Abstract
This qualitative study explores how incumbent firms reshape their dynamic capabilities through Corporate Accelerator (CA) programs. CAs are limited-time, company-sponsored programs designed to support a cohort of start-ups in their journey of new venture creation through mentoring, training, facilitating office space, equity/non-equity finance, and other corporate-specific resources. In exploring reshaping dynamic capabilities through CAs, we discovered that organizations shape their sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities while undertaking CA activities. Drawing on rich qualitative data captured through semi-structured interviews with CA managers, CA team members, and experts, further triangulated with secondary data, we propose a process model comprising nine micro-foundations to reveal the process mechanism of shaping dynamic capabilities. Our findings indicate that shaping and reshaping dynamic capabilities is a non-linear, ongoing process, which can be mapped through various activities undertaken by large firms to run CA programs with pre-stages, mainly pre-acceleration, during-acceleration, and post-acceleration. This qualitative study explores how incumbent firms reshape their dynamic capabilities through Corporate Accelerator (CA) programs. CAs are limited-time, company-sponsored programs designed to support a cohort of start-ups in their journey of new venture creation through mentoring, training, facilitating office space, equity/non-equity finance, and other corporate-specific resources. In exploring reshaping dynamic capabilities through CAs, we discovered that organizations shape their sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities while undertaking CA activities. Drawing on rich qualitative data captured through semi-structured interviews with CA managers, CA team members, and experts, further triangulated with secondary data, we propose a process model comprising nine micro-foundations to reveal the process mechanism of shaping dynamic capabilities. Our findings indicate that shaping and reshaping dynamic capabilities is a non-linear, ongoing process, which can be mapped through various activities undertaken by large firms to run CA programs with pre-stages, mainly pre-acceleration, during-acceleration, and post-acceleration.