Corporate Accelerators: A Brief Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Corporate accelerator, a recent form of entrepreneurship support, is being embraced by entrepreneurial ventures at a fast pace. Several large corporations globally have started corporate accelerator programs with some corporations even running such programs at multiple locations across the globe. Entrepreneurial ventures are also equally embracing this new form of entrepreneurship support with most corporate accelerator programs receiving a rapidly increasing number of applications to each of their cohorts. In sharp contrast to the quick adoption by practitioners, academic research on the topic remains largely sparse and predominantly descriptive. To address this gap between theory and practice, this paper attempts to review the available literature on the topic, describe the uniqueness of corporate accelerator as a phenomenon and present a broad research agenda. The research agenda details several research questions, potential theoretical perspectives from which to borrow and contribute, and a range of methods that can be applied to study them. This paper hopes to trigger research on this new phenomenon by indicating several ways and means of possible exploration. Studying corporate accelerators has both theoretical implications (for literatures on new venture growth, corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial ecosystems) and practical implications (for entrepreneurial ventures, large corporations, policymakers).