College of Business

Internal corporate ventures are entrepreneurial initiatives that originate within the corporate structure (or within an existing business of the corporation) and are intended from inception as new businesses for the corporation. In spite of the long history associated with the phenomenon of internal corporate venturing, the literature provides surprisingly little quantitative evidence regarding factors important to internal corporate venturing success. Most of the literature is anecdotal, while the few empirical studies that do exist suffer from methodological problems that introduce contamination into their findings. The current paper outlines those methodological problems and proposes techniques for minimizing their effects.