Supervisors: Pernille Smith & Michael Zaggl
Discussants: Carsten Bergenholtz & Jakob Lauring

Abstract
Corporations establish structured programs for corporate-startup collaborations (SCSCP) like corporate innovation challenges to enhance their access to new technologies and knowledge (Moschner et al., 2019) and to solve specific business challenges (Kohler, 2016). Within those programs, they generate and elaborate particular challenges and problems within strategically important areas. A dedicated program management scouts external startups based on the input given by the corporation and connects the relevant corporate representative with the startup representative to evaluate the opportunity of creating a pilot project and further roll-out options within the corporation (Kurpjuweit & Wagner, 2020). Therefore, the collaboration aims at creating strategic value for the corporation. The processes related to knowledge transfer have been shown to be highly significant in creating strategic value in interorganizational alliances (Fang et al., 2013; Lyles & Salk, 2007; Tsang et al., 2004). Hence, it is assumed that the generated strategic value depends on the efficiency of knowledge transfer between the startup and the corporation (Kruft & Kock, 2019; Van Wijk et al., 2008). The program management of SCSCPs is often depicted as a knowledge broker (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005). In corporate innovation challenges, the corporate representatives depend on an efficient knowledge transfer to evaluate the offered startup’s solution and its potential to solve the existing corporate challenge (Boland et al., 2001). Current research on SCSCPs is still at an early stage and covers mainly settled corporate objectives (Kruft & Kock, 2019; Lang et al., 2021), the design of the program (Shankar & Shepherd, 2019) as well as typologies (Kanbach & Stubner, 2016) where an issue of program’s survival already is recognized. Research relating the SCSCPs to other scholarly concepts would enrich the comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and give an in-depth insight into the process of value creation (Möllmann, 2022).

The knowledge transfer within the corporate innovation challenges underlies several complexities. Two different communities of practices meet each other that must be enabled to share their knowledge (Bechky, 2003), whereas the relationship between each startup and corporation is highly individualized. Collaborative projects with a high level of complexity require time for learning on each side (Majchrzak et al., 2012). The restricted duration of the SCSCP also calls for an efficient knowledge transfer. The perspective of knowledge as practice accommodates the phenomena’s high level of complexity, where knowledge is seen as a part of a concrete, dynamic human action bound to material and social circumstances (Cook & Brown, 1999; Gherardi & Nicolini, 2000). Based on a single, in-depth case study, the processes and practices concerned with knowledge transfer within a German corporate innovation challenge program in the housing industry will be examined, grounded in observations, interviews, and archival data collected over six months. The program includes six different corporations whose challenges led to the matching with six different startups. The findings show which practices are used by the three central stakeholders, program management, startup, and corporation, to facilitate knowledge transfer and how they impact the participant’s learning process.

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