The limited interest of carmakers in corporate venture capital: insights from a mature industry

摘要

A whole corpus of literature has evolved to discuss the motivation of industrial companies in creating corporate venture capital (CVC) funds. However, most studies have been limited to technology sectors that are particularly active in this domain. The present paper seeks to analyse a mature economic sector-automobiles-which should have good reason to take an interest in CVC. A panel comprising 13 of the world’s leading carmakers reveals that (1) few operate any CVC funds; (2) the ones that do tend not to be very active; and (3) investments basically correspond to strategic motivations of the kind that literature already envisions. These findings suggest that CVC studies in particular sectors should take a closer look at institutional isomorphism and consider how inter-firm relationships are organised.