Expert Mobility, Collaborative Corporate Entrepreneurship, and New Capability Acquisition: Evidence from the Japanese Animation Industry

This study theorizes that the mobility of external experts in and out of entrepreneurial projects,firms’own entrepreneurial experience, and previous capability acquisition experience of externalexperts and firms can influence firms’capability acquisition. It systematically attempts to findempirical evidence from a sample of 645 Japanese TV animation programs produced by 83 uniqueanimation studios and 288 directors between 2000 and 2008. Results show that mobility of externalexperts, firm’s own experience in collaborative corporate entrepreneurial projects, and newcapability acquisition experience of external experts enhance firm’s chance of acquiring newcapabilities. First, results suggest that firms with more experience in previous collaborativecorporate entrepreneurships are more likely to learn how to identify new capabilities and how tocombine existing capabilities to create new capabilities, using previous experience to acquire newcapabilities in subsequent projects. Second, results also imply that non-local search experiencebeyond firm boundaries has more to contribute to the acquisition of new capabilities than non-localsearch that is limited to the firm’s boundaries. Lastly, results reveal that corporate entrepreneurshipprojects that are carried out through collaborations between external experts and firms, the locus ofentrepreneurial innovation resided in external experts. Thisstudy contributes to the studies oncapability acquisition as it explores alternative means to access new capabilities especially throughcollaborative non-local search combining experience of external experts and firms. It contributes tothe studies on mobility as it investigates a specific type of mobility associated with collaborativecorporate entrepreneurship. Finally, it contributes to work on organizational learning as it examinesthe impact of experience transfer from network level to firm level.