Steffen Korsgaard

Despite the promise of complementary resources between incumbents and startups when they enter into strategic alliances, many alliances often end prematurely. This study explores the occurrences of conflicts between incumbents and startups by drawing upon justice theory. We conducted 26 interviews with executives from incumbents, startups, and incubators on their past five doomed strategic alliances. Our findings show that the procedures for incumbents and startups to collaborate are not in place yet (procedural justice) and there is a lack of transparency behind the incumbents' motives to engage with the startups (interactional justice). We explore the implications of our findings and propose how incumbents and startups can collaborate better in future alliances.

Despite the promise of complementary resources between incumbents and startups when they enter into strategic alliances, many alliances often end prematurely. This study explores the occurrences of conflicts between incumbents and startups by drawing upon justice theory. We conducted 26 interviews with executives from incumbents, startups, and incubators on their past five doomed strategic alliances. Our findings show that the procedures for incumbents and startups to collaborate are not in place yet (procedural justice) and there is a lack of transparency behind the incumbents' motives to engage with the startups (interactional justice). We explore the implications of our findings and propose how incumbents and startups can collaborate better in future alliances.