Towards An Instrument For Measuring Strategic Motives For Corporate Ventures

This article proposes that corporate entrepreneurship and strategy can be linked in a means-ends relationship if it is possible to determine the motives behind individual corporate ventures. To facilitate future empirical investigations, it develops an instrument for measuring such motives, and tests this instrument on a sample of 274 ventures in small and medium-sized enterprises. The findings confirm that most of the ventures examined are linked to strategic concerns. Moreover, the instrument design provides dimensions for motives rather than categories, because dimensions can be more freely evaluated and combined in future research, for instance in the form of venture motive profiles. The dimensions, obtained through factor analysis, are orientation in regard to sought effects (improving business or gaining competence), posture (offensive versus defensive) and adaptive style (proactive versus reactive). Researchers can benefit from the instrument in empirical work, and their findings can in turn be of value for both practitioners and policy makers.