Inside Corporate Innovation: A Study of Team Leader Experiences and Strategies During the New Venture Development Process

This chapter explores an area of new venture management that has received limited research attention. The primary focus centers on how successful new venture team leaders experience the management of their new venture teams (NVTs). Areas examined include interorganizational relationships between the new venture and the parent organization; managing relationships and expectations with senior management sponsors; challenges encountered during the development of the new venture; and major lessons learned from leading a new venture team. All new ventures studied were considered successful by the CEO or other senior managers in the parent or host organization. To assist the reader in understanding challenges new venture leaders face, several quotations or “voices from the field” are used to help amplify our findings. Several directions for future research on managing new ventures are presented.