Open Innovation

11Skills and Influences

Alongside my job as head of a corporate start-up accelerator, I had started an old dream as an ex-university student: to complete a PhD thesis. Taking advantage of my obvious interest in the relationships between start-ups and large groups, I aligned my PhD work with this theme. My research question: how to run a corporate incubator/accelerator? A very interesting question, because what I was going through undeniably allowed me to have the right dictionary to understand what my field was revealing to me. I have been confronted with different contexts, sectors of activity, maturity of start-up support systems, etc. different over time. I tried to appreciate the similarities and differences in strategies, situations and behaviors that my interlocutors were telling me about. I cannot say that the skills and influences I will list in this chapter are exhaustive. On the other hand, they are undoubtedly essential because they are the result of a rigorous analysis of what is happening in the field.

As we have seen, the relationship between the entrepreneur and the employee, both stakeholders in large ecosystems, is very tricky. That’s an understatement. In “meetings” without a facilitator (the corporate open innovation structure), you have seen our two protagonists become entangled in endless discussions. All the courage of Mr. X is not enough to get to the end of the process. Mr. S’s desire alone is not enough to see this through to the end. It is a couple ...