Buying to Balance: Venture Clienting as a Mechanism for Organizational Ambidexterity

Sammanfattning

Background: Venture clienting is a relatively new innovation vehicle that is continuously gaining more attention. The core premise is that established companies act as early customers of innovative startups. With startup solutions, established companies seek to solve their internal problems that would require significant resources to develop internally. Furthermore, venture clienting can contribute to the balance between exploitation and exploration within the organization, which is also known as organizational ambidexterity. Purpose: Although gaining more interest, venture clienting still remains under-researched as a topic. Previous literature is focused on the process of venture clienting and comparing the vehicle with corporate venture capital. This thesis aims to understand how companies use and embed venture clienting within the organization and how it shapes the balance between exploitation and exploration. Method: This study adopts a qualitative abductive research design. For the research, a total of 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted, out of which eleven were organizations utilizing venture clienting, and six were venture clienting consultancy service providers. For data analysis, thematic analysis was used, and the findings were connected to the ambidexterity theory. Conclusion: Empirical findings suggest that venture clienting has the potential to contribute to organizational ambidexterity. However, companies seeking to have an effective venture clienting process are advised to carefully consider where the venture client unit is anchored, invest in internal communication, and stakeholder involvement and engagement. Based on the previous literature and empirical findings, a conceptual model of venture clienting as an ambidextrous vehicle was created.