Lionel Delatte, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Benoît Gailly, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Summary
This study investigates how technology regimes influence the motivations and engagement approaches of incumbent firms collaborating with startups. Drawing on configurational theory and employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) across 30 international firms, the research identifies distinct combinations of technological regime characteristics, such as opportunity, appropriability, cumulativeness, knowledge tacitness, and technological maturity, that shape four engagement outcomes: access to technological capabilities, cultural change, opportunistic interaction, and ecosystem facilitation. The results reveal that no single condition is sufficient alone; instead, specific regime configurations explain divergent engagement patterns. The absence of consistent configurations for competitive intelligence and open innovation approaches underscores the importance of complementary organizational or contextual factors. The study contributes to integrating technological regime theory with corporate-startup collaboration research and offers practical guidance for aligning engagement strategies with technological contexts. It advances a nuanced understanding of how structural innovation environments condition interorganizational behavior in dynamic ecosystems.
Keywords: CEWS, Technology regimes, Entrepreneurial ecosystem, Incumbents, Startups
James Thewissen, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Sébastien Wilmet, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Yves De Rongé, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Josep Oriol Izquierdo Montfort, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Summary
This paper investigates how the communication of circular economy (CE) strategies in Initial Coin Offering (ICO) white papers affects financial outcomes. Using a novel dataset of 1,202 ICOs launched between 2015 and 2021, we apply automated textual analysis based on the 10R framework, categorizing CE initiatives into short, medium, and long loops. Our findings indicate that ventures emphasizing circularity language, more especially short-loop strategies raise significantly more funds during ICOs, while medium and long-loop strategies show no consistent association with fundraising success or post-ICO financial performance. These results highlight the signaling power of sustainability disclosures in decentralized entrepreneurial finance.
Keywords: Initial Coin Offerings, Circular Economy, 10R