Corporate venture management in small-medium sized enterprise The roles and effects of autonomy and corporate policy

Corporate venturing is one way for corporations to introduce strategic renewal into their business portfolios, which is imperative for ongoing success in innovation-driven industries. Prior research finds that corporate ventures should be separated from the mainstream business in loosely coupled sub-units, but scholars continue to discuss how loose or tight the ventures should be to balance exploration and exploitation. Hence, the antecedents for successful venture management are yet to be fully explored and our study contributes to this effort. The study shows that corporate venture success is enhanced when corporate management grants job and strategic autonomy to the venture managers. This is further amplified when corporate management simultaneously imposes an exploitative policy that forces venture managers to prioritize extensions to and improvements of existing competences and product-market offerings.