Our qualitative study of five corporate venture capital (CVC) units reveals that CVC is organized along one of two distinct pathways—order-taker or free-bird. Our two-pathway model deconstructs the heterogeneity within CVC designs and provides detailed insights into the processual nature of CVC search mechanisms. We find evidence that the locus of problem formulation influences the chosen search behavior. While order-takers respond to predefined corporate-led problem formulation, free-birds allow the venture market to guide search behavior. Differences in search processes can thus be attributed to the pursuit of distinct problem-solution pairs. Implications for CVC and organizational search literature are discussed.

中文翻译：

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组织搜索行为的异质性：以企业风险投资单位为例


我们对五个企业风险投资 (CVC) 单位的定性研究表明，CVC 是按照两种不同路径之一组织的：订单接受者或自由鸟。我们的双路径模型解构了 CVC 设计中的异质性，并提供了对 CVC 搜索机制的过程性质的详细见解。我们发现有证据表明问题表述的轨迹会影响所选择的搜索行为。订单接受者对预先确定的企业主导的问题表述做出反应，而自由鸟则允许风险市场引导搜索行为。因此，搜索过程的差异可以归因于对不同问题-解决方案对的追求。讨论了 CVC 和组织搜索文献的影响。