Experimentation in Corporate Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory
Multiple Case Study
Stefano D’Angelo, Antonio Ghezzi, Angelo Cavallo, Andrea Rangone and Salvatore Annunziata
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Keywords: Experimentation, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Organizational Design, Lean Startup, Business Model,
Business Model Innovation, Digital Transformation.
Abstract: Experimentation has become one the most influential approaches to entrepreneurship revolutionizing the way
new businesses are launched and enabling entrepreneurs to test their business model through rigorous
experiments. While there is a growing body of research investigating experimentation in a startup context,
there is no corresponding literature exploring the role of experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship
activities despite the increasing interest in experimentation among managers and the growing practitioner
literature urging incumbent organizations to adopt experimentation. Recently, the ideas developed around
experimentation have been taken up by incumbent organizations, with the promise that this approach can
benefit corporate entrepreneurship activities by accelerating them, reducing resource expenditure, and
increasing the chances of success. This is more relevant in the current context where companies have to face
fast-changing customer needs and market trends, as well as the design of complex value propositions.
Drawing on an exploratory multiple case study, this study explores how experimentation is conducted in
incumbent organizations and used as a tool to support corporate entrepreneurship. Based on the findings of
this study, we provide contributions to research and practice on experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship.
1 INTRODUCTION
The use of experimentation, defined as “an iterative
process to reduce uncertainty, engage stakeholders,
and promote collective learning at a relatively low
cost” (Bocken and Snihur, 2020, p.4), has strongly
rooted in the field of entrepreneurship, becoming one
of the most effective approaches to launch and
develop new businesses (Hampel et al., 2020; Kerr et
al., 2014). Scholars and practitioners have discussed
at length the benefits that entrepreneurs can leverage
by adopting experimentation (Thomke, 2020; Ries,
2011). Recently, the ideas developed around
experimentation have been taken up by incumbent
organizations, with the promise that this approach can
benefit corporate entrepreneurship activities by
accelerating them, reducing resource expenditure,
and increasing the chances of success (Cabral et al.,
2021; Ries, 2017). However, while there is a
consistent body of research on experimentation in
startups (Camuffo et al., 2020), the use of
experimentation as a tool to support corporate
entrepreneurship in incumbent organizations has not
yet been systematically explored, despite the
increasing interest among scholars and practitioners
(Ghezzi, 2020; Mariani et al., 2021; Silva et al., 2020;
Hampel et al., 2020). Therefore, by answering the call
of Hampel and colleagues (2020), this study aims to
investigate how incumbents engage in
experimentation, in terms of antecedents, processes,
and outcomes, to support their corporate
entrepreneurship activities, drawing on an
exploratory multiple case study (Yin, 1984) based on
three incumbent firms operating respectively in the
manufacturing, energy and information technology
sectors. Our multiple case study contributes to
research and practice on experimentation in corporate
entrepreneurship. First, answering to the call of
Hampel et al. (2020), we investigate experimentation
in corporate entrepreneurship in terms of antecedents,
process, and outcomes; second, we provide detailed
empirical evidence about the challenges incumbents
face in using experimentation in corporate
entrepreneurship by illustrating the peculiarities in
conducting experimentation in corporate context;
third, we shed light on the enabling role of digital
technologies for experimentation in incumbent
organizations. Finally, our study offers practical
498
D’Angelo, S., Ghezzi, A., Cavallo, A., Rangone, A. and Annunziata, S.
Experimentation in Corporate Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study.
DOI: 10.5220/0011827000003467
In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 498-505
ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

insights for managers and practitioners involved in
experimentation in a corporate context.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Experimentation in
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is essentially about experimentation
(Kerr et al., 2014). An experimentation-based
approach to entrepreneurship allows to transform the
fundamental assumptions of a business model into
hypotheses that can be rigorously verified through
experiments (Hampel et al., 2020). Experimentation
has become very popular in startup context, and it is
diffused in incubators and accelerators as a way to
launch and develop and support new business
(Hampel et al., 2020). Literature shows various
experimentation methodologies that are recognized
as successful experimentation approaches for
experimentation in entrepreneurship such as lean
startup (Camuffo et al., 2020; Jocevski et al., 2020;
Ries, 2011), design thinking (Brown, 2009) and agile
development (Beck et al., 2001). Several studies have
documented the benefits of experimentation for
startups, in supporting new businesses development
and enabling the growth and long-term survival of
new ventures (Balocco et al., 2019).
2.2 Experimentation in Corporate
Entrepreneurship
In recent years, experimentation has attracted an
increasing interest also in the corporate context with
the promise to boost corporate entrepreneurship
activities by reducing resource requirements and
increasing success rates of entrepreneurial activities
(Ries, 2017; Ries and Euchner, 2013). The long-term
existence of companies depends on their capacity to
explore and experiment (Cabral et al., 2021), as
experimentation may enable incumbents to overcome
inertia and routines that prevent them to effectively
apply the changes required to survive (Anthony and
Tripsas, 2016). However, despite the relevance of the
topic and the increasing interest among practitioners
and academics (Hampel et al., 2020; Felin et al.,
2019), the use of experimentation as a tool to support
corporate entrepreneurship has not yet been
systematically investigated, and research urges
scholars to address this gap. For instance, Bocken and
Snihur (2020) highlight the necessity to understand
the boundary conditions for experimentation in
incumbent organizations. Lindholm-Dahlstrand et al.
(2019), stress the importance to explicit the system
features that can lead companies to experiment. Other
studies point out the relevance to investigate
experimentation in mature contexts (Silva et al.,
2021) or in not digital contexts (Mariani et al., 2021).
To address this gap, taking the process view
suggested by Hampel et al. (2020), we formulate the
following research question: “How do incumbents
engage in experimentation, in terms of antecedents,
process and outcomes, to foster their corporate
entrepreneurship activities?”. We start from the key
assumption that companies are not large versions of
startups (Chesbrough and Tucci, 2020). In fact,
despite corporate experimentation may present
similar characteristics with traditional
experimentation in new ventures, it may have
peculiar characteristics that deserves dedicated
research.
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Cases Selection
This research has been designed as an exploratory
multiple-case study (Yin, 1984) which is particularly
useful to explore emerging topics in their real-life
setting (Eisenhardt, 1989) and to reinforce the process
of generalization of results (Meredith, 1988).
Specifically, we investigated experimentation
antecedents, processes and outcomes of three Italian
companies respectively in the manufacturing, energy
and software sectors. Several reasons led us to choose
these cases. First, the heterogeneity in terms of
sectors since an effective use of experimentation may
depend on the type of industry where the company
operates (Silva et al., 2020). Second, the
heterogeneity in terms of organizational design to
adopt experimentation and which could lead to
different results. Third, we considered companies that
present similar maturity in terms of years of adoption
of experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship, to
avoid comparing companies with different degrees of
maturity for experimentation activities.
3.2 Data Gathering and Data Analysis
In our multiple-case study, data were collected
through multiple sources of information (Yin, 1984).
Semi-structured interviews were the primary source
of information. We conducted 25 semi-structured
interviews (8 for case A, 8 for case B and 9 for case
Experimentation in Corporate Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study
499

C) with an average duration of 1 hour. As case studies
rely heavily on the correctness of the information
provided by the interviewees for their validity and
reliability, and these can be enhanced by using
multiple sources or “looking at data in multiple ways”
(Yin, 2003), several secondary sources of evidence
and archival data were also added to supplement the
interview data, including strategic reports, informal
emails and internet pages. The content analysis was
performed according to the procedures of the
Grounded Theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss,
1967). From the informants’ exact words, we defined
a set of first-order concepts iterating between data
collected and relevant literature. Based on these,
second-order concepts were developed and allowed
us to view the data at a higher level of abstraction.
Finally, the second-order themes were grouped into
overarching dimensions representing the antecedents,
process and outcomes of experimentation in
corporate entrepreneurship.
4 FINDINGS
4.1 Experimentation Antecedents
The first area of investigation concerns the
antecedents that lead incumbents to adopt
experimentation in their entrepreneurial activities. In
Company A, operating in the manufacturing industry,
the need to progressively enter new markets and
internationalize, exposed the company to a
completely new customer base. To this end, the
company adopts experimentation as a way to learn
about these new markets. Similarly, in Company B,
operating in the energy industry, the huge
proliferation of digital technologies allows the
company to test new possible configurations that can
be delivered on the market. Moreover, Company B,
pursuing a decarbonization strategy, leverages
experimentation to bring new solutions to the market
faster. Company C, operating in the software
industry, adopts experimentation as an intrinsic
business approach to compete. In this context,
experimentation is essential for the company to stay
competitive.
4.2 Experimentation Process
The second area of investigation is related to the
experimentation process in incumbent organizations.
We focus on three main aspects of the
experimentation process: (i) experimentation phases
and methodologies employed; (ii) the organizational
design adopted for experimentation in incumbent
organizations; (iii) the challenges faced in conducting
experimentation in corporate context. Concerning
experimentation phases and methodologies, we can
observe a convergency in the experimentation phases
and methodologies in conducting experimentation in
corporate context. In the first phase, the “ideation
phase”, a new entrepreneurial idea is generated in its
minimal features with the involvement of internal and
external stakeholders. This phase is typically carried
out by adopting design thinking methodology
(Brown, 2009) to perform many diverging and
converging sessions and generate a business model of
the entrepreneurial idea. In the subsequent “execution
phase”, the business model generated is tested and
validated iteratively with customers up to its
validation, following the guidelines provided by the
lean startup methodology (Ries, 2011). Finally, in the
“implementation phase”, the corporates leverage
agile methodology (Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2020) to
support the more mature development of the business
idea and to build the features of the product through
agile sprints. While we found convergency in the
application of experimentation phases and
methodologies, we find heterogeneity concerning the
organizational design to adopt experimentation in the
corporate context. In Company A, experimentation
activities are mainly carried out in the innovation
department, which is the main responsible for the
entire corporate experimentation process from the
ideation phase up to the industrialization phase. In
Company B, experimentation is conducted in a
separate area isolated from the existing organizational
structure. In this way, the company can realize a
“safe” area for experimentation outside the structural
boundaries of the organization. Finally, Company C,
operating in the software industry, embeds
experimentation at many levels. In particular, the
company uses experimentation at three levels. First,
they experiment with their entire organization on
existing products, involving all the corporate
functions to continuously adjust the products
according to market needs; second, they experiment
to develop new products in the innovation
department, similarly, to company A; and third, they
experiment in a separate structure to find potential
new business opportunities, similarly to company B.
Focusing on experimentation process, the three
incumbents show several challenges in conducting
experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship.
Company A reports cultural friction generated by the
skepticism in accepting the results of experimentation
and implementing the required changes in the
established structures of the company. Company B
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shows the application and understanding of
experimentation methodologies as one of the main
challenges in conducting experimentation. Moreover,
managers of Company B also point out the difficulty
in measuring the outcomes of experimentation
activities. Finally, Company C faces challenges
regarding the organizational culture and the rigid
processes that may hinder the effective use of
experimentation. Specifically, the organizational
functional structure made difficult the horizontal
communication flows and the mix of competencies
needed to run experimentation activities.
4.3 Experimentation Outcomes
The use of experimentation can lead to different types
of outcomes in corporate entrepreneurship. In
Company A, experimentation is used to support the
launch of new products/services that are incremental
and to establish more efficient production processes.
In Company B, where experimentation is conducted
in a separate structure, experimentation is used to
generate new business lines and corporate spin-offs
also with value propositions distant from the core
business. Company C, where experimentation is
diffused inside the organization, presents a wide
variety of experimentation outcomes such as new
products, new business lines and improved
organizational functioning. Through
experimentation, the company can develop and
spread entrepreneurial competencies associated with
experimentation.
5 DISCUSSION
As outcome of our multiple case study, we developed
the conceptual model illustrated in Figure 1 that
illustrates experimentation antecedents, process and
outcome in corporate entrepreneurship.
Experimentation antecedents are the elements that
lead companies to embrace experimentation. Then,
experimentation process in corporate context is
illustrated with its phases and methodologies as well
as the organizational designs adopted, and the
challenges faced. Finally, experimentation outcomes
represent the output in conducting experimentation in
corporate context. In the following sections, we will
discuss in detail each building block of the conceptual
model presented in Figure 1.
5.1 Experimentation Antecedents
Concerning experimentation antecedents, we can
identify four factors that can push incumbents to
adopt experimentation. First, the availability and
proliferation of digital technologies can facilitate
experimentation in scope and scale (Autio et al.,
2018). Second, internationalization is another factor
that can lead incumbents to adopt experimentation.
Entering new countries and markets may imply facing
new cultural contexts that could undermine the
effectiveness of the company's traditional way of
doing business (Cavallo et al., 2020; Chandrashekhar,
2006). Third, competition is another important factor
influencing the adoption of experimentation
(Bohnsack et al., 2019). In our study, experimentation
emerged as a way for incumbents to keep up with an
increasingly dynamic and competitive environment.
Finally, our multiple-case study also confirms the role
of experimentation in response to a disruptive event.
Experimentation in disruptive environments allows
the company to rethink its business model and
implement the necessary changes as shown by
Company C had to completely change its business
model by experimenting in response to the disruptive
Figure 1: Conceptual model for experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship.
Experimentation in Corporate Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study
501

phenomenon of decarbonization. Focusing on the role
of digital technologies in corporate experimentation,
our findings show that the proliferation of digital
technologies may force companies to adopt
experimentation, thus acting as an antecedent for
experimentation in corporate context. At the same
time, digital technologies can simplify
experimentation process, therefore also taking the
role of enablers. More specifically, digital
technologies may have three enabling roles for
experimentation in corporate context. First, digital
technologies can enable a greater diffusion of
entrepreneurial competencies within the company. In
this aspect, digital technologies enable a
"democratization of competencies” which can favour
experimentation (Thomke and Euchner, 2020).
Second, digital technologies can make the internal
organizational more flexible and responsive to the
changes required for experimentation. Third, digital
technologies can reduce the number of hierarchical
levels in an organization, thus making the structure
flatter, that is fundamental for conduct
experimentation (Nambisan, 2017).
5.2 Experimentation Process
Concerning experimentation process in corporate
context, we focus on experimentation phases and
methodologies, the possible organizational designs
and the challenges faced.
5.2.1 Experimentation Phases and
Methodologies
Our findings revealed three experimentation phases,
i.e., ideation, execution and implementation. During
the ideation phase, incumbents generate an idea
leveraging on design thinking (Brown, 2009). In the
execution phase, incumbents validate their idea
through the lean startup methodology (Ries, 2011).
Finally, incumbents implement their idea using agile
methodology and agile sprints (Hummel, 2014). This
approach is also confirmed by literature (Shepherd et
al., 2021). Indeed, design thinking provides the
needed empathy and creativity to define a problem
and generate preliminary solutions (Micheli et al.,
2019). Lean startup needs to start from defined
business model assumptions (Silva et al., 2021) to
iteratively test them. Agile sprints can be used to
build the features coming from lean startup
experiments (Harms et al., 2020). Analysing
experimentation phases and methodologies in
corporate context, we observe that incumbents
require more effort in the ideation phase than startups
(Bocken and Snihur, 2020). Indeed, incumbents have
to force themselves to generate and pursue
entrepreneurial ideas that are more natural in startup
context. In addition, incumbents may face higher
difficulties than startups in the implementation phase.
Incumbents have a pre-existing organizational
structure that must accept and integrate the outcomes
of experimentation. This can create cultural frictions
with the existing structures.
5.2.2 Organizational Designs for
Experimentation in Incumbent
Organizations
Another important aspect concerning experimentation
process is related to the choice of the organizational
designs to enable corporate innovation through
experimentation (Hampel et al., 2020). While we
found convergency concerning corporate experimenta-
tion phases and methodologies, incumbents present
heterogeneity in their organizational design to adopt
experimentation. Specifically, we can identify three
types of organizational designs, respectively: (i) a
diffused experimentation approach; (ii) a concentrated
experimentation approach and (iii) a separate
experimentation approach. A diffused experimentation
model refers to a configuration in which experimenta-
tion is pervasive throughout the entire company and
every function is involved in the process. In this type
of configuration, experimentation is conducted
simultaneously and in synergy with the usual daily
activities that the incumbents run. Our multiple case
study shows that this configuration is used to
experiment to innovate existing corporate products
and services. A concentrated experimentation model
implies a configuration where experimentation is
confined in one or few business functions, and
business activities are mostly separate from
experimentation activities. Typically, experimenta-
tion takes place in the most innovative functions, such
as the innovation or product development
departments. Finally, a separate experimentation
model consists in conducting experimentation in a
totally separate structure from the existing
organization. In this case, the company creates a safe
zone where experimentation activities are protected
from organizational antibodies. The three models
proposed, differ for their structural autonomy, which
can be defined as the degree of integration of the
experimentation process with the current processes
and structure of the firm (Sharma and Chrisman,
2007). However, the possible configurations could
vary from totally integrated, as in a diffused model,
to totally separate, as in a separate model.
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5.2.3 Challenges for Experimentation in
Incumbent Organizations
Our multiple case study show that incumbents may
encounter several challenges in applying
experimentation in corporate context. We identified
three main types of challenges for experimentation in
incumbent organizations, namely: (i)
experimentation-level challenges; (ii) firm-level
challenges and (iii) network-level challenges.
Experimentation-level challenges are the frictions
directly generated by the use of experimentation, such
as how to properly learn experimentation
methodologies, how to specify and apply them in the
corporate context, and how to account for them in
terms of key performances indicators of such
activities. Firm-level challenges are the frictions
generated by the interaction between the
experimentation process and the organization, such as
cultural challenges with the management, the rigid
organizational structures and processes. Network-
level challenges are the frictions generated by the
interaction between the experimentation process and
the stakeholders involved in the experimentation such
as customers and suppliers. Overall, experimentation-
level challenges are common for both incumbents and
startups, as they are intrinsic to the experimentation
methodologies adopted by startups (Ghezzi et al.,
2013; Ghezzi, 2019). On the other side, firm-level and
network-level challenges are specific for incumbents
engaging in experimentation, since incumbents have
a much more structured organization and a much
denser network with respect than startups (Deligianni
et al., 2022). Such challenges highlight the difficulty
in conducting experimentation in corporate context.
However, to mitigate firm-level and network-level
challenges, incumbents can separate experimentation
activities from the existing business activities of the
company. In other words, incumbents can increase
the structural autonomy to experiment, for instance
experimenting in a separate structure, to reduce such
challenges.
5.3 Experimentation Outcomes
Experimentation in corporations may lead to different
outcomes in terms of corporate entrepreneurship
activities depending on the organizational design
used to experiment. The diffused and concentrated
experimentation models can be suitable to launch and
develop new products, improve processes and
competences, as well to renew the existing strategy.
Thus, these experimentation configurations emerged
related to strategic entrepreneurship (Covin and
Miles, 1999), i.e., corporate entrepreneurship domain
that includes a broad array of entrepreneurial
initiatives such as strategic renewal, sustained
regeneration, domain redefinition, organizational
rejuvenation, and business model reconstruction (Hitt
et al., 2001). Indeed, operating with the diffused or
with the concentrated model, innovation outcome
developed is usually incremental in nature. While the
separate model of experimentation is more related to
corporate venturing activities (Sharma and Chrisman,
2007), which refers to the creation of new businesses,
for instance, in the form of new business lines or
corporate spin-offs (Covin and Miles, 1999). Indeed,
operating with a separate experimentation model,
incumbents can generate ideas that are radical from
the current businesses of the company. In conclusion,
we could say that the organizational design used to
experiment with incumbents influences the degree of
innovation and diversity of the outcomes. Indeed, the
higher the structural separation for experimentation,
(i.e., structural autonomy) the higher the degree of
innovation and diversity that the experimentation can
generate for corporate innovation.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the findings of this study, we contribute to
research and practice on experimentation in corporate
entrepreneurship. From the theoretical point of view,
this article offers three main contributions to research.
First, this study answers the call of Hampel et al.
(2020), by investigating how experimentation is
conducted in incumbent organizations in terms of
experimentation antecedents, process and outcomes.
Second, this study offers empirical evidence about the
sorts of challenges at different levels of analysis that
incumbent organizations face in using
experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship (i.e.,
experimentation-level challenges; firm-level
challenges and network-level challenges), the tactics
for getting around these challenges, and the limits of
application of experimentation in incumbents, thus
highlighting the peculiarities in conducting
experimentation in corporate context (Chesbrough
and Tucci, 2020). Third, this study shade light on the
role of digital technologies for experimentation in
corporate entrepreneurship (Cavallo et al., 2020;
Arvidsson and Mønsted, 2018). This article also
provides many practical implications for managers
and incumbent organizations willing to adopt
experimentation in their entrepreneurial activities by
illustrating the phases and methodologies to conduct
experimentation in corporate entrepreneurship as
Experimentation in Corporate Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Multiple Case Study
503

well as the challenges and the suitable organizational
designs for experimentation in corporations.
However, our study is not free from limitations which
are typical of qualitative studies. For these reasons,
further studies, both qualitative and quantitative, are
required to reinforce the findings of our research. For
instance, future research may explore how
experimentation in corporate can be linked both
practically and theoretically with entrepreneurial
structures such as co-working spaces,
experimentation spaces, incubators, and accelerators
(Bergman and McMullen, 2022; Bojovic et al., 2020).
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