The performance of technological acquisitions depends heavily on the overlap between the knowledge bases of the target and acquirer. We argue that overlap is best viewed as two distinct constructs: target overlap, the proportion of the target's knowledge base that the acquirer already possesses, and acquirer overlap, the proportion of the acquirer's knowledge base duplicated by the target. Each affects the value created from the firms' technological capabilities differently due to absorptive capacity, knowledge redundancy, and organizational disruption. Further, the low quantity of innovations observed in acquisitions with low target overlap may conceal an offsetting increase in their novelty. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Ventures are often hesitant to accept corporate venture capital due to concerns of intellectual property misappropriation. This is likely to be especially true with startup stage ventures operating in weak intellectual property rights regimes. Drawing on transaction costs economics and game theory, we examine how corporate investors might alleviate concerns of misappropriation by establishing credible commitments to their corporate venture capital program, which discourages opportunistic behavior. We submit that corporate investors can demonstrate credible commitments through prior investment quantity and prior investment continuity, therefore increasing the chances of forming a corporate venture capital–venture investment relationship. Our findings—using data from 11,136 ventures, 300 corporate venture capital investors, and 1782 investments across 18 years—demonstrate that ventures are more likely to pair with corporate venture capital investors that have made a credible commitment to their corporate venture capital program. Also, we find evidence that both quantity and continuity possess an enhanced effect on alleviating fears of misappropriation when a startup venture operates in the same industry as a potential corporate venture capital partner; this is because the corporate venture capital investor possesses both the absorptive capacity to understand the venture’s intellectual property and complementary capabilities to beat them to market.