New Organizational Forms for Enhancing Innovation: The Case of Internal Corporate Joint Ventures

Organizations have increasingly turned to alternative organizational forms such as joint ventures and internal corporate ventures to enhance innovation. The present study examines the use of a similar, newly-developing organizational form for purposes of innovation; namely, the internal corporate joint venture (ICJV), which has characteristics of both traditional joint ventures and internal corporate venturing. This study presents an industry-specific analysis of innovation across 53 ICJV's (hospital/physician group combinations), using qualitative and quantitative analyses to identify those factors most strongly associated with the degree of innovativeness in these new organizations. The empirical findings suggest three factors most significantly associated with innovation in the ICJV's in our sample: (1) age similarity among organizational members, (2) the sponsoring organization's orientation towards innovation, and (3) ICJV participation in integrative activities with the sponsoring organization. The study concludes by suggesting that greater attention be devoted to studying “nested innovation,” i.e., innovation within a new organizational form that is itself an administrative innovation.