The SIM Section invites you to the SIM Research Seminar, where Kathrin Borner from Rotterdam School of Management will present the following research project:

From the Margin to the Mainstream: How Corporate Ventures Create Complementary Capabilities for Incumbents’ Strategic Renewal toward Circularity

Abstract
By 2030 the EU aims to be the world leader in the circular economy. This shift is especially challenging for established manufacturing firms which need to transition from linear to circular processes. To renew from within, many manufacturing firms set up new, circular business models that may offer products as a service which can be reused and recycled. Establishing such novel, circular business models requires new capabilities. Especially new complementary capabilities, such as capabilities in finance, refurbishment and logistics, are essential. How can established firms create complementary capabilities to renew toward circularity? Based on four years of ethnographic fieldwork at a leading home appliance manufacturer, I traced eleven embedded cases of complementary capability creation over time and developed a process model of complementary capability creation. I show that complementary capability creation requires an interplay of the internal corporate ventures and the established firm. Corporate ventures initiate novel but often ad-hoc and context-specific solutions, while the established firm possesses the scale and experience to develop broadly applicable, more generic complementary capabilities, but less inclined to create novelty. Complementary capability creation emerges through joint problem-solving and a shared perception of synergies that stretches the existing capabilities of the established firm. My findings extend research on strategic renewal, complementary capability creation, and corporate venturing by revealing the mechanisms through which ventures and incumbents jointly implement novel complementary capabilities.

Bio
Kathrin Borner (PhD) is Assistant Professor in Innovation Management at the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University. She is visiting scholar at MIT Sloan, invited by Eric von Hippel. Her research has been published among others in Research Policy and won the Best Student Paper Award at the World Open Innovation Conference in 2022. Kathrin received several grants and personal scholarships for research visits and conferences. Kathrin is a qualitative researcher interested in how people innovate. For her PhD she conducted four years of fieldwork using ethnographic methods.

Everyone is welcome!