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Collaborations between startups and established firms are changing how organizations innovate and bring new technologies to market, yet they remain difficult to initiate and sustain without the involvement of intermediaries. Drawing on an in-depth study of a national matchmaking program in Sweden, we show how intermediaries orchestrate these collaborations from first contact to scalable partnership. We offer a framework that spells out the actions intermediary managers should take throughout the collaboration process. We conclude by presenting three strategic questions and evidence-based practices to guide intermediaries in navigating corporate–startup relations, along with policy recommendations for creating the enabling conditions necessary to make these collaborations work at scale.

Skilled migrant workers often experience downward career mobility post-migration. We investigate how diversity climate as an organizational response to support migrants affects the career satisfaction of migrant employees. Survey data from 179 skilled migrants working in Sweden reveal that perceived diversity climate impacts career satisfaction through a dual-path model. It negatively affects perceived overqualification, which correlates with lower career satisfaction, while positively relating to perceived organizational justice, which correlates with higher career satisfaction. These effects are contingent on individual factors. Lower career adaptability amplifies the negative impact of perceived overqualification, and higher career adaptability strengthens the positive influence of perceived organizational justice. The findings highlight the boundary conditions of workplace diversity climate–career outcome relationships and underscore the interaction of organizational and individual factors and, in particular, the agency and proactivity of skilled migrants through career adaptability.

This review examines the perceived employability of skilled migrants (SMs) through an analysis of 88 management and organisational research articles published over 2009-2019 period. We find the extant literature characterised by context-specific studies featuring considerable variety in terms of levels of analysis, theory, and content. Using the notion of perceived employability, key themes in the literature are identified and presented in an integrative framework. The framework encompasses individual, organisational, occupational, and institutional components of the perceived employability of SMs, different forms of work transition and associated mediators (broadening strategies) and moderators (transition conditions). Proposing adoption of process thinking for future research, suggestions regarding the interaction of individual and contextual components of perceived employability and the mediation and moderation mechanisms in the process of work transition are outlined.

To understand how corporations and startups can better collaborate, researchers studied 150 meetings between 108 deep tech startups and 34 corporations. They found that collaborations that moved past the first meeting shared three characteristics: They had clarity about their current and future needs; they were open-minded to the novel ideas of startups; and they assembled a team of technologists, business developers, and decision-makers who could engage with the current and future opportunities that the startups presented.

Purpose: Qualified immigrants (QIs) and their work experiences have been studied using a wide variety of theoretical approaches with divergent characteristics. This paper reviews theoretical progress and proposes directions for future research and practice.

Design/methodology/approach: Using relevant keywords, articles indexed by Web of Science in management, business, industrial relations and applied psychology were systematically searched for and analysed. In total, 60 theoretical articles published during 2008–2018 were included. The theoretical progress and future theoretical and practical challenges were organised based on the notions of equality, diversity and inclusion.

Findings: Eight theoretical approaches utilised to study QIs' work experiences were recognised: (1) human capital theory, (2) career capital theory, (3) theory of practice, (4) intersectionality, (5) social identity theory, (6) sensemaking, (7) cultural identity transition and (8) the career-centred approach. The contributions and limitations of each theoretical lens were then scrutinised. Overall, research on QIs still lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework. As a step towards that, the paper proposes considering the role of organisations and labour market intermediaries, strategic view over the immigrant workforce, agency–institution play, identity–capital play and host–immigrant play.

Research limitations/implications: The focus is on theory development and empirical papers with no clear theoretical foundation are excluded.

Originality/value: This review is the first attempt to summarise and direct the divergent research on the topic. The main contribution is setting an agenda for future research, particularly by proposing the elements of a comprehensive theoretical framework for studying QIs in the workplace.

Current literature presents the antecedents of business model design as a given managerial choice. In complex and uncertain environments, there might not be enough information for the managers to make choices as the options for creating and capturing value have to coevolve with emerging innovations. We argue for how business model design and its antecedents differ and develop a process model that shows how and when a firm can generate business model designs in complex innovation. Through the principles of design under complexity, our model develops a non-predictive approach that connects emerging complex-innovations to the antecedents of their business models, whereby a focal firm engages in the collaborative generation of business model design alternatives. Thereby we extend the understanding of the business model design and its antecedents under complex and uncertain environments.

The business incubation process evolves through coach-incubatee interactions rather than merely institutional intervention. We contribute to a behavioral understanding of this process by exploring the determinants and expression of docility, a fundamental human behavior. Our findings suggest that business coaches’ perceptions of stakeholder value creation needs and their experience of incubatees’ proactive behavior are essential determinants of coaching behavior. These behavioral determinants lead coaches to place idiosyncratic expectations on and become responsive to incubatees, and this is reflected in the range of their interventions in new venture creation. From a behavioral perspective, the outcome of coaches’ interventions is a shared understanding of how to navigate the ambiguous and uncertain aspects of new venturing. Adopting a behavioral approach thus helps us to reframe business incubation—previously regarded to be a structured process—as a flexible process, more accurately capturing its role in facilitating the highly uncertain process of new venture creation.

Purpose: This paper empirically explores the types and extent of cultural diversity strategies in Sweden, a developed economy with many migrant workers. The role of organizational culture as the context and the association with diversity strategy and the selection of international skilled migrant workers is examined.

Design: Empirical data are collected n by surveying 249 Swedish large or medium-sized firms. Cluster analysis is used to explore the configuration of organizational culture, cultural diversity strategy, and selection and development criteria.

Findings: We identify five clusters of organizations. Organizational culture is the main contextual factor that influence the cultural diversity strategy and HR approaches for selecting skilled migrant workers. The profile of the clusters including o organizational culture diversity strategies, the selection criteria, and firm demographics is presented. The empirical results indicate that organizational culture and demographics are associated a with the choice of diversity strategy and, consequently, HR processes.

Originality/value: This study’s main focus is on international skilled migrants, which are among empirically less-studied areas in global mobility literature. Furthermore, b until now more attention has been directed toward studying the consequences of diversity than to understanding the factors that influence choice of diversity strategies and practices. This study focuses on antecedents of diversity and attempts to understand the factors that influence adoption and implementation of different cultural diversity strategies.