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Startup-corporate partnerships provide mutual benefits by combining startups’ innovation with established firms’ resources and processes. However, despite these clear advantages, initiating and nurturing such partnerships is often fraught with obstacles. Our research provides evidence-based insights for startup founders and corporate managers on how these partnerships unfold. Specifically, we identify two distinct pathways that can serve as a practical starting point for corporate managers. Also, we pinpoint three key “pathbreakers” in the formation process and offer strategies to effectively manage them. In addition, the article highlights the cumulative signals that both parties can use not only to create the potential for partnership but to bring the collaboration to fruition. This guidance to managers seeking to establish or engage in such partnerships includes outlining key factors to consider, potential challenges that may arise, and actionable strategies to address them.

Innovation intermediaries have emerged as prominent forms of intervention for supporting technological changes and driving sociotechnical transitions. In this paper, we draw on an in-depth case study tracing the emergence and evolution of an intermediary organization created specifically to address innovation-related challenges and spur digital transformation in the healthcare sector in Montreal, Canada. We analyze data from 85 interviews with leading actors in the healthcare ecosystem, coupled with supplementary material, meetings, and follow-ups to theorize how intermediaries help facilitate the diffusion of emerging digital technologies in this sector. Our analysis reveals two interrelated processes: (1) "technology-focused intermediation" to help co-create the technology in accordance with existing demands; and (2) "ecosystem-focused intermediation" to help reinforce ecosystem components for enabling effective deployment. Each of these processes is driven by sourcing, mobilizing, and scaling activities intended to align the technology development trajectory with envisioned sociotechnical requirements.

In this paper, we examine how startup support interventions are orchestrated and scaled over time by zooming in on the micro-foundations that underpin their functioning. Specifically, we show how interventions that change existing venturing behaviors emerge from the interplay between macro-level ecosystem characteristics (e.g., structure, governance, and institutions) and micro-level communal initiatives, which themselves are facilitated (or impeded) by strategies to help maximize their reach and propagate their impact. We illustrate this process through an in-depth case study tracing the evolution of a startup-incumbent matchmaking program from a small pilot project to a national flagship initiative in Sweden. We introduce the concept of "ecosystem work” to capture the coordinated efforts to foster a diverse and co-evolving network around the intervention with the ultimately goal of fostering venturing activities. Our micro-foundational model of entrepreneurial support contributes to research by theorizing how localized changes to individual-level (inter)actions can transform venturing behaviors in the ecosystem, thereby illuminating new strategies for intermediaries seeking to foster entrepreneurial activity in more relevant, efficient, and scalable ways.

This study explores partnership formation dynamics between startups and corporations. The literature on strategic alliances has placed significant emphasis on establishing a "fit" between internal organizational strategy and external resource needs. However, our research indicates that in the context of corporate-startup corporations (CSCs), this “fit” is rather co-constructed than evaluated in advance. Drawing from extensive fieldwork observations of 150 “first meetings” between corporates and entrepreneurs, we find that interest in collaboration is driven by the interplay between technology, adaptability, and alignment. Adopting a configuration approach and employing a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we uncover three unique patterns through which startups can secure interest from a corporation to collaborate. Contrary to the conventional strategy of matching startups based on how well their solution align with corporate needs, we advocate for establishing the right meeting conditions so that both parties can co-create mutually-beneficial collaboration opportunities. Taken together, our study underscores the fluid nature of corporate-startup relations, with interest in collaboration being (re)defined as the partnership formation process unfolds.

Living Labs (LLs) are now well-recognized in the development and commercialization of science—that is taking emerging discoveries from research labs to the industry. Whereas their widespread interest seems encouraging, it has been complicated by some inconsistencies regarding what LLs actually are, what types of activities they (should) support, and under what conditions. We conduct a meta-synthesis of 41 LL application patterns, supplemented by an in-depth empirical case study—the application of a MedTech LL in healthcare—to examine effective practices for organizing collaborative innovation within the science-industry nexus. By studying what worked best and under what conditions, we present a typology of eight design elements that underlie four unique LL models. Our analysis reveals that although these different models do fit under the same umbrella concept, they vary in the roles they serve in the collaborative innovation process. Most notably, we find that organizations need to navigate between these models as the collaboration moves from idea inception into impact. Our results offer relevant insights for understanding new forms of organizations for science-industry relations. We discuss practical implications for LL managers, researchers, and sponsoring institutions and conclude by outlining promising areas for future research.

Virtual teams are gaining increasing momentum in contemporary organizations. Although it is becoming clear that virtual teams will play a major role in shaping the future of work, we still know relatively little about their creative performance. Because of the disproportionate focus on conventional, face-to-face working practices, much of the literature remains centred around co-located teams. In this review, we integrate existing research on team creativity and virtual work to identify the relevant factors, processes and contextual conditions that have been shown to influence creativity in virtual teams. We highlight the major challenges that are likely to impede team creativity and assess their relevance to contemporary virtual work practices. We conclude by presenting promising avenues for future research in this area.

Supporting entrepreneurship has become an explicit priority during a crisis. The challenge, however, is to understand why and how some entrepreneurial support initiatives can be more successful than others at responding to emerging business development challenges in such context. In this paper, we blend organizational sponsorship and resilience theories to explore the adaptive behaviors of entrepreneurial support organizations—intermediaries that manage and monitor the development of new ventures—during a crisis. We show that the resilience of both local businesses and that of the broader ecosystem can be reinforced through ensuring a dynamic “fit” between entrepreneurial support activities and evolving needs and priorities. Our analysis is grounded in observations, interviews, discussions, and archived data gathered during an in-depth case study investigating the impact of the Lebanese crisis on the state of the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We discuss the implications of this research on theories and practice of resilience and entrepreneurship in times of crisis.

Innovation intermediaries are increasingly becoming an essential component of regional innovation ecosystems. Despite their rapid proliferation, they are often treated as peripheral actors in the literature with little regards to the way they emerge, change, improve and/or evolve overtime. In this paper, I systematically review the literature on innovation intermediaries with a particular emphasis on (1) the roles they assume, (2) the challenges they face, (3) and the value they provide. The results of this review reveal that, at the moment, we still lack a comprehensive account that allows for benchmarking the performance of innovation intermediaries in general, and their operating dynamics in particular. Building on the theory of social capital and adopting an intermediation-as-process approach, I identify three key innovation intermediation processes—legitimation, coordination, and generative appropriation—that explain the way these organizations create and capture value from their active involvement in the innovation process. I argue that reinforcing these three interrelated processes help drive the evolution and survival of innovation intermediaries as separate autonomous entities.

Research Question/Issue: We systematically review the corporate governance (CG) literature on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), organize it into six main themes and their subthemes, and propose several opportunities for future research.

Research Findings/Insights: We highlight CG's unique characteristics in the MENA region as well as differences and similarities across MENA countries. We shed light on how organizations are governed in this region especially that their ownership structures are centered on families and the state, and that Islam plays a major role in their governance. Our review establishes a solid foundation for future research directed at CG practices in the MENA region and encourages policymakers and practitioners to improve CG in the region.

Theoretical/Academic Implications: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review covering CG in the MENA region. In an effort to encourage the continuing evolution of this research stream and augment its contributions to the broader CG literature, we develop an extensive research agenda focusing on several key topics that deserve further attention such as ownership and countries' political regimes, family business and royal families, Sharia law, and executive compensation, among others.

Practitioner/Policy Implications: This review invites policymakers and investors to consider implementing better policies aimed at improving CG practices, specifically by fomenting transparency, developing financial markets, providing stronger protections for minority shareholders, and enhancing compliance with existing and new regulations.

In this review of the literature, I develop an overarching framework through an integration of the previous body work on entrepreneurship ecosystem. This stream of research is growing rapidly, and while promising efforts are being directed towards improved theoretical and methodological contributions, the field can presently be described as undertheorized, fragmented and difficult to quantify. Through mapping the main determinants and outcomes contained in this wide literature, I provide a comprehensive organization of this domain and synthesize its respective findings. In doing so, I offer a practical and integrative framework with the goal of developing a more nuanced understanding of this stream of research. I hope the resulting integration will inspire scholars to continue examining how the entrepreneurship ecosystem can be an effective tool for entrepreneurship activity to emerge."