The dilemma of organizational autonomy in internal corporate venturing: A qualitative inquiry

The dilemma of organizational autonomy has been highlighted as a distinguishing characteristic of, and a critical success factor for, internal corporate ventures (ICVs), namely ventures created within an existing firm. The decision about the venture autonomy has been mainly associated with structural characteristics of the dyad, such as the degree of parent-venture relatedness or structural separation. Yet, the complexity of parent-venture relationship has been left aside in this debate so far, obstructing the underlying mechanisms of balancing autonomy in ICV. By taking advantage of rich empirical evidence from four parent-venture dyads, we track parent-venture interactions in the first stages of ICV creation. We suggest the decision about venture autonomy as the result of a social exchange within the dominant coalition in which resources and trust play a key role. In particular, we identify three mechanisms informing the social exchange: accessing the resource reservoir, establishing accountability and setting roles and responsibilities. Moreover, our results also highlight that the type of interaction (trust-based versus negotiated) shapes the way in which the three mechanisms unfold and ultimately affect venture organizational autonomy by acting upon the degree of agreement within the dominant coalition. Our study contributes to extend research on the debate on organizational autonomy in corporate venturing initiatives and in inter-organizational relationships more in general.