Corporate Venture Capitalists’ Ambidexterity: Myth or Truth?

A growing number of studies highlight how organizational ambidexterity is vital for business competitive advantage. Although the number of studies on ambidexterity has substantially expanded in the past few years, the results have often been disappointing, particularly for focalized segments of organizations. Starting from these considerations, this paper analyzes corporate venture capitalists’ (CVCs) activities. Even though the most important research on the ambidexterity of CVCs was conducted by Hill and Birkinshaw in 2014, the ambidexterity of CVCs has so far been studied very little. Starting from an analysis of quantitative data, at both the descriptive and inferential levels, this paper aims at building a conceptual contextualization to understand how CVCs can be considered with regard to ambidexterity (ambidextrous, hybrid, or dis-ambidextrous, as proposed in this paper) and how they can manifest this capability.