Optimizing Established Company - Startup Cooperation Taking a Startup Perspective: An Abstract

Inter-organizational cooperation is considered highly important for company success (e.g., Borys and Jemison 1989; Rindfleisch and Moorman 2001), which is why it has been a ubiquitous phenomenon for decades (e.g., Hagedoorn 2002; Kale and Singh 2009). While the concept of inter-organizational cooperation itself is well-established, the great potential of cooperation specifically with startups emerged within the last few years (Homfeldt, Rese, and Simon 2019; Weiblen and Chesbrough 2015). Interestingly, the overall results emerging from this kind of cooperation between established companies and startups often do not live up to the expectations of their initiators. Researchers state that many of today’s startup cooperation activities seem to be “new and shiny innovation initiative[s]” (Kohler 2016, p. 348) without a clear definition of objectives (Kruft, Gamber, and Kock 2018). Considering the lack of profound understanding of established company – startup cooperation, we strive to answer the question: How can established companies develop a generic approach to manage startup cooperation effectively and efficiently? In a first step as part of a broader research endeavor, this study examines the difficulties lying in this kind of cooperation from the startup perspective. The insights from this perspective help to identify the issues established companies need to solve in order to interact with startups in a productive way. Within this empirical study, the examination of first contact initiatives shows, that only a minority of cooperation ties forms after established companies reach out to startups. For established companies, this implies plenty of unused potential, which could be used by strengthening outreaching activities. Another distinct result of the study is the lack of goal alignment within the cooperation in many cases. Practitioners within established companies should therefore ensure a clear definition of goals within the cooperation with their startup partners. Also, the results of the study show that even though a broad variety of different cooperation forms is used, the satisfaction with those cooperation forms seems to be rather low. We therefore suggest practicioners to carefully consider, which cooperation form is fitting in respect to the cooperation goals. In order to shed some more light on the topic of efficient and effective cooperation between established companies and startups, we used this initial study as a profound base for an extensive follow-up study and gathered a large quantitative data set investigating the established company perspective, i.e., the “other side” of the cooperation. Based on the analysis of this large-scale data in a next step, the results will offer guidance for strategic decisions on startup cooperation initiatives and consequently enhance the chances of realizing the high expectations associated with startup cooperation.