Balancing intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness: A boundary work perspective on internal corporate venturing units.

Internal corporate venturing units (ICVUs) face a paradoxical challenge: they must maintain distinct from their parent firm to foster innovation, yet they must also maintain embedded within it to access essential resources and support. We call this just right position intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness. To achieve intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness, prior research offers structural configurations. However, these structural configurations mainly focused on employees with management tasks and little is known in relation to the core workforce, defined as employees without management responsibilities. Drawing on a multiple case study, we find that intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness is not a static variable but in continuous flux. Leveraging the lens of boundary work, we find that the various actors engage in either increasing distinctiveness or embeddedness. Crucially, this is not always performed with cautious intent. We define this phenomenon as unintentional boundary work, i.e., boundary work that shapes boundaries without the actor’s awareness of either performing boundary work or of the unintended consequences it might have. We offer three contributions: (1) by focusing on the important yet overlooked actor group of the core workforce, we theorize how intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness is achieved in relation to them, thus calling for a more heterogenous view in internal corporate venturing; (2) by adopting a boundary work lens we reframe the challenge of balancing intra-organizational optimal distinctiveness in internal corporate venturing from a structural configuration to a boundary work-based issue; and (3) conceptualize unintentional boundary work.