Nurturing strategic agility through corporate venturing advisory: An exploratory analysis

Abstract

This article investigates the role of corporate venturing (CV) advisory firms in fostering strategic agility in their clients, which are typically established, incumbent companies. While strategic agility, defined as the ability of a firm to adapt its strategic direction to create new value, is gaining prominence, the mechanisms for achieving agility through CV remain rather underexplored. Furthermore, traditional CV service providers have been categorized into “inside-out” and “outside-in” players, but a new category of service providers, i.e., the CV advisory firm, transcends these distinctions by offering integrated CV services. Hence, this paper focuses on the case study of Gellify, an international CV advisory firm supporting corporations in developing strategic agility. The results suggest the existence of four distinct CV services that nurture strategic agility, namely venture clienting, venture acquisition, venture building, and venture builder building. Each of these services influences the three key dimensions of strategic agility (i.e., resource fluidity, strategic sensitivity, and leadership unity) in distinct ways and provides different impacts on incumbent firms. This paper contributes to the understanding of how the CV services offered by advisory firms nurture strategic agility in established corporations, thus providing valuable insights into the evolving landscape of CV and strategic agility.