Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore how multi-national corporations (MNCs) can effectively adopt artificial intelligence (AI) into their talent acquisition (TA) practices. While the potential of AI to address emerging challenges, such as talent shortages and applicant surges in specific regions, has been anecdotally highlighted, there is limited empirical evidence regarding its effective deployment and adoption in TA. As a result, this paper endeavors to develop a theoretical model that delineates the motives, barriers, procedural steps and critical factors that can aid in the effective adoption of AI in TA within MNCs. Design/methodology/approach Given the scant empirical literature on our research objective, we utilized a qualitative methodology, encompassing a multiple-case study (consisting of 19 cases across seven industries) and a grounded theory approach. Findings Our proposed framework, termed the Framework on Effective Adoption of AI in TA, contextualizes the motives, barriers, procedural steps and critical success factors essential for the effective adoption of AI in TA. Research limitations/ implications This paper contributes to literature on effective adoption of AI in TA and adoption theory. Practical implications Additionally, it provides guidance to TA managers seeking effective AI implementation and adoption strategies, especially in the face of emerging challenges. Originality/value To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is unparalleled, being both grounded in theory and based on an expansive dataset that spans firms from various regions and industries. The research delves deeply into corporations' underlying motives and processes concerning the effective adoption of AI in TA.

Purpose The purpose of this article is to develop an integrative framework of accelerator design to answer the question of what activities accelerators perform and how they function within a structured framework. Research on the functioning of accelerators as a mechanism for startup engagement produced multiple empirical results. However, the comparability of relevant research is strongly limited, currently hindering theoretical developments. Existing accelerator design models often differ and only partially overlap, which leaves extant literature with a fragmented and discordant conceptual understanding. Design/methodology/approach Based on a meta-synthesis method using qualitative analysis of 36 accelerator design articles, an integrative framework is developed. After identification of relevant literature, a renowned method for extracting, coding and synthesizing data on individual and cross-study level is applied to identify accelerator design constructs. Eventually, identified accelerator design constructs are integrated into a framework resting on the activity system lens of business model design. Findings The article reconciles fragmented knowledge on accelerator design and shows how accelerator design can be holistically conceptualized by 32 key activities clustered in eight design dimensions. The framework is complemented by an initial guideline for measurement. The findings further highlight formerly disregarded aspects of governance and community formation from a processual and structural perspective. Originality/value This article is the first to present a comprehensive picture of accelerator design integrating multiple empirical findings of prior research into a single coherent framework. This framework offers a shared foundation for future research exploring the delineations, functioning and impact of accelerators. From a practical perspective, the article provides managers of accelerators a guide to design, review and improve programs according to their value creation goals.

Dynamic capabilities have typically been conceptualized as sensing, seizing, and transforming. This article explores the interplay of these procedural dimensions employing a longitudinal case study of Axel Springer, a leading media corporation that has exercised dynamic capabilities to convert from a print publisher to an internet company. Insightful evidence is produced from interviews with current and former top managers. The case study shows iterations, overlaps, and interconnections between sensing, seizing, and transforming. Sensing-by-seizing is introduced as a dynamic capability to seize concrete opportunities while concurrently sensing them. A conceptual model furnishes implications and recommendations for managerial decision-making.

A higher degree of digitalization in new ventures’ product/service offerings and their processes can lead to a faster time to market and the ability to rapidly scale. Hence, it has the possibility to significantly impact the performance. To increase the degree of digitalization in new ventures, they can implement a digital strategy. Currently there is no evidence if this measure has a strong impact on the degree of digitalization. We therefore empirically investigate the influence of a digital strategy on the degree of digitalization in new ventures’ products/services and processes. We analyzed 102 new ventures using SEM. Building on the contingency theory, we show that only having a digital strategy is insufficient to achieve a high degree of digitalization. The digitalization of products/services is partially mediated by digital IT capabilities, and the effect of digital strategy on process digitalization is partially mediated by digital IT capabilities and a digital culture.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) units help their ventures flourish by offering value-adding services. Effective CVC initiatives offer services that help ventures design, implement, and manage activities to create and capture value. Our qualitative multiple case study across 26 CVC units reveals a comprehensive set of value creation and value capture services that these units offer, configured in any of four different ways to provide tailor-made support for specific venture needs and sponsor strategic goals.

Trivago is a leading travel meta-portal with EUR 754 million in revenue and a double-digit profit margin in 2016. Since its inception in 2004 and especially since 2009, the company's founders have realized impressive growth rates with revenue doubling nearly every year. As of 2016, the company had more than 1,200 employees and offered access to more than 1.3 million hotels in 190 countries. At the end of 2016, trivago carried out an IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange. For trivago's founders, the goal of not 'becoming corporate' had been a core premise for building the company. The task had been easy when trivago was still a small start-up, but its rapid growth made preserving the company's entrepreneurial capacity an increasingly challenging task: Would trivago be able to remain the entrepreneurial, driven company the founders had built and loved? The case targets MS, MA, and MBA students studying strategy, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and innovation management. It is also appropriate for discussions in executive-education programs (eg, lectures focused on corporate transformation and drivers of change).

In 2012, one of us – Gregor Gimmy, a California-based serial entrepreneur and former IDEO consultant – accepted a new role at BMW’s corporate R&D headquarters. Gimmy’s task was clear, but highly demanding: to reimagine the way BMW innovates with startups. The prevalent model of startup cooperation in recent years has been corporate venture capital and accelerators (CVC&As). Between 2012 and 2015, the number of global CVC deals almost doubled and their investments quadrupled to $29.1 billion. However all this corporate venturing doesn’t seem to be accomplishing strategic innovation goals. In recent years, many high-profile companies including Volkswagen, Yahoo, Turner/Warner Bros, and Coca-Cola have shuttered their VC arms or accelerators entirely. In fact, in 2011, BMW had also founded a corporate venture capital unit, called BMW iVentures, but it exclusively invested in service startups. His time in Silicon Valley had shown Gimmy that Corporate VCs and accelerators struggle to lure the best startups from private venture capitalists. Gimmy’s insight was that the key to improving corporate co-innovation is not for companies to compete more effectively with private venture capitalists or accelerators, but to focus on what they can offer to top startups that others cannot. Startups require three things to grow: capital, coaching, and clients. Private VCs and other professional investors can provide the first two. But only large corporates can offer the last one.

In 2015, Automaten Technik Baumann (ATB) was dismayed to learn that Volkswagen Financial Services had acquired a 92 per cent stake in Sunhill Technologies, one of Europe’s largest providers of mobile parking and ticketing solutions. ATB had focused on the production of parking meters for several decades, but was now seeing a threat to its existing business due to the rise of mobile parking providers. Consumers could now use their smartphone to pay for parking—making parking meters obsolete. Should ATB take the rise of new entrants seriously? Would ATB need to adjust its business model? Learning Objective: This case is suitable for business programs at the MBA level, for courses in strategic management, business models, and disruptive innovation. After completion of the case, students will be able to: - demonstrate that threats from disruptive innovations can affect small-and medium-sized firms, as well as large companies; - demonstrate that technological innovations are often combined with new business models; - outline reasons for why it is difficult for incumbents to react to new entrants and innovations; - and identify and discuss the various strategic alternatives to disruptive market shifts.