How to design startup innovation contests. An exploratory multiple case study research

From both literature review and market evidence, corporate-startup collaboration is gaining increasing relevance within open innovation research. Innovation Contests (ICs), traditionally used to seek solutions to internal R&D problems, are in fact already used to engage and select entrepreneurial projects / startups. Despite market evidence, literature on Startup Innovation Contests is still missing. Therefore, this dissertation has the main goal of shading lights on how Startup Innovation Contests work. Given the lack of theory, an exploratory research was carried out. In particular, the research methodology adopted has been a multiple (five) case study research. Interviews were structured in order to explore the perspective of both participants and organizers. From inductive analysis, the following patterns have been identified. Participants are motivated to take part in ICs by 8 Expected Benefits and are deterred by 3 Barriers to Entry. Three evaluation methods were also identified. Starting from the least accurate one, they are: Document-Base Evaluation, Pitch Session Evaluation, Path Based Evaluation. A set of benefits is what startups need from an innovation contest in order to later survive. Those benefits should be provided by Support to Participants or Innovation Contest Design Best Practices. Innovation Contests should be designed to provide winners with the following: monetary reward, visibility, network and references. Furthermore, management and operative support should be provided to participants with the purpose of helping them to improve their projects. Innomediaries hold strong competences in both evaluation methods and support to participants. Therefore, when they are involved, they should be entrusted with the design of the contest. Sponsoring firms should only provide guidelines and goals while supervising the process.