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While the open innovation concept proposed by Henry Chesbrough a decade ago has had some striking successes, the myriad options for engaging external partners can be daunting, so leaders need a guide for getting started that matches the needs of their firm. This paper aims to address this issue.

The paper identifies that innovation processes involve three stages during which the business model elements are conceived and elaborated: idea‐generation, idea‐development, and commercialization. The question for leaders is: “In which of the three stages could your growth efforts benefit from an infusion of external ideas and expertise?”

The open‐innovation approach does not require a company to replace all its current research and development (R&D) efforts. But it does change the primary question leaders should be asking to “How can my company create significantly more value by leveraging external partners to bring many more innovations to market?”

The article shows executives how they can systematically assess an innovation process, understand where new venture business models are weakest, and select the points at which open innovation could add some needed spark.

The article leads executives through two‐step process for introducing a customized open innovation program: step one, assess where your company's innovation process would benefit from external input by using five key questions; and step two, learn how to manage external relationships.

Many companies, especially high‐tech firms, can benefit by setting up their own internal venture capital fund, according to Michael Grossi, a senior consultant with Boston‐based Renaissance Worldwide.

Presents a detailed overview of the challenges of creating new ventures within established corporations, and offers success strategies for overcoming these challenges. The author outlines her experience from more than 25 years of consulting to new ventures, independent of and within corporate structures, including many within Fortune 500 companies. Several case studies of successful and unsuccessful ventures are described, including successful ventures that were later closed down by the corporation. Tamer offers explanations for the outcome of each venture. Findings include strategies to ensure the success of a new venture within a corporation: defining capital strategies (including start‐up and exit strategies that create profitable new divisions, and/or create spin‐off companies that bring a return on investment to the corporation); aligning the new venture with corporate goals; maintaining corporate commitment to the new venture; engaging outside experts; and creating strategic alliances inside and outside of the corporation. The strategies presented will help corporations build successful in‐house ventures which can extend the corporation’s market reach, leverage existing assets for increased profitability, or create new companies with a high return on investment. Top management, corporate strategic planners, and heads of newly‐formed divisions will find a blueprint for avoiding classic errors, anticipating obstacles to success, and applying strategies that create profitable new corporate ventures.

There is arguably a balance between exploration and exploitation within a commercial organization which leads to sustainable growth and value creation. Exploratory activities are associated with search, innovation, risk-taking and experimentation. Activities, such as selection, implementation and execution are considered exploitative in nature. We show that the governance structures and mechanisms that are typically employed in venture capital-backed companies ensure an optimum balance between the exploratory behavior of entrepreneurs and the exploratory focus of venture capitalists. New players in the venture capital cycle, such as crowdfunding platforms and corporate venture capital units, often fail to understand the importance of the interaction and interrelation between the apparently opposing exploratory and exploitative activities. However, collaborative venture capital models that are currently emerging appear to restore the necessary equilibrium in the “new” venture capital cycle.

The early-stage venture capital (VC) industry has long been dominated by small firms comprising senior venture capitalists and few junior staff. However, during the late 1990s, a group of firms changed their internal structures, adopting pyramidal structures and redesigning internal processes to leverage the efforts of junior staff. In doing so, they followed first-movers in other professional services industries that transitioned to pyramidal models in the 20th century. Has the recent industry downturn terminated the transition, or simply delayed it? This chapter analyzes the events that led the VC firms to transition, the barriers to doing so, and related issues affecting the industry's future.

An important but neglected area of investigation in digital entrepreneurship is the combined role of both core and peripheral members of an emerging technological field in shaping the symbolic and social boundaries of the field. This is a serious gap as both categories of members play a distinct role in expanding the pool of resources of the field. I address this gap by exploring how membership category is related to funding decisions in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI).

The first quantitative study involved a sample of 1,315 AI-based startups which were founded in the period of 2011–2018 in the United States. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 32 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define the boundaries of their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

The author finds that core members in the newly founded field of AI were more successful at attracting funding from investors than peripheral members and that size of the founding team, number of lead investors, number of patents and CEO approval were positively related to funding. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 30 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

This study is one of the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to bring empirical evidence that investors adapt their funding strategy to membership categories (core and peripheral members) of a new technological field in their resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, I find that core and peripheral members claim distinct roles in their participation and contribution to the field in terms of technological developments, and that although core members attract more resources than peripheral members, both actors play a significant role in expanding the field’s social boundaries.

Core AI entrepreneurs who wish to attract funding may consider operating in fewer categories in order to be perceived as core members of the field, and thus focus their activities and limited resources to build internal AI capabilities. Entrepreneurs may invest early in filing a patent to signal their in-house AI capabilities to investors.

The social boundaries of an emerging technological field are shaped by a multitude of actors and not only the core members of the field. The author should pay attention to the role of each category of actors and build on their contributions to expand a promising field.

This paper is among the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to study the resource acquisition strategies of entrepreneurs in a newly establishing technological field.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.