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Abstract

Over the past decade, accelerators have demonstrated their pivotal contribution to the economic and entrepreneurial ecosystem growth. In recent years, a large number of businesses and organizations use corporate accelerators to internalize opportunities provided by startups and idea generators outside the organization. Although this phenomenon has received much attention, especially in Iran, there are still many unclear points regarding the structure, processes, and acceleration programs. In this article, we did a systematic review of 49 articles out of 486 articles published in different journals in the last 5 years. Then, through the PRISMA method, the reviewed data was converted into a structured format in Excel software. At the end, we examined the findings of this study by presenting a conceptual framework detailing the antecedents and consequences of corporate accelerators. Also, in this research, we found that the five main success factors of corporate accelerators are the acceleration program, the creation of a large and committed external communication network, mentoring, the determination of accurate evaluation criteria and the competitive process in selecting startups.

Keywords

accelerator corporate accelerator corporate venturing entrepreneurial ecosystem startup systematic literature review

Introduction

In recent years, the impact of accelerators on the entrepreneurial ecosystem and economic growth have been proven (Hochberg & Fehder, 2015; Lall et al., 2013; Uhm et al., 2018). Many studies have presented in the field of this phenomenon, and perhaps the best of them is Cohen’s definition of the accelerator concept. He has introduced accelerators as a program with a specific time and process that provides services such as mentoring, training courses and investment services to startup teams (S. Cohen & Hochberg, 2014). In another definition of Dori and Wright in 2018, the primary aim of accelerators is to stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit (Drori & Wright, 2018).

Paul Graham founded Y Combinator, the world’s pioneering accelerator in 2005, which has had a significant impact on the innovation community and the entrepreneurial ecosystem (S. Cohen & Hochberg, 2014; Drori & Wright, 2018). After 2 years, in 2007, the Tech-starts Accelerator was launched. They helped launch more than 2000 startups and fundraised more than 16 billion dollars (S. Cohen et al., 2019).

There are different types of accelerators, including startup accelerators, seed accelerators, corporate accelerators, etc. In recent years, researchers have concluded that accelerators can serve as a prospective innovation model for established companies (Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021). Corporate accelerators represent distinctive corporate entities designed to facilitate an external open innovation process (Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021; Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). The outside-in open innovation process refers to “the incorporation of external knowledge through external collaborators (such as startups, universities, customers, idea generators) to enhance the quality and pace of the company’s innovation endeavors” (Gassmann & Enkel, 2006; Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021; Miller & Bound, 2011).

Moreover, corporate accelerators are described as “time-bound programs wherein startups can apply, provided their product/service falls within a specific domain aligned with the accelerator’s scope of activity” (Weiblen & Chesbrough, 2015). Hochberg (2016) offers an alternative definition, asserting that “a corporate accelerator is employed by a company to achieve desired business outcomes through the engagement or management of external organizations” (Hochberg, 2016). Recently there has been a notable surge in corporate accelerator programs worldwide, especially since the early 2010s, with a considerable number of companies leveraging these accelerators to internalize opportunities presented by startups (Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021).

Based on the various definitions put forth by researchers, it can be inferred that accelerators have a direct impact on fostering entrepreneurial tendencies (Del Sarto et al., 2020; Mohammadi & Sakhteh, 2023; Stayton & Mangematin, 2019), the creation and growth of startups (Brown et al., 2019; Pauwels et al., 2016), enlarging stakeholders’ collaboration and entrepreneurs’ knowledge (Goswami et al., 2018; Thai et al., 2023), employment generation (Breznitz & Zhang, 2019), business development (Brown & Mawson, 2016; Shankar & Shepherd, 2019), innovation development (Coste & Gatzke, 2017; Kupp et al., 2017) and enhancing the depth of entrepreneurial knowledge (Cuvero et al., 2019; Del Sarto et al., 2020).

Undoubtedly, accelerators can lead to the economic growth of the country by influencing these issues (Brown & Mawson, 2016; Radojevich-Kelley & Hoffman, 2012). In recent years, acknowledging the significance of accelerators’ contribution to sustainable economic development (Cuvero et al., 2019; Hochberg & Fehder, 2015), the trend of studies in this field has increased. These studies have addressed the topic of the accelerator and its functions and processes from different aspects. The dispersal and non-unification of different views of researchers regarding accelerators and the lack of a comprehensive process and model of the acceleration program is one of the gaps expressed in previous studies (Crişan et al., 2021; Drori & Wright, 2018; Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021; Qin et al., 2019). On the other hand, the concept of corporate accelerators has been less closely investigated due to its novelty and the lack of research in this area. Especially in Iran, the issue of corporate accelerators has not been investigated in terms of structure, antecedents and consequences, acceleration process, success factors, etc.

In some articles, such as Sohail et al. (2023) and Pattanasak et al. (2022), a systematic review of incubation centers has been discussed, but in this article, we will specifically deal with the issue of corporate accelerators (Pattanasak et al., 2022; Sohail et al., 2023). Although accelerators offer a variety of services as incubators, including mentoring and connections, they have characteristics that make them different (Rostarova & Rentkova, 2016). Another feature of our article is that we presented a comprehensive model for successful factors of corporate accelerators that this model is applicable to all members of the ecosystem, including the government, actors and activists, companies and businesses, startups, etc.

In this study, we tried to present the results in the field of study process, reviews of journals, programs and services of accelerators, as well as their complications and success factors. At the beginning and after the introduction and research method section, all reviewed articles are presented in detail in the form of a table. In the discussion section, the results obtained from the systematic literature review of these 49 articles are fully described.

Methodology

In this study, we employed the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach to methodically examine the articles published in the field of corporate accelerators. SLR is a review method that follows a predefined process to analyze the literature in a repeatable manner using available published articles (Kraus et al., 2020). SLR tries to follow a research question and answer it in the best way through clear methodology and qualitative ranking of articles (Frank & Hatak, 2014). Actually as Ed-Dafali et al. (2023) mentioned, “a systematic literature review is combining quantitative and qualitative techniques to examine the past, present, and future research directions” (Ed-Dafali et al., 2023). Considering that unstructured data and information can be converted into structured data through this method, therefore it is a suitable method for this research. This method has been used in all fields and different topics, including the field of entrepreneurship and innovation (Rhaiem & Amara, 2021), and includes three main steps, which we will discuss in the following (Tranfield et al., 2003).

Review Planning

In the first step, it is necessary to provide more complete information about the reviewed articles. This information includes the title of the article, the year of publication, the journal where it was published, the number of references, the rank and index of the journal, and the research questions or hypotheses that are needed to formulate the search strategy (Mohammadi & Sakhteh, 2023; Petticrew & Roberts, 2008). In this article, the field of study is corporate accelerators. To search for these articles, all articles published in Google Scholar and Scopus citation database have been reviewed.

The search query for this research encompasses keywords such as entrepreneurial accelerator, startup accelerator, seed accelerator, business accelerator, and corporate accelerator. These keywords were carefully selected and arranged to encompass various vocabulary variations and contexts. The results of this review included 486 studies. These studies include articles, review articles, conference articles, etc., using the PRISMA method (Liberati et al., 2009), by examining the title, abstract, and content, in several consecutive steps (Moher et al., 2010), finally reaching 49 articles.

Review Implementation

This stage involves gathering primary data from the article repository, processing, categorization, synthesis and transforming unstructured data from article texts into structured data. To accomplish this, Excel software is utilized in this study, where each article is assigned to a row, and each column corresponds to specific information extracted from each article, which is thoroughly analyzed in this research. The information reviewed and extracted from 49 selected articles includes the study process, review of journals, acceleration program and success factors of corporate accelerators.

Reporting

This section shows the information derived from the data analysis of the articles and organized in the second phase. This section is presented as a report from the results of each section. In the following, the report related to the previous two steps has been explained and a thorough presentation of the research results and discoveries is provided. Table 1 presents a subset of the information extracted from the unstructured content of the reviewed articles, encompassing details such as the article reference, publication year, citation, journal classification, the number of articles references in the Google Scholar database, and questions and hypotheses related to the research. These items are only a small part of the information extracted from the unstructured content of the reviewed articles.

Table 1.

Structured Data Details Related to 49 Articles Examined in the SLR.

Code	Article reference	Year	Citation	Q1–Q4	Research question/hypothesis
1	Kohler (2016)	2016	561	Q1	“How to launch or strengthen corporate accelerators?”
2	Kanbach and Stubner (2016)	2016	172	Q4	“Why, what and how corporate accelerators?”
3	Kupp et al. (2017)	2017	90	Q2	“How can we respond to the challenges caused by start-ups for established companies?”
4	Drover et al. (2017)	2017	594	Q1	“What are the key considerations related to the fundraising field?”
5	Fraiberg (2017)	2017	75	Q3	“What are stimulating systems in the realm of international entrepreneurship?”
6	Battistella et al. (2017)	2017	126	Q2	“How can startups leverage participation in an accelerator program from an open innovation angle?”
7	Miles et al. (2017)	2017	59	Q2	“How do accelerator activities foster the growth of entrepreneurial competencies?”
8	Jackson and Richter (2017)	2017	53	Q2	“What are the differences in the interests of companies and startups that may lead to failure?”
9	Shane and Nicolaou (2018)	2018	18	Q3	“What are the divergent interests between companies and startups that can potentially result in failure?”
10	Gliedt et al. (2018)	2018	161	Q1	“How do innovation intermediaries collaborate with other prominent stakeholders and governmental entities to facilitate the transfer of sustainability?”
11	Mahmoud-Jouini et al. (2018)	2018	45	Q1	“What are the crucial elements for creating a corporate accelerator ability?”
12	Seet et al. (2018)	2018	42	Q2	1. “How is human capital employed in the entrepreneurial training element of startup accelerators?” 2. “How does social capital enhance the value of the entrepreneurial learning process?”
13	Richter et al. (2018)	2018	94	Q1	1. “What are the critical and superfluous characteristics of corporate accelerator programs?” 2. “What is the fundamental rationale or program theory behind this open innovation approach?”
14	Yang et al. (2018)	2018	56	Q2	“Where does each category of accelerator align within the ecosystem and what are its benefits for its target startups?”
15	Gonzalez-Uribe and Leatherbee (2018)	2018	246	Q1	“What is the influence of business accelerators on the performance of new ventures?”
16	Connolly et al. (2018)	2018	22	Q2	“How to execute and manage a corporate accelerator?”
17	Shao and Shi (2018)	2018	8	Q1	“How can a transnational innovation center act as an advantageous instrument for expediting effective technology transfer between countries?”
18	Goswami et al. (2018)	2018	235	Q2	1. “What is the impact of accelerators on the success or failure of new ventures?” 2. “How do accelerators influence regional entrepreneurial ecosystems?”
19	van Stijn et al. (2018)	2018	49	Q2	1. “Who is involved in this process?” 2. “Why do actors participate in this process?” 3. “How to use knowledge?”
20	Choi and Kim (2018)	2018	7	Q2	“How do various investment approaches affect investor performance?”
21	Yin and Luo (2018)	2018	88	Q1	1. “What critical criteria distinguish selected startups from rejected startups?” 2. “Are the key factors distinct at different decision-making stages during the startup selection process? And if so, how?”
22	Shankar and Shepherd (2019)	2019	154	Q1	1. “How do companies, structure and implement CAs to become more entrepreneurial?” 2. “What factors (if any) affect the form of CA used, and what effect do they have?”
23	Yang et al. (2020)	2019	80	Q1	“What is the impact of gender role alignment on decision-making regarding the choice of social impact accelerators?”
24	Mansoori et al. (2019)	2019	119	Q1	1. “How does the involvement of mentors in accelerators align with the principles of lean startup methodology?” 2. “What impact does the incorporation of lean startup methodology into accelerator processes have on the dynamics of relationships between entrepreneurs and their assigned mentors?”
25	Bliemel et al. (2019)	2019	92	Q1	1. “How can accelerators fulfill an infrastructure function at the cluster level?” 2. “How do accelerators contribute tangible and intangible elements of startup infrastructure to create a positive reinforcement cycle for entrepreneurial activities?” 3. “How do accelerators cultivate startup infrastructure through their initiatives?”
26	Brown et al. (2019)	2019	84	Q1	“How do accelerators mediate the process of transnational entrepreneurship?”
27	S. L. Cohen et al. (2019)	2019	279	Q1	“What approaches do accelerators employ to organize this information in manners beneficial to new ventures?”
28	Ghorashi and Asghari (2019)	2019	6	Q2	“How are accelerator programs planned, initiated and improved?”
29	Lukosiute et al. (2019)	2019	33	Q3	1. “What does the incubator or accelerator offer?” 2. “Who does the incubator or accelerator target?”
30	Gutmann et al. (2019)	2019	29	Q2	1. “What advantages do startups gain by participating in a corporate accelerator program?” 2. “What benefits do established companies reap while executing the corporate accelerator program?”
31	Prexl et al. (2019)	2019	27	Q1	“What factors contribute to the diversity among ecosystem-building accelerators?”
32	Cuvero et al. (2019)	2019	10	Q1	“What are the impacts of knowledge spillover and accelerator programs on the product innovation of high-tech startups?”
33	Moschner et al. (2019)	2019	81	Q1	“What characteristics define an accelerator as a corporate accelerator?”
34	Qin et al. (2019)	2019	32	Q1	1. “How do entrepreneurs structure their actions to expedite the entrepreneurial process?” 2. “How are the implications of time compression thoughtfully taken into account to achieve the desired outcome in the accelerated process?”
35	Tripathi et al. (2019)	2019	78	Q2	“How do components of the startup ecosystem influence the development of Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) in software startups?”
36	Shetty et al. (2020)	2020	11	Q1	1. “Do new ventures emerging from accelerator programs gain advantages from increased resource investments, regardless of the economic situation of their operating country?” 2. “What influence does the external environment have on the growth and sustainability of accelerated new ventures?”
37	Mariño-Garrido et al. (2020)	2020	9	Q3	1. “Regarding an entrepreneurial project, what are the criteria used for selection among the variables?” 2. “Do entrepreneurial skills-related variables play a decisive role in project selection processes?” 3. “In the choice of an investment project, which variables hold significance: those associated with investment projects or entrepreneurial skills?”
38	Gutmann et al. (2020)	2020	17	Q3	1. “Which aspects of the program (resources and services offered) do startups find satisfactory in a corporate accelerator program?” 2. “Which features of the program are pertinent for startups in a corporate accelerator program?” 3. “What are the limitations of a corporate accelerator program concerning program characteristics?”
39	Banc and Messeghem (2020)	2020	20	Q1	“How does the multifaceted process of creating and developing accelerators unfold?”
40	Hausberg and Korreck (2021)	2021	340	Q2	“What is the difference between accelerators and incubators?”
41	Crişan et al. (2021)	2021	107	Q2	“What is the nature, dimensions and types of corporate accelerators?”
42	Mikhailov et al. (2021)	2021	11	Q3	“What is the role of the characteristics of innovation environments?”
43	Joseph and Cashin (2021)	2021	4	Q4	“How are the next generation of corporate accelerators?”
44	Giourka et al. (2021)	2021	4	Q1	“How do acceleration programs affect business development considering environmental conditions?”
45	Assenova (2021)	2021	17	Q2	1. “Institutional changes that alleviate entrepreneurial barriers enhance entrepreneurs’ perceived advantages of accelerators for early-stage startup growth.” 2. “Institutional reforms that lower entrepreneurial obstacles decrease the average likelihood of applicants being chosen.” 3. “Institutional reforms that reduce entrepreneurial barriers elevate the quality of startup groups for accelerator managers.”
46	Heshmati and Shafiee (2021)	2021	3	Q4	“What complications are there in the programs and how to manage corporate accelerators?”
47	Butz and Mrożewski (2021)	2021	10	Q2	“How do the selection procedures and criteria of Impact Accelerators contrast with those of Commercial Accelerators, and why?”
48	Maritz et al. (2021)	2021	6	Q2	“What is the relationship between the accelerator and the parent organization’s strategy?”
49	Urbaniec and Żur (2021)	2021	45	Q2	1. “What incentives are there for companies to cooperate with startups?” 2. “What are the challenges and benefits related to this entrepreneurial process?”

Findings and Examination

In this step, an account of the examined articles and their respective details is provided. To analyze the outcomes comprehensively, all articles were identified and thoroughly studied, with their data entered into Excel software in a semi-structured format. Subsequently, through several stages of data structuring, structured information pertaining to each article was prepared, leading to the presentation of the results in this section. These steps were reviewed by four other researchers of this article to enhance data entry and editing accuracy. As outlined in the preceding section, a total of 49 articles were selected for systematic literature review from Google Scholar and Scopus. The final Excel file contains 49 rows of data (each corresponding to an article) and 38 columns (structured information related to various characteristics), amounting to a total of 1,862 cells.

The Research Procedure

The chosen studies in this research all originate from 2016 onwards, highlighting the novelty of this research domain. Furthermore, Figure 1 illustrates an upward trajectory of published articles, signifying the growing attention of researchers towards this influential factor in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The decline in the number of articles in 2020 can be attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The publication timeline of the scrutinized articles is comprehensively displayed in the chart below.

Figure 1.

Review planning using the PRISMA method.

The Characteristics of the Questions and Hypotheses

One of the paramount aspects in the research process of any field involves focusing on research questions and hypotheses. To this end, the questions pertaining to the chosen articles have been categorized into three groups: “why,”“how,” and “what,” and the evolution of this categorization over time has been explored. Overall, the most substantial contribution of studies lies in inquiries that aim to unravel the essence of corporate accelerators. The figure below provides more detail on these questions/hypotheses as well as how much attention has been paid to them over time. This trend shows the level of researchers’ special attention to the existence and nature of corporate accelerators, and then paying attention to how they function, effects, designed, etc. Figure 2 shows the trend of the selected articles in terms of the nature of the questions and hypotheses.

Figure 2.

The publication process of chosen articles in this study categorized by the year of publication.

Journals

The chosen articles have been published across diverse journals. A significant portion of these journals is focused on technology management and entrepreneurship management, including renowned publications like Technovation, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Technology Transfer, R&D Management, Entrepreneurship Research Journal, and others. The Table 2 below exhibits journals in which two or more of the 49 selected articles in this research were published.

Table 2.

Journals in Which More Than Two Articles Out of 49 Selected Articles Have Been Published.

Journal	H-index	Number of published articles from 49 selected articles
Journal of business venturing	154	3
IEEE transactions on engineering management	82	2
Business horizons	67	3
Journal of technology transfer	66	2

Also, in terms of ranking Q1 to Q4 journals that is shown in Figure 3, it can be stated that most of the selected articles have been published in the best journals (Figure 4).

Figure 3.

The process of selected articles according to the nature of questions and hypotheses.

Figure 4.

Number of selected articles based on Q1 to Q4 rankings of journals.

Discussion and Review

Acceleration Program

Accelerators offer a variety of services as incubators, including mentoring and connections, they have characteristics that make them different (Rostarova & Rentkova, 2016). The main difference is that the role of accelerators is mainly in the later stages of formation and looking for nurturing, while incubators focus on supporting (Komi et al., 2015; Ojaghi et al., 2019). Also, as Ojaghi et al. (2019) mentioned “accelerators are more proﬁt-oriented than incubators” (Ojaghi et al., 2019). Corporate accelerators necessitate a well-structured and precise acceleration program to transform startup teams’ initial ideas into marketable products. The noteworthy aspect of corporate accelerators is their similarity in acceleration program and general structure to startup accelerators. However, their main difference lies in the share transfer and the method of participation with the investor or parent company. In essence, the acceleration program in corporate accelerators is not vastly different from that of startup accelerators. These programs are tailored to each accelerator based on the specific needs and capabilities of the startup teams.

In this section, all the acceleration programs presented in the 49 selected articles have been scrutinized, and a comprehensive program encompassing the entire acceleration process has been delineated. This program can serve as a guide for accelerators, allowing each accelerator to design its own acceleration program according to its unique requirements and resources. The Table 3 below outlines the 19 steps of the acceleration program, which are categorized into 5 main phases: planning, admission, pre-acceleration, acceleration, and post-acceleration. The program commences with the fundamental actions of an accelerator to determine its acceleration program strategy and priority areas for recruiting teams, progressing until the teams are presented to external investors through a demo-day event, followed by post-acceleration programs to support the accelerated startup teams.

Table 3.

Acceleration Program Steps in Corporate Accelerators.

	Categories	Steps	References
1	Planning	Determining the strategy of the acceleration program	Prexl et al. (2019), Yang et al. (2020)
2	Planning	Determining the main area of the acceleration program for calling teams	Richter et al. (2018)
3	Admission	Preparing the acceleration program call	Richter et al. (2018)
4	Admission	Initial team registration	Meskhi et al. (2016)
5	Pre-acceleration	Initial screening of teams	Bergman and McMullen (2022), Meskhi et al. (2016), Prexl et al. (2019), Richter et al. (2018)
6		Pre-acceleration or boot camp	Miles et al. (2017)
7		Presenting ideas	Kramer et al. (2023), Mansoori et al. (2019), Richter et al. (2018)
8		Assessment and selection of teams and ideas for admission to the acceleration program	Crişan et al. (2021), de Noronha et al. (2022), Mansoori et al. (2019), Miles et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023), Prexl et al. (2019), Richter et al. (2018), Yang et al. (2020)
9	Acceleration	Seed money	Crişan et al. (2021), Miles et al. (2017), Qin et al. (2019), Yang et al. (2020)
10		Conducting diverse training workshops for teams	Crişan et al. (2021), de Noronha et al. (2022), Miles et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023), Pauwels et al. (2016), Qin et al. (2019), Richter et al. (2018)
11		Providing specialized mentorship by accelerator mentors to teams	Crişan et al. (2021), de Noronha et al. (2022), Miles et al. (2017), Pauwels et al. (2016), Qin et al. (2019)
12		Providing expert advice to the teams by experts outside the accelerator	Kramer et al. (2023), Pauwels et al. (2016), Qin et al. (2019)
13		Holding specialized events for teams	Qin et al. (2019)
14		Supporting teams with the formulation and validation of a startup business model	Crişan et al. (2021), Maritz et al. (2023), Meskhi et al. (2016), Miles et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023)
15		Assisting teams in developing and validating the minimum viable product (MVP) of the startup	Crişan et al. (2021), Meskhi et al. (2016), Miles et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023)
16		Demo-day	Kramer et al. (2023), Mansoori et al. (2019), Meskhi et al. (2016), Miles et al. (2017), Pauwels et al. (2016), Prexl et al. (2019), Richter et al. (2018)
17	Post-acceleration	Providing prizes to winning teams and investing in startups by investors	Girma and Aemiro (2022), Pauwels et al. (2016), Prexl et al. (2019), Qin et al., 2019), Richter et al. (2018), Yang et al. (2020)
18	Post-acceleration	Holding support programs for accelerated teams after acceleration	Pauwels et al. (2016), Woolley and MacGregor (2022)

These programs are conducted within varying timeframes, with each accelerator establishing a specific duration to complete its program, based on its strategy. Determining this timeframe is contingent upon several factors, including the startup teams’ area of activity, the accelerator’s and parent company’s strategy, the desired industry and etc. This time varies from 1 month to 1 year.

Key Determinants of Corporate Accelerators’ Success

In this step, the critical success factors of accelerators discussed in the 49 selected papers are examined. The key success factors of accelerators are the factors that, if you pay attention to them and improve the quality of each of them, the path to achieving the success of the accelerator will be smoother. These factors are presented in the form of 20 main factors in the Table 4 below. Using these factors, researchers can design and present structures for evaluating the success of accelerators in future research.

Table 4.

Key Determinants of Corporate Accelerators’ Success.

Success factors	References
Acceleration program	Breznitz and Zhang (2019), Crişan et al. (2021), Kramer et al. (2023), Pauwels et al. (2016), Prexl et al. (2019)
Providing a clear value proposition for startups	Prexl et al. (2019)
Establishing an extensive and dedicated external communication network	Al Taji and Bengo (2019), Bańka et al. (2022), Battistella et al. (2017), Connolly et al. (2018), Gür (2021), Hochberg (2016), Kanbach and Stubner (2016), Kupp et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023)
Ability to work with several startups	Prexl et al. (2019)
Accelerator absorption capacity	Prexl et al. (2019)
Access to investment	Cuvero et al. (2019)
Determining the exact evaluation criteria and the competitive process in selecting a startup	Breznitz and Zhang (2019), Kramer and Kanbach (2023), Mariño-Garrido et al. (2020), Richter et al. (2018), Yin and Luo (2018)
Providing adequate and appropriate supplementary resources	Connolly et al. (2018), Drover et al. (2017), Mohammadi and Sakhteh (2023), Qin et al. (2019)
Employing specialized business developers	Bagno et al. (2020), Mahmoud-Jouini et al. (2018)
Effective mentoring	Bliemel et al. (2019), Connolly et al. (2018), Kanbach and Stubner (2016), de Noronha et al. (2022), Richter et al. (2018), Shetty et al. (2020)
Accelerator experience	Hochberg (2016)
Innovation management and intellectual skills	Al Taji and Bengo (2019), Connolly et al. (2018), Gür (2021)
Using lean methods	Richter et al. (2018)
Determining clear and aligned goals and performance indicators	Kanbach and Stubner (2016), Kupp et al. (2017)
The quality of selected startups	Yin and Luo (2018)
Resource management	Bliemel et al. (2019), Crişan et al. (2021), Qin et al. (2019)
Support and commitment of senior management	Bergman and McMullen (2022), Kanbach and Stubner (2016), Kupp et al. (2017), Richter et al. (2018)
Dynamism and collaboration between startups	Drover et al. (2017)
The number of successful startups and their profit and growth rate	Tabassum et al. (2020)
Strengthening the local startup ecosystem	Battistella et al. (2017)

Corporate Accelerator’s Antecedents and Consequences

In this section, we seek to present a model about the corporate accelerator’s antecedents and consequences in the literature. As mentioned, in corporate accelerators, there are six main antecedents, which include mentor, acceleration program, structure and infrastructure of accelerator, startup, entrepreneurial ecosystem, and parent company. We find out some consequences in literature which is shown in the following model (Figure 5):

Figure 5.

A model of corporate accelerator’s antecedents and consequences in the literature.

Discussion and Suggestions for Future Research

According to the systematic literature review of 49 articles out of 486 articles published in the last 5 years, we came to the conclusion that these articles mostly deal with the study process or other factors related to the structure or acceleration program. Also, a number of studies have researched in areas similar to corporate accelerators, such as business incubation centers, corporate venture capitals (CVCs), etc. The critical literature review reveals that, despite significant insights provided by prior research, future research can address the following five research avenues:

The necessity for a process model of a successful corporate accelerator: According to the review of the conducted research, there is no system to evaluate and review the key success factors of an accelerator. A few research has been done in the field of appropriate process and structural model, especially for specialized corporate accelerators. This topic can be an opportunity for future research because established company and policy makers of entrepreneurial ecosystem are looking for it. Also, research on corporate accelerators needs more deep contextualization due to their different dimensions and multi-levels. As mentioned, most of the studies conducted in the field of corporate accelerators have been based on their nature and what they are. It is suggested that studies focus on the performance, structure, model of acceleration and especially on acceleration programs in corporate accelerators.

The Success Factors of corporate accelerators in deferent entrepreneurial ecosystems: The impact of some factors on the success of a corporate accelerator has not been investigated in depth. For example, the impact of the ecosystem and policymakers, the differences between the established company and startup, the infrastructure of the accelerators, etc. Furthermore, acknowledging the influence of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in each region on the corporate accelerators’ performance, it is imperative to conduct research in this domain tailored to various ecosystems.

The role of corporate accelerators in crises: The role of corporate accelerators in crises can also be an important topic in future research. For example, the role of accelerators in the recent Corona crisis can be a very important and practical issue. In fact, how corporate accelerators were able to affect startups and the entrepreneurial ecosystem in general, as well as what measures they have taken to resolve the corona disease, can be a useful topic for future crises.

Value-added and impacts of corporate accelerators: It is necessary to conduct in-depth studies on the value-added of corporate accelerators for organizations, companies and businesses. In other words, the effects that corporate accelerators have on the growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and GDP, the development and greater profitability of the parent companies and startups, etc., must be carefully investigated and evaluated.

Substituting a long-term acceleration period instead of a short-term one: The focus of most studies so far has been on short-term acceleration periods in organizational accelerators. Future studies should focus on longer periods as well as a greater variety of services. In other words, the results and consequences of the long-term acceleration period, the process and how to implement it, the infrastructure and requirements and many other factors should be investigated.

The common language of corporations and startups: Future research can be based on the issue of the type of interactions and common language between organizations, companies and businesses with startups. This issue is one of the serious challenges in corporate accelerators, and it is necessary to address this issue seriously in the future studies, because the new generation that forms startups have a long generation gap with the generation that manages established companies.

Conclusions

In a highly competitive market where changes happen at a very high speed and diversity, the research and development (R&D) department of industries, factories and established companies no longer meets their needs. For this reason, the established companies should be brought to the corporate accelerator. This element, officially emerging in the global landscape since 2010 with the establishment of the Y Combinator accelerator, still holds numerous unexplored facets that necessitate investigation by researchers and practitioners in the realms of entrepreneurship and innovation. In this study, the objective is to unveil and explore some of these concealed aspects through a comprehensive and in-depth review of all studies published in reputable journals. For this purpose, a total of 49 articles from various journals were meticulously examined and analyzed using Google Scholar and Scopus reference databases, with all the pertinent information meticulously extracted and tabulated as unstructured data in Excel software. Finally, after several steps of data structuring, information related to the study process, review of journals, acceleration program and success factors of corporate accelerators have been presented. On the other hand, in this research, we came to the conclusion that the five key determinants of corporate accelerators’ success are the acceleration program, the creation of a large and committed external communication network, mentoring, the determination of accurate evaluation criteria and the competitive process in selecting startups.

Ultimately, given the significance of corporate accelerators and their influence on the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem and economy of a nation like Iran, a framework depicting the precursors and outcomes of corporate accelerators is proposed. In fact, it can be said that since the entrepreneurial ecosystem in each country is different, the corporate accelerator model can also be different. For example, in Germany, which has a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem, compared to Iran, which is a developing country and has a nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem, they naturally have a different acceleration model and process. Also, radical innovation, strategic renewal, international communication and many other factors that exist in Germany’s innovation ecosystem naturally have different results and effects on corporate accelerators and startups compared to Iran, which benefits less from these issues. On the other hand, research has shown that in Germany, most established companies seek to support startups in their later stages of early venture development. Meanwhile, in Iran, corporate accelerators focus more on nascent startups (Seitz et al., 2024). Therefore, in this study, an attempt was made to present a comprehensive model of the antecedents, consequences and key determinants of corporate accelerators’ success.

Undoubtedly this model will prove valuable for established companies aiming to establish a corporate accelerator but lack the understanding of the essential factors and infrastructures required for its success. Based on the systematic literature review of corporate accelerators, the results make several practical and theoretical contributions. First, this study has addressed the topic of the accelerator and its functions and processes from different aspects. The dispersal and non-unification of different views of researchers regarding accelerators and the lack of a comprehensive process and model of the acceleration program is one of the gaps expressed in previous studies (Crişan et al., 2021; Drori & Wright, 2018; Heshmati & Shafiee, 2021; Qin et al., 2019). Second, the concept of corporate accelerators has been less closely investigated due to its novelty and the lack of research in this area. Especially in Iran, the issue of corporate accelerators has not been investigated in terms of structure, antecedents and consequences, acceleration process, success factors, etc. In some articles, such as Sohail et al. (2023) and Pattanasak et al. (2022), a systematic review of incubation centers has been discussed, but in this article, we will specifically deal with the issue of corporate accelerators (Pattanasak et al., 2022; Sohail et al., 2023). Third, we presented a comprehensive model for successful factors of corporate accelerators that this model is applicable to all members of the ecosystem, including the government, actors and activists, companies and businesses, startups, etc.

Our study, like every empirical study, had several limitations. Since the phenomenon of corporate acceleration is relatively new and few studies have been conducted in this area compared to other topics in the field of entrepreneurship, we had little access to historical data. On the other hand, many documents such as financial documents of startups were not available or they were not allowed to present them. Furthermore, given that we do not have detailed insight into why certain startups are selected or rejected from an acceleration program, this limitation creates challenges in fully understanding of selection effects and their potential impact on acceleration model and process and may lead to the involvement of some biases in our personal judgment. On the other hand, the data related to other countries is only limited to the articles that we studied. This is despite the fact that there is no reliable information bank of the activities of the world’s corporate accelerators accurately and quantitatively.

Footnotes

Correction (December 2024):

Article updated to modify the affiliation for Aidin Salamzadeh and Kamal Sakhdari.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Saeed Heshmati

Maysam Shafiee Roodposhti

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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The Antecedents,Consequences and Key Determinants of Corporate Accelerators’ Success: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Methodology

Review Planning

Review Implementation

Reporting

Findings and Examination

The Research Procedure

The Characteristics of the Questions and Hypotheses

Journals

Discussion and Review

Acceleration Program

Key Determinants of Corporate Accelerators’ Success

Corporate Accelerator’s Antecedents and Consequences

Discussion and Suggestions for Future Research

Conclusions

Footnotes

Correction (December 2024):

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Data Availability Statement

References