Open Innovation in der deutschen Chemie- und Pharmaindustrie: Kollaboration zwischen etablierten Unternehmen und digitalen Startups

This thesis investigates how established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry collaborate with digital startups to foster open innovation activities. A critical review of the literature identifies the current level of research. Established corporates often lack a strategic approach to identifying and collaborating with startups. Additionally, cultural differences and varying speeds of both parties may hinder collaboration activities. There is a mismatch between the agile spirit of digital startups and the bureaucratic organization of corporates. Coupled with a risk-averse mindset, established corporates struggle to adopt their structures to internalize the innovativeness of startups. Corporates collaborate with startups often apply different forms of collaboration not being synchronized.

In recent years, the focus on more integrated and less-siloed approaches of startup-collaboration activities has emerged. This focus is achieved by addressing the gap in current knowledge regarding effective collaboration between established corporates and startups, specifically digital startups. The research follows a qualitative approach including data collection from 20 experts including both corporate managers and digital startup founders. The collected data is analysed based on the qualitative content analysis using a deductive-inductive category definition. Through the narrow cohort the results offer a deep understanding how collaboration with digital startups is applied by established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry. This research projects examines how both parties can jointly enter a collaboration to leverage the digital startup’s solution within the corporate environment based on a guided framework.

The results show that pilot projects are required to start a collaboration to test the provided solution of the digital startup. Based on a structured evaluation, the collaboration can deepen through different forms such as a customer-supplier-relationship, co-innovation or CVC investment. In addition, the social and organizational relations within the corporate itself, especially between the innovation unit, the business departments and top management, are uncovered as a crucial factor for the collaboration. Based on both theoretical and empirical findings, the developed four-stage-gate-framework supports to navigate through the collaboration between established corporates of the German chemical and pharmaceutical industry and digital startups.