Interorganizational Collaboration and Start-Up Innovation

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of the literature on collaborative relationships between start-ups and incumbent firms, focusing on the implications of these relationships for start-up innovation and performance. Value creation in such relationships occurs when assets are exchanged by the parties involved. Collaboration allows for passive knowledge flows and active knowledge creation. In addition, collaboration provides start-ups with access to the complementary assets of the incumbent. At the same time, value creation presents opportunities for value capture by either party, where value capture by the start-up is a consequence of the broader knowledge appropriation regime and the start-up’s own social capital. The form in which the start-up appropriates value has implications for the assets that enable value creation. The framework for value creation and capture in bilateral start-up–incumbent collaborations extends to start-up–incumbent collaborations in a platform and ecosystem context, where there are fruitful future research opportunities.