The role of collaboration between incumbent firms and start-ups on customers' adoption of digital innovation

Abstract

Due to growing hyper-competition, firms need to create digital innovation in order to remain competitive in the digital era. While start-ups are known as a major source of creativity because they use new technologies to develop digital innovations, incumbent firms are beginning to address the opportunities and challenges of digitalization. Against this backdrop, incumbent firms have become interested in collaborating with start-ups in order to create digital innovation in co-development and offer it to customers. However, insights into costumers' subjective stance towards adoption regarding digital innovation that is marketed by incumbent firms and start-ups are absent in the existing research. In light of this, we have analyzed this field based on a qualitative study with 16 interviews with customers. With our results, we contribute to the literature and provide practitioners with valuable insights into how collaboration between incumbent firms and start-ups should be presented to customers of digital innovations.