Why large corporations engage with start-ups?: Analyzing the drivers and barriers through the MCDM tool of Fuzzy AHP

Sonika Jha, Anil Kumar Singh and Sriparna Basu

European Journal of Innovation Management, 2025, vol. 28, issue 9, 4928-4975

Abstract: PurposeThis paper aimed to categorize the drivers, sub-drivers, barriers and sub-barriers of corporate engagement with start-ups (CEWS) and prioritize them in order of their significance and impact. CEWS has gained prominence in the context of open innovation, and it privileges non-equity-based engagements between incumbents and start-ups.Design/methodology/approachWe followed a three-stage approach in this study. First, relevant literature was reviewed to identify the drivers, sub-drivers, barriers and sub-barriers of CEWS. This helped in clustering five drivers and four barriers into corresponding sub-drivers and sub-barriers categories of CEWS. Thereafter, the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process was employed to prioritize various drivers and barriers of CEWS. Finally, to ensure the strength and robustness of the results, a sensitivity analysis of the drivers and barriers of CEWS was performed.FindingsThe results of the current study highlight that the strategic alignment and resource drivers are the most significant among the main drivers contributing to the success of the CEWS. The three most enabling sub-drivers were found to be vision alignment, capital needs of start-ups, and value proposition alignment. Among the main barriers, partnership incoherence and incoherent strategic intent were found to be the most significant barriers to CEWS. Correspondingly, incompatibility between partners, as in differences in the value systems and goal ambiguity, emerged as the most critical sub-barriers that may derail the CEWS outcomes.Practical implicationsThe hierarchical mapping of drivers and barriers will assist practitioners and managers of incumbents and start-ups to create effective roadmaps in their engagement efforts.Originality/valueDespite the growing research in the CEWS domain, little is known about the efficacy of the drivers and barriers of CEWS and how they affect outcomes. This study makes an original contribution in categorizing and prioritizing the drivers and barriers of CEWS to demonstrate that a hierarchy exists among the drivers and barriers.

Keywords: Open innovation; MCDM; Sensitivity analysis; Fuzzy AHP; Corporate engagement with start-ups (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/ejim/article/28/9/4928/127 ... ngage-with-start-ups (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/ejim/article-pdf/28/9/4928 ... m-10-2024-1203en.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ejimpp:ejim-10-2024-1203

DOI: 10.1108/EJIM-10-2024-1203

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Innovation Management is currently edited by Dr Vincenzo Corvello

More articles in European Journal of Innovation Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().