Dietmar Grichnik

Although Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) is widely believed to drive corporate innovation, its relevance is often questioned. This study uses problemistic search to investigate whether CVC activities consistent with a firm's core business are likely to have a positive impact on the positive relationship between business strategy and firm performance. We pay particular attention to prior negative past performance. Results confirm that CVC investments aligned with a company’s core business have a positive effect, even when past performance was negative. In difficult times, the marginal effect is weaker but still positive. As soon as the business recovers, CVC activities are expected to contribute to greater corporate competitiveness as CVC activities related to the core business are compatible with a recovered business strategy.

Research has so far failed to explain why entrepreneurs bear a high level of stress but do not withdraw from the pursuit of opportunity. We conducted a pharmaceutical study including 120 nascent entrepreneurs and control participants. We theorize that higher levels of dopamine and noradrenaline compensate for the otherwise negative effects of the stress hormone, cortisol, on optimism and the propensity for risk, which are the key factors in the pursuit of opportunity. Our findings support the idea that entrepreneurs develop differences in neurotransmitter receptors by showing that increased dopaminergic and noradrenergic activity compensates for the negative effects of stress.