunity to explore
new innovations as an advantage when partnering with a big corporation.
Correspondingly, Minshall et al. (2010, p. 53) found out that both the big corporation and
the startup see partnerships as an important source of innovation. Existing literature
highlighted that startups see brand reputation as something attractive when searching for
a partnership with a big corporation (Allmendinger & Berger, 2020, p. 5; Weiblen &
Chesbrough, 2015, p. 66). Surprisingly, the importance of a strong brand reputation was
not highlighted by any respondent when searching for a collaborating partner, but rather
the opposite. Addressed by the CSO of Bumbee Labs was that getting a collaboration
with such a strong brand would not be that effective. This is because they would have to
work with following the collaborating partner’s agendas and ideas instead of having a
mutually beneficial collaboration that would benefit both parties.
The partnerships that emerge from Ignite can have different outcomes as seen in the
empirical findings. We have divided the different outcomes into three different
categories, named as A, B, and C. The first being where the big corporation is only seen
as a customer to the startup. By providing them with the product or service, the startups
were said to enable the corporation to work more efficiently by using the technology that
the startups could provide them with. This meant that the product or service the startup
provided to the corporation was already developed and did not need much change to fit
in the corporates' ways of working, which was explained by the CEO of Easy to Trust in
how they viewed their partnership created through Ignite. It was highlighted by several
startups that the benefits of receiving partnerships similar to this can be associated with
getting feedback on their existing product or service.
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The second type of a partnership is where the startups partner up with a big corporation
in order to improve their current working methods. The difference between these
partnerships and the previously stated is the importance of customizing the solution to the
corporation as well as to improve the product or service provided by the startup. By taking
the example of the partnership between Mimbly and Coor Service Management, this
required both firms to collaborate in order to develop the pilot project into a suitable, fully
commercializable solution. For these types of collaborations to succeed, Spender et al.
(2018, p. 4) highlighted the importance of forming relationships with the external actor
in order to successfully implement the startup’s invention to the market. The importance
of creating a good relationship with the partnering corporation was also mentioned by
Mimbly, establishing the need to have a corporation that understands how startups operate
and that they were willing to provide guidance throughout the pilot project in order to
find a successful product that could be seen as beneficial for both parties.
The third type of a partnership that we discovered throughout the interviews was the
creation of a new product or service. This may seem as the partnership that demands most
resources and involvement in order to become successful. Taking the example of Gemit
and Flir Systems, where two separate products became one entirely new solution for the
actors involved. Even though one may argue that the product that Gemit was offering
before the partnership was similar, the creation of the new product with Flir Systems
required the companies to work on a solution together as the system provided by Gemit
had to be customized on a whole different level than the other partnerships in order to be
seen as suitable for Flir Systems, as they were operating in an completely different market
segment than Gemit had been working with before. Before the partnership, the solutions
provided by the different actors were seen as being complex to the end-user, however, a
combination with both of the solutions created a service that was less complex and more
available towards the end-user. The outcome from this partnership is that Flir Systems is
selling the solution through their sales channels, where they have agreed one a certain
percentage of the revenue that is given to the startup from each sale.
7.4 Proposed framework
The final subchapter, proposed framework, explains the whole process of how Ignite
enables startups to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities (see figure 11). The
framework is divided into three parts, pre-intervention, intervention, and post-
intervention, in which the model by Hitt et al. (2011, p. 60) acts as an inspiration for the
proposed framework. This is mostly because we believe that doing so, enables us to get
a clear structure into the process of deciding if a startup should be involved in Ignite and
what it may bring to the firm. This enables the startups to understand their organizational
environment, capabilities, as well as the potential risks of collaborating with big
corporations visible through Ignite. The framework is also inspired by the study by Auh
& Menguc (2005, p. 1654) in which they address exploitation and exploration to have
different outcomes in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. This understanding in terms
of organizational competences we believe is of greatest importance as it allows the firms
to see which types of competences needed in the achievement of balancing exploration
and exploitation capabilities. The output gathered from a collaboration with a corporation
may differ, which is why we chose to include the idea expressed by Gaim & Wåhlin
(2016, p. 36). As they stated, it is not always easy to understand which type of capabilities
are needed for a firm to balance their exploration and exploitation capabilities,
77
highlighting the importance of making the right decision. As expressed in section 7.3.1,
we found out that there are three different types of partnerships that a startup may create
through a collaboration with a big corporation, in which different resources and level of
customization explains how integrated the collaboration is embedded in both firms. A
deeper explanation on the proposed framework is further explained below.
Figure 11. Proposed framework.
The first part of the framework, pre-intervention, highlights the findings from the
interviews in what type of capabilities that was seen as dominant for startups. We believe
it is safe to say that our findings suggest that startups, especially if working in the high-
tech industry, possess capabilities in regard to radical innovations, thus, putting emphasis
on their exploration capabilities. Even though startups were said to have complementary
competences inside the firm, all of the interviewees highlighted that they saw themselves
as being using external competences as well. Although this thesis’ perspective is on
startups, one may argue that it is of importance to understand the capabilities possessed
by big corporations in order to understand how startups may find a collaboration with
them as being successful. Gathered from the interviewees was the acknowledgement of
needing complementary competences mainly related to exploitation from big
corporations that were willing to collaborate with startups, highlighting the main reason
why Ignite was considered to be a suitable option for startups in their growth stage.
The second part of the framework allows us to understand the presence of open innovation
from a startup perspective. The choice of becoming a member to Ignite is therefore found
here, in which the presence of Ignite is said to enable startups to find a balance between
their exploration and exploitation capabilities. This is done by the accurate matchmaking
from Ignite, allowing startups to find collaborations with corporations. Being part of
Ignite was said to minimize the challenges with having a collaboration with a big
corporation, which we believe is of great importance to the willingness of working
together.
Lastly, post-intervention, explains the outcome and how it may vary from Ignite’s
matchmaking. The outcome is, however, dependent on the startup's product or service,
their capabilities, and the problem that the big corporation has. The outcome of the
partnership can be seen as being divided into three categories. A, if the startup's product
or service is almost fully developed. The second, B, if the startup’s solution is in an early
stage and are in need for further development together with the corporation. The third, C,
is to create a fully new product or service together with the big corporation. The goal
78
from all of the three different options was seen in the empirical findings to get a
competitive advantage together with the big corporation.
79
8 Implications and concluding remarks
We will in this chapter answer our research question by highlighting the most important
conclusions and discoveries. In addition to this, theoretical, managerial and societal
implication of our study will be drawn. We will also present the limitations of our study
and suggested future research. Lastly, a summary using a subchapter named concluding
remarks is made to understand the relevance of this thesis and why it matters.
8.1 Research findings
The main purpose of our thesis was to distinguish how an innovation hub like Ignite
enables startups with balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities. By the use of
our theoretical framework, in combination with the empirical findings, we have
contributed with an understanding of how an innovation hub like Ignite operates. In
addition to our research question aiming to answer the activities an innovation hub does
in order to enable startups to balance their capabilities, our findings suggest that by the
use of a third party like Ignite, startups can get the help needed to balance their capabilities
indirectly. The indirect link is related to the accurate matchmaking that Ignite does. Our
findings suggest that it is not Ignite per say who is helping startups with balancing their
capabilities. Instead, Ignite is acting as a mediator between the big corporations and
startups with the focus to find complementary capabilities and resources that may enable
startups together with big corporations to balance their capabilities.
By the use of Ignite, startups get the chance to have relevant meetings in order to help
them to find collaborations with big corporations that are first of all willing to accept to
work with startups. This was seen as key due to the fact that big corporations normally
have defined structures and ways of working, which were said to be a challenge when
being involved in a collaboration with a bigger corporation. The process of how Ignite
evaluates which big corporations and startups that should attend at the matchmaking
events is seen as the most valuable aspect in how they enable startups to find a balance
between exploration and exploitation capabilities. This is because the members of Ignite
were said to have knowledge about the capabilities both parties possessed, and by
matching them together, they could combine their strengths to form a competitive
advantage by joining a collaboration with each other. Interestingly, the empirical findings
allowed us to draw a conclusion that this accurate matchmaking between startups and
corporations eliminates the potential risks that may occur while working with bigger
actors on the market. Most importantly were said to be the length of processes related to
the decision making of corporations as well as having managers with authority to make
decisions present at the events. Thus, once again stressing the importance of Ignite as
indirectly allowing startups to find corporations with the willingness to collaborate in
order to balance startups’ organizational capabilities.
The empirical findings also stressed the importance of trustworthiness related to Ignite as
an innovation hub. Without a third party like Ignite, the parties involved may have a
difficulty to find trust in the early stage of the collaboration. Trust were said not only to
be related to knowledge leaking and the imbalance of power between startups and
corporations when starting a collaboration which one may have thought. It was also stated
that the meetings allowed the startups to focus on their core capabilities in order to
provide successful collaboration with the big corporations that were in need of the
competences provided by the startup.
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8.2 Theoretical contributions
In terms of theoretical contributions, this thesis adds to the understanding of the concept
of balancing exploration and exploitation capabilities, which was said by Sinha (2015, p.
320) as being understudied from a startup perspective in the growth stage. This study also
contributes to the understanding of how a third party can help startups to balance their
capabilities. The third party in this case has been Ignite which we believe is considered
to be an innovation hub when relating to the definition of an innovation hub made by
Giaccone & Longo (2016, p. 102). They explained that an innovation hub acts as a center
of research and development of ideas that are seen as being innovative and acts as a
catalyst to transform ideas into commercializable solutions. This is also the case of Ignite
because they connect big corporations with startups through a matchmaking process
where the main goal is to facilitate innovation. Usually, the balancing of exploration and
exploitation are said to occur in-house (Auh & Menguc, 2005, p. 1654; Piao, 2014, p.
210). However, for this study, the balancing act was said to occur through the
interventions within the innovation hub, stressing the relevance of this thesis by including
the concept of a third party as an enabler of balancing organizational capabilities.
Spender et al. (2017, p. 5) and Usman & Vanhaverbeke (2017, p. 184) argued that there
was a need to investigate the role of managers in startups when managing open
innovation. This study contributes to the link between startup’s managerial decisions and
open innovation, because we believe that the decision of signing up to Ignite is considered
as being an open innovation activity. The empirical findings highlighted that startups are
practicing both outside-in and inside-out open innovation activities when being active in
Ignite, thus the coupled process highlighted by Inauen & Schenker-Wicki (2011, p. 502)
was mentioned as being vital for the success of the innovation hub’s activities.
Most of the existing literature have had a corporate perspective on open innovation and
the reasons and challenges that may occur when collaborating with startups (Brunswicker
& Chesbrough, 2018, p. 35; Minshall et al., 2010, p. 54; Prashantham & Kumar, 2019;
Simon et al., 2019, p. 164; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). However, this study highlights
the challenges seen from a startup perspective instead of a corporate perspective. We have
also contributed with findings related to how an innovation hub can minimize the
challenges that may occur before and during the collaboration between a startup and a big
corporation. Further, our proposed framework mentioned in 7.4, adds clarity to the
process on how startups may see the journey of deciding whether or not to be involved in
Ignite, to the matchmaking process, and finally brings awareness on how a collaboration
through Ignite may look like and that there are more than one desired outcome from
having a collaboration with a bigger firm.
8.3 Managerial implications
The managerial implications refer to how the results of this thesis can be applied in
professional practice. These implications are divided into implications for startups
managers and implications for managers at Ignite. It will firstly increase the awareness of
the benefits associated with being part of an innovation hub like Ignite from a startup
perspective. Secondly, the implications for Ignite will allow them to understand what
could be improved, based on the discussions with the interviewed startups.
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8.3.1 Implications for startup managers
There are several benefits a startup can obtain by signing up to Ignite. The first being the
most visible throughout our thesis, in which a startup may get the chance of having a
meeting with a big corporation that would be very hard for them to find on their own.
These meetings may lead to a collaboration where the big corporation can complement
the startup’s capabilities in order for them to get a balance between exploration and
exploitation. The second is that the startups can receive customers from being active in
Ignite.
Also, startups may think that there are more challenges than benefits from collaborating
with a big corporation. However, this study shows that the challenges can be minimized
by being active in Ignite. It is also clear that Ignite is helping big corporations by matching
them with startups. The big corporations are, therefore, aware of the challenges that may
occur when collaborating with a startup. Thus, being flexible and open minded is seen as
a demand when a big corporation is joining Ignite.
The study’s findings are not only helpful for managers of startups because throughout the
interviews, the interviewees also addressed what they believed as being important for a
corporation to consider when collaborating with startups. It was highlighted that the big
corporations should have a defined problem before the initial meeting. As the corporation
has a needs analysis together with members of Ignite before the match-up event, the
problems that they want to get help with are already understood by the managers of the
corporation, which enable them to know which certain capabilities they are looking for
from the startups. These initial meetings may also enable startups to explore new market
segments, which sometimes may be hard to understand the relevance of, and therefore
may the startup first see the relevance of the meeting afterwards.
As this thesis addresses the benefits of being part of an innovation hub, the findings may
help startup managers to gain understanding on how an innovation hub acts as a
complementary to an incubator. The startups highlighted the importance of being part of
both an incubator and an innovation hub, as an incubator was said to help the startups
internally while an innovation hub rather focuses on the external part of the business. The
study also has implications for startups that are unfamiliar to the concept of Ignite because
the study explains the whole process from signing up to Ignite to a potential partnership
that may occur from a meeting with a big corporation.
8.3.2 Implications for Ignite
Even though some small improvements were suggested by the interviewed startups, most
of them said that Ignite as a concept had given them much more than they could ever
wished for. The most mentioned improvement was the depth of corporations included in
the match-up events, meaning that more corporations and industries should be involved
in Ignite. However, as the concept of Ignite is fairly new, the interviewees knew that
Ignite is working with this on a daily basis. Thus, understanding that as Ignite evolves,
more corporations will be joining Ignite. It was also explained that Ignite is partly
involved after the initial meeting between the startup and the corporation, which was
something that could be increased, as the interviewees believed that more follow ups
could lead to increased efficiency in the negotiation process as well as in the collaboration
between the two actors.
82
Another suggested improvement was found when looking at the local event taking place
in Umeå, in which clearer communication was deemed as important. This could be
improved in two different ways in order for all target groups to understand the relevance
of attending the events. At first, a distinct communication towards the students would
allow more presence of students willing to help startups grow. Secondly, by
communicating the relevance of the events to all entrepreneurs could increase the
attractiveness of the local events.
Further, the involvement with the public sector was said to be something that could be
improved by Ignite as most of the startups felt that this sector is in need of new
innovations. Ignite has started to collaborate with the public sector recently. Thus, this
initiative could be improved because several startups felt that they were missing the
opportunity to get in touch with the public sector. One startup explained that organizations
in the public sector are in need to use the startups different solutions, however, oftentimes
the startups do not have the right procurement criterias, which then leads to that the public
organization instead buys the same solution from a bigger company that is already using
the startups solution. Thus, the public organizations are paying much more for the
solution than they would do it if they would buy it directly from the startup. Here, Ignite
could be more involved to solve these kinds of problems. Thereby, Ignite would enable
more collaborations for startups that have signed up to Ignite if they involved the public
sector further.
Additionally, Lechner et al. (2006, p. 515) explained that it does not always have to be
big corporations that startups should collaborate with. The use of external relationships
with any firm can be considered as an important development factor for a startup.
Therefore, a new section Ignite could create could be to match startups with each other to
find successful collaborations.
8.4 Societal implications
The possible societal implications will not only influence how established companies and
startups collaborate, because it is not only the companies themselves who receives a
boost. These collaborations can also help to increase the pace of innovation and economic
growth in Sweden (Ignite 2019, October 23). The outcome from a collaboration between
a startup and a big corporation can have societal benefits as well as organizational benefits
(Hitt et al., 2011, p. 60). This is because the outcome from a collaboration between a
startup and a big corporation can lead to new innovations that, for example, the
environment, economy and social groups can benefit from. This in turn could be seen as
a means for big corporations to boost innovation, encourage successful individuals and
support startups to exhibit their innovations and successes, thus, contributing to the
society. The collaborations formed through Ignite also allows new innovations to reach
the market faster, contributing to a society in which new innovations are taking place to
solve grand challenges in today's fast-paced society.
Furthermore, concepts such as Ignite also inspire innovation and entrepreneurial mindset
to several groups. Firstly, by matching big corporations with innovative and
entrepreneurial startups inspires big corporations to solve societal challenges. Secondly,
the events held by Ignite and the local incubator inspires students and other individuals
to be more entrepreneurial and innovative as they get the opportunity to interact with
companies present at these match-up events.
83
8.5 Limitations and Future research
Due to the limited time frame of this study, the findings and results may not provide an
in-depth understanding of the issues at hand. Hence, this may affect the applicability of
the results but may still serve as a framework for future research within the topic. The
research findings can, however, be transferred to another innovation hub that is operating
in the same way as Ignite is doing. Also, as the majority of the interviewed startups were
said to be operating within the high-tech industry, the results may not be applicable for
startups operating in other industries not related to high-tech. Even though the majority
of the startups stated their relevance as being within the high-tech industry, they were still
said to be working within different sectors, such as clean technology, data science and
information technology. Thus, even though all were startups involved in the concept of
Ignite, the credibility of the study could be improved by only focusing on one of these
sectors. Further, the concept of Ignite is something that is relatively new and may have
affected why we struggled to find companies operating within the same sector.
This thesis has had its focus on the reasons for a collaboration and how Ignite can help
the startups to find a balance between exploration and exploitation activities. Future
research could focus on what happens post-match-up and how startups actively search to
find new capabilities.
8.6 Concluding remarks
As this thesis shed light upon the concept of taking a third party into consideration when
balancing organizational capabilities, we believe that the presence of Ignite clearly
enables startups to balance their exploration and exploitation capabilities. Even though
Ignite as a balancing act was visible, the innovation hub was said to operate indirectly
when helping startups to find a balance between their organizational capabilities. This is
due to their accurate matchmaking process and their knowledge about which capabilities
the corporations are looking for, which they gather from a needs analysis with the big
corporation. From this thesis, startups as well as corporations, will better understand the
importance of involving a third party for the purpose of creating and sustaining a
competitive advantage by balancing their exploration and exploitation capabilities.
84
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Appendix 1: Interview Guide in English – Startups
An introduction to our thesis topic
This thesis seeks to find the reason why startups engage in being part of an innovation
hub. Previous literature addresses the importance of having capabilities that support
existing processes (exploitation) as well as having capabilities that enables a company
to find new ways of operating (exploration). Also, it is mentioned in the literature that
startups are more likely to possess exploration capabilities which is in-line with a strive
for new innovation, whereas the lack of exploitation capabilities makes them inefficient
in producing products/services at a high pace. To stay competitive, a firm needs to
balance these capabilities, which startups may be able to do thanks to the support of
innovation hubs in which they receive capabilities not possessed by the firm. But which
are these capabilities? And how does Ignite help startups to balance these capabilities
when finding a suitable collaboration?
INTERVIEW #: Startup Name
Date:
Time of the interview:
Respondent:
Job Title:
Anonymity:
Record:
Theme 1 - Individual relationship to the research topic
Aim: Ability to recognize the interviewees knowledge in relation to the research topic
as well as to point out the person's personality.
1. Can you describe your role in the startup and the involved responsibilities that
come with it?
2. Why did you choose to become an entrepreneur?
3. What inspires you?
4. How do you define innovation and how does it affect the daily routines in your
work?
Theme 2 - Company
Aim: Proof of existing innovation activities and collection of additional insights
regarding the field of the organizational culture and the purpose of the startup. Also,
to see how the startup is active in Ignite and other organizational sponsors.
1. Can you briefly describe the startup’s purpose, main goals and objectives?
2. How is your team composed and has it changed since the start?
3. Can you describe the different competences your team possesses? And do they
complement each other or are you searching complementary competences from
other sources?
4. How would you describe the organization’s environment?
a. Entrepreneurial / Flexible / Innovative / Agile / Stable / Unstable?
5. How would you describe the innovation process within your organization?
a. Outside-in / Inside out / Coupled process
b. Product / Service / Organizational / Technological processes?
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6. Is your startup collaborating with any other firm at the moment and can you
describe the collaborations?
7. Can you describe your startup’s participation in Ignite?
a. How long have you been involved?
b. Any successful collaborations?
c. Why did you choose to be part of Ignite?
Theme 3 - Exploration & Exploitation
Aim: Startup’s innovative capabilities and what the startup is trying to get out of
partnering with external corporations.
1. What are the main objectives for your startup when collaborating with other
companies?
a. Capabilities / Resources / Reputation / Customers / Survival
2. How are your startup exploring new ideas?
a. Is it important for your startup that new ideas are in-line with the
capabilities you already possess, or do you find necessary knowledge
elsewhere if needed?
3. Can you describe how your startup is effectively pursuing your existing business
idea?
4. How do your startup work to be as effective as possible and at the same time be
innovative and find new ideas to work with?
5. Do you consider your startup's product/services to be an improvement of existing
products or do you feel like you are contributing to something that is missing in
the market?
6. What are your main objectives when it comes to making decisions? Is it focused
around less costs and higher profit or innovation and growth?
Theme 4 – Innovation hub
Aim: To further elaborate why the startup is active in Ignite and the expectations they
have on Ignite.
1. What were your expectations by joining Ignite?
a. Knowledge sharing / External help with resources / External capabilities
/ New partnerships / Customers?
2. How would you describe your startups relationship with Ignite?
3. Can you explain the top 3 gains your startup receives from being active in Ignite?
4. Could you explain the main advantages and disadvantages of your partnerships
with big corporations?
5. In general, how would you describe your startup’s relationships with your
partnering corporation(s) that you found through Ignite?
a. How integrated is the startup in the corporation(s)?
b. Would you define these partnerships as successful?
i. Define successful
6. How do you create & capture value from these collaborations?
7. Are there any risks and challenges involved in these collaborations and
partnerships with big corporations?
a. Failure / Exit / Competition / Stop of Collaboration / Knowledge leakages
or something else?
8. Do you have some suggested improvement that Ignite could make?
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Appendix 2: Interview guide in English - Ignite
An introduction to our thesis topic
This thesis seeks to find the reason why startups engage in being part of an innovation
hub. Previous literature addresses the importance of having capabilities that support
existing processes (exploitation) as well as having capabilities that enables a company
to find new ways of operating (exploration). Also, it is mentioned in the literature that
startups are more likely to possess exploration capabilities which is in-line with a strive
for new innovation, whereas the lack of exploitation capabilities makes them inefficient
in producing products/services at a high pace. To stay competitive, a firm needs to
balance these capabilities, which startups may be able to do thanks to the support of
innovation hubs in which they receive capabilities not possessed by the firm. But which
are these capabilities? And how does Ignite help startups to balance these capabilities
when finding a suitable collaboration?
INTERVIEW #: Ignite
Date:
Time of the interview:
Respondent:
Job Title:
Anonymity:
Record:
Theme 1 - Individual relationship to the research topic
Aim: Ability to recognize the interviewees knowledge in relation to the research topic
as well as to point out the person's personality.
1. Can you briefly describe your role in Ignite and the involved responsibilities that
come with it?
2. Why did you choose to be part of Ignite’s team?
3. What inspires you?
4. How do you define innovation and how does it affect the daily routines in Ignite?
Theme 2 - Ignite as an organization
Aim: Further elaborate the essence of Ignite. Why should a startup be involved in
Ignite?
1. Can you briefly describe Ignite’s purpose, main goals and objectives?
2. Can you describe Ignite as an organization and its organizational structure?
3. How would you describe Ignite’s relationship to the startups?
4. Can you explain the top 3 gains Ignite provides to startups that are active in Ignite?
5. How do you contribute with services and an infrastructure that can help the
facilitation of innovations?
a. Venture capitalists, stock exchange, and advanced legal, management,
accounting services?
6. How do Ignite operate to strengthen its status as an innovation hub?
a. Policies such as loans, subsidies, and grants might strengthen the status
of an innovation hub
7. How do you promote university-industry relationships to foster
commercialization of new technologies?
95
Theme 3 – Match-ups & Events
Aim: The aim here is to understand how the matching happens between startups and
corporations, the basis of the match-ups, and how it works in detail.
1. What type of information do you get provided from the companies involved in
Ignite before the match-ups?
2. Can you describe how Ignite evaluates which startups that should be matched with
a big corporation?
3. During the meetings, do the companies speak freely or do you have an agenda?
4. Do Ignite follow up a meeting or is it up to each firm to follow up the meeting?
5. How do you consider historical collaborations that a startup has been in?
a. Positive/negative?
b. Biases, if the last collaboration was not that successful?
Theme 4 – Exploration & Exploitation
Aim: How necessary information is gathered before the match-up events. About
capability trends seen from the perspective of Ignite and the most common things a
startup wants to get help with from being part of Ignite.
1. What is the most common thing a startup wants to get help with?
2. How do you gather the information needed to understand which capabilities the
startups are possessing before a match up event?
3. Is there a trend towards certain capabilities when looking from a startup
perspective to which capabilities they possess?
4. Do you take into account which strategic intention the company has for choosing
to be part of Ignite and your match-ups?
a. Greater profit intention or more innovative
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Appendix 3: Intervjuguide på svenska – Startups
En introduktion till ämnet
Denna uppsats har som mål att förstå varför startups engagerar sig i att vara en del av
en innovationshub. Tidigare litteratur har belyst vikten av att ha kompetenser som stödjer
etablerade processer som redan finns hos företaget, samt vikten av att ha kompetenser
som hjälper företaget att hitta nya vägar att arbeta. Utöver det nämner även litteraturen
att startups ofta besitter kompetenser relaterat till utforskande vilket i sin tur hör ihop
med en strävan mot nya innovationer, medan deras brist på utnyttjande av etablerade
resurser gör att de är ineffektiva i att utnyttja deras resurser för att skapa produkter
snabbt och effektivt. För att anses konkurrenskraftiga behöver ett företag balansera dessa
kompetenser, vilket startups kan lyckas med genom att vara medlem i en innovationshub
som hjälper till att hitta de resurser som företaget inte själva besitter. Men vilka är dessa
resurser? Och hur hjälper Ignite startups med att balansera dessa resurser när företagen
har hittat ett lämpligt samarbete?
INTERVJU #: Startup Namn
Datum:
Intervjutid:
Respondent:
Position:
Anonymitet:
Inspelning:
Tema 1 – Individens relation till ämnet
Mål: Få kunskap om hur den som intervjuas är insatt i ämnet samt att förstå
personens personlighetsdrag.
1. Kan du beskriva din roll i ert startup och vilka ansvarsområden din roll innebär?
2. Varför valde du att bli en entreprenör?
3. Vad inspirerar dig?
4. Hur skulle du definiera innovation och hur tycker du att innovation påverkar era
vardagliga rutiner på er arbetsplats?
Tema 2 – Företaget
Mål: Försöka förstå vilka aktiviteter inom innovation som existerar hos företaget
samt få insikt om företagets kultur och deras syfte. Utöver detta vill vi även förstå hur
insatt företaget är i Ignite, men även ifall de är medlemmar i andra, liknande
organisationer.
1. Kan du kortfattad förklara företagets syfte och ert huvudmål?
2. Hur är ert företag sammansatt? Har det förändrats sen ni startade?
a. Hur stort är ert team?
b. Hur gammalt är StartupX?
c. Industri?
3. Kan du förklara de olika kompetenser som finns inom ert företag? Tycker du att
ni kompletterar varandra bra eller söker ni ibland kompetenser utanför företaget?
4. Hur skulle du beskriva kulturen hos er?
a. Entreprenörskap/Flexibelt/ innovativt / Stabil omgivning / ostabil
omgivning
97
5. Hur skulle du definiera innovation och hur tycker du att innovation påverkar era
vardagliga rutiner på er arbetsplats?
6. Hur skulle du beskriva de processer som har med innovation att göra hos ert
företag?
a. Utifrån och in / inifrån och ut / Både och
b. Produkt / Service / Organisatorisk / Teknologiska processer
7. Samarbetar ni med något annat företag just nu? Kan du förklara samarbetet? Vem
gör vad?
8. Kan du beskriva ert startups medverkande i Ignite?
a. Hur länge har ni medverkat?
b. Har det lett till några framgångsrika samarbeten?
c. Varför valde ni att gå till Ignite?
Tema 3– Innovationshub
Mål: Ytterligare förstå varför startups är aktiva i Ignite och de förväntningar de har
på Ignite som medlare i denna process.
1. Vad var era förväntningar på Ignite?
a. Kunskapsdelning / Extern hjälp med resurser / Externa kompetenser / Nya
partnerskap / Kunder? → vad leder denna kunden till?
i. Bredare målgrupp av slutkunder?
ii. Nya produkter/innovation tillsammans med “kunden”?
iii. Vad är viktigast från ett samarbete med större bolag, är det
innovation i sig eller är det effektiva processer?
2. Hur skulle du förklara ert startups relation med Ignite?
3. Kan du förklara de 3 bästa fördelarna ert startup erhåller genom att vara aktiv i
Ignite?
4. Kan du förklara de viktigaste fördelar och nackdelar med ett partnerskap med
stora företag?
5. Generellt sett, hur skulle du beskriva ert startups relation med företagen ni har
partnerskap/samarbeten med som ni har hittat från att ha varit aktiva i Ignite?
a. Hur integrerat är ert startup i det externa företaget?
b. Skulle du definiera dessa partnerskap framgångsrika?
i. Hur definierar du framgångsrik?
6. Hur skapar och fångar du värde från dessa samarbeten?
7. Finns det några risker och utmaningar med partnerskap med stora företag?
a. Misslyckande / Exit / Konkurrens / Stopp på samarbetet / Kunskaps
läckage eller något annat?
8. Har du några föreslagna förbättringar som Ignite kan göra?
Tema 4– Utforskande & Exploatering
Mål: Förstå vilka kompetenser som möjliggör innovation inom företaget och vad
företaget försöker få ut av olika samarbeten med externa samarbeten.
1. Vad är viktigaste för er när ni engagerar er i ett samarbete med ett annat företag?
a. Kompetenser / resurser / rykte / skapa kunder / överlevnad
b. Hur tycker du att er startupmiljö skiljer sig mot större företags sätt att
jobba?
2. Hur utforskar ni som startup nya idéer?
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a. Är det viktigt för er att nya idéer matchar de kompetenser som redan finns
inom företaget eller söker ni kompetenser utifrån om det skulle behövas?
b. Mässor?
c. Network? Kunder etc..
3. Kan du förklara hur ni som startup ser till att effektivt fullfölja er nuvarande
strategi?
4. Hur jobbar ni för att arbeta så effektivt som möjligt samtidigt som ni strävar efter
att vara innovativa och komma på nya idéer att arbeta med?
5. Anser du att era produkter/tjänster är en förbättring av tillgängliga
produkter/tjänster på marknaden eller känner ni att er produkt/tjänst är något som
saknats innan ny fyllde igen det gapet?
6. När det kommer till själva beslutfattandet inom ert företag, vart är ert huvudmål?
Är det fokuserat på att minska kostnader, större vinst, eller är ert huvudmål
innovation och tillväxt?
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Appendix 4: Intervjuguide på svenska - Ignite
En introduktion till ämnet
Denna uppsats har som mål att förstå varför startups engagerar sig i att vara en del av
en innovationshub. Tidigare litteratur har belyst vikten av att ha kompetenser som stödjer
etablerade processer som redan finns hos företaget, samt vikten av att ha kompetenser
som hjälper företaget att hitta nya väg att arbeta. Utöver det nämner även litteraturen att
startups ofta besitter kompetenser relaterat till utforskande vilket i sin tur hör ihop med
en strävan mot nya innovationer, medan deras brist på utnyttjande av etablerade resurser
gör att de är ineffektiva i att utnyttja deras resurser för att skapa produkter snabbt och
effektivt. För att anses konkurrenskraftiga behöver ett företag balansera dessa
kompetenser, vilket startups kan lyckas med genom att vara medlem i en innovationshub
som hjälper till att hitta de resurser som företaget inte själva besitter. Men vilka är dessa
resurser? Och hur hjälper Ignite startups med att balansera dessa resurser när företagen
har hittat ett lämpligt samarbete?
INTERVJU #: Ignite
Datum:
Intervjutid:
Respondent:
Position:
Anonymitet:
Inspelning:
Tema 1 – Individens relation till ämnet
Mål: Få kunskap i hur den som intervjuas kunskap är om ämnet samt att förstå
personens personlighetsdrag.
1. Kan du beskriva din roll i Ignite och vilka ansvarsområden din roll innebär?
2. Varför valde du att vara med i Ignites team?
3. Vad inspirerar dig?
4. Hur skulle du definiera innovation och hur tycker du att innovation påverkar era
vardagliga rutiner på er arbetsplats?
Tema 2 – Ignite som organisation
Mål: Förstå Ignite på ett djupare plan. Varför ska ett startup välja att vara en del av
Ignite?
1. Vad är syftet med ignite? Vad försöker ni åstadkomma?
2. Hur ser organisationsstrukturen ut på Ignite?
3. Hur skulle du beskriva Ignites relation med de startups ni arbetar med?
4. Hur skulle du beskriva Ignites relation till Uminovas startups? Eller andra vägen?
5. Vad skulle du som arbetar på Ignite säga är topp 3 saker startups får ut av att vara
medlemmar i Ignite?
6. Varför ska startups vara med i både en inkubator och Ignite?
7. Hur ser Ignite till att hjälpa till med diverse servicear såsom infrastruktur för att
hjälpa till att främja innovation?
a. Riskkapitalist / börsen / olika servicar såsom rättsliga, bokföring, och
management.
8. Hur jobbar ni på Ignite för att stärka er status som en Innovationshub?
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a. Lån, subventioner, och bidrag kan hjälpa att stärka en innovations Hub’s
status
9. Jobbar ni på Ignite något med universitet för att bidra till kommersialisering av
nya innovationer?
a. Hur mycket jobbar ni med universitetet för att främja innovation hos
startups?
Tema 3 – Match-up & Evenemeangen
Mål: Att förstå hur matchningen fungerar mellan startups och större företag, från
grundnivå till hur det fungerar mer detaljerat.
1. Vilken typ av information får ni från företagen som väljer att involvera sig i Ignite
innan ett match-up sker?
2. Hur utvärderar ni vilka startups som ska bli sammansatta med större företag?
a. Hur gör ni? Vad går ni på?
b. Vilka är involverade?
3. Under mötena, får företagen prata fritt eller följer ni en agenda?
4. Följer ni på Ignite upp mötena eller är det upp till företagen att följa upp med
varandra?
5. Hur ser ni på tidigare samarbeten som startups varit med tidigare?
a. Är det positivt eller negativt om de haft samarbeten med andra företag
innan de kommit till Ignite?
Tema 4 – Utforskning & Exploatering
Mål: Hur nödvändig information samlas in innan match-up evenemangen. Om
kompetens trender från ett startupperspektiv och de vanligaste orsakerna ett startup
vill få hjälp med från att vara aktiva i Ignite.
1. Vad är det vanligaste som ett startup vill få hjälp med från stora bolag?
a. Finns det några risker med att få till ett samarbete med ett större företag?
2. Hur tycker du Ignite främjar innovation?
3. Hur tycker du att Ignite hjälper till att effektivisera ett startup?
4. Hur samlar ni informationen ni behöver för att förstå vilka kompetenser ett startup
behöver före ett match-up?
5. Finns det en trend från ett startupperspektiv till vilka kompetenser de besitter?
6. Tar ni hänsyn till vilken strategisk avsikt ett startup har när de väljer att vara aktiv
i Ignite och era match-up?
a. Större vinst och mindre kostnader eller mer innovation och tillväxt
Business Administration SE-901 87 Umeå www.usbe.umu.se
